‘Great’ writers who are no longer read (by so many)

[french frank]

....I'd be interested to know what titles are on 'O' amd 'A' level syllabuses....???

Asking Google ('A level',no Boards specified):

Things Fall Apart.
Jane Eyre.
The Great Gatsby, Tender is the Night.
The Namesake.
Atonement, Enduring Love.
The God of Small Things.
Oranges are not the only Fruit.

[Bryn]

I don't think there is an 'O' level syllabus, these days, is there?.

[eighthobstruction]

I don't think there is an 'O' level syllabus, these days, is there?.

....GCSE ?????....no [thinking hard, perhaps there was not Eng Lit at 'O' in my day either...].

....thanks ff....at least 4-5 there -easy to read, but not much meat....cannot see pull of Gatby....

[Ein Heldenleben]

Asking Google ('A level',no Boards specified):

Things Fall Apart.
Jane Eyre.
The Great Gatsby, Tender is the Night.
The Namesake.
Atonement, Enduring Love.
The God of Small Things.
Oranges are not the only Fruit.

All relatively intellectually undemanding.
Jane Eyre used to be an O level text..

[oddoneout]

....GCSE ?????....no [thinking hard, perhaps there was not Eng Lit at 'O' in my day either...].

....thanks ff....at least 4-5 there -easy to read, but not much meat....cannot see pull of Gatby....

There was Eng Lit O level in the sixties as I did it - Macbeth and Far from the Madding Crowd.
This is a current list https://schoolreadinglist.co.uk/tag/gcse/

[eighthobstruction]

There was Eng Lit O level in the sixties as I did it - Macbeth and Far from the Madding Crowd.
This is a current list https://schoolreadinglist.co.uk/tag/gcse/

....Oh yes ....me too, Macbeth and Return of the Native....I failed

....goodness a lot of codswallop on that list....some good ones...

....oddoneout....at least you had the film to crib from....(1967)

[french frank]

....cannot see pull of Gatby....

Cannot see Fitzgerald being much read now - unless he appears on a school syllabus. In fact, what 'great writers' are read much now unless they're on a school exam syllabus? And even there it seems as if there's just a nod towards the 'classics' and more of a reliance on Booker prizewinners and living bestsellers with a 'serious' reputation. Is there still a distinction between 'literary fiction' and just fiction?

[Petrushka]

There was Eng Lit O level in the sixties as I did it - Macbeth and Far from the Madding Crowd.
This is a current list https://schoolreadinglist.co.uk/tag/gcse/

I took my Eng Lit O level in 1971 - Pride and Prejudice, Twelfth Night and C S Forester's The Ship (which I loathed). Managed to blag my way through the exam somehow.

[eighthobstruction]

....I guess I have read most of Hemingway (not African Hunting ones)....Lot of Americans still call Gatsby and Catcher in the Rye (and here I am only venturing the preferences of white men on CBS, NBC, PBS....) as their favourite....WHY?? ....Ref Hemingway - I only read so many because charity shops supplied many a fifty pence copy....(and that is the way many of my choices are made -and not only in novels)

[Ein Heldenleben]

Cannot see Fitzgerald being much read now - unless he appears on a school syllabus. In fact, what 'great writers' are read much now unless they're on a school exam syllabus? And even there it seems as if there's just a nod towards the 'classics' and more of a reliance on Booker prizewinners and living bestsellers with a 'serious' reputation. Is there still a distinction between 'literary fiction' and just fiction?

Fitzgerald is phenomenally popular ! His estate will be making a fortune out of the fact the The Great Gatsby is the ultimate A level soft option and also an excellent read - it’s short, not that hard , and has just enough complexity to sustain a 1000 word essay. It’s also a popular pick at US universities…
It sells about 500,000 copies globally each year with total sales of 30 million (wiki entry) .
There are plenty of great authors e,g, Dickens who will still sell hundreds of thousands globally a year . A Tale of Two Cities has sold 200 million copies. Dickens still sells well in Russia for example .

[french frank]

Fitzgerald is phenomenally popular ! His estate will be making a fortune out of the fact the The Great Gatsby is the ultimate A level soft option and also an excellent read - it’s short, not that hard , and has just enough complexity to sustain a 1000 word essay. It’s also a popular pick at US universities…

In other words, it's a very popular set text?

Dickens who will still sell hundreds of thousands globally a year . A Tale of Two Cities has sold 200 million copies. Dickens still sells well in Russia for example .

I think he perhaps comes in the same category of appearing as a set text. Shakespeare must be very 'popular' too, and perhaps this does all amount to the same point about being 'much read'. Perhaps the response to the 'no longer read' of the OP should be 'by whom?'

[jayne lee wilson]

Don't really want to enter this debate but I have to say - Gatsby has one of the all-time Great Endings, one of the all-time Great Last Lines (as does Saul Bellow's Herzog... ..another writer who certainly made Great American Novels (The Adventures of Augie March!) and will be remembered despite artistic and personal flaws - is there anyone who doesn't have those, anyway?).....I often think of it, and I've quoted it here more than once....once read, etc....

OK - Dear Prudence, The Sun is Up, The Sky is Blue! Back to the Garden, then more footie!

[Ein Heldenleben]

In other words, it's a very popular set text?



I think he perhaps comes in the same category of appearing as a set text. Shakespeare must be very 'popular' too, and perhaps this does all amount to the same point about being 'much read'. Perhaps the response to the 'no longer read' of the OP should be 'by whom?'

No not really- selling that number isn’t just down to being a set text. Gatsby is a very popular book read by plenty of people (like me ) who’ve not been examined on it . Ditto Dickens - did English lit as a degree and never answered as exam question on him! . Authors like the Brontës, Austen , Dickens are much more popular than you might think and are read across the age ranges. Part of what drives that are the endless movie adaptations e.g. the recent Armando Ianucci David Copperfield . You seem to have signed up to everything -is -in - decline- culturally belief when in fact the hard commercial facts are that the classics still sell. Sorry…

[french frank]

You seem to have signed up to everything -is -in - decline- culturally belief when in fact the hard commercial facts are that the classics still sell. Sorry…

Possibly. Not that everything is in decline, but literature does perhaps have the same trajectory in terms of 'popularity' as music. The older classics go on and gradually incorporate the best of the new.

[Ein Heldenleben]

Possibly. Not that everything is in decline, but literature does perhaps have the same trajectory in terms of 'popularity' as music. The older classics go on and gradually incorporate the best of the new.

The novel is definitely in decline . The 19th century was its heyday . Who is there to compare with Austen, Dickens , The Brontës , Eliot? But people’s desire to be moved , engaged , stimulated by great works of art has perhaps never been greater . And there’s a lot more of us….If only I could knock out a Bleak House ….