Favorite British Authors


I enjoy reading the Friday columns of Cynthia Crossen in the Wall Street Journal.  Her answers to readers' questions about reading and books are informative, witty and wise with reading experience that is clearly wide and deep.  Her most recent column was a question about her favorite British Authors.  This suggested to me that I might share a few notes on the topic from my reading perspective. 


My reading of British literature goes back to my earliest days and some of my favorites stem from that time when I discovered Daniel Defoe (Robinson Crusoe) and Charlotte Bronte (Jane Eyre) who continue to be among my favorites.  I enjoy the 'classic' novelists of the Victorian era including Charles Dickens (David Copperfield and all the other novels), George Eliot (Middlemarch) and Thomas Hardy (The Return of the Native).  Among contemporary British novelists I would consider my favorites to be Pat Barker (The Ghost Road), John Banville (The Untouchable) and Julian Barnes (Arthur and George).  Does this leave some great authors by the wayside, perhaps favorites also?  Yes.  So I will pick up this thread again in the future after deeper thought allows for augmentation of this list.  In the meantime I welcome any suggestions from fellow readers as to their favorite British authors.