1. Dracula by Bram Stoker

Bram Stoker’s classic vampire story was very much of its time but still resonates more than a century later.

2. Heart of darkness by Joseph Conrad

Joseph Conrad’s masterpiece about a life-changing journey in search of Mr Kurtz has the simplicity of great myth.

3. Sister carrie by Theodore Dreiser 

Theodore Dreiser was no stylist, but there’s a terrific momentum to his unflinching novel about a country girl’s American dream.

4. Kim by Rudyard Kipling 

In Kipling’s classic boy’s own spy story, an orphan in British India must make a choice between east and west.

5. The call of the wild by Jack London 

Jack London’s vivid adventures of a pet dog that goes back to nature reveal an extraordinary style and consummate storytelling.

6. The golden bowl by Henry James 

American literature contains nothing else quite like Henry James’s amazing, labyrinthine and claustrophobic novel.

7. Hadrian the seventh by Frederick Rolfe

This entertaining if contrived story of a hack writer and priest who becomes pope sheds vivid light on its eccentric author – described by DH Lawrence as a “man-demon”.

8. The wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame

The evergreen tale from the riverbank and a powerful contribution to the mythology of Edwardian England.

9. The history of mr Polly by HG Wells

The choice is great, but Wells’s ironic portrait of a man very like himself is the novel that stands out.

10. Zuleika dobson by Max Beerbohm 

The passage of time has conferred a dark power upon Beerbohm’s ostensibly light and witty Edwardian satire.