Stratford Literary Festival Reveals the One Novel Readers Would Save

Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice is the book readers would save if they could keep only one novel, Stratford Literary Festival’s novel vote has found. George Eliot’s Middlemarch came second. Novelist John Boyne and Emma Smith, Professor of Shakespeare Studies at the University of Oxford, revealed the result on Sunday 1 November, the last day of the autumn festival at the Crowne Plaza.

The top five

1. Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen
2. Middlemarch, George Eliot
3. The Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkien
4. To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee
5. Wuthering Heights, Emily Brontë

Eliot was born in Warwickshire, and the RSC’s two-part Middlemarch is at the Swan Theatre until 16 January. Festival director Annie Ashworth pointed to the book’s staging and a coming TV Pride and Prejudice as signs of how well the classics last. “I’m delighted four of the top five are female novelists too!” she added.

The rest of the top 20

The festival’s full list runs from sixth to 20th: Jane Eyre, Brideshead Revisited, Rebecca, Persuasion, Catch-22, One Day, Tess of the d’Urbervilles, Any Human Heart, Far from the Madding Crowd, Little Women, Nineteen Eighty-Four, Still Life, The Heart’s Invisible Furies, The Hobbit and The Wind in the Willows.

Austen, Tolkien and Thomas Hardy each have two books in the list. The Heart’s Invisible Furies, at 18, is by John Boyne, one of the two people presenting the results. This was an open vote on the festival’s website rather than a scientific poll, and the festival says it had hundreds of responses.

The festival’s best year so far

The festival says ticket sales for this year’s autumn programme, from 29 October to 1 November, were up 15% on last autumn, making it the most successful festival in its 19 years. It hasn’t published the ticket numbers. Bonnie Garmus, Dr Xand van Tulleken, Nick Heyward, Celia Imrie, Sir Jeremy Hunt and Marina Litvinenko all drew capacity audiences, and Greg James was still signing books after midnight on the Saturday.

What’s next for Stratford Literary Festival

Hairy Biker Si King is coming to Stratford on 26 November in a festival extra. The spring festival returns from 6 to 9 May 2027, with tickets released in February, and next autumn’s runs from 27 to 31 October, with tickets from August. The festival will mark its 20th year in 2027 and says it will announce its plans in the New Year. For what’s on in town before then, see our Stratford events calendar.

Alex Harrington

Alex Harrington grew up in Stratford-upon-Avon and runs What's up, Stratford? as an independent guide to the town.