Mason's literary erudition is jawdropping, and the coverage broad (from Tolstoy to Doris Lessing, and from Jane Austen to Raymond Chandler - the book at times overlaps with the same publisher's Rough Guide to Crime Fiction). Combine all this with the highly accessible (but always apposite) analyses and breakdowns of the books discussed, and it's hard to imagine the enterprise being surpassed.

Of course, the Rough Guide imprint prides itself on its edgy, unstuffy approach, and the subject of classic literary fiction must have presented quite a challenge to Mason and his editor Joe Staines; in a dumbed-down age, the guide is a consummate demonstration that it is possible to celebrate the finest achievements of the human race in the arts and humanities without couching them in forbidding academic language. The sidebars and diversions shoehorned in here (including `Sex, Censorship and the Novel', `Outsiders' and a section on vampire fiction called `Literary Bloodsuckers') give a particular pleasure, as do the pithy and highly opinionated squibs on film and TV adaptations of many of the great books included here.

Like many entries in the Rough Guide series, however, there should be a warning on the jacket: reading this guide is going to cost you a lot of small change plugging those gaps in your library. --Barry Forshaw