The 20 Novels by Women That Influenced Me

Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction recently asked the public to vote for the most influential fiction books by women. The result was a list of 20 books considered the most influential, at least by those who voted (you can see it here). I noticed that while the list included many of my favourites, it still differed a good deal from the novels by women that I would say have had an influence on me. I then thought I would go ahead and create my own list of the 20 novels by women that have influenced me the most. I have to admit I did fudge a bit in including entire series as "one book".  I must also point out that I did not include I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou (even though it is included on the list compiled by the Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction). Quite simply, it is an autobiography and not fiction and so does not meet the requirements to be on the list in my mind. It would make my list of my top twenty non-fiction books by women that have influenced me the most if I ever made one!

Here, then, without any further comment, is my list of 20 novels by women that have influenced me the most. 

1. Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
2. Emma by Jane Austen
3. Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier
4. Ten Little Indians by Agatha Christie
5. Frankenstein by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
6. A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle
7. Jane Eyre by Charlote Bronte
8. Gone with the Wind by Margret Mitchell
9. The Pursuit of Love/Love in a Cold Climate by Nancy Mitford
10. O Pioneers by Willa Cather
11. The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson
12. Middlemarch by George Eliot
13. The "Harry Potter" series by J. K. Rowling
14. "Mabinogion" tetralogy by Evangeline Walton
15, To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
17. The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton
18. The "Merlin" series by Mary, Lady Stewart
19. The Talented Mr. Ripley by Patricia Highsmith
20. The Vampire Lestat by Anne Rice