Overview

Which novels have had a universal impact on the world? Author and leading literary authority Susannah Fullerton delivers this engaging lecture presented by the Friends of the Library.

Literature has always had the power to change – just think of the impact of the King James Bible, Darwin's On the Origin of Species, Dr Johnson's Dictionary, Marx's The Communist Manifesto and Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique. And yet fiction too has the power to change – to evoke sympathy, to make you take on different opinions, and even to bring about political and legal change.

This talk examines ten novels which altered the world, when it came to race relations, charity, the shape of literature, and the plight of the poor and the different.

Discover which novels have had universal impact, and be encouraged to think about which books you would select as having in some way brought about enormous change.