OK, I’ll add my twopenn’orth. Two caveats. The first is that while I would bridle slightly at being called “badly read”, I am very patchily read, so I can only make a judgement from those novelists I’ve read. The second is that I will try to focus on “the best”, rather than “my favourite”, two different concepts which too many people struggle to disaggregate.

I think I have to set Dickens to one side, because he’s too dominant and too obvious a choice. He’s a step behind Shakespeare, I think: Dickens perfectly crystallises and skewers his time and society, whereas Shakespeare crystallises and skewers the human condition. But winning silver behind Shakespeare is hardly a dishonour.

All of which being said, I think I’d have to choose Graham Greene. Anyone who can produce Brighton Rock, The End of the Affair, The Heart of the Matter, The Power and the Glory, The Quiet American and The Third Man is already a pretty heavy hitter. Greene is brilliant on the essential sadness of humanity, the way in which we somehow limp from disappointment to disappointment and mostly manage not to be consumed by despair. His relationships, too, are exquisitely drawn. But he’s also superb on place, from pre-war Brighton to collapsing Indochina, and he can be funny too (The Comedians) and is a brilliant storyteller. Profound, affecting, absorbing, readable. That’s not a bad collection of virtues.