Does anyone read travel guides unless they are intending to go there? Is there really such a thing as the armchair traveller who fantasises about temples and palaces, gorges, jungles and floating islands? If so,

then would they not be better off reading Calvino and Conrad, Rushdie and Ann Radcliffe?

In some ways this seems to be exactly the premise of The Rough Guide to Classic Novels. The blurb encourages us to treat the guide as a map through unknown territory, helping us to expand the landscapes of the mind. But Mason's clever plotting makes this a good book for those who have already travelled to these parts.

All the titles are organised under 12 thematic headings including “Love, Sex and Romance” (Jane Eyre, Lolita, Goethe's Elective Affinities, 1809) and “War, Violence and Conflict” (Aphra Behn's Oroonoko, 1688; A Farewell to Arms, Yeshar Kemal's Mehmed, My Hawk, 1958).

By ignoring chronology and nation - the usual methods of organising guides to literature - Mason sets up deliciously surprising juxtapositions: so Fanny Burney's Evelina (1778) leads to Buchi Emecheta's The Bride Price (1976) leads to Miles Franklin's My Brilliant Career (1901), all under the theme of “Rites of Passage”.

Along the way we are offered little excursions into boxed sections on “Novels of the Great War”, “The First Detective” and “School Books”.

Novels in foreign languages come with a recommended translation, and everything has a “Where to go next”, which sometimes includes the best screen adaptations, such as Jack Clayton's The Innocents based on James's The Turn of the Screw or Karel Reisz's version of Fowles's The French Lieutenant's Woman.

But the main journey is to the novels themselves - and the Rough Guide does give us sight of them.

The Rough Guide to Classic Novels by Simon Mason
Rough Guides, £7.99 Buy the book here

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