In 2017, the Royal Society of Literature saught to find out what the UK's favourite second published novel was.
They gathered nominations and put 140 novels to the vote. The "winning' top ten are the first ten on this list - Pride and Prejudice being the overall winner. The other books are (hopefully) in alphabetical order of the remaining novels that the public could vote on. The RSL excluded novels written by members of its governing Council, Presidents and Vice-Presidents (hence no Evaristo, Mantel or Pullman).
They said:
"Second novels are a notorious challenge for writers. Whether their first novel was a triumph or a flop, the pressure is always on the follow-up. But what do readers make of second novels? Do we even know which of our favourite novels are second novels? We decided to hold a public vote to raise literary awareness and discussion. We hope above all that the process will encourage people to read more novels. "
