Lord of the lies: Half of Britons pretend they have read classic novels to impress others poll shows

They’re the books we know we’re meant to have read – but which many of us are too daunted by to actually pick up and start.

That hasn’t stopped nearly half of Britons from pretending to have devoured classics in an attempt to impress others.

An overwhelming 95 per cent of people find reading older novels and plays hard work, a poll has found. However many said they bluff their literary knowledge to appear more intelligent.

‘Put it near the window, the neighbours can’t see it there’

The dullest classic was judged to be Leo Tolstoy’s 1869 novel War and Peace, which was voted for by 51 per cent of those surveyed.

Shakespeare’s longest play Hamlet, which comes in at 29,551 words in some versions, closely follows as the second most likely to send readers scrambling for the caffeine.

Other novels which have failed to entice readers include Herman Melville’s Moby Dick, Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights and James Joyce’s 730-page novel Ulysses.

Although length may have put off many readers, George Orwell’s novella Animal Farm and F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby also made their way into the top ten.

Some 48 per cent of men and 44 per cent of women are willing to lie about having finished the classics – with young people most likely to fib. Of the 2,000 adults surveyed, 35 per cent said they would lie to look more intelligent, 24 per cent to impress a friend and only 11 per cent to woo a date.

Yet more than two thirds said they would be tempted to pick up the classics if they were funnier, according to the survey by TV channel Dave and the University of St Andrews.

Dave has said it will give the classics a ‘modern comedy makeover’, reinventing Jay Gatsby as an influencer and putting Wuthering Heights’ Heathcliff in therapy.