[MickeyC]

I'd recommend the Flashman series by George MacDonald Fraser. Technically, these are historical fiction but I'd also consider them literary fiction as well.

Fraser lifted the Flashman character from the book Tom Brown's School Days and has written a series of books putting him at the center of historical events in Victorian Britain (ex., The Charge of the Light Brigade, Sacking of the Summer Palace, The Raj). All very funny and very historically accurate novels.