/lit/ - Literature

For what it's worth, I have sought out fine prose stylists for well over a decade. I am very superficial in that respect. Having read many of the "great English prose stylists," I will recommend to you my favorites (and roughly in order).

First tier:
John Henry Newman
Edmund Burke
Annie Dillard
Updike (yes, I place him this highly)
Nabokov
Waugh

Others:
Gibbon
Conrad
Virginia Wolf
Chesterton
V.S. Naipaul
Henry James

Inconsistent, but still above average stylists:
Wilde
Fitzgerald
Bertrand Russell

Overrated, but often cited as "great" stylists:
Chabon
Dickens
Toni Morrison
Thoreau