The Greatest Novels, Ever.
(a purposefully incomplete & arbitrarily organized list)
______
11
19th Century American
11
1. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn—Mark Twain
2. Moby-Dick—Herman Melville
3. The Complete Tales—Edgar Allan Poe
4. Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl—Harriet Jacobs
5. The Squatter and the Don—María Amparo Ruiz de Burton
6. The Awakening—Kate Chopin
7. Maggie, Girl of the Streets—Stephen Crane
8. The Red Badge of Courage—Stephen Crane
9. Autobiography—Black Hawk
10. Clotel; or, The President's Daughter: A Narrative of Slave Life in the United States —William Wells Brown
11. The Grandissimes—George Washington Cable
12. Hobomok—Lydia Maria Child
13. Sister Carrie—Theodore Dreiser
14. Ramona—Helen Hunt Jackson
15. Daisy Miller—Henry James
16. Uncle Tom’s Cabin—Harriet Beecher Stowe
17. Up from Slavery—Booker T. Washington
18. Our Nig—Harriet E. Wilson
19. Life among the Paiutes—Sara Winnemucca
20. The Age of Innocence—Edith Wharton
11
20th Century American
11
1. Naked Lunch—William Burroughs
2. Queer—William Burroughs
3. On the Road—Jack Kerouac
4. To Kill a Mockingbird—Harper Lee
5. Absalom, Absalom!—William Faulkner
6. Invisible Man—Ralph Ellison
7. Lolita—Vladimir Nabokov
8. The Sound and the Fury—William Faulkner
9. The Old Man and the Sea—Ernest Hemingway
10. Beloved—Toni Morrison
11. The Great Gatsby—F. Scott Fitzgerald
12. Storyteller—Leslie Marmon Silko
13. In the Time of the Butterflies—Julia Alvarez
14. So Far From God—Ana Castillo
15. The Last of the Menu Girls—Denise Chavez
16. Invisible Man—Ralph Ellison
17. The House on the Lagoon—Rosario Ferré
18. The Eagle’s Throne—Carlos Fuentes
19. A Handbook to Luck—Cristina García
20. The Sun Also Rises—Ernest Hemingway
21. The Woman Warrior—Maxine Hong Kingston
22. Middle Passage—Charles Johnson
23. The Interpreter of Maladies (short stories)—Jhumpa Lahiri
24. Praisesong for the Widow—Paule Marshall
25. Mother Tongue—Demetria Martínez
26. The Crying of Lot 49—Thomas Pynchon
27. Bodega Dreams—Ernesto Quiñonez
28. And the Earth Did Not Devour Him—Tomas Rivera
29. Song of the Water Saints—Nelly Rosario
30. The Jungle—Upton Sinclair
31. Of Mice and Men—John Steinbeck
32. The Grapes of Wrath—John Steinbeck
33. Down These Mean Streets—Piri Thomas
34. Cane—Jean Toomer
35. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay—Michael Chabon
36. The Road—Cormac McCarthy
37. Fight Club—Chuck Palahniuk
38. American Psycho—Bret Easton Ellis
39. Their Eyes Were Watching God—Zora Neale Hurston
40. The Virgin Suicides—Jeffrey Eugenides
41. One of Ours—Willa Cather
42. More Die of Heartbreak—Saul Bellow
43. All the Pretty Horses—Cormac McCarthy
44. Blood Meridian—Cormac McCarthy
45. Gravity's Rainbow—Thomas Pynchon
11
19th Century British
1. Great Expectations—Charles Dickens
2. Mrs. Dalloway—Virginia Woolf
3. To the Lighthouse—Virginia Woolf
4. Nostromo—Joseph Conrad
5. Pride and Prejudice—Jane Austen
6. Emma—Jane Austen
7. Sons and Lovers—DH Lawrence
8. Middlemarch—George Eliot
9. Mill on the Floss—George Eliot
10. Wuthering Heights—Emily Brontë
11. Jane Eyre—Charlotte Bronte
12. Prometheus Unbound—Percy Bysshe Shelley.
13. Frankenstein—Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
14. Tess of the D’Urbervilles—Thomas Hardy
15. The Mayor of Casterbridge—Thomas Hardy
20th Century British
1. The Golden Notebook—Doris Lessing
2. Midnight's Children—Salman Rushdie
3. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man—James Joyce
4. The Good Soldier—Ford Madox Ford
5. The Return of the Soldier—Rebecca West
6. Women in Love—D. H. Lawrence
7. A Passage to India—E. M. Forster
8. Frost in May—Antonia White
9. The Quiet American—Graham Greene
10. 1984—George Orwell
11. A Clockwork Orange—Anthony Burgess
12. The White Hotel—D. M. Thomas
13. A Bend in the River—V. S. Naipaul
14. July’s People—Nadine Gordimer
15. The God of Small Things—Arundhati Roy
16. The Heat of the Day—Elizabeth Bowen
17. The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner—Alan Sillitoe
18. Nights at the Circus—Angela Carter
19. The Country Girls—Edna O’Brien
20. Oranges are Not the Only Fruit—Jeanette Winterson
21. The Remains of the Day—Kazuo Ishiguro
22. Heart of Darkness—Joseph Conrad
23. Lord Jim—Joseph Conrad
24. Nostromo—Joseph Conrad
11
Latin America
1. The Devil to Pay in the Backlands—Joao Guimaraes Rosa, Brazil
2. Collected Fictions—Jorge Luis Borges, Argentina
3. Juan Rulfo—Pedro Paramo Juan Rulfo, Mexico
4. One Hundred Years of Solitude—Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Colombia
5. Love in the Time of Cholera—Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Colombia
Caribbean
1. Wide Sargasso Sea —Jean Rhys
2. Divina Trace— Robert Antoni
3. Rites of Passage—Kamau Brathwaite
4. Louisiana—Erna Brodber,
5. The Palace of the Peacock—Harris, Wilson
6. Lucy—Kincaid, Jamaica
7. A Small Place—Kincaid, Jamaica
8. The Autobiography of My Mother—Kincaid, Jamaica
9. In the Castle of My Skin—Lamming, George
10. The Wine of Astonishment—Lovelace, Earl
11. A Bend in the River—Naipaul, V.S.
12. The Enigma of Arrival—Naipaul, V.S.
13. Cambridge—Phillips, Caryl
14. Omeros—Walcott, Derek
Middle East
1. Thousand and One Nights—India/Iran/Iraq/Egypt, (700-1500)
Africa
1. Season of Migration to the North—Tayeb Salih, Sudan
2. Things Fall Apart—Chinua Achebe, Nigeria
3. Nervous Conditions—Tsitsi Dangarembga
4. Disgrace—J. M. Coetzee
5. Arrow of God—Chinua Achebe, Nigeria
6. Anowa—Ama Ata Aidoo, Ghana
7. The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born— Ayi Kwei Armah, Ghana
8. A Dry White Season—André Brink, South Africa
9. The Last Harmattan of Alusine Dunbar— Syl Cheney-Choker, Sierra Leone
10. Life and Times of Michael K—J.M. Coetzee, South Africa
11. The Joys of Motherhood— Buchi Emecheta, Nigeria
12. Maps—Nuruddin Farah, Somalia
13. The Blood Knot—Athol Fugard, South Africa
14. Burgher's Daughter—Nadine Gordimer, South Africa
15. The Cairo Trilogy—Naguib Mahfouz, Egypt
16. A Grain of Wheat—Ngugi wa Thiong'o, Kenya
17. Butterfly Burning—Yvonne Vera, Zimbabwe
18. Children of Gebelawi—Naguib Mahfouz, Egypt
Australia & New Zealand
1. The Bone People—Keri Hulme
2. Picnic at Hanging Rock—Lady Joan Weigall Lindsay
3. The Book Thief—Markus Zusak
4. Seven Little Australians—Ethel Turner
5. My Brilliant Career—Miles Franklin
6. My Brother Jack—George Johnston
7. The Harp in the South—Ruth Park
8. The Man Who Loved Children—Christina Stead
9. For the Term of His Natural Life—Marcus Clarke
10. I Can Jump Puddles—Alan Marshall
11. The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith—Thomas Keneally
12. The Getting of Wisdom—Handel Richardson
13. The Power of One—Bryce Courtenay
14. True History of the Kelly Gang—Peter Carey
15. We of the Never Never—Jeannie/Aeneas Gunn
16. The Bodysurfers—Robert Drewe
17. Tirra Lirra By the River—Jessica Anderson
11
11
Europe
11
1. Molloy—Samuel Beckett, Ireland
2. Malone Dies—Samuel Beckett, Ireland
3. The Unnamable—Samuel Beckett, Ireland
4. Ulysses—James Joyce, Ireland
5. Gulliver's Travels—Jonathan Swift, Ireland
6. Gypsy Ballads—Federico Garcia Lorca, Spain
7. Blindness—Jose Saramago, Portugal
8. The Book of Disquiet—Fernando Pessoa, Portugal
9. Confessions of Zeno—Italo Svevo, Italy
10. History—Elsa Morante, Italy
11. Zorba the Greek—Nikos Kazantzakis, Greece
12. Foucault's Pendulum—Umberto Eco, Italy
13. In the Name of the Rose—Umberto Eco, Italy
14. The Good Soldier Svejk—Jaroslav Hasek, Czech Republic
15. The Castle—Franz Kafka, Bohemia
16. The Complete Stories—Franz Kafka, Bohemia
17. The Trial—Franz Kafka, Bohemia
18. Buddenbrooks—Thomas Mann, Germany
19. Berlin Alexanderplatz—Alfred Doblin, Germany
20. The Tin Drum—Gunter Grass, Germany
21. Faust—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Germany
22. The Magic Mountain—Thomas Mann, Germany
23. The Man Without Qualities—Robert Musil, Austria
24. Hunger—Knut Hamsun, Norway
25. Pippi Longstocking—Astrid Lindgren, Sweden
26. Fairy Tales and Stories—Hans Christian Andersen, Denmark
27. Independent People—Halldor K Laxness, Iceland
28. Njaals Saga—Iceland, (c 1300)
29. Remembrance of Things Past—Marcel Proust, France
30. The Stranger—Albert Camus, France
31. Jacques the Fatalist and His Master—Denis Diderot, France
32. Journey to the End of the Night—Louis-Ferdinand Celine, France
33. Madame Bovary—Gustave Flaubert, France
34. Memoirs of Hadrian—Marguerite Yourcenar, France
35. Old Goriot—Honore de Balzac, France
36. The Red and the Black—Stendhal, France
37. A Sentimental Education—Gustave Flaubert, France
Russia
1. Crime and Punishment—Fyodor M Dostoyevsky
2. Dead Souls—Nikolai Gogol
3. The Death of Ivan Ilyich and Other Stories—Leo Tolstoy
4. Anna Karenina—Leo Tolstoy
5. Selected Stories—Anton P Chekhov
6. War and Peace—Leo Tolstoy
7. The Idiot—Fyodor M Dostoyevsky
8. The Brothers Karamazov—Fyodor M Dostoyevsky
9. The Possessed—Fyodor M Dostoyevsky
10. The Master and Margarita—Mikhail Bulgakov
11. One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich—Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
11
Science Fiction
11
1. The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy—Douglas Adams
2. Non-Stop—Brian W Aldiss
3. Foundation—Isaac Asimov
4. The Blind Assassin—Margaret Atwood
5. The Handmaid's Tale—Margaret Atwood
6. In the Country of Last Things—Paul Auster
7. The Drowned World—JG Ballard
8. Crash—JG Ballard
9. Millennium People—JG Ballard
10. The Wasp Factory—Iain Banks
11. Consider Phlebas—Iain M Banks
12. The Time Ships—Stephen Baxter
13. Darwin's Radio—Greg Bear
14. The Stars My Destination—Alfred Bester
15. Fahrenheit 451—Ray Bradbury
16. A Clockwork Orange—Anthony Burgess
17. A Princess of Mars—Edgar Rice Burroughs
18. Kindred—Octavia Butler
19. The Baron in the Trees—Italo Calvino
20. Childhood's End—Arthur C Clarke
21. The Einstein Intersection—Samuel R Delaney
22. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?—Philip K Dick
23. The Man in the High Castle—Philip K Dick
24. Neuromancer—William Gibson
25. The Forever War—Joe Haldeman
26. Stranger in a Strange Land—Robert A Heinlein
27. Dune—Frank L Herbert
28. The Glass Bead Game—Herman Hesse
29. Brave New World—Aldous Huxley
30. Flowers for Algernon—Daniel Keyes
31. The Earthsea Series—Ursula Le Guin
32. The Left Hand of Darkness—Ursula Le Guin
33. Solaris—Stanislaw Lem
34. Memoirs of a Survivor—Doris Lessing
35. The Monk—Matthew Lewis
36. A Voyage to Arcturus—David Lindsay
37. The Night Sessions—Ken Macleod
38. I Am Legend—Richard Matheson
39. Ascent—Jed Mercurio
40. Cloud Atlas—David Mitchell
41. Mother London—Michael Moorcock
42. Ringworld—Larry Niven
43. The Space Merchants—Pohl & Kornbluth
44. Red Mars—Kim Stanley Robinson
45. Hyperion—Dan Simmons
46. Star Maker—Olaf Stapledon
47. Snow Crash—Neal Stephenson
48. The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde—Robert Louis Stevenson
49. Sirens of Titan—Kurt Vonnegut
50. The Time Machine—HG Wells
51. The War of the Worlds—HG Wells
52. The Book of the New Sun—Gene Wolfe
53. Day of the Triffids—John Wyndham
54. The Midwich Cuckoos—John Wyndham
55. We—Yevgeny Zamyatin
11
Fantasy
11
1. The Hobbit—JRR Tolkien
2. The Lord of the Rings—JRR Tolkien
3. The Sword in the Stone—TH White
4. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone—JK Rowling
5. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland—Lewis Carroll
6. The Chronicles of Narnia—CS Lewis
7. His Dark Materials Trilogy—Pulman
8. Wheel of Time (series)—Robert Jordan
9. The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, the Unbeliever (series)—Stephen R. Donaldson
10. Neverwhere—Neil Gaiman
11. Percy Jackson and the Olympians—Rick Riordan
12. The Phantom Tollbooth—Norton Juster
13. The Neverending Story—Michael Ende
14. Earthsea Cycle (series)—Ursula K. Le Guin
15. The Princess Bride—William Goldman
16. Wicked—Gregory Maguire
17. The Wizard of Oz—
18. Redwall—Brian Jacques
19. A Song of Fire & Ice (series)—George RR Martin
20. Malazan Book of the Fallen (series)—Steven Erikson
21. The Name of the Wind (Kingkiller Chronicles)—Patrick Rothfuss
22. The Darkness that Comes Before—R. Scott Bakker
23. The Black Company (Books of the North)—Glen Cook
24. The Way of Kings—Brandon Sanderson
25. The Red Wolf Conspiracy—Robert VS Redick
26. Lies of Locke Lamora—Scott Lynch
27. The Blade Itself—Joe Abercrombie
28. Gormenghast—Mervyn Peake
29. The Farseer—Robin Hobb
30. Black Sun Rising (Coldfire Trilogy)—C.S. Friedman
31. A Shadow in Summer—Daniel Abraham
32. The Etched City—K.J. Bishop
33. A Cavern of Black Ice (Sword of Shadows)—J. V. Jones
34. Acacia: The War With Mein—David Anthony Durham
35. Elric of Melinbone—Michael Moorcock
36. Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell—Susanna Clarke
37. American Gods—Neil Gaiman
38. Abhorsen Trilogy—Garth Nix
39. The Dragonbone Chair (Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn)—Tad Williams
40. Magician—Raymond Feist
41. The Dresden Files—Jim Butcher
42. Earthsea Cycle—Ursula Le Guin
43. Amber Chronicles—Roger Zelazny
44. Mistborn—Brandon Sanderson
45. The Warded Man—Peter V. Brett
46. Riddle of Stars—Patricia A. McKillip
47. The Dark Tower—Stephen King
48. A Kingdom of Thorn and Bone—Greg Keyes
49. Tigana—Guy Gavriel Kay
50. The Seven Waters Trilogy—Juliet Marillier
51. Mythago Wood—Robert Holdstock
52. The Way of Shadows (Night Angel Trilogy)—Brent Weeks
53. Tales of the Otori—Lian Hearn
54. Heroes Die—Matthew Woodring Stover
55. Legend—David Gemmell
56. The Swan's War—Sean Russell
57. Elantris—Brandon Sanderson
58. Kushiel's Dart—Jacqueline Carey
59. Godless World trilogy—Brian Ruckley
60. The Sword, the Ring, and the Chalice—Deborah Chester
11
Crime
11
1. The Man with the Golden Arm—Nelson Algren
2. Fantomas—Marcel Allain & Pierre Souvestre
3. The Mask of Dimitrios—Eric Ambler
4. Epitaph for a Spy—Eric Ambler
5. The New York Trilogy—Paul Auster
6. Trent's Last Case—EC Bentley
7. The Poisoned Chocolates Case—Anthony Berkeley
8. The Beast Must Die—Nicholas Blake
9. The Tin Roof Blowdown—James Lee Burke
10. The Thirty-Nine Steps—John Buchan
11. The Asphalt Jungle—WR Burnett
12. The Postman Always Rings Twice—James Cain
13. Double Indemnity—James Cain
14. True History of the Ned Kelly Gang—Peter Carey
15. The Hollow Man—John Dickson Carr
16. The Big Sleep—Raymond Chandler
17. The Long Goodbye—Raymond Chandler
18. The Riddle of the Sands—Erskine Childers
19. And Then There Were None—Agatha Christie
20. The Mysterious Affair at Styles—Agatha Christie
21. The Woman in White—Wilkie Collins
22. A Study in Scarlet—Arthur Conan Doyle
23. The Sign of Four—Arthur Conan Doyle
24. The Manchurian Candidate—Richard Condon
25. The Secret Agent—Joseph Conrad
26. Postmortem—Patricia Cornwell
27. The Ipcress File—Len Deighton
28. Last Seen Wearing—Colin Dexter
29. Dead Lagoon—Michael Dibdin
30. My Cousin Rachel—Daphne du Maurier
31. The Pledge—Friedrich Durrenmatt
32. The Crime of Father Amado—José Maria de Eça de Queiroz
33. LA Confidential—James Ellroy
34. Casino Royale—Ian Fleming
35. The Day of the Jackal—Frederick Forsyth
36. The Third Man—Graham Greene
37. A Time to Kill—John Grisham
38. Hangover Square—Patrick Hamilton
39. The Maltese Falcon—Dashiell Hammett
40. The Thin Man—Dashiell Hammett
41. Black Sunday—Thomas Harris
42. Tourist Season—Carl Hiaasen
43. The Friends of Eddie Coyle—George V Higgins
44. Strangers on a Train—Patricia Highsmith
45. The Talented Mr. Ripley—Patricia Highsmith
46. Silence of the Grave—Arnadur Indridason
47. Death at the President's Lodging—Michael Innes
48. Cover Her Face—PD James
49. A Taste for Death—PD James
50. Friday the Rabbi Slept Late—Harry Kemelman
51. The Constant Gardener—John le Carre
52. Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy—John le Carre
53. 52 Pick-up—Elmore Leonard
54. Motherless Brooklyn—Jonathan Lethem
55. The Bourne Identity—Robert Ludlum
56. Enduring Love—Ian McEwan
57. Sidetracked—Henning Mankell
58. Devil in a Blue Dress—Walter Mosley