R/ClassicLiterature's Top 100 Favorite Books

This is one of the 759 lists we use to generate our main The Greatest Books list.

About this list

R/ClassicLiterature, 100 Books

Hello everybody! Last month I have launched a poll to find the 100 favourite books of this subreddit, inspired by similar contests over at r/TrueLit and 4chan's /lit/. With 163 people participating in the poll, 1425 votes being cast and 504 different books being entered, I'm happy to finally share the results.

It was actually incredibly close at the top: our #1 Moby Dick got 485 points, while our #5 The Count Of Monte Cristo got just 36 less. The point difference between #5 and #6 is nearly twice as big as the difference between #1 and #5.

In the second image I have added images showing how many votes have been cast for books released in each century and written in each language. These percentages were calculated by counting up all of your votes, so not just the books that made the top 100.

In the third image I've added the top 20 authors with the most votes. This is largely similar to the top 20 books, since most authors have just one or two books that are particularly popular, but it does raise authors like Shakespeare and Dickens who have many popular works.

This list was originally published in 2026 and was added to this site 4 months ago.

View: List Grid Table
Rank Book Authors Year Country Language Actions
7 Moby-Dick Herman Melville 1851 American English
18 The Brothers Karamazov Fyodor Dostoevsky 1880 Russian Russian
193 East of Eden John Steinbeck 1952 American English
11 Crime and Punishment Fyodor Dostoevsky 1866 Russian Russian
87 The Count of Monte Cristo Alexandre Dumas 1844 French French
39 Frankenstein Mary Shelley 1818 British English
10 Anna Karenina Leo Tolstoy 1877 Russian Russian
6 Nineteen Eighty Four George Orwell 1949 British English
13 Pride and Prejudice Jane Austen 1813 British English
5 One Hundred Years of Solitude Gabriel García Márquez 1967 Colombian Spanish
34 The Master and Margarita Mikhail Bulgakov 1967 Russian Russian
17 The Lord Of The Rings J. R. R. Tolkien 1959 English English
8 Don Quixote Miguel de Cervantes 1605 Spanish Spanish
12 War and Peace Leo Tolstoy 1869 Russian Russian
29 Jane Eyre Charlotte Brontë 1847 British English
198 Blood Meridian Cormac McCarthy 1985 American English
15 Wuthering Heights Emily Brontë 1847 British English
1 Ulysses James Joyce 1922 Irish English
3 The Great Gatsby F. Scott Fitzgerald 1925 American English
40 Les Misérables Victor Hugo 1862 French French
89 The Picture of Dorian Gray Oscar Wilde 1890 Irish English
899 Stoner John Williams 1965 American English
14 Lolita Vladimir Nabokov 1955 American English
2 In Search of Lost Time Marcel Proust 1913 French French
33 Catch-22 Joseph Heller 1961 American English
37 The Iliad Homer -750 Greek Ancient greek
26 The Grapes of Wrath John Steinbeck 1939 American English
71 Hamlet William Shakespeare 1600 British English
53 Dracula Bram Stoker 1897 British English
4 The Catcher in the Rye J. D. Salinger 1951 American English
25 The Magic Mountain Thomas Mann 1924 German German
27 To the Lighthouse Virginia Woolf 1927 British English
23 The Stranger Albert Camus 1942 French French
32 Mrs. Dalloway Virginia Woolf 1925 British English
20 Madame Bovary Gustave Flaubert 1857 French French
66 The Metamorphosis Franz Kafka 1915 Czech German
28 Middlemarch George Eliot 1871 British English
127 Paradise Lost John Milton 1667 British English
43 Absalom, Absalom! William Faulkner 1936 American English
57 The Idiot Fyodor Dostoevsky 1869 Russian Russian
21 The Trial Franz Kafka 1925 Czech German
333 Infinite Jest David Foster Wallace 1996 American English
150 Fahrenheit 451 Ray Bradbury 1953 American English
38 Great Expectations Charles Dickens 1860 British English
342 Notes from the Underground Fyodor Dostoevsky 1864 Russian Russian
79 As I Lay Dying William Faulkner 1930 American English
188 A Tale of Two Cities Charles Dickens 1859 British English
59 Rebecca Daphne du Maurier 1938 British English
50 Brave New World Aldous Huxley 1932 British English
45 Fictions Jorge Luis Borges 1944 Argentinian Spanish
80 Candide Voltaire 1759 French French
9 The Sound and the Fury William Faulkner 1929 American English
54 The Old Man and the Sea Ernest Hemingway 1952 American English
83 Emma Jane Austen 1815 British English
76 The Plague Albert Camus 1947 French French
170 Of Mice and Men John Steinbeck 1937 American English
163 Siddhartha Hermann Hesse 1922 German German
100 Dune Frank Herbert 1965 American English
22 Adventures of Huckleberry Finn Mark Twain 1884 American English
167 Giovanni's Room James Baldwin 1956 American English
47 David Copperfield Charles Dickens 1849 British English
204 The Remains of the Day Kazuo Ishiguro 1989 British English
72 Pale Fire Vladimir Nabokov 1962 American English
56 The Leopard Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa 1958 Italian Italian
16 To Kill a Mockingbird Harper Lee 1960 American English
52 Lord of the Flies William Golding 1954 British English
216 A Christmas Carol Charles Dickens 1843 British English
103 The Bell Jar Sylvia Plath 1963 American English
86 All Quiet on the Western Front Erich Maria Remarque 1928 German German
114 The Name of the Rose Umberto Eco 1980 Italian Italian
67 A Farewell to Arms Ernest Hemingway 1929 American English
155 Macbeth William Shakespeare 1606 British English
110 The Canterbury Tales Geoffrey Chaucer 1400 British Middle english
31 Heart of Darkness Joseph Conrad 1899 British English
210 Dangerous Liaison Pierre Choderlos de Laclos 1782 French French
62 The Sun Also Rises Ernest Hemingway 1926 American English
2883 Septology Jon Fosse 2019 Norwegian Norwegian
175 Metamorphoses Ovid 8 Roman Latin
119 The Three Musketeers Alexandre Dumas 1844 French French
192 Persuasion Jane Austen 1817 British English
104 Dead Souls Nikolai Gogol 1842 Russian Russian
30 The Divine Comedy Dante Alighieri 1308 Italian Italian
290 The Road Cormac McCarthy 2006 American English
811 The Phantom of the Opera Gaston Leroux 1909 French French
232 2666 Roberto Bolaño 2004 Chilean Spanish
1289 A Game of Thrones George R. R. Martin 1996 American English
279 The Secret History Donna Tartt 1992 American English
224 Watership Down Richard Adams 1972 British English
131 King Lear William Shakespeare 1608 British English
330 Dubliners James Joyce 1914 Irish English
260 Song of Solomon Toni Morrison 1977 American English
70 The Aeneid Virgil -19 Roman Latin
42 The Red and the Black Stendhal 1830 French French
94 Demons Fyodor Dostoevsky 1872 Russian Russian
123 Memoirs of Hadrian Marguerite Yourcenar 1951 French French
366 The Hunchback of Notre-Dame Victor Hugo 1831 French French
55 Animal Farm George Orwell 1945 British English
266 Never Let Me Go Kazuo Ishiguro 2005 British English
681 Cat's Cradle Kurt Vonnegut 1963 American English
24 The Odyssey Homer -740 Greek Ancient greek