D. G. Myers’ 50 Greatest English Language Novels

This is one of the 743 lists we use to generate our main The Greatest Books list.

About this list

D. G. Myers, 50 Books

D. G. Myers’, critic and literary historian’s 50 Greatest English Language Novels.

A critic and literary historian for nearly a quarter of a century at Texas A&M and Ohio State.

This list was originally published in 2009 and was added to this site almost 12 years ago.

View: List Grid Table
Rank Book Authors Year Country Language Actions
14 Lolita Vladimir Nabokov 1955 American English
75 The Portrait of a Lady Henry James 1881 American English
22 Adventures of Huckleberry Finn Mark Twain 1884 American English
1 Ulysses James Joyce 1922 Irish English
3 The Great Gatsby F. Scott Fitzgerald 1925 American English
160 My Antonia Willa Cather 1918 American English
378 American Pastoral Philip Roth 1997 American English
13498 Mr. Sammler's Planet Saul Bellow 1970 American English
196 Howards End E. M. Forster 1910 British English
6 Nineteen Eighty Four George Orwell 1949 British English
15658 The Wife of Martin Guerre Janet Lewis 1941 American English
469 The Secret Agent Joseph Conrad 1907 British English
83 The Good Soldier Ford Madox Ford 1915 British English
465 A Handful of Dust Evelyn Waugh 1934 British English
285 Jude the Obscure Thomas Hardy 1895 British English
182 Light in August William Faulkner 1932 American English
92 The Age of Innocence Edith Wharton 1920 American English
392 Lucky Jim Kingsley Amis 1954 British English
662 The Siege of Krishnapur J. G. Farrell 1973 British English
36 Invisible Man Ralph Ellison 1952 American English
233 The Chronicles of Narnia C. S. Lewis 1950 British English
16410 A Mirror for Witches Esther Forbes 1928 American English
519 Call It Sleep Henry Roth 1934 American English
17008 The Soul of Kindness Elizabeth Taylor 1964 British English
3028 Less Than Angels Barbara Pym 1955 British English
567 The Death of the Heart Elizabeth Bowen 1938 British, Irish English
167 The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie Muriel Spark 1961 British, Scottish English
63 The Sun Also Rises Ernest Hemingway 1926 American English
1105 The Heart of the Matter Graham Greene 1948 British English
475 Gilead Marilynne Robinson 2004 American English
9965 Pictures At A Revolution Mark Harris 2008 American English
560 The Red Badge of Courage Stephen Crane 1895 American English
62 Under the Volcano Malcolm Lowry 1947 British English
225 Women in Love D. H. Lawrence 1920 British English
1759 Lady into Fox David Garnett 1922 British English
760 Goodbye to Berlin Christopher Isherwood 1939 British English
452 I, Claudius Robert Graves 1934 British English
4 The Catcher in the Rye J. D. Salinger 1951 American English
16768 The Flight from the Enchanter Iris Murdoch 1956 British English
14890 Eustace and Hilda L. P. Hartley 1947 British English
380 Wise Blood Flannery O'Connor 1952 American English
340 Sister Carrie Theodore Dreiser 1900 American English
692 Little House on the Prairie Laura Ingalls Wilder 1935 American English
1427 The Country of the Pointed Firs Sarah Orne Jewett 1896 American English
106 Native Son Richard Wright 1940 American English
310 Winesburg, Ohio Sherwood Anderson 1919 American English
149 All the King's Men Robert Penn Warren 1946 American English
13498 Morte D'Urban J. F. Powers 1962 American English
471 The Man Who Loved Children Christina Stead 1940 Australian English
355 At Swim Two-Birds Flann O'Brien 1939 Irish English