Masterpieces of World Literature

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

About this list

Frank N. Magill, 244 Books

Scholar Frank N. Magill’s famous literary studies reference book. A selection of over 200 of the greatest works of literature of all time

This list was originally published in 1991 and was added to this site over 11 years ago.

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Rank Book Authors Year Country Language Actions
424 A Doll's House Henrik Ibsen 1879 Norwegian Norwegian
13359 An Enemy of the People Henrik Ibsen 1882 Norwegian Norwegian
2274 Hedda Gabler Henrik Ibsen 1890 Norwegian Norwegian
3288 Stories of Washington Irving Washington Irving 1820 American English
389 The Alchemist Paulo Coelho 1988 Brazilian Portuguese
235 The Ambassadors Henry James 1903 American English
376 The Golden Bowl Henry James 1904 American English
73 The Portrait of a Lady Henry James 1881 American English
88 A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man James Joyce 1916 Irish English
1721 Pragmatism William James 1907 American English
189 The Turn of the Screw Henry James 1898 American English
13359 Two Essays on Analytical Psychology Carl Jung 1921 Swiss German
1 Ulysses James Joyce 1922 Irish English
6241 Volpone Ben Jonson 1607 British English
81 The Castle Franz Kafka 1926 Czech German
458 Critique of Pure Reason Immanuel Kant 1781 German German
974 The Poems of John Keats John Keats 1817 British English
247 Kim Rudyard Kipling 1901 British English
11567 The Sickness Unto Death Soren Kierkegaard 1849 Danish Danish
21 The Trial Franz Kafka 1925 Czech German
256 Babbitt Sinclair Lewis 1922 American English
3545 Daphnis and Chloe Longus -200 Greek Ancient greek
1327 An Essay Concerning Human Understanding John Locke 1689 British English
564 Main Street Sinclair Lewis 1920 American English
405 De Rerum Natura Lucretius 55 Roman Latin
144 Sons and Lovers D. H. Lawrence 1913 British English
3637 Areopagitica John Milton 1644 British English
11537 Benito Cereno Herman Melville 1855 American English
1267 Billy Budd Herman Melville 1924 American English
90 Buddenbrooks Thomas Mann 1901 German German
240 Death in Venice Thomas Mann 1912 German German
135 Doctor Faustus Thomas Mann 1947 German German
75 Essays Michel de Montaigne 1580 French French
328 Das Kapital Karl Marx 1867 German German
11109 The Complete Poetry and Essential Prose of John Milton John Milton 2007 British English
25 The Magic Mountain Thomas Mann 1924 German German
2052 The Misanthrope Molière 1666 French French
7 Moby-Dick Herman Melville 1851 American English
548 Le Morte d'Arthur Thomas Malory 1485 British Middle english
743 On Liberty John Stuart Mill 1859 British English
127 Paradise Lost John Milton 1667 British English
152 The Prince Niccolo Machiavelli 1532 Italian Italian
3104 Spoon River Anthology Edgar Lee Masters 1915 American English
984 Tartuffe Molière 1664 French French
881 Utopia Thomas More 1516 British Latin
3109 Beyond Good and Evil Friedrich Nietzsche 1886 German German
222 Thus Spake Zarathustra Friedrich Nietzsche 1883 German German
175 Metamorphoses Ovid 8 Roman Latin
2092 Mourning Becomes Electra Eugene O'Neill 1931 American English
6 Nineteen Eighty Four George Orwell 1949 British English
3192 The Age of Reason Thomas Paine 1794 British English
1441 The Cantos Ezra Pound 1933 American English
1667 The Poetry of Alexander Pushkin Alexander Pushkin 1836 Russian Russian
388 The Complete Works of Plato Plato -387 Greek Ancient greek
9857 An Essay on Man Alexander Pope 1734 British English
365 Eugene Onegin Alexander Pushkin 1833 Russian Russian
98 The Complete Tales and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe Edgar Allan Poe 1902 American English
316 Pensées Blaise Pascal 1670 French French
8667 The Rape of the Lock Alexander Pope 1712 British English
2 In Search of Lost Time Marcel Proust 1913 French French
220 The Republic Plato -379 Greek Ancient greek
275 The Confessions of Jean-Jacques Rousseau Jean-Jacques Rousseau 1782 French French
1308 Cyrano de Bergerac Edmond Rostand 1897 French French
373 The Duino Elegies Rainer Maria Rilke 1923 German German
145 Gargantua and Pantagruel Francois Rabelais 1532 French French
1177 Phèdre Jean Racine 1677 French French
129 First Folio William Shakespeare 1623 British English
383 Oedipus at Colonus Sophocles -401 Greek Ancient greek
106 Oedipus the King Sophocles -429 Greek Ancient greek
125 Antigone Sophocles -441 Greek Ancient greek
53 Dracula Bram Stoker 1897 British English
193 East of Eden John Steinbeck 1952 American English
374 Ethics Baruch de Spinoza 1677 Dutch Latin
1284 The Faerie Queene Edmund Spenser 1590 British English
4257 The Father August Strindberg 1887 Swedish Swedish
39 Frankenstein Mary Shelley 1818 British English
26 The Grapes of Wrath John Steinbeck 1939 American English
65 Gulliver's Travels Jonathan Swift 1726 British English
297 Ivanhoe Sir Walter Scott 1819 British English
1243 Kidnapped Robert Louis Stevenson 1886 British English
4166 Miss Julie August Strindberg 1888 Swedish Swedish
245 Nausea Jean Paul Sartre 1938 French French
900 The Poems of Sappho Sappho -569 Greek Ancient greek
2016 The Poems of Percy Bysshe Shelley Percy Bysshe Shelley 1810 British English
42 The Red and the Black Stendhal 1830 French French
11570 Scepticism and Animal Faith George Santayana 1923 Spanish English
218 The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde Robert Louis Stevenson 1886 British English
130 The Tale of Genji Murasaki Shikibu 1001 Japanese Classical japanese
11535 Thyestes Seneca 62 Roman Latin
115 Treasure Island Robert Louis Stevenson 1883 British English
1186 Tristan Gottfried von Strassburg 1210 German Middle high german
51 The Life And Opinions Of Tristram Shandy Laurence Sterne 1759 British English
531 The Wealth of Nations Adam Smith 1776 Scottish English
22 Adventures of Huckleberry Finn Mark Twain 1884 American English
243 The Adventures of Tom Sawyer Mark Twain 1876 American English
10 Anna Karenina Leo Tolstoy 1877 Russian Russian
678 Barchester Towers Anthony Trollope 1857 British English
1355 Collected Poems of Dylan Thomas Dylan Thomas 1952 British English
229 Democracy in America Alexis de Tocqueville 1835 French French
4261 Essays of Henry David Thoreau Henry David Thoreau 1862 American English
179 Fathers and Sons Ivan Turgenev 1862 Russian Russian
596 The History of the Peloponnesian War Thucydides -410 Greek Ancient greek
707 Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson Alfred Tennyson 1830 British English
1415 Life on the Mississippi Mark Twain 1883 American English
105 Vanity Fair William Makepeace Thackeray 1847 British English
108 Walden Henry David Thoreau 1854 American English
12 War and Peace Leo Tolstoy 1869 Russian Russian
70 The Aeneid Virgil -19 Roman Latin
80 Candide Voltaire 1759 French French
422 Ramayana Valmiki -200 Indian Sanskrit
673 Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea Jules Verne 1870 French French
490 Ethan Frome Edith Wharton 1911 American English
1382 The Importance of Being Earnest Oscar Wilde 1895 Irish English
77 Leaves of Grass Walt Whitman 1855 American English
32 Mrs. Dalloway Virginia Woolf 1925 British English
1611 The Prelude William Wordsworth 1850 British English
294 The Time Machine H. G. Wells 1895 British English
27 To the Lighthouse Virginia Woolf 1927 British English
252 The Waves Virginia Woolf 1931 British English
2672 Autobiographies William Butler Yeats 1926 Irish English