The 100 Greatest Novels

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

About this list

greatbooksguide.com, 104 Books

Critic Ted Gioia's selection of the 100 greatest novels ever written.

This list was originally published in 2007 and was added to this site over 11 years ago.

View: List Grid Table
Rank Book Authors Year Country Language Actions
2 In Search of Lost Time Marcel Proust 1913 French French
18 The Brothers Karamazov Fyodor Dostoevsky 1880 Russian Russian
25 The Magic Mountain Thomas Mann 1924 German German
235 The Ambassadors Henry James 1903 American English
8 Don Quixote Miguel de Cervantes 1605 Spanish Spanish
7 Moby-Dick Herman Melville 1851 American English
43 Absalom, Absalom! William Faulkner 1936 American English
12 War and Peace Leo Tolstoy 1869 Russian Russian
134 Tom Jones Henry Fielding 1749 British English
22 Adventures of Huckleberry Finn Mark Twain 1884 American English
5 One Hundred Years of Solitude Gabriel García Márquez 1967 Colombian Spanish
261 Wings of the Dove Henry James 1902 American English
11 Crime and Punishment Fyodor Dostoevsky 1866 Russian Russian
38 Great Expectations Charles Dickens 1860 British English
40 Les Misérables Victor Hugo 1862 French French
13 Pride and Prejudice Jane Austen 1813 British English
57 The Idiot Fyodor Dostoevsky 1869 Russian Russian
62 The Sun Also Rises Ernest Hemingway 1926 American English
592 The Sleepwalkers Hermann Broch 1932 Austrian German
21 The Trial Franz Kafka 1925 Czech German
1 Ulysses James Joyce 1922 Irish English
20 Madame Bovary Gustave Flaubert 1857 French French
3 The Great Gatsby F. Scott Fitzgerald 1925 American English
9 The Sound and the Fury William Faulkner 1929 American English
28 Middlemarch George Eliot 1871 British English
36 Invisible Man Ralph Ellison 1952 American English
376 The Golden Bowl Henry James 1904 American English
42 The Red and the Black Stendhal 1830 French French
73 The Portrait of a Lady Henry James 1881 American English
10 Anna Karenina Leo Tolstoy 1877 Russian Russian
31 Heart of Darkness Joseph Conrad 1899 British English
27 To the Lighthouse Virginia Woolf 1927 British English
105 Vanity Fair William Makepeace Thackeray 1847 British English
179 Fathers and Sons Ivan Turgenev 1862 Russian Russian
72 Pale Fire Vladimir Nabokov 1962 American English
280 The Adventures of Augie March Saul Bellow 1953 American English
121 Bleak House Charles Dickens 1852 British English
248 Atonement Ian McEwan 2001 British English
643 Silas Marner George Eliot 1861 British English
2609 The Gambler Fyodor Dostoevsky 1866 Russian Russian
228 Father Goriot Honoré de Balzac 1835 French French
26 The Grapes of Wrath John Steinbeck 1939 American English
4 The Catcher in the Rye J. D. Salinger 1951 American English
83 Emma Jane Austen 1815 British English
29 Jane Eyre Charlotte Brontë 1847 British English
15 Wuthering Heights Emily Brontë 1847 British English
283 Nostromo Joseph Conrad 1904 British English
154 One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest Ken Kesey 1962 American English
109 In Cold Blood Truman Capote 1966 American English
3016 The American Henry James 1877 American English
339 The Adventures of Oliver Twist Charles Dickens 1837 British English
1137 Miss Lonelyhearts Nathanael West 1933 American English
567 The French Lieutenant's Woman John Fowles 1969 British English
237 The Corrections Jonathan Franzen 2001 American English
51 The Life And Opinions Of Tristram Shandy Laurence Sterne 1759 British English
347 The Day of the Locust Nathanael West 1939 American English
170 Of Mice and Men John Steinbeck 1937 American English
137 Lord Jim Joseph Conrad 1900 British English
6 Nineteen Eighty Four George Orwell 1949 British English
773 The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym Edgar Allan Poe 1838 American English
141 Brideshead Revisited Evelyn Waugh 1945 British English
138 The Charterhouse of Parma Stendhal 1839 French French
391 Death Comes for the Archbishop Willa Cather 1927 American English
55 Animal Farm George Orwell 1945 British English
507 The Last of the Mohicans James Fenimore Cooper 1826 American English
187 The Power and the Glory Graham Greene 1940 British English
392 Lucky Jim Kingsley Amis 1954 British English
120 The Big Sleep Raymond Chandler 1939 American English
236 Harry Potter And The Philosopher's Stone J. K. Rowling 1997 British English
164 The Hound of the Baskervilles Arthur Conan Doyle 1902 British English
41 On the Road Jack Kerouac 1957 American English
247 Kim Rudyard Kipling 1901 British English
117 Tess of the d'Urbervilles Thomas Hardy 1891 British English
188 A Tale of Two Cities Charles Dickens 1859 British English
380 American Pastoral Philip Roth 1997 American English
3887 The Moon is a Harsh Mistress Robert A. Heinlein 1966 American English
39 Frankenstein Mary Shelley 1818 British English
3062 The Fortress of Solitude Jonathan Lethem 2003 American English
886 Riders of the Purple Sage Zane Grey 1912 American English
893 Neuromancer William Gibson 1984 American, Canadian English
750 Money Martin Amis 1984 British English
74 The Scarlet Letter Nathaniel Hawthorne 1850 American English
251 The Murder of Roger Ackroyd Agatha Christie 1926 British English
79 As I Lay Dying William Faulkner 1930 American English
3126 Daisy Miller Henry James 1878 American English
739 The Return of the Native Thomas Hardy 1878 British English
333 Infinite Jest David Foster Wallace 1996 American English
97 For Whom the Bell Tolls Ernest Hemingway 1940 American English
94 Demons Fyodor Dostoevsky 1872 Russian Russian
349 The Death of Ivan Ilyich Leo Tolstoy 1886 Russian Russian
90 Buddenbrooks Thomas Mann 1901 German German
1090 The Kreutzer Sonata Leo Tolstoy 1889 Russian Russian
32 Mrs. Dalloway Virginia Woolf 1925 British English
47 David Copperfield Charles Dickens 1849 British English
13557 The Spoils of Poynton Henry James 1897 American English
732 A Bend in the River V. S. Naipaul 1979 Trinidadian English
100 Dune Frank Herbert 1965 American English
287 Jude the Obscure Thomas Hardy 1895 British English
5576 VALIS Philip K. Dick 1981 American English
254 Gravity's Rainbow Thomas Pynchon 1973 American English
56 The Leopard Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa 1958 Italian Italian
82 The Man Without Qualities Robert Musil 1930 Austrian German
198 Blood Meridian Cormac McCarthy 1985 American English
13558 The Black Swan Thomas Mann 1953 German German