Pour une Bibliothèque Idéale

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

About this list

Raymond Queneau, 111 Books

"In the early 1950s Raymond Queneau asked several dozen French authors and critics to list the hundred books they would choose if they had to limit themselves to that number. He reproduced all their responses in the book Pour une Bibliothèque Idéale (Gallimard, 1956), along with the overall top 100 list reproduced above."

Who voted? There were 40 authors and critics who responded
Raymond Abellio – Jean Anouilh – Marcel Arland – Alexandre Arnoux – Jacques Audiberti – Gaston Bachelard – Gérard Bauer – Hervé Bazin – Yvon Belaval – André Berry – André Billy – Henri Bosco – André Breton – Pierre Brisson – Blaise Cendrars – Paul Claudel – Jean Cocteau – Louis-René des Forêts – André Dhotel – Roland Dorgelès – Bernard Dorival – Marcel Duhamel – Raymond Dumay – Georges Dumézil – Paul Éluard – Lucien Fabre – Maurice Garçon – Georges Huisman – Georges Izard – Marcel Jouhandeau – Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler – Joseph Kessel – Valéry Larbaud – Michel Leiris – Léon Lemonnier – Marguerite Liberaki – Armand Lunel – Pierre Mac Orlan – André Maurois – Jean Meckert – Robert Merle – Henry Miller – Marianne Moore – Paul Morand – Maurice Nadeau – Brice Parain – Jean Paulhan – Benjamin Péret – Gaëtan Picon – Francis Poulenc – Frédéric Prokosch – Raymond Queneau – Jean Rostand – Denis de Rougemont – Jules Roy – Armand Salacrou – Georges Simenon – Jules Supervielle – Edmond Vermeil

This list was originally published in 1956 and was added to this site over 11 years ago.

View: List Grid Table
Rank Book Authors Year Country Language Actions
129 First Folio William Shakespeare 1623 British English
19 The Bible Unknown -1400 Jewish Hebrew, aramaic, greek
2 In Search of Lost Time Marcel Proust 1913 French French
75 Essays Michel de Montaigne 1580 French French
145 Gargantua and Pantagruel Francois Rabelais 1532 French French
178 The Flowers of Evil Charles Baudelaire 1857 French French
316 Pensées Blaise Pascal 1670 French French
1296 The Works of Moliere Molière 1666 French French
275 The Confessions of Jean-Jacques Rousseau Jean-Jacques Rousseau 1782 French French
42 The Red and the Black Stendhal 1830 French French
388 The Complete Works of Plato Plato -387 Greek Ancient greek
138 The Charterhouse of Parma Stendhal 1839 French French
1556 The Poems of Francois Villon François Villon 1489 French Middle french
2241 Collected Poems Arthur Rimbaud 1898 French French
3248 Memoirs of Cardinal De Retz Cardinal de Retz 1717 French French
12 War and Peace Leo Tolstoy 1869 Russian Russian
2506 Memoirs of Louis XIV Louis de Rouvroy Saint-Simon (duc de) 1740 French French
8 Don Quixote Miguel de Cervantes 1605 Spanish Spanish
3276 The Complete Plays of Jean Racine Jean Racine 1677 French French
285 Oresteia Aeschylus -458 Greek Ancient greek
1256 Prometheus Bound Aeschylus -455 Greek Ancient greek
1350 Seven Against Thebes Aeschylus -467 Greek Ancient greek
613 The Persians Aeschylus -471 Greek Ancient greek
1351 The Suppliants Aeschylus -463 Greek Ancient greek
18 The Brothers Karamazov Fyodor Dostoevsky 1880 Russian Russian
1304 Collected Poems Stéphane Mallarmé 1887 French French
694 La Fontaine's Fables Jean de La Fontaine 1668 French French
96 Faust Johann Wolfgang von Goethe 1808 German German
478 Alcools Guillaume Apollinaire 1913 French French
116 A Sentimental Education Gustave Flaubert 1869 French French
24 The Odyssey Homer -740 Greek Ancient greek
3418 Plays Pierre Corneille 1641 French French
30 The Divine Comedy Dante Alighieri 1308 Italian Italian
431 Memoirs From Beyond the Grave François-Auguste-René de Chateaubriand 1849 French French
341 The Human Comedy Honoré de Balzac 1830 French French
986 Electra Sophocles -409 Greek Ancient greek
383 Oedipus at Colonus Sophocles -401 Greek Ancient greek
1124 Ajax Sophocles -440 Greek Ancient greek
106 Oedipus the King Sophocles -429 Greek Ancient greek
1125 Philoctetes Sophocles -409 Greek Ancient greek
1126 Women of Trachis Sophocles -450 Greek Ancient greek
125 Antigone Sophocles -441 Greek Ancient greek
1 Ulysses James Joyce 1922 Irish English
210 Dangerous Liaison Pierre Choderlos de Laclos 1782 French French
65 Gulliver's Travels Jonathan Swift 1726 British English
7756 One Hundred and One Poems by Paul Verlaine Paul Verlaine 1948 French French
20 Madame Bovary Gustave Flaubert 1857 French French
238 A Season in Hell Arthur Rimbaud 1873 French French
543 Discourse on Method Rene Descartes 1637 French French
489 Manon Lescaut Abbe Prevost 1731 French French
3492 Selected Poems Pierre Ronsard 1501 French French
876 Lysistrata Aristophanes -411 Greek Ancient greek
1383 The Birds Aristophanes -414 Greek Ancient greek
932 The Clouds Aristophanes -423 Greek Ancient greek
1180 Annals Cornelius Tacitus 109 Roman Latin
1834 Histories Cornelius Tacitus 100 Roman Latin
374 Ethics Baruch de Spinoza 1677 Dutch Latin
3518 Poems of Friedrich Hölderlin Friedrich Holderlin 1800 German German
2662 Daughters of Fire Gerard de Nerval 1854 French French
69 Robinson Crusoe Daniel Defoe 1719 British English
133 Confessions Augustine 397 Roman Latin
463 The Songs of Maldoror Comte de Lautréamont 1868 French French
40 Les Misérables Victor Hugo 1862 French French
35 Alice's Adventures in Wonderland Lewis Carroll 1865 British English
3586 The Complete Writings of Alfred de Musset Alfred de Musset 1907 French French
1891 The Journal of Jules Renard Jules Renard 1887 French French
37 The Iliad Homer -750 Greek Ancient greek
57 The Idiot Fyodor Dostoevsky 1869 Russian Russian
15 Wuthering Heights Emily Brontë 1847 British English
94 Demons Fyodor Dostoevsky 1872 Russian Russian
80 Candide Voltaire 1759 French French
1112 The Complete Poetry and Prose of William Blake William Blake 1827 British English
11 Crime and Punishment Fyodor Dostoevsky 1866 Russian Russian
334 Parallel Lives Plutarch 100 Greek Greek
284 The Princess of Cleves Madame de La Fayette 1678 French French
328 Das Kapital Karl Marx 1867 German German
766 Adolphe Benjamin Constant 1816 Swiss French
1990 Le Mariage De Figaro Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais 1784 French French
2190 Les Tragiques Agrippa d'Aubigné 1616 French French
3595 Les Destinées Alfred de Vigny 1864 French French
1182 Poems of Federico García Lorca Federico García Lorca 1921 Spanish Spanish
172 Man's Fate Andre Malraux 1933 French French
780 Maxims François duc de La Rochefoucauld 1665 French French
2710 Les Caractères Jean de La Bruyère 1688 French French
1475 Lettres de madame de Sévigné Marie de Rabutin-Chantal marquise de Sévigné 1671 French French
2007 King Ubu Alfred Jarry 1896 French French
9633 The Collected Works of Paul Valéry Paul Valéry 1957 French French
1960 The Provincial Letters Blaise Pascal 1656 French French
541 The Seven Pillars of Wisdom T. E. Lawrence 1926 British English
1176 Carmen Prosper Mérimée 1845 French French
1364 Fragments Heraclitus -500 Greek Ancient greek
5441 Marivaux Pierre Carlet de Chamblain de Marivaux 1968 French Unknown
2729 La légende des siècles Victor Hugo 1859 French French
21 The Trial Franz Kafka 1925 Czech German
3620 Correspondence Voltaire 1751 French French
4621 Calligrammes Guillaume Apollinaire 1918 French French
2020 Journals André Gide 1948 French French
225 Fairy Tales and Stories Hans Christian Andersen 1835 Danish Danish
119 The Three Musketeers Alexandre Dumas 1844 French French
371 History of My Life Giacomo Casanova 1822 Italian French
46 One Thousand and One Nights Unknown 800 Multiple Arabic
137 Lord Jim Joseph Conrad 1900 British English
2737 Philosophical Writings Novalis 1798 German German
222 Thus Spake Zarathustra Friedrich Nietzsche 1883 German German
4138 Three plays Paul Claudel 1912 French French
1591 Wry-Blue Loves Tristan Corbière 1873 French French
2579 Les Contemplations Victor Hugo 1856 French French
2740 Dark Night of the Soul St. John of the Cross 1578 Spanish Spanish
104 Dead Souls Nikolai Gogol 1842 Russian Russian
70 The Aeneid Virgil -19 Roman Latin
962 The Diary of a Country Priest Georges Bernanos 1936 French French