The Dream of the Great American Novel

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

About this list

Book, 16 Books

Writer Lawrence Buell discusses the primary contenders for the title of the "Great American Novel".

This list was originally published in 2014 and was added to this site over 11 years ago.

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Rank Book Authors Year Country Language Actions
43 Absalom, Absalom! William Faulkner 1936 American English
279 The Adventures of Augie March Saul Bellow 1953 American English
378 American Pastoral Philip Roth 1997 American English
195 An American Tragedy Theodore Dreiser 1925 American English
49 Beloved Toni Morrison 1987 American English
736 The Custom of the Country Edith Wharton 1913 American English
3 The Great Gatsby F. Scott Fitzgerald 1925 American English
26 The Grapes of Wrath John Steinbeck 1939 American English
255 Gravity's Rainbow Thomas Pynchon 1973 American English
58 Gone With the Wind Margaret Mitchell 1936 American English
22 Adventures of Huckleberry Finn Mark Twain 1884 American English
36 Invisible Man Ralph Ellison 1952 American English
7 Moby-Dick Herman Melville 1851 American English
73 The Scarlet Letter Nathaniel Hawthorne 1850 American English
184 Uncle Tom's Cabin Harriet Beecher Stowe 1852 American English
185 U.S.A. Trilogy John Dos Passos 1930 American English