The Modern Library | 100 Best Novels

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About this list

Modern Library, 100 Books

Modern Library's 100 Best Novels is a 1998 list of the best English-language novels published during the 20th century, as selected by Modern Library from among 400 novels published by Random House, which owns Modern Library. The purpose of the list was to "bring the Modern Library to public attention" and stimulate sales of its books

The board of review consisted of Daniel J. Boorstin, A. S. Byatt, Christopher Cerf, Shelby Foote, Vartan Gregorian, Edmund Morris, John Richardson, Arthur Schlesinger Jr., William Styron and Gore Vidal.

This list was originally published in 1999 and was added to this site over 12 years ago.

View: List Grid Table
Rank Book Authors Year Country Language Actions
1 Ulysses James Joyce 1922 Irish English
3 The Great Gatsby F. Scott Fitzgerald 1925 American English
88 A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man James Joyce 1916 Irish English
14 Lolita Vladimir Nabokov 1955 American English
50 Brave New World Aldous Huxley 1932 British English
9 The Sound and the Fury William Faulkner 1929 American English
33 Catch-22 Joseph Heller 1961 American English
212 Darkness at Noon Arthur Koestler 1940 British German
144 Sons and Lovers D. H. Lawrence 1913 British English
26 The Grapes of Wrath John Steinbeck 1939 American English
63 Under the Volcano Malcolm Lowry 1947 British English
450 Way of All Flesh Samuel Butler 1903 British English
6 Nineteen Eighty Four George Orwell 1949 British English
453 I, Claudius Robert Graves 1934 British English
27 To the Lighthouse Virginia Woolf 1927 British English
195 An American Tragedy Theodore Dreiser 1925 American English
118 The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter Carson McCullers 1940 American English
84 Slaughterhouse-Five Kurt Vonnegut 1969 American English
36 Invisible Man Ralph Ellison 1952 American English
107 Native Son Richard Wright 1940 American English
753 Henderson The Rain King Saul Bellow 1959 American English
2261 Appointment in Samarra John O'Hara 1934 American English
185 U.S.A. Trilogy John Dos Passos 1930 American English
311 Winesburg, Ohio Sherwood Anderson 1919 American English
78 A Passage to India E. M. Forster 1924 British English
261 Wings of the Dove Henry James 1902 American English
235 The Ambassadors Henry James 1903 American English
168 Tender Is the Night F. Scott Fitzgerald 1934 American English
1222 Studs Lonigan James T. Farrell 1932 American English
85 The Good Soldier Ford Madox Ford 1915 British English
55 Animal Farm George Orwell 1945 British English
376 The Golden Bowl Henry James 1904 American English
336 Sister Carrie Theodore Dreiser 1900 American English
467 A Handful of Dust Evelyn Waugh 1934 British English
79 As I Lay Dying William Faulkner 1930 American English
149 All the King's Men Robert Penn Warren 1946 American English
631 The Bridge of San Luis Rey Thornton Wilder 1927 American English
197 Howards End E. M. Forster 1910 British English
353 Go Tell it on the Mountain James Baldwin 1953 American English
1107 The Heart of the Matter Graham Greene 1948 British English
52 Lord of the Flies William Golding 1954 British English
925 Deliverance James Dickey 1970 American English
325 A Dance to the Music of Time Anthony Powell 1951 British English
1629 Point Counter Point Aldous Huxley 1928 British English
62 The Sun Also Rises Ernest Hemingway 1926 American English
470 The Secret Agent Joseph Conrad 1907 British English
283 Nostromo Joseph Conrad 1904 British English
487 Rainbow D.H. Lawrence 1915 British English
227 Women in Love D. H. Lawrence 1920 British English
239 Tropic of Cancer Henry Miller 1934 American English
413 The Naked and the Dead Norman Mailer 1948 American English
241 Portnoy's Complaint Philip Roth 1969 American English
72 Pale Fire Vladimir Nabokov 1962 American English
181 Light in August William Faulkner 1932 American English
41 On the Road Jack Kerouac 1957 American English
142 The Maltese Falcon Dashiell Hammett 1930 American English
382 Parade's End Ford Madox Ford 1924 British English
92 The Age of Innocence Edith Wharton 1920 American English
963 Zuleika Dobson Max Beerbohm 1911 British English
182 The Moviegoer Walker Percy 1961 American English
391 Death Comes for the Archbishop Willa Cather 1927 American English
688 From Here to Eternity James Jones 1951 American English
1152 The Wapshot Chronicle John Cheever 1957 American English
4 The Catcher in the Rye J. D. Salinger 1951 American English
153 A Clockwork Orange Anthony Burgess 1962 British English
292 Of Human Bondage W. Somerset Maugham 1915 British English
31 Heart of Darkness Joseph Conrad 1899 British English
564 Main Street Sinclair Lewis 1920 American English
217 The House of Mirth Edith Wharton 1905 American English
226 The Alexandria Quartet Lawrence Durrell 1957 British English
1277 A High Wind in Jamaica Richard Hughes 1929 British English
223 A House for Mr. Biswas V. S. Naipaul 1961 Trinidadian English
347 The Day of the Locust Nathanael West 1939 American English
67 A Farewell to Arms Ernest Hemingway 1929 American English
435 Scoop Evelyn Waugh 1938 British English
169 The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie Muriel Spark 1961 British, Scottish English
257 Finnegans Wake James Joyce 1939 Irish English
247 Kim Rudyard Kipling 1901 British English
289 A Room With a View E. M. Forster 1908 British English
141 Brideshead Revisited Evelyn Waugh 1945 British English
280 The Adventures of Augie March Saul Bellow 1953 American English
658 Angle of Repose Wallace Stegner 1971 American English
732 A Bend in the River V. S. Naipaul 1979 Trinidadian English
569 The Death of the Heart Elizabeth Bowen 1938 British, Irish English
137 Lord Jim Joseph Conrad 1900 British English
406 Ragtime E. L. Doctorow 1975 American English
390 The Old Wives' Tale Arnold Bennett 1908 British English
230 The Call of the Wild Jack London 1903 American English
734 Loving Henry Green 1945 British English
64 Midnight's Children Salman Rushdie 1981 Indian English
928 Tobacco Road Erskine Caldwell 1932 American English
2302 Ironweed William Kennedy 1983 American English
442 The Magus John Fowles 1965 British English
158 Wide Sargasso Sea Jean Rhys 1966 British English
902 Under the Net Iris Murdoch 1954 British English
803 Sophie's Choice William Styron 1979 American English
619 The Sheltering Sky Paul Bowles 1949 American English
469 The Postman Always Rings Twice James M. Cain 1934 American English
6887 The Ginger Man J. P. Donleavy 1955 Irish English
1230 The Magnificent Ambersons Booth Tarkington 1918 American English