Harold Bloom's The Western Canon

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

About this list

The Western Canon (Book) by Harold Bloom, 1498 Books

The Western Canon: The Books and School of the Ages is a 1994 book about Western literature by the American literary critic Harold Bloom, in which the author defends the concept of the Western canon by discussing 26 writers whom he sees as central to the canon.
The Western Canon includes four appendices listing works that Bloom at the time considered canonical, stretching from the earliest scriptures to Tony Kushner's Angels in America. Bloom later disowned the list, saying that it was written at his editor's insistence and distracted from the book's intention.
In adding this list, I did expand certain titles into multiple books, and combined some, since some are single short stories. This was a difficult list to add since there are so many books.

This list was originally published in 1994 and was added to this site over 2 years ago.

View: List Grid Table
Rank Book Authors Year Country Language Actions
481 The Lusiad Luís Vaz Camões 1572 Portuguese Portuguese
7215 Poetry Antònio Ferreira 1558 Portuguese Portuguese
2026 Stanzas about the Death of his Father Jorge Manrique 1476 Spanish Spanish
401 Celestina Or The Tragic-Comedy Of Calisto And Melibea Fernando de Rojas 1499 Spanish Spanish
544 The Life of Lazarillo de Tormes Unknown 1554 Spanish Spanish
7215 Visions Francisco de Quevedo 1627 Spanish Spanish
7215 Satirical Letter Of Censure Francisco de Quevedo 1601 Spanish Spanish
7215 Poems Of Fray Luis De León Fray Luis de León 1582 Spanish Spanish
7215 The Poems Of St. John Of The Cross St. John of the Cross 1578 Spanish Spanish
7215 Sonnets Luis de Góngora 1601 Spanish Spanish
860 The Solitudes Luis de Góngora 1613 Spanish Spanish
8 Don Quixote Miguel de Cervantes 1605 Spanish Spanish
2210 Exemplary Stories Miguel de Cervantes 1613 Spanish Spanish
7215 La Dorotea Lope de Vega 1632 Spanish Spanish
5831 Fuente Ovejuna Lope de Vega 1619 Spanish Spanish
7215 Lost In A Mirror Lope de Vega 1600 Spanish Unknown
7215 The Knight Of Olmedo Lope de Vega 1620 Spanish Spanish
4953 The Trickster of Seville and His Guest of Stone Tirso de Molina 1630 Spanish Spanish
529 Life Is a Dream Pedro Calderón de la Barca 1635 Spanish Spanish
7215 The Mayor Of Zalamea Pedro Calderón de la Barca 1636 Spanish Spanish
7215 The Mighty Magician Pedro Calderón de la Barca 1637 Spanish Spanish
7215 The Doctor Of His Own Honor Pedro Calderón de la Barca 1635 Spanish Spanish
5392 Poems Of Juana Inés De La Cruz Juana Inés de la Cruz 1689 Mexican Spanish
110 The Canterbury Tales Geoffrey Chaucer 1400 British Middle english
1555 Troilus And Criseyde Geoffrey Chaucer 1385 British Middle english
548 Le Morte d'Arthur Thomas Malory 1485 British Middle english
5862 The Poems Of William Dunbar William Dunbar 1501 Scottish Middle scots
7215 The Complete English Poems John Skelton 1500 British English
881 Utopia Thomas More 1516 British Latin
10136 Sir Thomas Wyatt Thomas Wyatt 1978 British English
7215 Poems Of Henry Howard Henry Howard 1557 British English
7215 The Countess Of Pembroke's Arcadia Philip Sidney 1590 British English
7215 Astrophel And Stella Philip Sidney 1591 British English
7215 An Apology For Poetry Philip Sidney 1595 British English
7215 Poems Of Lord Brooke Fulke Greville Lord Brooke Fulke Greville 1601 British English
1284 The Faerie Queene Edmund Spenser 1590 British English
7215 The Poetical Works Of Edmund Spenser Edmund Spenser 1590 British English
7215 The Poems Of Sir Walter Raleigh Walter Ralegh 1600 British English
5392 Complete Plays And Poems Christopher Marlowe 1587 British English
7215 Poems Of Michael Drayton Michael Drayton 1605 British English
7215 The Complete Works In Verse And Prose Of Samuel Daniel Samuel Daniel 1601 British English
1599 The Unfortunate Traveller Thomas Nashe 1594 British English
7215 The Spanish Tragedy Thomas Kyd 1587 British English
129 First Folio William Shakespeare 1623 British English
7215 The Works Of Thomas Campion Thomas Campion 1909 British English
1239 The Complete Poetry and Selected Prose of John Donne John Donne 1952 British English
5392 Devotions upon Emergent Occasions John Donne 1624 British English
7215 Poems, Plays, And Masques Ben Jonson 1601 British English
5392 New Atlantis Francis Bacon 1627 British English
2798 The Anatomy of Melancholy Robert Burton 1621 British English
3637 Religio Medici Sir Thomas Browne 1643 British English
3637 Hydriotaphia, Urn Burial Sir Thomas Browne 1658 British English
7215 The Garden Of Cyrus Sir Thomas Browne 1658 British English
345 Leviathan Thomas Hobbes 1651 British English
7215 The Poetical Works Of Robert Herrick Robert Herrick 1648 British English
7215 The Poems Of Thomas Carew Thomas Carew 1640 British English
7215 The Poems Of Richard Lovelace Richard Lovelace 1649 British English
3581 Selected Poems Andrew Marvell 1681 British English
3605 The Temple George Herbert 1633 British English
5862 Centuries, Poems, And Thanksgivings Thomas Traherne 1903 British English
7215 Silex Scintillans, Etc Henry Vaughan 1650 British English
2403 The Poems Of John Wilmot, Earl Of Rochester John Wilmot 1680 British English
7215 The Complete Works Of Richard Crashaw Richard Crashaw 1652 British English
7215 Plays Francis Beaumont 1607 British English
7215 Comedies, Tragedies, Poems George Chapman 1600 British English
7215 'Tis Pity She's A Whore John Ford 1633 British English
5814 The Malcontent John Marston 1604 British English
1249 The White Devil John Webster 1612 British English
4481 The Duchess Of Malfi John Webster 1623 British English
5862 The Changeling Thomas, William Rowley Middleton 1622 British English
7215 The Revenger's Tragedy Cyril Tourneur 1607 British English
7215 A New Way To Pay Old Debts Philip Massinger 1633 British English
551 Pilgrim's Progress John Bunyan 1678 British English
1326 The Compleat Angler Izaak Walton 1653 British English
127 Paradise Lost John Milton 1667 British English
5837 Paradise Regained John Milton 1671 British English
5392 Lycidas, Comus, And The Minor Poems John Milton 1637 British English
7215 Samson Agonistes John Milton 1671 British English
3637 Areopagitica John Milton 1644 British English
1871 Brief Lives John Aubrey 1898 British English
5392 Holy Dying Jeremy Taylor 1651 British English
7215 Hudibras Samuel Butler (poet) 1663 British English
3637 The Works Of John Dryden John Dryden 1808 British English
5849 Venice Preserv'd Thomas Otway 1682 British English
4786 The Way Of The World William Congreve 1700 British English
5850 Love For Love William Congreve 1695 British English
1742 A Tale Of A Tub Jonathan Swift 1704 British English
65 Gulliver's Travels Jonathan Swift 1726 British English
7215 The Prose Works Of Jonathan Swift Jonathan Swift 1701 Irish English
7215 Poems Of Jonathan Swift Jonathan Swift 1701 Irish English
7215 The Man Of Mode George Etherege 1676 British English
5392 Poems Of Alexander Pope Alexander Pope 1711 British English
5901 The Beggar's Opera John Gay 1728 British English
300 The Life of Samuel Johnson James Boswell 1791 British English
7215 The Journals Of James Boswell James Boswell 1791 British English
7215 The Works Of Samuel Johnson Samuel Johnson 1787 British English
830 The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire Edward Gibbon 1776 British English
7215 A Philosophical Enquiry Into...The Sublime And Beautiful Edmund Burke 1757 British English
639 Reflections on the Revolution in France Edmund Burke 1790 British English
7215 An Essay On The Dramatic Character Of Sir John Falstaff Maurice Morgann 1777 British English
7215 The Poems Of William Collins William Collins 1746 British English
7215 The Beaux' Strategem George Farquhar 1707 British English
5851 The Recruiting Officer George Farquhar 1706 Irish English
5903 The Country Wife William Wycherley 1675 British English
7215 The Plain Dealer William Wycherley 1676 British English
7215 Jubilate Agno Christopher Smart 1939 British English
7215 A Song To David Christopher Smart 1763 British English
352 The Vicar of Wakefield Oliver Goldsmith 1766 British English
3921 She Stoops to Conquer Oliver Goldsmith 1773 British English
2891 The Traveller Oliver Goldsmith 1764 Irish English
7215 The Deserted Village Oliver Goldsmith 1770 Irish English
4090 The School For Scandal Richard Brinsley Sheridan 1777 British English
3637 The Rivals Richard Brinsley Sheridan 1775 Irish English
7215 Poems Of William Cowper William Cowper 1782 British English
7215 Poems Of George Crabbe George Crabbe 1807 British English
351 Moll Flanders Daniel Defoe 1722 British English
69 Robinson Crusoe Daniel Defoe 1719 British English
2014 A Journal Of The Plague Year Daniel Defoe 1722 British English
332 Clarissa Samuel Richardson 1748 British English
503 Pamela Samuel Richardson 1740 British English