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.

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Rank Book Authors Year Country Language Actions
7216 Major Critical Essays George Bernard Shaw 1930 Irish English
1788 Heartbreak House George Bernard Shaw 1919 British English
954 Pygmalion George Bernard Shaw 1913 British English
4667 Saint Joan George Bernard Shaw 1923 Irish English
5853 Major Barbara George Bernard Shaw 1905 British English
7216 Back To Methuselah George Bernard Shaw 1921 Irish English
3885 Collected Plays John Millington Synge 1935 Irish English
1781 Juno And The Paycock Sean O'Casey 1924 Irish English
5896 The Plough And The Stars Sean O'Casey 1926 Irish English
7216 The Shadow Of A Gunman Sean O'Casey 1923 Irish English
5888 House With The Green Shutters George Douglas Brown 1901 Scottish English
7216 The Well Beloved Thomas Hardy 1897 British English
1867 The Woodlanders Thomas Hardy 1887 British English
739 The Return of the Native Thomas Hardy 1878 British English
358 The Mayor of Casterbridge Thomas Hardy 1886 British English
674 Far from the Madding Crowd Thomas Hardy 1874 British English
117 Tess of the d'Urbervilles Thomas Hardy 1891 British English
287 Jude the Obscure Thomas Hardy 1895 British English
752 Poems Of Thomas Hardy Thomas Hardy 1898 British English
247 Kim Rudyard Kipling 1901 British English
7216 Collected Stories Rudyard Kipling 1941 British English
7216 Puck Of Pook's Hill Rudyard Kipling 1906 British English
7216 Complete Verse Rudyard Kipling 1940 British English
1815 The Collected Poems of A. E. Housman A. E. Housman 1939 British English
963 Zuleika Dobson Max Beerbohm 1911 British English
4893 Seven Men And Two Others Max Beerbohm 1919 British English
137 Lord Jim Joseph Conrad 1900 British English
470 The Secret Agent Joseph Conrad 1907 British English
283 Nostromo Joseph Conrad 1904 British English
1856 Under Western Eyes Joseph Conrad 1911 British English
1795 Victory Joseph Conrad 1915 British English
7820 Five Novels Ronald Firbank 1949 British English
382 Parade's End Ford Madox Ford 1924 British English
85 The Good Soldier Ford Madox Ford 1915 British English
2212 Collected Stories W. Somerset Maugham 1951 British English
2491 The Moon And Sixpence W. Somerset Maugham 1919 British English
7216 Wolf Solent John Cowper Powys 1929 British English
768 A Glastonbury Romance John Cowper Powys 1932 British English
2102 Collected Short Stories of Saki Saki 1930 British English
5905 The First Men In The Moon H. G. Wells 1901 British English
1973 The Invisible Man H. G. Wells 1897 British English
294 The Time Machine H. G. Wells 1895 British English
459 The Island of Doctor Moreau H. G. Wells 1896 British English
372 War of the Worlds H. G. Wells 1898 British English
769 A Voyage To Arcturus David Lindsay 1920 Scottish English
390 The Old Wives' Tale Arnold Bennett 1908 British English
7216 Collected Poems Walter de la Mare 1920 British English
4642 Memoirs Of A Midget Walter de la Mare 1921 British English
8675 Collected Poems Wilfred Owen 1963 British English
7216 Collected Poems Isaac Rosenberg 1937 British English
1100 Collected Poems Of Edward Thomas Edward Thomas 1920 British English
7772 Collected Poems Robert Graves 1948 British English
7656 King Jesus Robert Graves 1946 British English
8473 Collected Poems Edwin Muir 1960 Scottish English
2031 In Parenthesis David Jones 1937 British English
7967 The Anathemata David Jones 1952 British English
246 The Forsyte Saga John Galsworthy 1906 British English
197 Howards End E. M. Forster 1910 British English
78 A Passage to India E. M. Forster 1924 British English
8991 Collected Stories Frank O'Connor 1981 Irish English
7216 Poems Of D. H. Lawrence D. H. Lawrence 1913 British English
7216 Studies In Classic American Literature D. H. Lawrence 1923 British English
4611 Complete Short Stories D. H. Lawrence 1950 British English
144 Sons and Lovers D. H. Lawrence 1913 British English
487 Rainbow D.H. Lawrence 1915 British English
227 Women in Love D. H. Lawrence 1920 British English
32 Mrs. Dalloway Virginia Woolf 1925 British English
27 To the Lighthouse Virginia Woolf 1927 British English
95 Orlando Virginia Woolf 1928 British English
330 Dubliners James Joyce 1914 Irish English
88 A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man James Joyce 1916 Irish English
1 Ulysses James Joyce 1922 Irish English
257 Finnegans Wake James Joyce 1939 Irish English
1026 Murphy Samuel Beckett 1938 Irish English
2063 Watt Samuel Beckett 1953 Irish English
8178 Three Novels Samuel Beckett 1955 Irish French
6603 Collected Stories Elizabeth Bowen 1980 Irish English
663 The Siege of Krishnapur J. G. Farrell 1973 British English
6279 Nothing Henry Green 1950 British English
734 Loving Henry Green 1945 British English
3629 Party Going Henry Green 1939 British English
467 A Handful of Dust Evelyn Waugh 1934 British English
435 Scoop Evelyn Waugh 1938 British English
1427 Vile Bodies Evelyn Waugh 1930 British English
2373 Put Out More Flags Evelyn Waugh 1942 British English
7085 Nothing Like the Sun Anthony Burgess 1964 British English
7941 The Book Of Ebenezer Le Page G. B. Edwards 1981 British English
11026 The Good Apprentice Iris Murdoch 1985 British English
9184 Bruno's Dream Iris Murdoch 1969 British English
219 Brighton Rock Graham Greene 1938 British English
1107 The Heart of the Matter Graham Greene 1948 British English
187 The Power and the Glory Graham Greene 1940 British English
2019 The Berlin Stories Christopher Isherwood 1945 British English
2373 South Wind Norman Douglas 1917 British English
6704 Collected essays Aldous Huxley 1958 British English
5892 Antic Hay Aldous Huxley 1923 British English
1629 Point Counter Point Aldous Huxley 1928 British English
50 Brave New World Aldous Huxley 1932 British English
226 The Alexandria Quartet Lawrence Durrell 1957 British English
2011 Pincher Martin William Golding 1956 British English
61 The Golden Notebook Doris May Lessing 1962 British English
525 Gormenghast Mervyn Peake 1950 British English
1106 The Passion Jeanette Winterson 1987 British English
618 Poems of W. H. Auden W. H. Auden 1930 British English
8607 The Dyer's Hand W. H. Auden 1962 British English
8607 Poems Of Roy Fuller Roy Fuller 1962 British English
10136 Poems Of Gavin Ewart Gavin Ewart 1978 British English
9115 Poems Of Basil Bunting Basil Bunting 1968 British English
12656 Poems Of William Empson William Empson 2007 British English
8542 Milton's God William Empson 1961 British English
7216 Some Versions Of Pastoral William Empson 1935 British English
7216 The Wheel Of Fire George Wilson Knight 1930 British English
7216 The Burning Oracle George Wilson Knight 1939 British Unknown
12656 Poems Of R. S. Thomas R. S. Thomas 2003 British English
9008 The Sense Of An Ending Frank Kermode 1967 British English
9833 Poems Of Stevie Smith Stevie Smith 1975 British English
10260 Poems Of F. T. Prince F. T. Prince 1979 British English
4684 The Complete Poems Philip Larkin 1988 British English
9645 Poems Of Donald Davie David Donald 1973 British Unknown
12656 Collected Poems Geoffrey Hill 2013 British English