100 Books of Classical and Modern Foreign Literature

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

About this list

The Union of Russian Writers, 100 Books

"100 books of classical and modern foreign literature" according to the Union of Writers of Russia, published on January 23, 2013.

The creators of the list are confident that Russian literature is a universal cultural heritage, but its significance can only be understood in unity with world literature, and that this list, presented to the public within the framework of the presidential project, will help strengthen spirituality and morality among Russian youth, and will also help revive traditions family reading and will become a notable event in the cultural life of modern Russia.

The Union of Russian Writers is a non-governmental organization uniting Russian and writers (novelists, poets, essayists, etc.). It was established in 1991, when on the basis of the Union of Soviet Writers three independent associations were formed: the Writers' Union of Russia (the "patriotic" orientation), the Writers' Union of Moscow, and the Union of Russian Writers ("democratic" union). The Union of Russian Writers includes more than 3,500 writers from Russia and former USSR, in 58 regional organizations.

Who voted and how many people voted?
At that moment the Union’s affairs were run by its elected Правление (Board/Presidium), ca. 40-45 writers (roster published after the XIV Congress in Oct 2013). In the Union’s statute this Board takes such decisions by simple majority. There is no indication that a wider membership vote (≈ 3500 writers) or an external public poll was held. I am going to go with 40 writers helped make the list

This list was originally published in 2013 and was added to this site about 2 years ago.

View: List Grid Table
Rank Book Authors Year Country Language Actions
30 The Divine Comedy Dante Alighieri 1308 Italian Italian
145 Gargantua and Pantagruel Francois Rabelais 1532 French French
8 Don Quixote Miguel de Cervantes 1605 Spanish Spanish
984 Tartuffe Molière 1664 French French
2891 The Traveller Oliver Goldsmith 1764 Irish English
1782 The Wild Ass's Skin Honoré de Balzac 1831 French French
378 Melmoth the Wanderer Charles Robert Maturin 1820 British English
69 Robinson Crusoe Daniel Defoe 1719 British English
2 In Search of Lost Time Marcel Proust 1913 French French
119 The Three Musketeers Alexandre Dumas 1844 French French
277 The Pickwick Papers Charles Dickens 1836 British English
40 Les Misérables Victor Hugo 1862 French French
96 Faust Johann Wolfgang von Goethe 1808 German German
42 The Red and the Black Stendhal 1830 French French
297 Ivanhoe Sir Walter Scott 1819 British English
71 Hamlet William Shakespeare 1600 British English
507 The Last of the Mohicans James Fenimore Cooper 1826 American English
10421 Internal Ecology Morals For Xxi Century Dario Salas Sommer 2007 Chilean Spanish
3441 In Search Of The Castaways Jules Verne 1867 French French
243 The Adventures of Tom Sawyer Mark Twain 1876 American English
6224 Boule De Suif Guy de Maupassant 1880 French French
89 The Picture of Dorian Gray Oscar Wilde 1890 Irish English
222 Thus Spake Zarathustra Friedrich Nietzsche 1883 German German
4 The Catcher in the Rye J. D. Salinger 1951 American English
115 Treasure Island Robert Louis Stevenson 1883 British English
385 Quo Vadis Henryk Sienkiewicz 1895 Polish Polish
1499 Three Comrades Erich Maria Remarque 1936 German German
6589 The Works Of Johannes Bobrowski Johannes Bobrowski 1969 German German
2200 Death Of A Hero Richard Aldington 1929 British English
6308 Hatter's Castle A. J. Cronin 1931 British English
4625 Blue Bird Maurice Maeterlinck 1908 Belgian French
935 Martin Eden Jack London 1909 American English
263 The Tartar Steppe Dino Buzzati 1940 Italian Italian
6335 Spartacus Raffaello Giovagnoli 1874 Italian Italian
246 The Forsyte Saga John Galsworthy 1906 British English
6367 Cabbage And Kings O. Henry 1904 American English
159 The Good Soldier Švejk Jaroslav Hašek 1921 Czech Czech
6401 The Last Inch James Aldridge 1958 British English
1470 Wind, Sand and Stars Antoine de Saint-Exupéry 1939 French French
498 The Immoralist André Gide 1902 French French
52 Lord of the Flies William Golding 1954 British English
372 War of the Worlds H. G. Wells 1898 British English
2491 The Moon And Sixpence W. Somerset Maugham 1919 British English
6432 La Jeune Parque Paul Valéry 1917 French French
696 King Solomon's Mines H. Rider Haggard 1885 British English
1255 Jonathan Livingston Seagull Richard Bach 1970 American English
1092 Snow Country Yasunari Kawabata 1937 Japanese Japanese
1717 The Clown Heinrich Böll 1963 German German
168 Tender Is the Night F. Scott Fitzgerald 1934 American English
1785 The Murders in the Rue Morgue Edgar Allan Poe 1841 American English
356 Germinal Émile Zola 1885 French French
1673 Penguin Island Anatole France 1908 French French
954 Pygmalion George Bernard Shaw 1913 British English
81 The Castle Franz Kafka 1926 Czech German
348 The Glass Bead Game Hermann Hesse 1943 German German
6480 The Stoic Theodore Dreiser 1947 American English
4391 Crabwalk Günter Grass 2002 German German
1187 Jean Christophe Romain Rolland 1904 French French
6488 This Is The Hour Lion Feuchtwanger 1951 German German
67 A Farewell to Arms Ernest Hemingway 1929 American English
212 Darkness at Noon Arthur Koestler 1940 British German
5030 Lust For Life Irving Stone 1934 American English
76 The Plague Albert Camus 1947 French French
245 Nausea Jean Paul Sartre 1938 French French
99 The Unbearable Lightness of Being Milan Kundera 1984 Czech Czech
1310 Our Man In Havana Graham Greene 1958 British English
233 The Spy Who Came in From the Cold John le Carré 1963 British English
6524 Le Coq Et L'arlequin Jean Cocteau 1918 French French
6 Nineteen Eighty Four George Orwell 1949 British English
10295 April Fool's Day Josip Novakovich 2004 Croatian English
150 Fahrenheit 451 Ray Bradbury 1953 American English
5095 Sartoris William Faulkner 1929 American English
891 Golem Gustav Meyrink 1915 Austrian German
657 The Elementary Particles Michel Houellebecq 1998 French French
822 I, Robot Isaac Asimov 1950 American English
255 Disgrace J. M. Coetzee 1999 South African English
288 Independent People Halldor Laxness 1934 Icelandic Icelandic
17 The Lord Of The Rings J. R. R. Tolkien 1959 English English
3857 The Silent World Jacques Cousteau 1953 French French
7 Moby-Dick Herman Melville 1851 American English
680 The Stories of John Cheever John Cheever 1978 American English
859 The Palm-Wine Drinkard Amos Tutola 1952 Nigerian English
154 One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest Ken Kesey 1962 American English
6850 A Little Sun In Cold Water Francoise Sagan 1969 French French
174 Rabbit, Run John Updike 1960 American English
6547 The Boarded Window Ambrose Bierce 1891 American English
1691 Cat Country Lao She 1932 Chinese Chinese
1505 The Famished Road Ben Okri 1991 Nigerian English
5111 The Winter Of Our Discontent John Steinbeck 1961 American English
5300 The Museum Of Innocence Orhan Pamuk 2008 Turkish Turkish
5526 Not After Midnight Daphne du Maurier 1971 British English
1 Ulysses James Joyce 1922 Irish English
151 Molloy Samuel Beckett 1951 Irish French
6555 Alchemy Of The Word Jan Parandowski 1951 Polish Polish
114 The Name of the Rose Umberto Eco 1980 Italian Italian
135 Doctor Faustus Thomas Mann 1947 German German
6557 King Matt The First Janusz Korczak 1923 Polish Polish
5104 Abel Sánchez Miguel de Unamuno 1917 Spanish Spanish
6597 Flood Robert Penn Warren 1964 American Unknown
2631 The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui Bertolt Brecht 1941 German German