The Complete 500: OCLC

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

About this list

OCLC, 495 Books

This list is from OCLC and is a bit different than most lists on this site. OCLC is a global library organization that provides shared technology services, original research, and community programs for its membership and the library community at large. This list is based on how many libraries have a copy of a book on their shelves. Here's their own description:

What makes a novel “great”? At OCLC, we believe literary greatness can be measured by how many libraries have a copy on their shelves.
Yes, libraries offer access to trendy and popular books. But, they don’t keep them on the shelf if they’re not repeatedly requested by their communities over the years. We’ve identified 500 timeless, top novels—those found in thousands of libraries around the world—using WorldCat, the world’s largest database of library materials'.

This list was originally published in 2024 and was added to this site about 2 years ago.

View: List Grid Table
Rank Book Authors Year Country Language Actions
8 Don Quixote Miguel de Cervantes 1605 Spanish Spanish
35 Alice's Adventures in Wonderland Lewis Carroll 1865 British English
22 Adventures of Huckleberry Finn Mark Twain 1884 American English
243 The Adventures of Tom Sawyer Mark Twain 1876 American English
115 Treasure Island Robert Louis Stevenson 1883 British English
13 Pride and Prejudice Jane Austen 1813 British English
15 Wuthering Heights Emily Brontë 1847 British English
29 Jane Eyre Charlotte Brontë 1847 British English
7 Moby-Dick Herman Melville 1851 American English
74 The Scarlet Letter Nathaniel Hawthorne 1850 American English
65 Gulliver's Travels Jonathan Swift 1726 British English
551 Pilgrim's Progress John Bunyan 1678 British English
216 A Christmas Carol Charles Dickens 1843 British English
47 David Copperfield Charles Dickens 1849 British English
188 A Tale of Two Cities Charles Dickens 1859 British English
93 Little Women Louisa May Alcott 1868 American English
38 Great Expectations Charles Dickens 1860 British English
146 The Hobbit J. R. R. Tolkien 1937 British English
39 Frankenstein Mary Shelley 1818 British English
339 The Adventures of Oliver Twist Charles Dickens 1837 British English
184 Uncle Tom's Cabin Harriet Beecher Stowe 1852 American English
11 Crime and Punishment Fyodor Dostoevsky 1866 Russian Russian
20 Madame Bovary Gustave Flaubert 1857 French French
17 The Lord Of The Rings J. R. R. Tolkien 1959 English English
53 Dracula Bram Stoker 1897 British English
119 The Three Musketeers Alexandre Dumas 1844 French French
50 Brave New World Aldous Huxley 1932 British English
12 War and Peace Leo Tolstoy 1869 Russian Russian
16 To Kill a Mockingbird Harper Lee 1960 American English
340 The Wonderful Wizard of Oz L. Frank Baum 1900 American English
40 Les Misérables Victor Hugo 1862 French French
814 The Secret Garden Frances Hodgson Burnett 1911 British English
55 Animal Farm George Orwell 1945 British English
3 The Great Gatsby F. Scott Fitzgerald 1925 American English
44 The Little Prince Antoine de Saint-Exupéry 1943 French French
230 The Call of the Wild Jack London 1903 American English
673 Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea Jules Verne 1870 French French
10 Anna Karenina Leo Tolstoy 1877 Russian Russian
136 The Wind in the Willows Kenneth Grahame 1908 British English
89 The Picture of Dorian Gray Oscar Wilde 1890 Irish English
26 The Grapes of Wrath John Steinbeck 1939 American English
425 Sense and Sensibility Jane Austen 1811 British English
507 The Last of the Mohicans James Fenimore Cooper 1826 American English
117 Tess of the d'Urbervilles Thomas Hardy 1891 British English
236 Harry Potter And The Philosopher's Stone J. K. Rowling 1997 British English
867 Heidi Johanna Spyri 1881 Swiss German
1 Ulysses James Joyce 1922 Irish English
205 The Complete Sherlock Holmes Arthur Conan Doyle 1927 British English
87 The Count of Monte Cristo Alexandre Dumas 1844 French French
54 The Old Man and the Sea Ernest Hemingway 1952 American English
381 The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe C. S. Lewis 1950 British English
366 The Hunchback of Notre-Dame Victor Hugo 1831 French French
684 The Adventures Of Pinocchio Carlo Collodi 1883 Italian Italian
5 One Hundred Years of Solitude Gabriel García Márquez 1967 Colombian Spanish
297 Ivanhoe Sir Walter Scott 1819 British English
552 The Red Badge of Courage Stephen Crane 1895 American English
250 Anne of Green Gables L. M. Montgomery 1908 Canadian English
508 Black Beauty Anna Sewell 1877 British English
303 Peter And Wendy J. M. Barrie 1911 Scottish English
67 A Farewell to Arms Ernest Hemingway 1929 American English
601 The House of the Seven Gables Nathaniel Hawthorne 1851 American English
52 Lord of the Flies William Golding 1954 British English
2620 The Prince and the Pauper Mark Twain 1881 American English
88 A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man James Joyce 1916 Irish English
137 Lord Jim Joseph Conrad 1900 British English
2144 Harry Potter And The Chamber Of Secrets J. K. Rowling 1998 British English
42 The Red and the Black Stendhal 1830 French French
23 The Stranger Albert Camus 1942 French French
1841 Kafka's Other Trial Elias Canetti 1969 Bulgarian German
196 Lady Chatterley's Lover D. H. Lawrence 1928 British English
1243 Kidnapped Robert Louis Stevenson 1886 British English
4 The Catcher in the Rye J. D. Salinger 1951 American English
150 Fahrenheit 451 Ray Bradbury 1953 American English
926 Journey to the Center of the Earth Jules Verne 1864 French French
105 Vanity Fair William Makepeace Thackeray 1847 British English
86 All Quiet on the Western Front Erich Maria Remarque 1928 German German
58 Gone With the Wind Margaret Mitchell 1936 American English
160 My Antonia Willa Cather 1918 American English
170 Of Mice and Men John Steinbeck 1937 American English
352 The Vicar of Wakefield Oliver Goldsmith 1766 British English
712 A Connecticut Yankee In King Arthur's Court Mark Twain 1889 American English
1606 White Fang Jack London 1906 American English
179 Fathers and Sons Ivan Turgenev 1862 Russian Russian
112 Doctor Zhivago Boris Pasternak 1957 Russian Russian
122 Decameron Giovanni Boccaccio 1353 Italian Italian
6 Nineteen Eighty Four George Orwell 1949 British English
183 The Jungle Upton Sinclair 1906 American English
1074 The Da Vinci Code Dan Brown 2003 American English
192 Persuasion Jane Austen 1817 British English
520 Mansfield Park Jane Austen 1814 British English
80 Candide Voltaire 1759 French French
97 For Whom the Bell Tolls Ernest Hemingway 1940 American English
674 Far from the Madding Crowd Thomas Hardy 1874 British English
739 The Return of the Native Thomas Hardy 1878 British English
144 Sons and Lovers D. H. Lawrence 1913 British English
102 Charlotte's Web E. B. White 1952 American English
1846 Swiss Family Robinson Johann David Wyss 1812 Swiss German
121 Bleak House Charles Dickens 1852 British English
228 Father Goriot Honoré de Balzac 1835 French French
881 Utopia Thomas More 1516 British Latin
134 Tom Jones Henry Fielding 1749 British English
1017 Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban J. K. Rowling 1999 British English
247 Kim Rudyard Kipling 1901 British English
9 The Sound and the Fury William Faulkner 1929 American English
1842 Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire J. K. Rowling 2000 British English
414 The Mill on the Floss George Eliot 1860 British English
293 A Wrinkle In Time Madeleine L'Engle 1962 American English
164 The Hound of the Baskervilles Arthur Conan Doyle 1902 British English
372 War of the Worlds H. G. Wells 1898 British English
28 Middlemarch George Eliot 1871 British English
92 The Age of Innocence Edith Wharton 1920 American English
157 The Color Purple Alice Walker 1982 American English
590 Northanger Abbey Jane Austen 1817 British English
193 East of Eden John Steinbeck 1952 American English
41 On the Road Jack Kerouac 1957 American English
33 Catch-22 Joseph Heller 1961 American English
815 Around the World in Eighty Days Jules Verne 1872 French French
1772 Hard Times Charles Dickens 1854 British English
49 Beloved Toni Morrison 1987 American English
32 Mrs. Dalloway Virginia Woolf 1925 British English