Great Books of the Western World

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

About this list

Great Books Foundation, 130 Books

Great Books of the Western World is a series of books originally published in the United States in 1952 by Encyclopædia Britannica Inc. to present the western canon in a single package of 54 volume...

This list was originally published in 1990 and was added to this site over 12 years ago.

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Rank Book Authors Year Country Language Actions
101 Waiting for Godot Samuel Beckett 1953 Irish French
55 Animal Farm George Orwell 1945 British English
15897 The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber Ernest Hemingway 1936 American English
1084 Mother Courage and Her Children Bertolt Brecht 1941 German German
4284 A Rose for Emily William Faulkner 1930 American English
3 The Great Gatsby F. Scott Fitzgerald 1925 American English
2092 Mourning Becomes Electra Eugene O'Neill 1931 American English
15897 The Prussian Officer D. H. Lawrence 1914 British English
66 The Metamorphosis Franz Kafka 1915 Czech German
27 To the Lighthouse Virginia Woolf 1927 British English
88 A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man James Joyce 1916 Irish English
240 Death in Venice Thomas Mann 1912 German German
1857 A Lost Lady Willa Cather 1923 American English
2 In Search of Lost Time Marcel Proust 1913 French French
1386 Six Characters in Search of an Author Luigi Pirandello 1921 Italian Italian
1035 Uncle Vanya Anton Chekhov 1897 Russian Russian
31 Heart of Darkness Joseph Conrad 1899 British English
4666 Saint Joan George Bernard Shaw 1923 Irish English
14786 The Beast in the Jungle Henry James 1903 American English
17117 Structural Anthropology Claude Lévi-Strauss 1958 French French
537 The Waning of the Middle Ages Johan Huizinga 1919 Dutch Dutch
17117 Essays in Sociology Max Weber 1946 German German
1141 The Golden Bough James George Frazer 1890 British English
319 The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money John Maynard Keynes 1936 British English
15897 The Acquisitive Society R. H. Tawney 1920 British English
934 The Theory of the Leisure Class Thorstein Veblen 1899 American English
17117 The Nature of Life C. H. Waddington 1961 British English
14787 Genetics and the Origin of Species Theodosius Dobzhansky 1937 American English
3283 What Is Life? Erwin Schrödinger 1944 Austrian English
17117 Physics and Philosophy Werner Heisenberg 1958 German German
2418 A Mathematician's Apology G. H. Hardy 1940 British English
17117 Discussion with Einstein on Epistemology Niels Bohr 1949 Danish Unknown
15897 Atomic Theory and the Description of Nature Niels Bohr 1932 Danish English
15897 The Expanding Universe Arthur Eddington 1933 British English
315 Relativity Albert Einstein 1916 German German
15897 An Introduction to Mathematics Alfred North Whitehead 1911 British English
4863 Scientific Autobiography and Other Papers Max Planck 1922 German German
15897 Science and Hypothesis Henri Poincaré 1902 French French
15897 The Word of God and the Word of Man Karl Barth 1928 Swiss German
438 Philosophical Investigations Ludwig Wittgenstein 1953 Austrian German
14888 What Is Metaphysics? Martin Heidegger 1929 German German
1803 The Problems of Philosophy Bertrand Russell 1912 British English
15897 Science and the Modern World Alfred North Whitehead 1925 British English
15897 Experience and Education John Dewey 1938 American English
15897 An Introduction to Metaphysics Henri Bergson 1903 French French
1721 Pragmatism William James 1907 American English
4788 The Master Builder Henrik Ibsen 1892 Norwegian Norwegian
2274 Hedda Gabler Henrik Ibsen 1890 Norwegian Norwegian
14822 The Wild Duck Henrik Ibsen 1884 Norwegian Norwegian
424 A Doll's House Henrik Ibsen 1879 Norwegian Norwegian
22 Adventures of Huckleberry Finn Mark Twain 1884 American English
1464 Little Dorrit Charles Dickens 1855 British English
28 Middlemarch George Eliot 1871 British English
83 Emma Jane Austen 1815 British English
533 Cousin Bette Honoré de Balzac 1846 French French
229 Democracy in America Alexis de Tocqueville 1835 French French
3108 Beyond Good and Evil Friedrich Nietzsche 1886 German German
14784 Fear and Trembling Soren Kierkegaard 1843 Danish Danish
939 Rameau's Nephew Denis Diderot 1761 French French
80 Candide Voltaire 1759 French French
1177 Phèdre Jean Racine 1677 French French
3291 Bérénice Jean Racine 1670 French French
1594 The Imaginary Invalid Molière 1673 French French
3585 The Would-Be Gentleman Molière 1670 French French
3806 The Miser Molière 1668 French French
2154 Don Juan Molière 1665 French French
984 Tartuffe Molière 1664 French French
5860 The School for Wives Molière 1662 French French
654 The Praise of Folly Erasmus 1511 Dutch Latin
3497 Institutes of the Christian Religion John Calvin 1536 French Latin
844 Civilization and Its Discontents Sigmund Freud 1930 Austrian German
15897 Thoughts for the Times on War and Death Sigmund Freud 1915 Austrian German
15897 Inhibitions, Symptoms, and Anxiety Sigmund Freud 1926 Austrian German
1601 The Ego and the Id Sigmund Freud 1923 Austrian German
14861 Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego Sigmund Freud 1921 Austrian German
2524 Beyond the Pleasure Principle Sigmund Freud 1920 Austrian German
1212 A General Introduction to Psycho-Analysis Sigmund Freud 1920 Austrian German
14787 The Unconscious Sigmund Freud 1915 Austrian German
15897 Repression Sigmund Freud 1915 Austrian German
15897 Instincts and Their Vicissitudes Sigmund Freud 1915 Austrian German
15897 On Narcissism Sigmund Freud 1914 Austrian German
177 The Interpretation of Dreams Sigmund Freud 1899 Austrian German
15897 Observations on "Wild" Psycho-Analysis Sigmund Freud 1910 Austrian German
15897 The Future Prospects of Psycho-Analytic Therapy Sigmund Freud 1910 Austrian German
15897 Selected Papers on Hysteria Sigmund Freud 1895 Austrian German
15897 The Origin and Development of Psycho-Analysis Sigmund Freud 1910 Austrian German
1342 The Principles of Psychology William James 1890 American English
37 The Iliad Homer -750 Greek Ancient greek
24 The Odyssey Homer -740 Greek Ancient greek
1351 The Suppliants Aeschylus -463 Greek Ancient greek
613 The Persians Aeschylus -471 Greek Ancient greek
1350 Seven Against Thebes Aeschylus -467 Greek Ancient greek
1256 Prometheus Bound Aeschylus -455 Greek Ancient greek
285 Oresteia Aeschylus -458 Greek Ancient greek
383 Oedipus at Colonus Sophocles -401 Greek Ancient greek
106 Oedipus the King Sophocles -429 Greek Ancient greek
125 Antigone Sophocles -441 Greek Ancient greek
1124 Ajax Sophocles -440 Greek Ancient greek
986 Electra Sophocles -409 Greek Ancient greek
1125 Philoctetes Sophocles -409 Greek Ancient greek
1126 Women of Trachis Sophocles -450 Greek Ancient greek
596 The History of the Peloponnesian War Thucydides -410 Greek Ancient greek
624 The Histories of Herodotus Herodotus -450 Greek Ancient greek
1449 Corpus Aristotelicum Aristotle -322 Greek Greek
13348 Hippocratic Corpus Hippocrates -429 Greek Greek
388 The Complete Works of Plato Plato -387 Greek Ancient greek
220 The Republic Plato -379 Greek Ancient greek
1843 Euclid's Elements Euclid -300 Greek Ancient greek
405 De Rerum Natura Lucretius 55 Roman Latin
313 Meditations Marcus Aurelius 161 Roman Greek
70 The Aeneid Virgil -19 Roman Latin
334 Parallel Lives Plutarch 100 Greek Greek
1180 Annals Cornelius Tacitus 109 Roman Latin
14719 Almagest Ptolemy 150 Greek Greek
2030 On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres Nicolaus Copernicus 1543 Polish Latin
15897 Epitome of Copernican Astronomy Johannes Kepler 1618 German Latin
14787 The Harmony of the Worlds Johannes Kepler 1619 German Latin
14110 Enneads Plotinus -270 Greek Greek
133 Confessions Augustine 397 Roman Latin
653 Summa Theologica Thomas Aquinas 1274 Italian Latin