One Hundred Best American Novels, 1770 to 1985

This is one of the 743 lists we use to generate our main The Greatest Books list.

About this list

The American Scholar, 100 Books

This list is by David Handlin, posted by The American Scholar, the quarterly literary magazine of the Phi Beta Kappa Society, established as far back as 1932.

David Handlin is an American architect and architectural historian. He presents it as 'A reading enthusiast’s list' but reading the intro
suggests a fair amount of scholarship went into it. It is what you might call a respectable list of the 100 Best American Novels, 1770–1985.

This list was originally published in 2014 and was added to this site about 2 years ago.

View: List Grid Table
Rank Book Authors Year Country Language Actions
73 The Scarlet Letter Nathaniel Hawthorne 1850 American English
7 Moby-Dick Herman Melville 1851 American English
22 Adventures of Huckleberry Finn Mark Twain 1884 American English
560 The Red Badge of Courage Stephen Crane 1895 American English
235 The Ambassadors Henry James 1903 American English
3 The Great Gatsby F. Scott Fitzgerald 1925 American English
43 Absalom, Absalom! William Faulkner 1936 American English
117 The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter Carson McCullers 1940 American English
36 Invisible Man Ralph Ellison 1952 American English
198 Blood Meridian Cormac McCarthy 1985 American English
17008 Modern Chivalry Hugh Henry Brackenridge 1792 American English
6492 The Coquette Hannah Webster Foster 1797 American English
871 Wieland Charles Brockden Brown 1798 American English
6492 Hope Leslie; Or, Early Times In The Massachusetts Catharine Maria Sedgwick 1827 American English
2499 The Prairie James Fenimore Cooper 1827 American English
17008 Swallow Barn John Pendleton Kennedy 1832 American English
17008 Sheppard Lee Robert Montgomery Bird 1836 American English
772 The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym Edgar Allan Poe 1838 American English
17008 Some Adventures Of Captain Simon Suggs Johnson Jones Hooper 1845 American English
17008 The Quaker City, Or The Monks Of Monk Hall George Lippard 1845 American English
17008 The Crater, Or Vulcan's Peak James Fenimore Cooper 1847 American English
17008 Redburn Herman Melville 1849 American English
17008 Reveries Of A Bachelor Donald Grant Mitchell 1850 American English
601 The House of the Seven Gables Nathaniel Hawthorne 1851 American English
2068 The Blithedale Romance Nathaniel Hawthorne 1852 American English
184 Uncle Tom's Cabin Harriet Beecher Stowe 1852 American English
1526 The Confidence Man Herman Melville 1857 American English
17008 Miss Ravenel's Conversion From Secession To Loyalty John W. DeForest 1867 American English
93 Little Women Louisa May Alcott 1868 American English
17008 A Fool's Errand, By One Of The Fools Albion Winegar Tourgee 1879 American English
17008 The Grandissimes, A Story Of Creole Life George Washington Cable 1880 American English
75 The Portrait of a Lady Henry James 1881 American English
1031 The Bostonians Henry James 1886 American English
4775 The Princess Casamassima Henry James 1886 British English
3288 Looking Backward, 2000 1887 Edward Bellamy 1888 American English
712 A Connecticut Yankee In King Arthur's Court Mark Twain 1889 American English
17008 A Hazard Of New Fortunes William Dean Howells 1890 American English
14810 Maggie Stephen Crane 1893 American English
17008 The Cliff Dwellers Henry Blake Fuller 1893 American English
2438 Pudd'nhead Wilson Mark Twain 1894 American English
5907 The Damnation Of Theron Ware Harold Frederic 1896 American English
852 Mc Teague Frank Norris 1899 American English
270 The Awakening Kate Chopin 1899 American English
340 Sister Carrie Theodore Dreiser 1900 American English
3003 The Octopus Frank Norris 1901 American English
260 Wings of the Dove Henry James 1902 American English
1440 The Virginian Owen Wister 1902 American English
218 The House of Mirth Edith Wharton 1905 American English
1653 O Pioneers! Willa Cather 1913 American English
1227 The Magnificent Ambersons Booth Tarkington 1918 American English
160 My Antonia Willa Cather 1918 American English
563 Main Street Sinclair Lewis 1920 American English
92 The Age of Innocence Edith Wharton 1920 American English
646 Manhattan Transfer John Dos Passos 1925 American English
63 The Sun Also Rises Ernest Hemingway 1926 American English
643 The Bridge of San Luis Rey Thornton Wilder 1927 American English
4791 Home to Harlem Claude McKay 1928 American English
67 A Farewell to Arms Ernest Hemingway 1929 American English
9 The Sound and the Fury William Faulkner 1929 American English
79 As I Lay Dying William Faulkner 1930 American English
2246 Shadows on the Rock Willa Cather 1931 American English
182 Light in August William Faulkner 1932 American English
17008 Summer In Williamsburg Daniel Fuchs 1934 American English
289 Nightwood Djuna Barnes 1936 American English
185 U.S.A. Trilogy John Dos Passos 1930 American English
68 Their Eyes Were Watching God Zora Neale Hurston 1937 American English
26 The Grapes of Wrath John Steinbeck 1939 American English
346 The Day of the Locust Nathanael West 1939 American English
97 For Whom the Bell Tolls Ernest Hemingway 1940 American English
106 Native Son Richard Wright 1940 American English
595 Farewell, My Lovely Raymond Chandler 1940 American English
17008 Mildred Pierce James M. Cain 1941 American English
149 All the King's Men Robert Penn Warren 1946 American English
429 The Naked and the Dead Norman Mailer 1948 American English
619 The Sheltering Sky Paul Bowles 1949 American English
380 Wise Blood Flannery O'Connor 1952 American English
279 The Adventures of Augie March Saul Bellow 1953 American English
366 Go Tell it on the Mountain James Baldwin 1953 American English
161 The Long Goodbye Raymond Chandler 1953 American English
559 The Recognitions William Gaddis 1955 American English
1151 The Wapshot Chronicle John Cheever 1957 American English
14 Lolita Vladimir Nabokov 1955 American English
2850 The Dharma Bums Jack Kerouac 1958 American English
174 Rabbit, Run John Updike 1960 American English
183 The Moviegoer Walker Percy 1961 American English
33 Catch-22 Joseph Heller 1961 American English
611 Revolutionary Road Richard Yates 1961 American English
71 Pale Fire Vladimir Nabokov 1962 American English
8774 The Reivers William Faulkner 1962 American English
4730 At Play in the Fields of the Lord Peter Matthiessen 1965 American English
1539 The Confessions of Nat Turner William Styron 1967 American English
239 Portnoy's Complaint Philip Roth 1969 American English
306 The Bluest Eye Toni Morrison 1970 American English
657 Angle of Repose Wallace Stegner 1971 American English
2348 Enemies, A Love Story Isaac Bashevis Singer 1972 American Yiddish
255 Gravity's Rainbow Thomas Pynchon 1973 American English
266 Song of Solomon Toni Morrison 1977 American English
330 Housekeeping Marilynne Robinson 1980 American English
892 Neuromancer William Gibson 1984 American, Canadian English
362 White Noise Don DeLillo 1985 American English