The Top 10: The Greatest Books of All Time

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

About this list

The Top 10 (Book), 103 Books

The Top 10 book chosen by 125 top writers from the book "The Top 10" edited by J. Peder Zane.

This list was originally published in 2007 and was added to this site over 12 years ago.

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Rank Book Authors Year Country Language Actions
10 Anna Karenina Leo Tolstoy 1877 Russian Russian
20 Madame Bovary Gustave Flaubert 1857 French French
12 War and Peace Leo Tolstoy 1869 Russian Russian
3 The Great Gatsby F. Scott Fitzgerald 1925 American English
14 Lolita Vladimir Nabokov 1955 American English
28 Middlemarch George Eliot 1871 British English
22 Adventures of Huckleberry Finn Mark Twain 1884 American English
128 The Stories of Anton Chekhov Anton Chekhov 1900 Russian Russian
2 In Search of Lost Time Marcel Proust 1913 French French
71 Hamlet William Shakespeare 1600 British English
7 Moby-Dick Herman Melville 1851 American English
8 Don Quixote Miguel de Cervantes 1605 Spanish Spanish
1 Ulysses James Joyce 1922 Irish English
38 Great Expectations Charles Dickens 1860 British English
5 One Hundred Years of Solitude Gabriel García Márquez 1967 Colombian Spanish
11 Crime and Punishment Fyodor Dostoevsky 1866 Russian Russian
131 King Lear William Shakespeare 1608 British English
24 The Odyssey Homer -740 Greek Ancient greek
27 To the Lighthouse Virginia Woolf 1927 British English
330 Dubliners James Joyce 1914 Irish English
350 The Complete Stories of Flannery O'Connor Flannery O'Connor 1971 American English
13 Pride and Prejudice Jane Austen 1813 British English
18 The Brothers Karamazov Fyodor Dostoevsky 1880 Russian Russian
9 The Sound and the Fury William Faulkner 1929 American English
43 Absalom, Absalom! William Faulkner 1936 American English
83 Emma Jane Austen 1815 British English
30 The Divine Comedy Dante Alighieri 1308 Italian Italian
29 Jane Eyre Charlotte Brontë 1847 British English
51 The Life And Opinions Of Tristram Shandy Laurence Sterne 1759 British English
32 Mrs. Dalloway Virginia Woolf 1925 British English
15 Wuthering Heights Emily Brontë 1847 British English
36 Invisible Man Ralph Ellison 1952 American English
19 The Bible Unknown -1400 Jewish Hebrew, aramaic, greek
72 Pale Fire Vladimir Nabokov 1962 American English
16 To Kill a Mockingbird Harper Lee 1960 American English
121 Bleak House Charles Dickens 1852 British English
26 The Grapes of Wrath John Steinbeck 1939 American English
21 The Trial Franz Kafka 1925 Czech German
110 The Canterbury Tales Geoffrey Chaucer 1400 British Middle english
31 Heart of Darkness Joseph Conrad 1899 British English
73 The Portrait of a Lady Henry James 1881 American English
155 Macbeth William Shakespeare 1606 British English
192 Persuasion Jane Austen 1817 British English
85 The Good Soldier Ford Madox Ford 1915 British English
49 Beloved Toni Morrison 1987 American English
198 Blood Meridian Cormac McCarthy 1985 American English
285 Oresteia Aeschylus -458 Greek Ancient greek
88 A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man James Joyce 1916 Irish English
23 The Stranger Albert Camus 1942 French French
4 The Catcher in the Rye J. D. Salinger 1951 American English
149 All the King's Men Robert Penn Warren 1946 American English
174 Rabbit, Run John Updike 1960 American English
668 Rabbit Redux John Updike 1971 American English
686 Rabbit Is Rich John Updike 1981 American English
784 Rabbit at Rest John Updike 1990 American English
169 The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie Muriel Spark 1961 British, Scottish English
62 The Sun Also Rises Ernest Hemingway 1926 American English
74 The Scarlet Letter Nathaniel Hawthorne 1850 American English
35 Alice's Adventures in Wonderland Lewis Carroll 1865 British English
37 The Iliad Homer -750 Greek Ancient greek
46 One Thousand and One Nights Unknown 800 Multiple Arabic
42 The Red and the Black Stendhal 1830 French French
1579 The Collected Stories of Isaac Babel Isaac Babel 1934 Russian Russian
168 Tender Is the Night F. Scott Fitzgerald 1934 American English
33 Catch-22 Joseph Heller 1961 American English
84 Slaughterhouse-Five Kurt Vonnegut 1969 American English
79 As I Lay Dying William Faulkner 1930 American English
127 Paradise Lost John Milton 1667 British English
680 The Stories of John Cheever John Cheever 1978 American English
70 The Aeneid Virgil -19 Roman Latin
104 Dead Souls Nikolai Gogol 1842 Russian Russian
97 For Whom the Bell Tolls Ernest Hemingway 1940 American English
77 Leaves of Grass Walt Whitman 1855 American English
295 Franz Kafka Franz Kafka 1971 Czech Unknown
25 The Magic Mountain Thomas Mann 1924 German German
311 Winesburg, Ohio Sherwood Anderson 1919 American English
1379 The Collected Stories of Eudora Welty Eudora Welty 1980 American English
387 Our Mutual Friend Charles Dickens 1864 British English
1343 The Hamlet William Faulkner 1940 American English
34 The Master and Margarita Mikhail Bulgakov 1967 Russian Russian
1096 The Transit of Venus Shirley Hazzard 1980 Australian English
539 So Long, See You Tomorrow William Maxwell 1980 American English
1285 Selected Stories of Alice Munro Alice Munro 1996 Canadian English
138 The Charterhouse of Parma Stendhal 1839 French French
122 Decameron Giovanni Boccaccio 1353 Italian Italian
472 The Man Who Loved Children Christina Stead 1940 Australian English
94 Demons Fyodor Dostoevsky 1872 Russian Russian
288 Independent People Halldor Laxness 1934 Icelandic Icelandic
160 My Antonia Willa Cather 1918 American English
382 Parade's End Ford Madox Ford 1924 British English
655 Stories of Ernest Hemingway Ernest Hemingway 1987 American English
3938 Collected Stories Raymond Chandler 1964 American English
117 Tess of the d'Urbervilles Thomas Hardy 1891 British English
105 Vanity Fair William Makepeace Thackeray 1847 British English
533 Cousin Bette Honoré de Balzac 1846 French French
1466 Don Juan Lord Byron 1819 British English
342 Notes from the Underground Fyodor Dostoevsky 1864 Russian Russian
274 The Stand Stephen King 1978 American English
211 The Tempest William Shakespeare 1623 British English
68 Their Eyes Were Watching God Zora Neale Hurston 1937 American English
78 A Passage to India E. M. Forster 1924 British English
80 Candide Voltaire 1759 French French
332 Clarissa Samuel Richardson 1748 British English