The Modern Library's 100 Best Novels: The Readers' List

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

About this list

The Modern Library, 100 Books

The goal of the "100 Best" project was to get people talking about great books. We succeeded beyond our wildest imaginings — more than 400,000 avid readers rushed online to cast votes for their favorite books.

The readers' poll for the best novels published in the English language since 1900 opened on July 20, 1998 and closed on October 20, 1998, with 217,520 votes cast.

This list was originally published in 1998 and was added to this site over 1 year ago.

View: List Grid Table
Rank Book Authors Year Country Language Actions
461 Atlas Shrugged Ayn Rand 1957 American English
434 The Fountainhead Ayn Rand 1943 American English
10495 Battlefield Earth L. Ron Hubbard 1982 American English
17 The Lord Of The Rings J. R. R. Tolkien 1959 English English
16 To Kill a Mockingbird Harper Lee 1960 American English
6 Nineteen Eighty Four George Orwell 1949 British English
7978 Anthem Ayn Rand 1938 American English
7995 We The Living Ayn Rand 1936 American English
12155 The Invaders Plan L. Ron Hubbard 1985 American English
14060 Fear Unknown 2018 Unknown English
1 Ulysses James Joyce 1922 Irish English
33 Catch-22 Joseph Heller 1961 American English
3 The Great Gatsby F. Scott Fitzgerald 1925 American English
100 Dune Frank Herbert 1965 American English
3887 The Moon is a Harsh Mistress Robert A. Heinlein 1966 American English
368 Stranger in a Strange Land Robert A. Heinlein 1961 American English
879 A Town Like Alice Nevil Shute 1950 British English
50 Brave New World Aldous Huxley 1932 British English
4 The Catcher in the Rye J. D. Salinger 1951 American English
55 Animal Farm George Orwell 1945 British English
254 Gravity's Rainbow Thomas Pynchon 1973 American English
26 The Grapes of Wrath John Steinbeck 1939 American English
84 Slaughterhouse-Five Kurt Vonnegut 1969 American English
58 Gone With the Wind Margaret Mitchell 1936 American English
52 Lord of the Flies William Golding 1954 British English
6263 Shane Jack Schaefer 1949 American English
12064 Trustee From The Toolroom Nevil Shute 1982 British English
524 A Prayer for Owen Meany John Irving 1989 American English
274 The Stand Stephen King 1978 American English
567 The French Lieutenant's Woman John Fowles 1969 British English
49 Beloved Toni Morrison 1987 American English
2138 The Worm Ouroboros E. R. Eddison 1922 British English
9 The Sound and the Fury William Faulkner 1929 American English
14 Lolita Vladimir Nabokov 1955 American English
12420 Moonheart Charles de Lint 1984 Canadian English
43 Absalom, Absalom! William Faulkner 1936 American English
292 Of Human Bondage W. Somerset Maugham 1915 British English
362 Wise Blood Flannery O'Connor 1952 American English
63 Under the Volcano Malcolm Lowry 1947 British English
1571 Fifth Business Robertson Davies 1970 Canadian English
14157 Someplace To Be Flying Charles de Lint 1998 Canadian English
41 On the Road Jack Kerouac 1957 American English
31 Heart of Darkness Joseph Conrad 1899 British English
12871 Yarrow Charles de Lint 1986 Canadian English
710 At the Mountains of Madness H. P. Lovecraft 1936 American English
4608 One Lonely Night Mickey Spillane 1951 American English
11353 Memory And Dream Charles de Lint 1994 Canadian English
27 To the Lighthouse Virginia Woolf 1927 British English
182 The Moviegoer Walker Percy 1961 American English
14097 Trader Charles de Lint 1997 Canadian English
190 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Douglas Adams 1979 British English
118 The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter Carson McCullers 1940 American English
132 The Handmaid's Tale Margaret Atwood 1985 Canadian English
198 Blood Meridian Cormac McCarthy 1985 American English
153 A Clockwork Orange Anthony Burgess 1962 British English
7707 On The Beach Nevil Shute 1957 Australian English
88 A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man James Joyce 1916 Irish English
9982 Greenmantle Charles de Lint 1916 Unknown English
2606 Ender's Game Orson Scott Card 1985 American English
13707 The Little Country Charles de Lint 1991 Canadian English
561 The Recognitions William Gaddis 1955 American English
5333 Starship Troopers Robert A. Heinlein 1959 American English
62 The Sun Also Rises Ernest Hemingway 1926 American English
407 The World According to Garp John Irving 1978 American English
1338 Something Wicked This Way Comes Ray Bradbury 1962 American English
215 The Haunting of Hill House Shirley Jackson 1959 American English
79 As I Lay Dying William Faulkner 1930 American English
239 Tropic of Cancer Henry Miller 1934 American English
36 Invisible Man Ralph Ellison 1952 American English
13091 The Wood Wife Terri Windling 1996 American English
442 The Magus John Fowles 1965 British English
7953 The Door Into Summer Robert A. Heinlein 1957 American English
634 Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance Robert M. Pirsig 1974 American English
453 I, Claudius Robert Graves 1934 British English
230 The Call of the Wild Jack London 1903 American English
357 At Swim Two-Birds Flann O'Brien 1939 Irish English
150 Fahrenheit 451 Ray Bradbury 1953 American English
1656 Arrowsmith Sinclair Lewis 1925 American English
224 Watership Down Richard Adams 1972 British English
259 Naked Lunch William S. Burroughs 1959 American English
1048 The Hunt for Red October Tom Clancy 1984 American English
13878 Guilty Pleasures Laurell K. Hamilton 1993 American English
7568 The Puppet Masters Robert A. Heinlein 1951 American English
981 It Stephen King 1986 American English
455 V Thomas Pynchon 1963 American English
7066 Double Star Robert A. Heinlein 1956 American English
9030 Citizen Of The Galaxy Robert A. Heinlein 1957 American English
141 Brideshead Revisited Evelyn Waugh 1945 British English
181 Light in August William Faulkner 1932 American English
154 One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest Ken Kesey 1962 American English
67 A Farewell to Arms Ernest Hemingway 1929 American English
619 The Sheltering Sky Paul Bowles 1949 American English
1504 Sometimes a Great Notion Ken Kesey 1964 American English
160 My Antonia Willa Cather 1918 American English
14121 Mulengro Charles de Lint 1997 Canadian English
1089 Suttree Cormac McCarthy 1979 American English
2141 Mythago Wood Robert Holdstock 1984 British English
8409 Illusions Richard Bach 1977 American English
9092 The Cunning Man Robertson Davies 1994 Canadian English
534 Satanic Verses Salman Rushdie 1988 British English