The Greatest Modernist Books of All Time

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This list represents a comprehensive and trusted collection of the greatest books. Developed through a specialized algorithm, it brings together 759 'best of' book lists to form a definitive guide to the world's most acclaimed books. For those interested in how these books are chosen, additional details can be found on the rankings page.

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Rank Book Authors Year Country Language Actions
1 The Great Gatsby F. Scott Fitzgerald 1925 American English
2 Ulysses James Joyce 1922 Irish English
5 In Search of Lost Time Marcel Proust 1913 French French
19 The Sound and the Fury William Faulkner 1929 American English
34 To the Lighthouse Virginia Woolf 1927 British English
35 Mrs. Dalloway Virginia Woolf 1925 British English
39 The Magic Mountain Thomas Mann 1924 German German
44 The Sun Also Rises Ernest Hemingway 1926 American English
50 Absalom, Absalom! William Faulkner 1936 American English
67 As I Lay Dying William Faulkner 1930 American English
68 A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man James Joyce 1916 Irish English
83 The Golden Notebook Doris May Lessing 1962 British English
107 The Good Soldier Ford Madox Ford 1915 British English
112 Under the Volcano Malcolm Lowry 1947 British English
125 Sons and Lovers D. H. Lawrence 1913 British English
129 Lord Jim Joseph Conrad 1900 British English
132 The Man Without Qualities Robert Musil 1930 Austrian German
141 Orlando Virginia Woolf 1928 British English
145 Doctor Faustus Thomas Mann 1947 German German
162 Tender Is the Night F. Scott Fitzgerald 1934 American English
163 A Room of One's Own Virginia Woolf 1929 British English
167 The Waste Land T. S. Eliot 1922 British English
172 Nostromo Joseph Conrad 1904 British English
177 Poems of Emily Dickinson Emily Dickinson 1890 American English
181 U.S.A. Trilogy John Dos Passos 1930 American English
194 The Ambassadors Henry James 1903 American English
206 Women in Love D. H. Lawrence 1920 British English
227 Confessions of Zeno Italo Svevo 1923 Italian Italian
252 Winesburg, Ohio Sherwood Anderson 1919 American English
254 Berlin Alexanderplatz Alfred Döblin 1929 German German
265 The Flowers of Evil Charles Baudelaire 1857 French French
283 Pedro Páramo Juan Rulfo 1955 Mexican Spanish
285 Finnegans Wake James Joyce 1939 Irish English
289 A Dance to the Music of Time Anthony Powell 1951 British English
299 Nightwood Djuna Barnes 1936 American English
329 Neuromancer William Gibson 1984 American, Canadian English
367 Rainbow D.H. Lawrence 1915 British English
376 The Alexandria Quartet Lawrence Durrell 1957 British English
377 The Golden Bowl Henry James 1904 American English
392 Main Street Sinclair Lewis 1920 American English
393 The Stories of John Cheever John Cheever 1978 American English
400 Dubliners James Joyce 1914 Irish English
409 The Man Who Loved Children Christina Stead 1940 Australian English
410 The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas Gertrude Stein 1933 American English
413 Collected Poems Wallace Stevens 1954 American English
417 We Yevgeny Zamyatin 1924 Russian Russian
418 Call It Sleep Henry Roth 1934 American English
420 The Secret Agent Joseph Conrad 1907 British English
436 Death in Venice Thomas Mann 1912 German German
448 Ada or Ardor Vladimir Nabokov 1969 American English
461 Poems of W. H. Auden W. H. Auden 1930 British English
468 Amerika Franz Kafka 1927 Czech German
471 Call to Arms Lu Xun 1922 Chinese Chinese
473 The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge Rainer Maria Rilke 1910 German German
489 The Man in the High Castle Philip K. Dick 1962 American English
506 Parade's End Ford Madox Ford 1924 British English
536 Loving Henry Green 1945 British English
545 In Our Time Ernest Hemingway 1925 American English
553 Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus Ludwig Wittgenstein 1921 Austrian German
571 Slouching Towards Bethlehem Joan Didion 1968 American English
585 Six Characters in Search of an Author Luigi Pirandello 1921 Italian Italian
614 Cane Jean Toomer 1923 American English
625 The Human Comedy Honoré de Balzac 1830 French French
640 Miss Lonelyhearts Nathanael West 1933 American English
664 Manhattan Transfer John Dos Passos 1925 American English
677 Collected Poems of T.S. Eliot T. S. Eliot 1963 British English
688 Against Nature J. K. Huysmans 1884 French French
706 The Lost Steps Alejo Carpentier 1953 Cuban Spanish
721 The Making of Americans Gertrude Stein 1925 American English
745 Complete Poems of Giacomo Leopardi Giacomo Leopardi 1831 Italian Italian
747 On the Genealogy of Morality Friedrich Nietzsche 1887 German German
757 The Baron in the Trees Italo Calvino 1957 Italian Italian
761 The Sleepwalkers Hermann Broch 1932 Austrian German
763 The Horse's Mouth Joyce Cary 1944 British English
800 Three Lives Gertrude Stein 1909 American English
805 What We Talk About When We Talk About Love Raymond Carver 1981 American English
858 Prufrock and Other Observations T. S. Eliot 1917 British English
881 Selected Essays of T. S. Eliot T. S. Eliot 1932 British English
894 Henry James Leon Edel 1953 American English
902 The Red Room August Strindberg 1879 Swedish Swedish
918 The Famished Road Ben Okri 1991 Nigerian English
925 Goodbye to Berlin Christopher Isherwood 1939 British English
935 Four Quartets T. S. Eliot 1943 British English
947 Petersburg Andrei Bely 1913 Russian Russian
953 Red Cavalry Isaac Babel 1926 Russian Russian
974 The Beautyful Ones are Not Yet Born Ayi K. Armah 1968 Ghanaian English
978 Death on Credit Louis-Ferdinand Céline 1936 French French
982 Odes John Keats 1820 British English
988 The Fountain Overflows Rebecca West 1956 British English
1001 The Duino Elegies Rainer Maria Rilke 1923 German German
1028 The Virgin Suicides Jeffrey Eugenides 1993 American English
1053 The Poetry of Luis Cernuda Luis Cernuda 1901 Spanish Spanish
1073 Mother Courage and Her Children Bertolt Brecht 1941 German German
1077 The Garden Party And Other Stories Katherine Mansfield 1922 New Zealand English
1080 Pan Knut Hamsun 1894 Norwegian Norwegian
1115 The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia Samuel Johnson, Abraham Raimbach, Robert Smirke 1759 British English
1128 Pnin Vladimir Nabokov 1957 Russian English
1156 Collected Poems of Dylan Thomas Dylan Thomas 1952 British English
1162 The Notebook, The Proof, The Third Lie Agota Kristof 1986 Hungarian French
1168 If I Forget Thee, Jerusalem William Faulkner 1939 American English
1178 The Drowned World J. G. Ballard 1962 British English
1194 The Alberta Trilogy Cora Sandel 1926 Norwegian Norwegian
1201 Chronicle of a Death Foretold Gabriel García Márquez 1981 Colombian Spanish
1204 The Blue Flower Penelope Fitzgerald 1995 British English
1217 The Poems of Percy Bysshe Shelley Percy Bysshe Shelley 1810 British English
1217 Living Henry Green 1929 British English
1217 Some Experiences Of An Irish R.M. E.Œ. Somerville, Martin Ross 1899 Irish English
1228 The Quest Frederik van Eeden 1887 Dutch Dutch
1230 The History of Mr. Polly H. G. Wells 1910 British English
1238 The Hamlet William Faulkner 1940 American English
1241 Junky William S. Burroughs 1953 American English
1242 Poems Of Thomas Hardy Thomas Hardy 1898 British English
1242 Collected Poems Of Edward Thomas Edward Thomas 1920 British English
1265 The Shipyard Juan Carlos Onetti 1961 Uruguayan Spanish
1270 Sixty Stories Donald Barthelme 1981 American English
1274 Émile Jean-Jacques Rousseau 1762 French French
1280 Alcools Guillaume Apollinaire 1913 French French
1283 The Collected Stories of William Faulkner William Faulkner 1950 American English
1291 The Book of Laughter and Forgetting Milan Kundera 1979 Czech Czech
1302 Endgame Samuel Beckett 1957 Irish French