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
2 The Great Gatsby F. Scott Fitzgerald 1925 American English
3 Ulysses James Joyce 1922 Irish English
4 In Search of Lost Time Marcel Proust 1913 French French
18 The Sound and the Fury William Faulkner 1929 American English
37 To the Lighthouse Virginia Woolf 1927 British English
40 Mrs. Dalloway Virginia Woolf 1925 British English
41 The Magic Mountain Thomas Mann 1924 German German
43 Absalom, Absalom! William Faulkner 1936 American English
44 The Sun Also Rises Ernest Hemingway 1926 American English
61 A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man James Joyce 1916 Irish English
64 As I Lay Dying William Faulkner 1930 American English
98 Under the Volcano Malcolm Lowry 1947 British English
101 The Good Soldier Ford Madox Ford 1915 British English
121 The Golden Notebook Doris May Lessing 1962 British English
126 The Man Without Qualities Robert Musil 1930 Austrian German
134 Sons and Lovers D. H. Lawrence 1913 British English
135 Doctor Faustus Thomas Mann 1947 German German
147 Orlando Virginia Woolf 1928 British English
154 Lord Jim Joseph Conrad 1900 British English
158 The Waste Land T. S. Eliot 1922 British English
171 Tender Is the Night F. Scott Fitzgerald 1934 American English
181 Poems of Emily Dickinson Emily Dickinson 1890 American English
184 U.S.A. Trilogy John Dos Passos 1930 American English
188 Nostromo Joseph Conrad 1904 British English
189 A Room of One's Own Virginia Woolf 1929 British English
204 The Ambassadors Henry James 1903 American English
206 Women in Love D. H. Lawrence 1920 British English
270 Confessions of Zeno Italo Svevo 1923 Italian Italian
273 The Flowers of Evil Charles Baudelaire 1857 French French
289 Berlin Alexanderplatz Alfred Döblin 1929 German German
296 The Stories of John Cheever John Cheever 1978 American English
297 Pedro Páramo Juan Rulfo 1955 Mexican Spanish
301 Neuromancer William Gibson 1984 American, Canadian English
302 Winesburg, Ohio Sherwood Anderson 1919 American English
333 Finnegans Wake James Joyce 1939 Irish English
359 A Dance to the Music of Time Anthony Powell 1951 British English
373 Dubliners James Joyce 1914 Irish English
387 The Golden Bowl Henry James 1904 American English
413 Rainbow D.H. Lawrence 1915 British English
414 The Alexandria Quartet Lawrence Durrell 1957 British English
421 The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge Rainer Maria Rilke 1910 German German
428 The Man Who Loved Children Christina Stead 1940 Australian English
443 Collected Poems Wallace Stevens 1954 American English
449 Nightwood Djuna Barnes 1936 American English
457 We Yevgeny Zamyatin 1924 Russian Russian
466 Ada or Ardor Vladimir Nabokov 1969 American English
479 Loving Henry Green 1945 British English
480 Call It Sleep Henry Roth 1934 American English
492 In Our Time Ernest Hemingway 1925 American English
498 The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas Gertrude Stein 1933 American English
503 Main Street Sinclair Lewis 1920 American English
518 Death in Venice Thomas Mann 1912 German German
527 Amerika Franz Kafka 1927 Czech German
537 Parade's End Ford Madox Ford 1924 British English
576 Six Characters in Search of an Author Luigi Pirandello 1921 Italian Italian
579 What We Talk About When We Talk About Love Raymond Carver 1981 American English
592 Poems of W. H. Auden W. H. Auden 1930 British English
597 Miss Lonelyhearts Nathanael West 1933 American English
614 The Secret Agent Joseph Conrad 1907 British English
616 The Virgin Suicides Jeffrey Eugenides 1993 American English
635 Against Nature J. K. Huysmans 1884 French French
660 The Man in the High Castle Philip K. Dick 1962 American English
673 Complete Poems of Giacomo Leopardi Giacomo Leopardi 1831 Italian Italian
694 Collected Poems of T.S. Eliot T. S. Eliot 1963 British English
712 Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus Ludwig Wittgenstein 1921 Austrian German
714 The Lost Steps Alejo Carpentier 1953 Cuban Spanish
719 Slouching Towards Bethlehem Joan Didion 1968 American English
757 The Master Colm Toibin 2004 Irish English
761 The Book of Laughter and Forgetting Milan Kundera 1979 Czech Czech
762 Prufrock and Other Observations T. S. Eliot 1917 British English
803 The Baron in the Trees Italo Calvino 1957 Italian Italian
812 Manhattan Transfer John Dos Passos 1925 American English
815 Petersburg Andrei Bely 1913 Russian Russian
843 The Making of Americans Gertrude Stein 1925 American English
861 The Famished Road Ben Okri 1991 Nigerian English
869 Collected Poems of Dylan Thomas Dylan Thomas 1952 British English
893 The Women's Room Marilyn French 1977 American English
911 Tenth of December George Saunders 2013 American English
942 Death on Credit Louis-Ferdinand Céline 1936 French French
943 The Sleepwalkers Hermann Broch 1932 Austrian German
968 Red Cavalry Isaac Babel 1926 Russian Russian
975 Cane Jean Toomer 1923 American English
980 Three Lives Gertrude Stein 1909 American English
1028 Blindness José Saramago 1995 Portuguese Portuguese
1032 The Human Comedy Honoré de Balzac 1830 French French
1052 The Unconsoled Kazuo Ishiguro 1995 British English
1065 Pricksongs and Descants Robert Coover 1969 American English
1072 The Shipyard Juan Carlos Onetti 1961 Uruguayan Spanish
1073 Sixty Stories Donald Barthelme 1981 American English
1081 If I Forget Thee, Jerusalem William Faulkner 1939 American English
1099 The Alberta Trilogy Cora Sandel 1926 Norwegian Norwegian
1099 The Red Room August Strindberg 1879 Swedish Swedish
1107 Alcools Guillaume Apollinaire 1913 French French
1126 Goodbye to Berlin Christopher Isherwood 1939 British English
1129 The History of Mr. Polly H. G. Wells 1910 British English
1130 Poems of Pablo Neruda Pablo Neruda 1970 Chilean Spanish
1140 The Collected Stories of William Faulkner William Faulkner 1950 American English
1143 The Poetry of Luis Cernuda Luis Cernuda 1901 Spanish Spanish
1144 Riddley Walker Russell Hoban 1980 British English
1152 Journals André Gide 1948 French French
1153 The Duino Elegies Rainer Maria Rilke 1923 German German
1159 Junky William S. Burroughs 1953 American English
1164 Chronicle of a Death Foretold Gabriel García Márquez 1981 Colombian Spanish
1201 The Horse's Mouth Joyce Cary 1944 British English
1209 The Poems of Percy Bysshe Shelley Percy Bysshe Shelley 1810 British English
1213 Four Quartets T. S. Eliot 1943 British English
1215 On the Genealogy of Morality Friedrich Nietzsche 1887 German German
1274 The Opposing Shore Julien Gracq 1951 French French
1281 A Writer's Diary Virginia Woolf 1953 British English
1303 The Beautyful Ones are Not Yet Born Ayi K. Armah 1968 Ghanaian English
1305 Citizen Claudia Rankine 2014 American English
1315 The Clay Machine-gun Victor Pelevin 1996 Russian Russian
1323 Collected Poems Of Edward Thomas Edward Thomas 1920 British English
1330 The Blue Flower Penelope Fitzgerald 1995 British English
1332 Selected Essays of T. S. Eliot T. S. Eliot 1932 British English
1337 Pan Knut Hamsun 1894 Norwegian Norwegian
1364 Kafka's Other Trial Elias Canetti 1969 Bulgarian German
1364 Tender Buttons Gertrude Stein 1914 American English
1371 The Joke Milan Kundera 1967 Czech Czech
1379 Erasure Percival Everett 2001 American English