The Greatest Books Since -10000

Click to learn how this list is calculated.

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.

View: List Grid Table
Filter by: Genres Dates Countries

Rank Book Authors Year Country Language Actions
1 Ulysses James Joyce 1922 Irish English
2 In Search of Lost Time Marcel Proust 1913 French French
3 The Great Gatsby F. Scott Fitzgerald 1925 American English
4 The Catcher in the Rye J. D. Salinger 1951 American English
5 One Hundred Years of Solitude Gabriel García Márquez 1967 Colombian Spanish
6 Nineteen Eighty Four George Orwell 1949 British English
7 Moby-Dick Herman Melville 1851 American English
8 Don Quixote Miguel de Cervantes 1605 Spanish Spanish
9 The Sound and the Fury William Faulkner 1929 American English
10 Anna Karenina Leo Tolstoy 1877 Russian Russian
11 Crime and Punishment Fyodor Dostoevsky 1866 Russian Russian
12 War and Peace Leo Tolstoy 1869 Russian Russian
13 Pride and Prejudice Jane Austen 1813 British English
14 Lolita Vladimir Nabokov 1955 American English
15 Wuthering Heights Emily Brontë 1847 British English
16 To Kill a Mockingbird Harper Lee 1960 American English
17 The Lord Of The Rings J. R. R. Tolkien 1959 English English
18 The Brothers Karamazov Fyodor Dostoevsky 1880 Russian Russian
19 The Bible Unknown -1400 Jewish Hebrew, aramaic, greek
20 Madame Bovary Gustave Flaubert 1857 French French
21 The Trial Franz Kafka 1925 Czech German
22 Adventures of Huckleberry Finn Mark Twain 1884 American English
23 The Stranger Albert Camus 1942 French French
24 The Odyssey Homer -740 Greek Ancient greek
25 The Magic Mountain Thomas Mann 1924 German German
26 The Grapes of Wrath John Steinbeck 1939 American English
27 To the Lighthouse Virginia Woolf 1927 British English
28 Middlemarch George Eliot 1871 British English
29 Jane Eyre Charlotte Brontë 1847 British English
30 The Divine Comedy Dante Alighieri 1308 Italian Italian
31 Heart of Darkness Joseph Conrad 1899 British English
32 Mrs. Dalloway Virginia Woolf 1925 British English
33 Catch-22 Joseph Heller 1961 American English
34 The Master and Margarita Mikhail Bulgakov 1967 Russian Russian
35 Alice's Adventures in Wonderland Lewis Carroll 1865 British English
36 Invisible Man Ralph Ellison 1952 American English
37 The Iliad Homer -750 Greek Ancient greek
38 Great Expectations Charles Dickens 1860 British English
39 Frankenstein Mary Shelley 1818 British English
40 Les Misérables Victor Hugo 1862 French French
41 On the Road Jack Kerouac 1957 American English
42 The Red and the Black Stendhal 1830 French French
43 Absalom, Absalom! William Faulkner 1936 American English
44 The Little Prince Antoine de Saint-Exupéry 1943 French French
45 Fictions Jorge Luis Borges 1944 Argentinian Spanish
46 One Thousand and One Nights Unknown 800 Multiple Arabic
47 David Copperfield Charles Dickens 1849 British English
48 Journey to the End of The Night Louis-Ferdinand Céline 1932 French French
49 Beloved Toni Morrison 1987 American English
50 Brave New World Aldous Huxley 1932 British English
51 The Life And Opinions Of Tristram Shandy Laurence Sterne 1759 British English
52 Lord of the Flies William Golding 1954 British English
53 Dracula Bram Stoker 1897 British English
54 The Old Man and the Sea Ernest Hemingway 1952 American English
55 Animal Farm George Orwell 1945 British English
56 The Leopard Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa 1958 Italian Italian
57 The Idiot Fyodor Dostoevsky 1869 Russian Russian
58 Gone With the Wind Margaret Mitchell 1936 American English
59 Rebecca Daphne du Maurier 1938 British English
60 Things Fall Apart Chinua Achebe 1958 Nigerian English
61 The Golden Notebook Doris May Lessing 1962 British English
62 The Sun Also Rises Ernest Hemingway 1926 American English
63 Under the Volcano Malcolm Lowry 1947 British English
64 Midnight's Children Salman Rushdie 1981 Indian English
65 Gulliver's Travels Jonathan Swift 1726 British English
66 The Metamorphosis Franz Kafka 1915 Czech German
67 A Farewell to Arms Ernest Hemingway 1929 American English
68 Their Eyes Were Watching God Zora Neale Hurston 1937 American English
69 Robinson Crusoe Daniel Defoe 1719 British English
70 The Aeneid Virgil -19 Roman Latin
71 Hamlet William Shakespeare 1600 British English
72 Pale Fire Vladimir Nabokov 1962 American English
73 The Portrait of a Lady Henry James 1881 American English
74 The Scarlet Letter Nathaniel Hawthorne 1850 American English
75 Essays Michel de Montaigne 1580 French French
76 The Plague Albert Camus 1947 French French
77 Leaves of Grass Walt Whitman 1855 American English
78 A Passage to India E. M. Forster 1924 British English
79 As I Lay Dying William Faulkner 1930 American English
80 Candide Voltaire 1759 French French
81 The Castle Franz Kafka 1926 Czech German
82 The Man Without Qualities Robert Musil 1930 Austrian German
83 Emma Jane Austen 1815 British English
84 Slaughterhouse-Five Kurt Vonnegut 1969 American English
85 The Good Soldier Ford Madox Ford 1915 British English
86 All Quiet on the Western Front Erich Maria Remarque 1928 German German
87 The Count of Monte Cristo Alexandre Dumas 1844 French French
88 A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man James Joyce 1916 Irish English
89 The Picture of Dorian Gray Oscar Wilde 1890 Irish English
90 Buddenbrooks Thomas Mann 1901 German German
91 The Tin Drum Günter Grass 1959 German German
92 The Age of Innocence Edith Wharton 1920 American English
93 Little Women Louisa May Alcott 1868 American English
94 Demons Fyodor Dostoevsky 1872 Russian Russian
95 Orlando Virginia Woolf 1928 British English
96 Faust Johann Wolfgang von Goethe 1808 German German
97 For Whom the Bell Tolls Ernest Hemingway 1940 American English
98 The Complete Tales and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe Edgar Allan Poe 1902 American English
99 The Unbearable Lightness of Being Milan Kundera 1984 Czech Czech
100 Dune Frank Herbert 1965 American English
101 Waiting for Godot Samuel Beckett 1953 Irish French
102 Charlotte's Web E. B. White 1952 American English
103 The Bell Jar Sylvia Plath 1963 American English
104 Dead Souls Nikolai Gogol 1842 Russian Russian
105 Vanity Fair William Makepeace Thackeray 1847 British English
106 Oedipus the King Sophocles -429 Greek Ancient greek
107 Native Son Richard Wright 1940 American English
108 Walden Henry David Thoreau 1854 American English
109 In Cold Blood Truman Capote 1966 American English
110 The Canterbury Tales Geoffrey Chaucer 1400 British Middle english
111 The Waste Land T. S. Eliot 1922 British English
112 Doctor Zhivago Boris Pasternak 1957 Russian Russian
113 The Diary of a Young Girl Anne Frank 1947 Dutch Dutch
114 The Name of the Rose Umberto Eco 1980 Italian Italian
115 Treasure Island Robert Louis Stevenson 1883 British English
116 A Sentimental Education Gustave Flaubert 1869 French French
117 Tess of the d'Urbervilles Thomas Hardy 1891 British English
118 The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter Carson McCullers 1940 American English
119 The Three Musketeers Alexandre Dumas 1844 French French
120 The Big Sleep Raymond Chandler 1939 American English