The Greatest Allegorical 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 In Search of Lost Time Marcel Proust 1913 French French
8 Don Quixote Miguel de Cervantes 1605 Spanish Spanish
9 The Sound and the Fury William Faulkner 1929 American English
14 Lolita Vladimir Nabokov 1955 American English
21 The Trial Franz Kafka 1925 Czech German
25 The Magic Mountain Thomas Mann 1924 German German
27 To the Lighthouse Virginia Woolf 1927 British English
34 The Master and Margarita Mikhail Bulgakov 1967 Russian Russian
36 Invisible Man Ralph Ellison 1952 American English
40 Les Misérables Victor Hugo 1862 French French
41 On the Road Jack Kerouac 1957 American English
43 Absalom, Absalom! William Faulkner 1936 American English
44 The Little Prince Antoine de Saint-Exupéry 1943 French French
48 Journey to the End of The Night Louis-Ferdinand Céline 1932 French French
52 Lord of the Flies William Golding 1954 British English
55 Animal Farm George Orwell 1945 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
74 The Scarlet Letter Nathaniel Hawthorne 1850 American English
76 The Plague Albert Camus 1947 French French
79 As I Lay Dying William Faulkner 1930 American English
80 Candide Voltaire 1759 French French
81 The Castle Franz Kafka 1926 Czech German
85 The Good Soldier Ford Madox Ford 1915 British English
88 A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man James Joyce 1916 Irish English
91 The Tin Drum Günter Grass 1959 German German
95 Orlando Virginia Woolf 1928 British English
110 The Canterbury Tales Geoffrey Chaucer 1400 British Middle english
127 Paradise Lost John Milton 1667 British English
135 Doctor Faustus Thomas Mann 1947 German German
137 Lord Jim Joseph Conrad 1900 British English
150 Fahrenheit 451 Ray Bradbury 1953 American English
151 Molloy Samuel Beckett 1951 Irish French
156 Poems of Emily Dickinson Emily Dickinson 1890 American English
163 Siddhartha Hermann Hesse 1922 German German
171 Steppenwolf Hermann Hesse 1927 German German
178 The Flowers of Evil Charles Baudelaire 1857 French French
182 The Moviegoer Walker Percy 1961 American English
187 The Power and the Glory Graham Greene 1940 British English
194 Oblomov Ivan Goncharov 1859 Russian Russian
199 The Radetzky March Joseph Roth 1932 Austrian German
202 Invisible Cities Italo Calvino 1972 Italian Italian
204 The Remains of the Day Kazuo Ishiguro 1989 British English
209 Hunger Knut Hamsun 1890 Norwegian Norwegian
213 The Counterfeiters André Gide 1925 French French
216 A Christmas Carol Charles Dickens 1843 British English
222 Thus Spake Zarathustra Friedrich Nietzsche 1883 German German
224 Watership Down Richard Adams 1972 British English
231 Death of Virgil Hermann Broch 1945 Austrian German
234 The Chronicles of Narnia C. S. Lewis 1950 British English
238 A Season in Hell Arthur Rimbaud 1873 French French
239 Tropic of Cancer Henry Miller 1934 American English
240 Death in Venice Thomas Mann 1912 German German
248 Atonement Ian McEwan 2001 British English
254 Gravity's Rainbow Thomas Pynchon 1973 American English
258 The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner James Hogg 1824 Scottish English
263 The Tartar Steppe Dino Buzzati 1940 Italian Italian
268 Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats William Butler Yeats 1933 Irish English
270 Malone Dies Samuel Beckett 1951 Irish French
283 Nostromo Joseph Conrad 1904 British English
288 Independent People Halldor Laxness 1934 Icelandic Icelandic
295 Franz Kafka Franz Kafka 1971 Czech Unknown
305 The Confusions of Young Törless Robert Musil 1906 Austrian German
312 Labyrinths Jorge Luis Borges 1962 Argentinian Spanish
316 Pensées Blaise Pascal 1670 French French
317 The Poems of Robert Frost Robert Frost 1913 American English
321 We Yevgeny Zamyatin 1924 Russian Russian
323 Mahabharata Vyasa -400 Indian Sanskrit
326 The Unnamable Samuel Beckett 1953 Irish French
343 The Sonnets William Shakespeare 1609 British English
348 The Glass Bead Game Hermann Hesse 1943 German German
349 The Death of Ivan Ilyich Leo Tolstoy 1886 Russian Russian
352 The Vicar of Wakefield Oliver Goldsmith 1766 British English
357 At Swim Two-Birds Flann O'Brien 1939 Irish English
362 Wise Blood Flannery O'Connor 1952 American English
376 The Golden Bowl Henry James 1904 American English
378 Melmoth the Wanderer Charles Robert Maturin 1820 British English
384 Ferdydurke Witold Gombrowicz 1937 Polish Polish
389 The Alchemist Paulo Coelho 1988 Brazilian Portuguese
406 Ragtime E. L. Doctorow 1975 American English
408 The Myth of Sisyphus Albert Camus 1942 French French
426 The Moon and the Bonfires Cesare Pavese 1950 Italian Italian
430 The Bridge on the Drina Ivo Andrić 1945 Bosnian Serbo-croatian
433 Play It As It Lays Joan Didion 1970 American English
445 I'm Not Stiller Max Frisch 1954 Swiss German
446 Joseph and His Brothers Thomas Mann 1933 German German
452 A Heart So White Javier Marias 1992 Spanish Spanish
454 The Sea, The Sea Iris Murdoch 1978 British English
455 V Thomas Pynchon 1963 American English
460 Bartleby the Scrivener Herman Melville 1853 American English
462 The Prophet Kahlil Gibran 1923 Lebanese English
463 The Songs of Maldoror Comte de Lautréamont 1868 French French
464 Petrarch's Songbook Francesco Petrarca 1341 Italian Italian
465 Collected Poems Wallace Stevens 1954 American English
471 Waiting for the Barbarians J. M. Coetzee 1980 South African English
474 Embers Sandor Marai 1942 Hungarian Hungarian
482 Jakob Von Gunten Robert Walser 1909 Swiss German
498 The Immoralist André Gide 1902 French French
499 Platero Juan Ramón Jiménez 1914 Spanish Spanish
501 W, or the Memory of Childhood Georges Perec 1975 French French
508 Black Beauty Anna Sewell 1877 British English
512 The Golden Ass Apuleius 158 Roman Latin
516 Season of Migration to the North Al-Tayyib Salih 1966 Sudanese Arabic
518 The Odes Horace 23 Roman Latin
522 The Phantom Tollbooth Norton Juster 1961 American English
525 Gormenghast Mervyn Peake 1950 British English
529 Life Is a Dream Pedro Calderón de la Barca 1635 Spanish Spanish
532 The Passion According to G.H. Clarice Lispector 1964 Brazilian Portuguese
534 Satanic Verses Salman Rushdie 1988 British English
538 Zazie in the Metro Raymond Queneau 1959 French French
545 The Notebook, The Proof, The Third Lie Agota Kristof 1986 Hungarian French
551 Pilgrim's Progress John Bunyan 1678 British English
561 The Recognitions William Gaddis 1955 American English
562 Aesop's Fables Aesop -560 Greek Ancient greek
563 Panchatantra Unknown -300 Multiple Sanskrit
565 Amerika Franz Kafka 1927 Czech German
567 The French Lieutenant's Woman John Fowles 1969 British English