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
2591 The Trick Is to Keep Breathing Janice Galloway 1989 British English
2599 The Witness Juan José Saer 1983 Argentinian Spanish
2602 Darkness Visible William Styron 1990 American English
2610 Whatever Michel Houellebecq 1994 French French
2631 The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui Bertolt Brecht 1941 German German
2660 The Women's Room Marilyn French 1977 American English
2723 Perelandra C. S. Lewis 1943 British English
2727 Last Poems A. E. Housman 1922 British English
2730 Overcoat Nikolai Gogol 1842 Russian Russian
2733 Seize The Day Saul Bellow 1956 American English
2738 Look Back In Anger John Osborne 1956 British English
2747 The Romance of the Rose Guillaume (de Lorris) 1230 French Old french
2752 The Wild Swans at Coole William Butler Yeats 1917 Irish English
2748 Poor Henry Hartmann von Aue 1190 German Middle high german
2769 Amsterdam Stories Nescio 1918 Dutch Dutch
2770 Unkempt Thoughts Stanislaw Jerzy Lec 1950 Polish Polish
2809 Summertime J. M. Coetzee 2009 South African English
2814 Matigari Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o 1987 Kenyan Gikuyu
2826 Bint F. Bordewijk 1934 Dutch Dutch
2835 The Luzhin Defense Vladimir Nabokov 1930 Russian Russian
2861 A Ballad for Georg Henig Viktor Paskov 1987 Bulgarian Bulgarian
2866 Endgame Samuel Beckett 1957 Irish French
2867 Gimpel the Fool Isaac Bashevis Singer 1953 Polish Yiddish
2871 Strophic Poems Hadewijch 1250 Dutch Middle dutch
2872 The Information Martin Amis 1995 British English
2875 The Moral Essays Giacomo Leopardi 1832 Italian Italian
2885 The Busconductor Hines James Kelman 1984 British English
2901 City Clifford D. Simak 1952 American English
2913 Délie Maurice Scève 1544 French French
2913 The Odyssey Nikos Kazantzakis 1938 Greek Greek
2925 The Poems of Walt Whitman Walt Whitman 1855 American English
2929 Unless Carol Shields 2002 Canadian English
2932 Martian Time Slip Philip K. Dick 1964 American English
2951 Some Hope Edward St Aubyn 1994 British English
2986 Friday Michel Tournier 1967 French French
3008 Camera Lucida Roland Barthes 1980 French French
3011 Wittgenstein's Mistress David Markson 1988 American English
3060 Trust Hernan Díaz 2022 Argentinian English
3069 An Artist of the Floating World Kazuo Ishiguro 1986 British English
3107 The Adventures Of Cipollino Gianni Rodari 1951 Italian Italian
3109 Beyond Good and Evil Friedrich Nietzsche 1886 German German
3127 The Screwtape Letters C. S. Lewis 1942 British English
3129 Mr. Weston's Good Wine T. F. Powys 1927 British English
3158 The Flounder Günter Grass 1977 German German
3161 Weights And Measures Joseph Roth 1937 Austrian German
3175 The Thirtieth Year Ingeborg Bachmann 1961 Austrian German
3191 Trilce César Vallejo 1922 Peruvian Spanish
3193 The Aesthetics Of Resistance Peter Weiss 1975 German German
3196 The Crock Of Gold James Stephens 1912 Irish English
3202 The Pillar And Ground Of The Truth Pavel Florensky 1914 Russian Russian
3207 Submission Michel Houellebecq 2015 French French
3230 Growing Up Absurd Paul Goodman 1960 American English
3241 Sweet Dreams Michael Frayn 1973 British English
3315 The Afternoon of Monsieur Andesmas Marguerite Duras 1962 French French
3324 Thomas of Reading, Or, The Sixe Worthie Yeomen of the West Thomas Deloney 1599 British English
3324 The Trials of Persiles and Sigismunda Miguel de Cervantes 1617 Spanish Spanish
3324 Torrents of Spring Ivan Turgenev 1872 Russian Russian
3324 Monica Saunders Lewis 1930 British Welsh
3324 Eyeless in Gaza Aldous Huxley 1936 British English
3324 Summer Will Show Sylvia Townsend Warner 1936 British English
3371 Fable Of Polyphemus And Galatea Luis de Góngora 1627 Spanish Spanish
3373 The Green Child Herbert Read 1935 British English
3379 Zadig Voltaire 1747 French French
3383 Poems Miguel de Unamuno 1907 Spanish Spanish
3384 The Plague-Sower Gesualdo Bufalino 1981 Italian Italian
3391 Selected Poetry Of Francisco De Quevedo Francisco de Quevedo 1648 Spanish Spanish
3391 Bomarzo Manuel Mujica Lainez 1962 Argentinian Spanish
3421 In The Country Of Last Things Paul Auster 1987 American English
3429 Count Julian Juan Goytisolo 1970 Spanish Spanish
3437 On Wings Of Song Thomas M. Disch 1979 American English
3440 The Needle's Eye Fanny Howe 1970 American English
3449 Kudos Rachel Cusk 2018 British English
3451 The Satin Slipper Paul Claudel 1929 French French
3466 The Emperor's New Clothes Hans Christian Andersen 1837 Danish Danish
3470 Solar Bones Mike McCormack 2016 Irish English
3483 The Universal Baseball Association, Inc., J. Henry Waugh, Prop. Robert Coover 1968 American English
3493 Selected Poems Pierre Ronsard 1501 French French
3515 Rhinoceros and Other Plays Eugène Ionesco 1959 Romanian French
3519 Poems of Friedrich Hölderlin Friedrich Holderlin 1800 German German
3541 May Herman Gorter 1889 Dutch Dutch
3551 The Improvement of Human Reason Ibn Tufayl 1170 Arabic Arabic
3552 The Cloven Viscount Italo Calvino 1952 Italian Italian
3571 The Inquisitors' Manual António Lobo Antunes 1996 Portuguese English
3579 Mercy Of A Rude Stream Henry Roth 1994 American English
3585 The Would-Be Gentleman Molière 1670 French French
3594 The Day Lasts More Than A Hundred Years Chinghiz Aitmatov 1980 Kyrgyz Russian
3624 Sepharad Antonio Muñoz Molina 2001 Spanish Spanish
3636 Odes John Keats 1820 British English
3638 Areopagitica John Milton 1644 British English
3638 The Return and Other Stories Andrey Platonov 1946 Russian Russian
3638 Confessions of an English Opium-Eater Thomas de Quincey 1821 British English
3638 Hydriotaphia, Urn Burial Sir Thomas Browne 1658 British English
3638 The Portable Faulkner William Faulkner 1946 American English
3638 The White Ship Chinghiz Aitmatov 1970 Kyrgyz Russian
3638 Religio Medici Sir Thomas Browne 1643 British English
3638 Mr. Fortune's Maggot Sylvia Townsend Warner 1927 British English
3638 Der Großtyrann Und Das Gericht Werner Bergengruen 1935 German German
3638 The Ship Of Fools Sebastian Brant 1494 German English
3638 The Tunnel Friedrich Dürrenmatt 1952 Swiss German
3638 The Thaw Ilya Ehrenburg 1954 Russian Russian
3638 Der Siebente Ring Stefan George 1907 German German
3638 Der Gaulschreck Im Rosennetz Fritz von Herzmanovsky-Orlando 1928 Austrian German
3638 The Golden Pot E. T. A. Hoffmann 1814 German German
3638 On The Marble Cliffs Ernst Jünger 1939 German German
3638 The City Beyond The River Hermann Kasack 1947 German German
3638 Das Unauslöschliche Siegel Elisabeth Langgässer 1946 German German
3638 The Veil Of Veronica Gertrud von le Fort 1928 German German
3638 L'après Midi D'un Faune Stéphane Mallarmé 1876 French French
3638 The Embezzled Heaven Franz Werfel 1940 Austrian German
3638 The History Of The Abderites Christoph Martin Wieland 1774 German German
3638 Everyman Hugo von Hofmannsthal 1911 Austrian German
3831 Blott On The Landscape Tom Sharpe 1975 British English
3844 The Stone Raft José Saramago 1986 Portuguese Portuguese
3848 Piranesi Susanna Clarke 2020 British English
3849 The Unlimited Dream Company J. G. Ballard 1979 British English
3850 Fourth Mansions R. A. Lafferty 1969 American English
3851 JR William Gaddis 1975 American English
3854 Little Johannes Frederik van Eeden 1887 Dutch Dutch
3869 Sansibar Or The Last Reason Alfred Andersch 1957 German German
3880 The River Between Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o 1965 Kenyan English