The Greatest Biography and Poetry 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 488 '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
212 The Life of Samuel Johnson James Boswell 1791 British English
614 Good-Bye to All That Robert Graves 1929 British English
2163 Life Of John Sterling Thomas Carlyle 1851 British English
2390 John Keats Walter Jackson Bate 1963 American English
2531 Zami Audre Lorde 1982 American English
2574 The Lives Of The Poets Samuel Johnson 1779 British English
2799 Just Kids Patti Smith 2010 American English
3298 John Keats Robert Gittings 1968 British English
3599 Audubon Robert Penn Warren 1969 American English
3605 Samuel Johnson Walter Jackson Bate 1977 American English
5189 Dr. Johnson & Mr. Savage Richard Holmes 1993 British English
5310 Hannah Senesh Hannah Senesh 1971 Hungarian Hebrew
5564 Allen Curnow Elizabeth Caffin, Terry Sturm Unknown English
5860 Diccionario De Autores Latinoamericanos César Aira 2001 Argentinian Spanish
7261 Red Comet Heather L. Clark 2020 American English
8402 There's Always This Year Hanif Abdurraqib 2024 American English
8574 Survival Is A Promise Alexis Pauline Gumbs 2024 Unknown English
8585 The New Guide To Modern World Literature Martin Seymour-Smith 1973 British English
9073 The Life Of Langston Hughes Arnold Rampersad 1986 American English
9304 Victor Hugo Graham Robb 1997 British English
9243 Walt Whitman Justin Kaplan 1980 American English
9243 Walt Whitman Paul Zweig 1984 American English
9243 Federico Garcia Lorca Ian Gibson 1989 Spanish English
9697 Alphabetical Diaries Sheila Heti 2024 Unknown Unknown
10002 The Winged Seed Li-Young Lee 1995 American English
10277 Here After Amy Lin 2024 Unknown English
10662 My Half Century Anna Akhmatova 1997 Russian Russian
11108 Drum Dream Girl Margarita Engle 2015 Cuban English
11897 Shelley Richard Holmes 1974 British English
13010 The Big Sea Langston Hughes 1940 American English
12994 Dichtung Und Wahrheit Johann Wolfgang von Goethe 1811 German German
13497 The Works Of Samuel Johnson Samuel Johnson 1787 British English
14018 The Perfect Stranger P. J. Kavanagh 1966 British English
14371 Julia Ward Howe Laura E. Richards, Maud Howe Elliott 1915 American English
14371 Whitman Emory Holloway 1926 American English
14371 Robert Frost Lawrence Thompson 1970 American English
14371 Louise Bogan Elizabeth Frank 1985 American English
14371 Oscar Wilde Richard Ellmann 1987 American English
14371 Stories And Recollections Umberto Saba 1948 Italian Italian
14371 Guillén On Guillén Jorge Guillén 1972 Spanish Spanish
14371 The Rest Of The Way J. D. McClatchy 1990 American English