The Greatest Books of All Time on Fear

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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
6 Nineteen Eighty Four George Orwell 1949 British English
33 Catch-22 Joseph Heller 1961 American English
52 Lord of the Flies William Golding 1954 British English
53 Dracula Bram Stoker 1897 British English
98 The Complete Tales and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe Edgar Allan Poe 1902 American English
107 Native Son Richard Wright 1940 American English
113 The Diary of a Young Girl Anne Frank 1947 Dutch Dutch
164 The Hound of the Baskervilles Arthur Conan Doyle 1902 British English
189 The Turn of the Screw Henry James 1898 American English
191 And Then There Were None Agatha Christie 1939 British English
215 The Haunting of Hill House Shirley Jackson 1959 American English
219 Brighton Rock Graham Greene 1938 British English
274 The Stand Stephen King 1978 American English
322 Household Tales Brothers Grimm 1812 German German
364 White Noise Don DeLillo 1985 American English
372 War of the Worlds H. G. Wells 1898 British English
398 The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge Rainer Maria Rilke 1910 German German
405 De Rerum Natura Lucretius 55 Roman Latin
413 The Naked and the Dead Norman Mailer 1948 American English
444 The Man Who Was Thursday G. K. Chesterton 1908 British English
471 Waiting for the Barbarians J. M. Coetzee 1980 South African English
519 Call It Sleep Henry Roth 1934 American English
552 The Red Badge of Courage Stephen Crane 1895 American English
579 The Outsider And Others H. P. Lovecraft 1939 American English
607 House of Leaves Mark Z. Danielewski 2000 American English
615 Ghost Stories Of An Antiquary M. R. James 1904 British English
648 The Things They Carried Tim O'Brien 1990 American English
652 Dispatches Michael Herr 1977 American English
671 The Fall of the House of Usher Edgar Allan Poe 1839 American English
677 Lud-in-the-Mist Hope Mirrlees 1926 British English
701 The Feast of the Goat Mario Vargas Llosa 2000 Peruvian Spanish
710 At the Mountains of Madness H. P. Lovecraft 1936 American English
731 The Mysteries of Udolpho Ann Radcliffe 1794 British English
763 The Case of Comrade Tulayev Victor Serge 1949 French French
773 The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym Edgar Allan Poe 1838 American English
808 Watchmen Alan Moore 1986 American, British English
811 The Phantom of the Opera Gaston Leroux 1909 French French
824 Rhymes And Legends Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer 1871 Spanish Spanish
825 In Our Time Ernest Hemingway 1925 American English
827 Fear of Flying Erica Jong 1973 American English
861 We Have Always Lived in the Castle Shirley Jackson 1962 American English
866 The Black Spider Jeremias Gotthelf 1842 Swiss German
894 Rosemary's Baby Ira Levin 1967 American English
918 The Plot Against America Philip Roth 2004 American English
925 Deliverance James Dickey 1970 American English
969 Storm of Steel Ernst Jünger 1920 German German
981 It Stephen King 1986 American English
994 Blindness José Saramago 1995 Portuguese Portuguese
1001 Red Dragon Thomas Harris 1981 American English
1017 Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban J. K. Rowling 1999 British English
1071 The Midwich Cuckoos John Wyndham 1957 British English
1073 The Lottery and Other Stories Shirley Jackson 1948 American English
1086 Misery Stephen King 1987 American English
1153 Beast In View Margaret Millar 1955 Canadian English
1196 Conjure Wife Fritz Leiber 1943 American English
1209 Between the World and Me Ta-Nehisi Coates 2015 American English
1260 The President Miguel Angel Asturias 1946 Guatemalan Spanish
1269 The Unknown Soldier Väinö Linna 1954 Finnish Finnish
1293 Salem's Lot Stephen King 1975 American English
1306 Widdershins G. Oliver Onions 1911 British English
1315 Voices from Chernobyl Svetlana Alexievich 1997 Belarusian Russian
1338 Something Wicked This Way Comes Ray Bradbury 1962 American English
1372 The Horror Horn And Other Stories E. F. Benson 1931 British English
1391 A Separate Peace John Knowles 1959 American English
1398 The Exorcist William Peter Blatty 1971 American English
1420 The October Country Ray Bradbury 1955 American English
1425 And The Darkness Falls Boris Karloff 1943 British English
1498 A King Alone Jean Giono 1947 French French
1535 The Sound Of His Horn Sarban 1952 British English
1562 Burnt Offerings Robert Marasco 1973 American English
1570 The Young Lions Irwin Shaw 1948 American English
1712 The Great God Pan Arthur Machen 1894 British English
1748 The Fox Was Ever The Hunter Herta Müller 1992 German German
1757 Books of Blood Clive Barker 1984 British English
1767 Carmilla Sheridan Le Fanu 1872 Irish English
1802 Kallocain Karin Boye 1940 Swedish Swedish
1837 Jaws Peter Benchley 1974 American English
1842 Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire J. K. Rowling 2000 British English
1848 Darker Than You Think Jack Williamson 1948 American English
1880 The Complete John Silence Stories Algernon Blackwood 1908 British English
1931 The Witches Roald Dahl 1983 British English
1945 Medusa E. H. Visiak 1929 British English
1948 The Second Century Of Creepy Stories Hugh Walpole 1937 British English
1967 Leviathan Arno Schmidt 1949 German German
1973 The Invisible Man H. G. Wells 1897 British English
1989 Your Face Tomorrow Javier Marias 2002 Spanish Spanish
2014 A Journal Of The Plague Year Daniel Defoe 1722 British English
2060 Ghost Story Peter Straub 1979 American English
2072 Night Has A Thousand Eyes George Hopley 1945 American English
2112 House On The Embankment Yuri Trifonov 1976 Russian Russian
2144 Harry Potter And The Chamber Of Secrets J. K. Rowling 1998 British English
2153 The Track Of The Cat Walter Van Tilburg Clark 1949 American English
2209 Sub Rosa Robert Aickman 1968 British English
2242 Milkman Anna Burns 2018 Irish English
2270 In a Glass Darkly Sheridan Le Fanu 1872 Irish English
2282 Crowds And Power Elias Canetti 1960 German German
2349 The Inheritors William Golding 1955 British English
2357 Invasion Of The Body Snatchers Jack Finney 1955 American English
2399 Remembering Babylon David Malouf 1993 Australian English
2419 The Melancholy of Resistance László Krasznahorkai 1989 Hungarian Hungarian
2430 The Call Of Cthulhu H. P. Lovecraft 1928 American English
2435 Nine Horrors And A Dream Joseph Payne Brennan 1958 American English
2450 Worse Things Waiting Manly Wade Wellman 1973 American English
2460 The League Of Frightened Men Rex Stout 1935 American English
2476 Quatermass And The Pit Nigel Kneale 1959 British English
2513 Deathbird Stories Harlan Ellison 1975 American English
2532 Young Goodman Brown & Other Short Stories Nathaniel Hawthorne 1835 American English
2539 Journal, 1935 44 Mihail Sebastian 1996 Romanian Romanian
2544 The Pit and the Pendulum Edgar Allan Poe 1842 American English
2547 Her Privates We Frederic Manning 1929 Australian English
2623 Collected Writings Ambrose Bierce 1909 American English
2630 The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui Bertolt Brecht 1941 German German
2641 The Power Naomi Alderman 2016 British English
2667 The Chrysalids John Wyndham 1955 Canadian English
2688 The Ceremonies T. E. D. Klein 1984 American English
2694 Pet Sematary Stephen King 1983 American English
2772 Man-Eaters of Kumaon Jim Corbett 1944 British English
2871 Boyhood J. M. Coetzee 1997 South African English
2914 The Woman In Black Susan Hill 1983 British English
3017 The Ministry Of Fear Graham Greene 1943 British English