The Greatest Fiction 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
264 The Epic Of Gilgamesh Unknown -2100 Multiple Akkadian
265 Cry, the Beloved Country Alan Paton 1948 South African English
267 Pippi Longstocking Astrid Lindgren 1945 Swedish Swedish
268 Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats William Butler Yeats 1933 Irish English
269 Nightwood Djuna Barnes 1936 American English
270 Malone Dies Samuel Beckett 1951 Irish French
271 The Awakening Kate Chopin 1899 American English
272 The Devil to Pay in the Backlands Joao Guimaraes Rosa 1956 Brazilian Portuguese
273 The Betrothed Alessandro Manzoni 1827 Italian Italian
274 The Stand Stephen King 1978 American English
276 Life, a User's Manual Georges Perec 1978 French French
277 The Pickwick Papers Charles Dickens 1836 British English
278 A Wizard Of Earthsea Ursula K. Le Guin 1968 American English
279 The Secret History Donna Tartt 1992 American English
280 The Adventures of Augie March Saul Bellow 1953 American English
281 The Good Earth Pearl S. Buck 1931 American English
282 The Sorrows of Young Werther Johann Wolfgang von Goethe 1774 German German
283 Nostromo Joseph Conrad 1904 British English
286 The Once and Future King T. H. White 1958 British English
287 Jude the Obscure Thomas Hardy 1895 British English
288 Independent People Halldor Laxness 1934 Icelandic Icelandic
289 A Room With a View E. M. Forster 1908 British English
290 The Road Cormac McCarthy 2006 American English
291 The House of the Spirits Isabel Allende 1982 Chilean Spanish
292 Of Human Bondage W. Somerset Maugham 1915 British English
293 A Wrinkle In Time Madeleine L'Engle 1962 American English
294 The Time Machine H. G. Wells 1895 British English
295 Franz Kafka Franz Kafka 1971 Czech Unknown
296 The Lover Marguerite Duras 1984 French French
297 Ivanhoe Sir Walter Scott 1819 British English
298 Herzog Saul Bellow 1964 American English
299 Kristin Lavransdatter Sigrid Undset 1920 Norwegian Norwegian
302 The Lost Estate Henri Alain-Fournier 1913 French French
303 Peter And Wendy J. M. Barrie 1911 Scottish English
305 The Confusions of Young Törless Robert Musil 1906 Austrian German
307 Medea Euripides -431 Greek Ancient greek
308 The Bluest Eye Toni Morrison 1970 American English
309 Tarzan of the Apes Edgar Rice Burroughs 1912 American English
310 Bonfire of the Vanities Tom Wolfe 1987 American English
311 Winesburg, Ohio Sherwood Anderson 1919 American English
312 Labyrinths Jorge Luis Borges 1962 Argentinian Spanish
314 The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay Michael Chabon 2000 American English
317 The Poems of Robert Frost Robert Frost 1913 American English
318 If on a Winter's Night a Traveller Italo Calvino 1979 Italian Italian
320 Where the Wild Things Are Maurice Sendak 1963 American English
321 We Yevgeny Zamyatin 1924 Russian Russian
322 Household Tales Brothers Grimm 1812 German German
323 Mahabharata Vyasa -400 Indian Sanskrit
325 A Dance to the Music of Time Anthony Powell 1951 British English
326 The Unnamable Samuel Beckett 1953 Irish French
327 Solaris Stanislaw Lem 1961 Polish Polish
329 History Elsa Morante 1974 Italian Italian
330 Dubliners James Joyce 1914 Irish English
331 Housekeeping Marilynne Robinson 1980 American English
332 Clarissa Samuel Richardson 1748 British English
333 Infinite Jest David Foster Wallace 1996 American English
335 The Garden of the Finzi-Continis Giorgio Bassani 1962 Italian Italian
336 Sister Carrie Theodore Dreiser 1900 American English
337 Romeo and Juliet William Shakespeare 1597 British English
338 Effi Briest Theodor Fontane 1895 German German
339 The Adventures of Oliver Twist Charles Dickens 1837 British English
340 The Wonderful Wizard of Oz L. Frank Baum 1900 American English
341 The Human Comedy Honoré de Balzac 1830 French French
343 The Sonnets William Shakespeare 1609 British English
344 The Thirty-Nine Steps John Buchan 1915 British English
346 The Castle of Otranto Horace Walpole 1764 British English
347 The Day of the Locust Nathanael West 1939 American English
348 The Glass Bead Game Hermann Hesse 1943 German German
349 The Death of Ivan Ilyich Leo Tolstoy 1886 Russian Russian
350 The Complete Stories of Flannery O'Connor Flannery O'Connor 1971 American English
351 Moll Flanders Daniel Defoe 1722 British English
352 The Vicar of Wakefield Oliver Goldsmith 1766 British English
353 Go Tell it on the Mountain James Baldwin 1953 American English
354 Hopscotch Julio Cortazar 1963 Argentinian Spanish
355 The Savage Detectives Roberto Bolaño 1998 Chilean Spanish
356 Germinal Émile Zola 1885 French French
357 At Swim Two-Birds Flann O'Brien 1939 Irish English
358 The Mayor of Casterbridge Thomas Hardy 1886 British English
359 The God of Small Things Arundhati Roy 1997 Indian English
360 Ada or Ardor Vladimir Nabokov 1969 American English
361 Foundation Isaac Asimov 1951 American English
362 Wise Blood Flannery O'Connor 1952 American English
363 The Left Hand Of Darkness Ursula K. Le Guin 1969 American English
364 White Noise Don DeLillo 1985 American English
365 Eugene Onegin Alexander Pushkin 1833 Russian Russian
366 The Hunchback of Notre-Dame Victor Hugo 1831 French French
367 Journey to the West Wu Cheng'en 1592 Chinese Chinese
368 Stranger in a Strange Land Robert A. Heinlein 1961 American English
372 War of the Worlds H. G. Wells 1898 British English
373 The Duino Elegies Rainer Maria Rilke 1923 German German
375 Kolyma Stories Varlam Shalamov 1954 Russian Russian
376 The Golden Bowl Henry James 1904 American English
378 Melmoth the Wanderer Charles Robert Maturin 1820 British English
380 American Pastoral Philip Roth 1997 American English
381 The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe C. S. Lewis 1950 British English
382 Parade's End Ford Madox Ford 1924 British English
383 Oedipus at Colonus Sophocles -401 Greek Ancient greek
384 Ferdydurke Witold Gombrowicz 1937 Polish Polish
385 Quo Vadis Henryk Sienkiewicz 1895 Polish Polish
386 La Regenta Clarín 1884 Spanish Spanish
387 Our Mutual Friend Charles Dickens 1864 British English
389 The Alchemist Paulo Coelho 1988 Brazilian Portuguese
390 The Old Wives' Tale Arnold Bennett 1908 British English
391 Death Comes for the Archbishop Willa Cather 1927 American English
392 Lucky Jim Kingsley Amis 1954 British English
393 The Moonstone Wilkie Collins 1868 British English
394 Nadja André Breton 1928 French French
396 The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao Junot Diaz 2007 Dominican English
397 Wolf Hall Hilary Mantel 2009 British English
398 The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge Rainer Maria Rilke 1910 German German
399 His Dark Materials Philip Pullman 1995 British English
400 The Shining Stephen King 1977 American English
401 Celestina Or The Tragic-Comedy Of Calisto And Melibea Fernando de Rojas 1499 Spanish Spanish
406 Ragtime E. L. Doctorow 1975 American English
407 The World According to Garp John Irving 1978 American English
409 My Brilliant Friend Elena Ferrante 2012 American Italian
410 The Razor's Edge W. Somerset Maugham 1944 British English
411 Underworld Don DeLillo 1997 American English
412 Jacques the Fatalist and His Master Denis Diderot 1796 French French
413 The Naked and the Dead Norman Mailer 1948 American English