The Greatest Fiction Books of All Time

Click to learn how this list is calculated.

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.

View: List Grid Table
Filter by: Genres Dates Countries

Rank Book Authors Year Country Language Actions
999 Chevengur Andrey Platonov 1928 Russian Russian
1000 A Thousand Acres Jane Smiley 1991 American English
1001 Red Dragon Thomas Harris 1981 American English
1002 Ceremony Leslie Marmon Silko 1977 American English
1003 A Dry White Season Andre Brink 1979 South African Afrikaans
1004 2001 Arthur C. Clarke 1968 British English
1005 The Dark Is Rising Susan Cooper 1973 British English
1006 Saturday Night and Sunday Morning Alan Sillitoe 1958 British English
1008 Professor Unrat Heinrich Mann 1905 German German
1009 Love Story Eric Segal 1970 American English
1010 Fingersmith Sarah Waters 2002 British English
1012 Invitation To A Beheading Vladimir Nabokov 1935 American Russian
1013 Green Mansions W. H. Hudson 1904 British English
1014 The Tale of Peter Rabbit Beatrix Potter 1902 British English
1015 Justine Lawrence Durrell 1957 British English
1016 Poems Of C. P. Cavafy C. P. Cavafy 1935 Greek Greek
1017 Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban J. K. Rowling 1999 British English
1021 If Not Now, When? Primo Levi 1982 Italian Italian
1022 Lincoln in the Bardo George Saunders 2017 American English
1023 Transit Anna Seghers 1944 German German
1024 Some Prefer Nettles Junichiro Tanizaki 1929 Japanese Japanese
1025 Ambiguous Adventure Cheikh Hamidou Kane 1961 Senegalese French
1026 Murphy Samuel Beckett 1938 Irish English
1028 Schindler's List Thomas Keneally 1982 Australian English
1029 Gabriela, Clove and Cinnamon Jorge Amado 1958 Brazilian Portuguese
1031 The Temple of the Golden Pavilion Yukio Mishima 1956 Japanese Japanese
1032 In The Heart Of The Seas Shmuel Yosef Agnon 1938 Israeli Hebrew
1034 The Bostonians Henry James 1886 American English
1035 Uncle Vanya Anton Chekhov 1897 Russian Russian
1036 The Fortunes Of Richard Mahony Henry Handel Richardson 1917 Australian English
1039 Birds of America Lorrie Moore 1998 American English
1040 The German Lesson Siegfried Lenz 1968 German German
1042 Franny and Zooey J. D. Salinger 1961 American English
1043 Danny The Champion Of The World Roald Dahl 1975 British English
1044 A Ghost at Noon Alberto Moravia 1954 Italian Italian
1046 Justine Marquis de Sade 1791 French French
1047 The Egoist George Meredith 1879 British English
1048 The Hunt for Red October Tom Clancy 1984 American English
1050 The Buddha of Suburbia Hanif Kureishi 1990 British English
1053 The Kalevala Elias Lönnrot 1835 Finnish Finnish
1055 Story of Ferdinand Munro Leaf 1936 American English
1056 Maurice E. M. Forster 1971 British English
1057 The Master of Ballantrae Robert Louis Stevenson 1889 British English
1061 First Love Ivan Turgenev 1860 Russian Russian
1061 Fantômas Marcel Allain, Pierre Souvestre 1911 French French
1061 The Case of Sergeant Grischa Arnold Zweig 1927 German German
1061 The Hothouse Wolfgang Koeppen 1953 German German
1065 La Bête humaine Émile Zola 1890 French French
1066 Antony And Cleopatra William Shakespeare 1606 British English
1067 A Boy's Own Story Edmund White 1982 American English
1069 The True Story Of Ah Q Lu Xun 1922 Chinese Chinese
1070 Birdsong Sebastian Faulks 1993 British English
1071 The Midwich Cuckoos John Wyndham 1957 British English
1072 Gösta Berling's Saga Selma Lagerlöf 1891 Swedish Swedish
1073 The Lottery and Other Stories Shirley Jackson 1948 American English
1074 The Da Vinci Code Dan Brown 2003 American English
1078 Death on Credit Louis-Ferdinand Céline 1936 French French
1079 The Book of the New Sun Gene Wolfe 1980 American English
1080 Mount Analogue René Daumal 1952 French French
1081 The War of the End of the World Mario Vargas Llosa 1981 Peruvian Spanish
1084 Mother Courage and Her Children Bertolt Brecht 1941 German German
1085 The Book Thief Markus Zusak 2005 Australian English
1086 Misery Stephen King 1987 American English
1087 Home and the World Rabindranath Tagore 1916 Indian Bengali
1088 The Dwarf Par Lagerkvist 1944 Swedish Swedish
1089 Suttree Cormac McCarthy 1979 American English
1090 The Kreutzer Sonata Leo Tolstoy 1889 Russian Russian
1091 Shahnameh Ferdowsi 1010 Iranian Persian
1093 The Book of Laughter and Forgetting Milan Kundera 1979 Czech Czech
1094 Gorky Park Martin Cruz Smith 1981 American English
1095 The Swimming-Pool Library Alan Hollinghurst 1988 British English
1096 The Transit of Venus Shirley Hazzard 1980 Australian English
1097 My Name Is Aram William Saroyan 1940 American English
1099 The Blue Flower Penelope Fitzgerald 1995 British English
1100 Collected Poems Of Edward Thomas Edward Thomas 1920 British English
1101 Outline Rachel Cusk 2014 British English
1103 The Tenant of Wildfell Hall Anne Brontë 1848 British English
1105 The Chill Ross Macdonald 1964 American English
1106 The Passion Jeanette Winterson 1987 British English
1107 The Heart of the Matter Graham Greene 1948 British English
1108 Chaka Thomas Mofolo 1925 South African Sesotho
1109 Othello William Shakespeare 1603 British English
1110 The Overstory Richard Powers 2018 American English
1111 Get Shorty Elmore Leonard 1990 American English
1112 The Complete Poetry and Prose of William Blake William Blake 1827 British English
1113 The Christmas Oratorio Göran Tunström 1983 Swedish Swedish
1114 Andersonville MacKinlay Kantor 1955 American English
1115 The Cairo Trilogy Naguib Mahfouz 1956 Egyptian Arabic
1116 Hadrian the Seventh Frederick Rolfe 1904 British English
1117 The Fifth Season N. K. Jemisin 2015 American English
1118 Germany, a Winter Tale Heinrich Heine 1844 German German
1119 The Street Ann Petry 1946 American English
1120 The Sorrow of Belgium Hugo Claus 1983 Belgian Dutch
1121 Fantasia Assia Djebar 1985 French French
1124 Ajax Sophocles -440 Greek Ancient greek
1125 Philoctetes Sophocles -409 Greek Ancient greek
1126 Women of Trachis Sophocles -450 Greek Ancient greek
1127 The Devil in the Flesh Raymond Radiguet 1923 French French
1128 The Price Of Salt Patricia Highsmith 1952 American English
1129 The Namesake Jhumpa Lahiri 2003 American English
1132 Lenz Georg Buchner 1836 German German
1132 Fanny Hill John Cleland 1748 British English
1131 Ashes and Diamonds Jerzy Andrzejewski 1948 Polish Polish
1134 The Neverending Story Michael Ende 1979 German German
1136 The Black Prince Iris Murdoch 1973 British English
1135 The Tunnel Ernesto Sábato 1948 Argentinian Spanish
1137 Miss Lonelyhearts Nathanael West 1933 American English
1140 Nana Émile Zola 1880 French French
1142 Life of Pi Yann Martel 2001 Canadian English
1143 Tevye The Dairyman And The Railroad Stories Sholem Aleichem 1894 Jewish Yiddish
1144 A Month In The Country J. L. Carr 1980 British English
1145 The Bone People Keri Hulme 1984 New Zealand English
1146 Nicholas Nickleby Charles Dickens 1839 British English
1148 The Werewolf Of Paris Guy Endore 1933 American English
1149 A Sportsman's Notebook Ivan Turgenev 1852 Russian Russian
1151 The Water Margin Shi Naian 1370 Chinese Chinese
1152 The Wapshot Chronicle John Cheever 1957 American English
1153 Beast In View Margaret Millar 1955 Canadian English
1154 True History of the Kelly Gang Peter Carey 2000 Australian English
1155 Three Lives Gertrude Stein 1909 American English