The Greatest Books of All Time on Freedom

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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
22 Adventures of Huckleberry Finn Mark Twain 1884 American English
23 The Stranger Albert Camus 1942 French French
41 On the Road Jack Kerouac 1957 American English
49 Beloved Toni Morrison 1987 American English
50 Brave New World Aldous Huxley 1932 British English
68 Their Eyes Were Watching God Zora Neale Hurston 1937 American English
73 The Portrait of a Lady Henry James 1881 American English
77 Leaves of Grass Walt Whitman 1855 American English
88 A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man James Joyce 1916 Irish English
97 For Whom the Bell Tolls Ernest Hemingway 1940 American English
99 The Unbearable Lightness of Being Milan Kundera 1984 Czech Czech
132 The Handmaid's Tale Margaret Atwood 1985 Canadian English
140 The Second Sex Simone de Beauvoir 1949 French French
150 Fahrenheit 451 Ray Bradbury 1953 American English
154 One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest Ken Kesey 1962 American English
174 Rabbit, Run John Updike 1960 American English
184 Uncle Tom's Cabin Harriet Beecher Stowe 1852 American English
186 Bonjour Tristesse Francoise Sagan 1954 French French
207 Zorba the Greek Nikos Kazantzakis 1946 Greek Greek
211 The Tempest William Shakespeare 1623 British English
214 Life and Fate Vasily Grossman 1980 Russian Russian
224 Watership Down Richard Adams 1972 British English
227 Women in Love D. H. Lawrence 1920 British English
230 The Call of the Wild Jack London 1903 American English
243 The Adventures of Tom Sawyer Mark Twain 1876 American English
245 Nausea Jean Paul Sartre 1938 French French
259 Naked Lunch William S. Burroughs 1959 American English
271 The Awakening Kate Chopin 1899 American English
280 The Adventures of Augie March Saul Bellow 1953 American English
289 A Room With a View E. M. Forster 1908 British English
292 Of Human Bondage W. Somerset Maugham 1915 British English
303 Peter And Wendy J. M. Barrie 1911 Scottish English
321 We Yevgeny Zamyatin 1924 Russian Russian
368 Stranger in a Strange Land Robert A. Heinlein 1961 American English
374 Ethics Baruch de Spinoza 1677 Dutch Latin
399 His Dark Materials Philip Pullman 1995 British English
416 Out of Africa Isak Dinesen 1937 Danish Danish
424 A Doll's House Henrik Ibsen 1879 Norwegian Norwegian
427 Cloud Atlas David Mitchell 2004 British English
429 The Baron in the Trees Italo Calvino 1957 Italian Italian
442 The Magus John Fowles 1965 British English
445 I'm Not Stiller Max Frisch 1954 Swiss German
447 Gypsy Ballads Federico García Lorca 1928 Spanish Spanish
461 Atlas Shrugged Ayn Rand 1957 American English
462 The Prophet Kahlil Gibran 1923 Lebanese English
498 The Immoralist André Gide 1902 French French
513 Kindred Octavia E. Butler 1979 American English
521 I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings Maya Angelou 1969 American English
540 The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test Tom Wolfe 1968 American English
553 The Dispossessed Ursula K. Le Guin 1974 American English
557 The Souls of Black Folk W. E. B. Du Bois 1903 American English
567 The French Lieutenant's Woman John Fowles 1969 British English
574 The Known World Edward P. Jones 2003 American English
582 Man's Search for Meaning Viktor Frankl 1946 Austrian German
616 The Rebel Albert Camus 1951 French French
628 Nights At The Circus Angela Carter 1984 British English
635 Johnny Got His Gun Dalton Trumbo 1939 American English
638 Being and Nothingness Jean Paul Sartre 1943 French French
640 Black Boy Richard Wright 1945 American English
647 Lolly Willowes Sylvia Townsend Warner 1926 British English
670 Persepolis Marjane Satrapi 2000 French French
682 The Open Society and Its Enemies Karl Popper 1945 British English
683 Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas Hunter S. Thompson 1971 American English
704 Breakfast at Tiffany's Truman Capote 1958 American English
725 The Kingdom of This World Alejo Carpentier 1949 Cuban Spanish
729 Thérèse Desqueyroux François Mauriac 1927 French French
745 Memed, My Hawk Yashar Kemal 1955 Turkish Turkish
770 The Underground Railroad Colson Whitehead 2016 American English
788 Roots Alex Haley 1976 American English
827 Fear of Flying Erica Jong 1973 American English
829 The Road to Serfdom Friedrich von Hayek 1944 Austrian English
858 The Woman in the Dunes Kobo Abé 1962 Japanese Japanese
886 Riders of the Purple Sage Zane Grey 1912 American English
907 Hyperion Friedrich Holderlin 1797 German German
908 The Life of a Good-For-Nothing Joseph von Eichendorff 1826 German German
909 The Warmth Of Other Suns Isabel Wilkerson 2010 American English
913 Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass Frederick Douglass 1845 American English
939 Émile Jean-Jacques Rousseau 1762 French French
941 Collected Essays of George Orwell George Orwell 1968 British English
955 Moravagine Blaise Cendrars 1926 Swiss French
964 Paroles Jacques Prévert 1946 French French
1017 Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban J. K. Rowling 1999 British English
1026 Murphy Samuel Beckett 1938 Irish English
1087 Home and the World Rabindranath Tagore 1916 Indian Bengali
1118 Germany, a Winter Tale Heinrich Heine 1844 German German
1121 Fantasia Assia Djebar 1985 French French
1128 The Price Of Salt Patricia Highsmith 1952 American English
1170 Capitalism and Freedom Milton Friedman 1962 American English
1176 Carmen Prosper Mérimée 1845 French French
1215 Explosion In A Cathedral Alejo Carpentier 1962 Cuban Spanish
1234 Woman at Point Zero Nawal El Saadawi 1975 Egyptian Arabic
1255 Jonathan Livingston Seagull Richard Bach 1970 American English
1256 Prometheus Bound Aeschylus -455 Greek Ancient greek
1259 The Female Eunuch Germaine Greer 1970 Australian English
1273 Selected Poems of Lord Byron Lord Byron 1800 British English
1292 Two Serious Ladies Jane Bowles 1943 American English
1295 Phenomenology of Mind G. W. F. Hegel 1807 German German
1303 The Seventh Cross Anna Seghers 1942 German German
1348 Sandman Neil Gaiman 1989 British English
1353 William Tell Friedrich Schiller 1804 German German
1409 No Exit Jean Paul Sartre 1944 French French
1451 The Children of Men P. D. James 1992 British English
1489 Abraham Lincoln, Speeches And Letters Abraham Lincoln 1907 American English
1508 Surrealist Manifesto André Breton 1924 French French
1521 The Robbers Friedrich Schiller 1781 German German
1522 Cancer Ward Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn 1967 Russian Russian
1541 The Confessions of Nat Turner William Styron 1967 American English
1608 The Loneliness of the Long-distance Runner Alan Sillitoe 1959 British English
1616 Under the Yoke Ivan Vazov 1888 Bulgarian Bulgarian
1632 The Roots of Heaven Romain Gary 1956 French French
1651 The Yellow Wallpaper Charlotte Perkins Gilman 1892 American English
1659 The Americans Robert Frank 1959 American English
1667 The Poetry of Alexander Pushkin Alexander Pushkin 1836 Russian Russian
1668 Solitude Caterina Albert 1905 Spanish Catalan
1714 Go Down, Moses William Faulkner 1942 American English
1718 The Fixer Bernard Malamud 1966 American English
1730 The Mouse And His Child Russell Hoban 1967 American English
1743 Life & Times of Michael K J. M. Coetzee 1983 South African English
1744 Haroun and the Sea of Stories Salman Rushdie 1990 British English