The Greatest Literary Letters and Nonfiction 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
969 Letters to a Young Poet Rainer Maria Rilke 1929 Austrian German
1147 The George Sand-Gustave Flaubert Letters Gustave Flaubert 1921 French French
1191 De Profundis Oscar Wilde 1905 British English
1766 Kafka's Other Trial Elias Canetti 1969 Bulgarian German
1858 Abraham Lincoln, Speeches And Letters Abraham Lincoln 1907 American English
2130 My Past And Thoughts Alexander Herzen 1861 Russian Russian
2235 Beethoven's Letters Ludwig van Beethoven 1866 German German
2163 Selections From The Tatler And The Spectator Joseph Addison, Richard Steele 1804 British English
2259 Четвёртая проза Osip Mandelstam 1930 Russian Russian
2289 Lettres de madame de Sévigné Marie de Rabutin-Chantal marquise de Sévigné 1671 French French
2353 Fallen Leaves Vasily Rozanov 1913 Russian Russian
2486 Journal, 1935 44 Mihail Sebastian 1996 Romanian Romanian
2515 Letters On England Voltaire 1734 French French
2781 The Adams Jefferson Letters Lester J. Cappon 1959 American English
2956 The Waste Books Georg Christoph Lichtenberg 1770 German German
2956 Anti Goeze Gotthold Ephraim Lessing 1778 German German
3061 The Habit of Being Flannery O'Connor 1979 American English
3315 Notebooks Albert Camus 1935 French French
3352 The Rise And Fall Of The Man Of Letters John Gross 1969 British English
3493 Letters Of A Javanese Princess Raden Adjeng Kartini 1911 Indonesian Dutch
4044 The Glenn Gould Reader Glenn Gould 1984 Canadian English
4326 Letters From The Earth Mark Twain 1962 American English
4693 Finishing The Hat Stephen Sondheim 2010 American English
5033 Pavel's Letters Monika Maron 1999 German German
5148 Letters From Egypt Florence Nightingale 1987 British English
5324 The Letters Of Vincent Van Gogh Vincent van Gogh 1914 Dutch Dutch
5353 Dear Theo Irving Stone, Jean Stone 1937 American English
5358 Die Günderode Bettina von Arnim 1840 German German
5362 Letters And Religion John Jay Chapman 1892 American English
5763 Letters To A Young Novelist Mario Vargas Llosa 2002 Peruvian Spanish
6846 The Oxford Book Of Letters Frank Kermode, Anita Kermode 1995 British English
6874 The Collected Prose Elizabeth Bishop 1984 American English
7101 Essays of Henry David Thoreau Henry David Thoreau 1862 American English
8996 Murasaki Shikibu Nikki ; Murasaki Shikibu Shū Murasaki Shikibu 1008 Japanese Japanese
9304 The Journals Of John Cheever John Cheever 1991 American English
9243 Hugging The Shore John Updike 1983 American English
11140 Epistles Horace 20 Latin Latin
11140 Selected Prose Thomas Carlyle 1800 British English
11303 The Complete Notebooks Of Henry James Henry James 1987 American English
11362 Cultural Amnesia Clive James 2007 Australian English
11393 Conversations Of Goethe With Johann Peter Eckermann Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Johann Peter Eckermann 1836 German German
13240 Products Of The Perfected Civilization Sébastien-Roch Nicolas de Chamfort 1969 French French
14143 The Crack-Up F. Scott Fitzgerald 1945 American English
13497 The Journals Of James Boswell James Boswell 1791 British English
13497 The Works Of Samuel Johnson Samuel Johnson 1787 British English
13497 Essays And Dialogues Giacomo Leopardi 1827 Italian Italian
13497 Imaginary Conversations Walter Savage Landor 1824 British English
13497 The Collected Writings Of Thomas De Quincey Thomas de Quincey 1889 British English
13497 Essays Of Robert Louis Stevenson Robert Louis Stevenson 1892 Scottish English
13497 Dialogue On Poetry And Literary Aphorisms Friedrich Schlegel 1800 German German
13497 Journals Ralph Waldo Emerson 1820 American English
13497 Notebooks Nathaniel Hawthorne 1868 American English
13497 Essays And Reviews Edgar Allan Poe 1845 American English
13497 Studies In Classic American Literature D. H. Lawrence 1923 British English
13497 Selected Prose Hugo von Hofmannsthal 1900 Austrian German
13497 Reminiscences Of Tolstoy, Chekhov, And Andreev Maxim Gorky 1920 Russian Russian
14018 Pages From The Goncourt Journal Edmond de Goncourt 1887 French French
14018 A Johnson Reader Samuel Johnson 1964 American English
14018 The Selected Letters Of William James William James 1920 American English
14018 Holmes Laski Letters Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. 1953 American English
14018 Zibaldone Giacomo Leopardi 1898 Zibaldone Italian
14018 Kilverts Diary, 1870 1879 Francis Kilvert 1938 British English
14018 Letters Of John Keats John Keats 1848 British English
14018 Epistulae Pliny the Younger 100 Roman Latin
14371 The Complete Letters Of Oscar Wilde Oscar Wilde 2000 Irish English
14371 Selected Writings Paul Valéry 1950 French French
14371 A Fanatic Heart Edna O'Brien 1974 Irish English
14371 The Diaries Franz Kafka 1948 Czech German
14371 The Shores Of Light Edmund Wilson 1952 American English
14371 The Lyttelton Hart Davis Letters George Lyttelton 1978 British English
14371 Collected Letters George Bernard Shaw 1972 British English
14371 The Element Of Lavishness William Maxwell 2000 American English
14371 The Writings Of Thomas Jefferson Thomas Jefferson 1903 American English
14371 Letters To His Children Theodore Roosevelt 1919 American English
14371 The Life And Letters Of John Hay William Roscoe Thayer 1915 American English