The Greatest Books of All Time Set in London

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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
32 Mrs. Dalloway Virginia Woolf 1925 British English
38 Great Expectations Charles Dickens 1860 British English
45 Fictions Jorge Luis Borges 1944 Argentinian Spanish
47 David Copperfield Charles Dickens 1849 British English
61 The Golden Notebook Doris May Lessing 1962 British English
89 The Picture of Dorian Gray Oscar Wilde 1890 Irish English
95 Orlando Virginia Woolf 1928 British English
105 Vanity Fair William Makepeace Thackeray 1847 British English
121 Bleak House Charles Dickens 1852 British English
134 Tom Jones Henry Fielding 1749 British English
139 The Woman in White Wilkie Collins 1860 British English
176 The End of the Affair Graham Greene 1951 British English
188 A Tale of Two Cities Charles Dickens 1859 British English
197 Howards End E. M. Forster 1910 British English
205 The Complete Sherlock Holmes Arthur Conan Doyle 1927 British English
216 A Christmas Carol Charles Dickens 1843 British English
218 The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde Robert Louis Stevenson 1886 British English
221 White Teeth Zadie Smith 2000 British English
234 The Chronicles of Narnia C. S. Lewis 1950 British English
246 The Forsyte Saga John Galsworthy 1906 British English
248 Atonement Ian McEwan 2001 British English
254 Gravity's Rainbow Thomas Pynchon 1973 American English
261 Wings of the Dove Henry James 1902 American English
277 The Pickwick Papers Charles Dickens 1836 British English
292 Of Human Bondage W. Somerset Maugham 1915 British English
300 The Life of Samuel Johnson James Boswell 1791 British English
312 Labyrinths Jorge Luis Borges 1962 Argentinian Spanish
325 A Dance to the Music of Time Anthony Powell 1951 British English
339 The Adventures of Oliver Twist Charles Dickens 1837 British English
351 Moll Flanders Daniel Defoe 1722 British English
372 War of the Worlds H. G. Wells 1898 British English
376 The Golden Bowl Henry James 1904 American English
387 Our Mutual Friend Charles Dickens 1864 British English
397 Wolf Hall Hilary Mantel 2009 British English
410 The Razor's Edge W. Somerset Maugham 1944 British English
415 The Day of the Jackal Frederick Forsyth 1971 British English
419 The Daughter of Time Josephine Tey 1951 British English
435 Scoop Evelyn Waugh 1938 British English
444 The Man Who Was Thursday G. K. Chesterton 1908 British English
454 The Sea, The Sea Iris Murdoch 1978 British English
457 The Hollow Man John Dickson Carr 1935 British English
467 A Handful of Dust Evelyn Waugh 1934 British English
468 Daniel Deronda George Eliot 1876 British English
470 The Secret Agent Joseph Conrad 1907 British English
497 Murder Must Advertise Dorothy L. Sayers 1933 British English
534 Satanic Verses Salman Rushdie 1988 British English
569 The Death of the Heart Elizabeth Bowen 1938 British, Irish English
581 The Innocence of Father Brown G. K. Chesterton 1911 British English
606 New Grub Street George Gissing 1891 British English
628 Nights At The Circus Angela Carter 1984 British English
633 Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy John le Carré 1974 British English
641 Bridget Jones's Diary Helen Fielding 1996 British English
679 The Expedition of Humphry Clinker Tobias Smollett 1771 British English
691 Excellent Women Barbara Pym 1952 British English
703 The Way We Live Now Anthony Trollope 1875 British English
715 The Sketch Book Of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. Washington Irving 1819 American English
718 Possession A. S. Byatt 1990 British English
723 The Line of Beauty Alan Hollinghurst 2004 British English
734 Loving Henry Green 1945 British English
743 On Liberty John Stuart Mill 1859 British English
750 Money Martin Amis 1984 British English
762 Ballet Shoes Noel Streatfeild 1936 British English
774 A Vindication of the Rights of Woman Mary Wollstonecraft 1792 British English
812 Collected Poems of T.S. Eliot T. S. Eliot 1963 British English
815 Around the World in Eighty Days Jules Verne 1872 French French
841 Crash J. G. Ballard 1973 British English
845 Evelina Fanny Burney 1778 British English
874 The Last Samurai Helen DeWitt 2000 American English
890 High Fidelity Nick Hornby 1995 British English
897 The Darkroom Of Damocles W.F. Hermans 1958 Dutch Dutch
902 Under the Net Iris Murdoch 1954 British English
917 The Day of the Triffids John Wyndham 1951 British English
923 The World Of Yesterday Stefan Zweig 1942 Austrian German
946 The Diary of a Nobody George Grossmith, Weedon Grossmith 1892 British English
948 The Poisoned Chocolates Case Anthony Berkeley 1929 British English
954 Pygmalion George Bernard Shaw 1913 British English
956 The Girls of Slender Means Muriel Spark 1963 British English
966 The Ipcress File Len Deighton 1962 British English
967 The Heat of the Day Elizabeth Bowen 1949 British English
983 A Study In Scarlet Arthur Conan Doyle 1887 British English
989 The Lonely Londoners Sam Selvon 1956 Trinidadian English
992 Joseph Andrews Henry Fielding 1742 British English
995 Dombey and Son Charles Dickens 1846 British English
1010 Fingersmith Sarah Waters 2002 British English
1026 Murphy Samuel Beckett 1938 Irish English
1045 Selected Essays of T. S. Eliot T. S. Eliot 1932 British English
1050 The Buddha of Suburbia Hanif Kureishi 1990 British English
1074 The Da Vinci Code Dan Brown 2003 American English
1095 The Swimming-Pool Library Alan Hollinghurst 1988 British English
1116 Hadrian the Seventh Frederick Rolfe 1904 British English
1132 Fanny Hill John Cleland 1748 British English
1136 The Black Prince Iris Murdoch 1973 British English
1146 Nicholas Nickleby Charles Dickens 1839 British English
1165 The Horse's Mouth Joyce Cary 1944 British English
1179 Living Henry Green 1929 British English
1185 The Inimitable Jeeves P. G. Wodehouse 1923 British English
1226 The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle Tobias Smollett 1751 British English
1229 Songs of Innocence and Experience William Blake 1789 British English
1245 Down and Out in Paris and London George Orwell 1933 British English
1253 Absolute Beginners Colin MacInnes 1959 British English
1306 Widdershins G. Oliver Onions 1911 British English
1316 The Fountain Overflows Rebecca West 1956 British English
1325 A Far Cry From Kensington Muriel Spark 1988 British English
1334 Hangover Square Patrick Hamilton 1941 British English
1356 Towards The End Of The Morning Michael Frayn 1967 British English
1382 The Importance of Being Earnest Oscar Wilde 1895 Irish English
1427 Vile Bodies Evelyn Waugh 1930 British English
1431 Cakes And Ale Or, The Skeleton In The Cupboard W. Somerset Maugham 1930 British English
1464 Little Dorrit Charles Dickens 1855 British English
1483 Tono Bungay H. G. Wells 1909 British English
1492 The Real Life of Sebastian Knight Vladimir Nabokov 1941 Russian English
1494 Eye Of The Needle Ken Follett 1978 British English
1547 What Maisie Knew Henry James 1897 American English
1549 Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont Elizabeth Taylor 1971 British English
1551 Hawksmoor Peter Ackroyd 1985 British English
1564 G. John Berger 1972 British English
1584 A Severed Head Iris Murdoch 1961 British English
1585 Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell Susanna Clarke 2004 British English
1600 Studies in the Psychology of Sex Havelock Ellis 1897 British English