The Greatest Books of All Time on Love

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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
2 In Search of Lost Time Marcel Proust 1913 French French
3 The Great Gatsby F. Scott Fitzgerald 1925 American English
10 Anna Karenina Leo Tolstoy 1877 Russian Russian
12 War and Peace Leo Tolstoy 1869 Russian Russian
13 Pride and Prejudice Jane Austen 1813 British English
15 Wuthering Heights Emily Brontë 1847 British English
28 Middlemarch George Eliot 1871 British English
29 Jane Eyre Charlotte Brontë 1847 British English
32 Mrs. Dalloway Virginia Woolf 1925 British English
34 The Master and Margarita Mikhail Bulgakov 1967 Russian Russian
38 Great Expectations Charles Dickens 1860 British English
40 Les Misérables Victor Hugo 1862 French French
42 The Red and the Black Stendhal 1830 French French
46 One Thousand and One Nights Unknown 800 Multiple Arabic
57 The Idiot Fyodor Dostoevsky 1869 Russian Russian
58 Gone With the Wind Margaret Mitchell 1936 American English
59 Rebecca Daphne du Maurier 1938 British English
62 The Sun Also Rises Ernest Hemingway 1926 American English
63 Under the Volcano Malcolm Lowry 1947 British English
67 A Farewell to Arms Ernest Hemingway 1929 American English
68 Their Eyes Were Watching God Zora Neale Hurston 1937 American English
73 The Portrait of a Lady Henry James 1881 American English
83 Emma Jane Austen 1815 British English
85 The Good Soldier Ford Madox Ford 1915 British English
87 The Count of Monte Cristo Alexandre Dumas 1844 French French
91 The Tin Drum Günter Grass 1959 German German
92 The Age of Innocence Edith Wharton 1920 American English
93 Little Women Louisa May Alcott 1868 American English
95 Orlando Virginia Woolf 1928 British English
96 Faust Johann Wolfgang von Goethe 1808 German German
97 For Whom the Bell Tolls Ernest Hemingway 1940 American English
98 The Complete Tales and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe Edgar Allan Poe 1902 American English
99 The Unbearable Lightness of Being Milan Kundera 1984 Czech Czech
112 Doctor Zhivago Boris Pasternak 1957 Russian Russian
116 A Sentimental Education Gustave Flaubert 1869 French French
122 Decameron Giovanni Boccaccio 1353 Italian Italian
128 The Stories of Anton Chekhov Anton Chekhov 1900 Russian Russian
129 First Folio William Shakespeare 1623 British English
130 The Tale of Genji Murasaki Shikibu 1001 Japanese Classical japanese
134 Tom Jones Henry Fielding 1749 British English
138 The Charterhouse of Parma Stendhal 1839 French French
141 Brideshead Revisited Evelyn Waugh 1945 British English
144 Sons and Lovers D. H. Lawrence 1913 British English
156 Poems of Emily Dickinson Emily Dickinson 1890 American English
158 Wide Sargasso Sea Jean Rhys 1966 British English
166 Love in the Time of Cholera Gabriel García Márquez 1985 Colombian Spanish
167 Giovanni's Room James Baldwin 1956 American English
168 Tender Is the Night F. Scott Fitzgerald 1934 American English
171 Steppenwolf Hermann Hesse 1927 German German
175 Metamorphoses Ovid 8 Roman Latin
176 The End of the Affair Graham Greene 1951 British English
186 Bonjour Tristesse Francoise Sagan 1954 French French
192 Persuasion Jane Austen 1817 British English
194 Oblomov Ivan Goncharov 1859 Russian Russian
195 An American Tragedy Theodore Dreiser 1925 American English
196 Lady Chatterley's Lover D. H. Lawrence 1928 British English
207 Zorba the Greek Nikos Kazantzakis 1946 Greek Greek
210 Dangerous Liaison Pierre Choderlos de Laclos 1782 French French
226 The Alexandria Quartet Lawrence Durrell 1957 British English
227 Women in Love D. H. Lawrence 1920 British English
235 The Ambassadors Henry James 1903 American English
246 The Forsyte Saga John Galsworthy 1906 British English
248 Atonement Ian McEwan 2001 British English
249 A Hero of Our Time Mikhail Lermontov 1840 Russian Russian
253 Look Homeward, Angel Thomas Wolfe 1929 American English
260 Song of Solomon Toni Morrison 1977 American English
261 Wings of the Dove Henry James 1902 American English
268 Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats William Butler Yeats 1933 Irish English
269 Nightwood Djuna Barnes 1936 American English
272 The Devil to Pay in the Backlands Joao Guimaraes Rosa 1956 Brazilian Portuguese
273 The Betrothed Alessandro Manzoni 1827 Italian Italian
282 The Sorrows of Young Werther Johann Wolfgang von Goethe 1774 German German
287 Jude the Obscure Thomas Hardy 1895 British English
289 A Room With a View E. M. Forster 1908 British 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
296 The Lover Marguerite Duras 1984 French French
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
307 Medea Euripides -431 Greek Ancient greek
309 Tarzan of the Apes Edgar Rice Burroughs 1912 American English
321 We Yevgeny Zamyatin 1924 Russian Russian
325 A Dance to the Music of Time Anthony Powell 1951 British English
329 History Elsa Morante 1974 Italian Italian
335 The Garden of the Finzi-Continis Giorgio Bassani 1962 Italian Italian
337 Romeo and Juliet William Shakespeare 1597 British English
341 The Human Comedy Honoré de Balzac 1830 French French
343 The Sonnets William Shakespeare 1609 British English
352 The Vicar of Wakefield Oliver Goldsmith 1766 British English
354 Hopscotch Julio Cortazar 1963 Argentinian Spanish
359 The God of Small Things Arundhati Roy 1997 Indian English
360 Ada or Ardor Vladimir Nabokov 1969 American English
365 Eugene Onegin Alexander Pushkin 1833 Russian Russian
366 The Hunchback of Notre-Dame Victor Hugo 1831 French French
368 Stranger in a Strange Land Robert A. Heinlein 1961 American English
371 History of My Life Giacomo Casanova 1822 Italian French
373 The Duino Elegies Rainer Maria Rilke 1923 German German
382 Parade's End Ford Madox Ford 1924 British English
385 Quo Vadis Henryk Sienkiewicz 1895 Polish Polish
386 La Regenta Clarín 1884 Spanish Spanish
387 Our Mutual Friend Charles Dickens 1864 British English
394 Nadja André Breton 1928 French French
396 The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao Junot Diaz 2007 Dominican English
401 Celestina Or The Tragic-Comedy Of Calisto And Melibea Fernando de Rojas 1499 Spanish Spanish
414 The Mill on the Floss George Eliot 1860 British English
425 Sense and Sensibility Jane Austen 1811 British English
429 The Baron in the Trees Italo Calvino 1957 Italian Italian
432 Lost Illusions Honoré de Balzac 1837 French French
439 North and South Elizabeth Gaskell 1855 British English
443 Americanah Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie 2013 Nigerian English
447 Gypsy Ballads Federico García Lorca 1928 Spanish Spanish
462 The Prophet Kahlil Gibran 1923 Lebanese English
464 Petrarch's Songbook Francesco Petrarca 1341 Italian Italian
468 Daniel Deronda George Eliot 1876 British English
478 Alcools Guillaume Apollinaire 1913 French French
484 Dream of the Red Chamber Cao Xueqin 1754 Chinese Chinese
487 Rainbow D.H. Lawrence 1915 British English
489 Manon Lescaut Abbe Prevost 1731 French French