The Greatest Modernist Books 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 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
2420 The Melancholy of Resistance László Krasznahorkai 1989 Hungarian Hungarian
2432 The Einstein Intersection Samuel R. Delany 1967 American English
2440 Poems Of Anna Akhmatova Anna Akhmatova 1912 Russian Russian
2447 Blindness Henry Green 1926 British English
2478 L'acacia Claude Simon 1989 French French
2518 Rites of Passage William Golding 1980 British English
2526 The Everlasting Man G. K. Chesterton 1925 British English
2541 Pilgrimage Dorothy Richardson 1915 British English
2548 The Enormous Room E. E. Cummings 1922 American English
2548 Her Privates We Frederic Manning 1929 Australian English
2548 Death in Rome Wolfgang Koeppen 1954 German German
2556 Dangling Man Saul Bellow 1944 American English
2572 Childhood Nathalie Sarraute 1983 French French
2573 A Longing For The Light Vicente Aleixandre 1979 Spanish Spanish
2575 The Hedgehog and the Fox Isaiah Berlin 1953 British English
2578 Complete Poems E. E. Cummings 1960 American English
2618 The Neapolitan Novels Elena Ferrante 2011 Italian Italian
2640 The Child in Time Ian McEwan 1987 British English
2641 The Palm At The End Of The Mind Wallace Stevens 1971 American English
2644 The Complete Poems And Plays T. S. Eliot 1952 British English
2648 The ABC of Reading Ezra Pound 1934 American English
2649 Gemini Michel Tournier 1975 French French
2657 Ariel Sylvia Plath 1965 American English
2660 The Women's Room Marilyn French 1977 American English
2662 Daughters of Fire Gerard de Nerval 1854 French French
2685 Selected Plays of Henrick Ibsen Henrik Ibsen 1900 Norwegian Norwegian
2693 Near To The Wild Heart Clarice Lispector 1943 Brazilian Portuguese
2710 Les Caractères Jean de La Bruyère 1688 French French
2716 Something Happened Joseph Heller 1974 American English
2729 La légende des siècles Victor Hugo 1859 French French
2733 Seize The Day Saul Bellow 1956 American English
2737 Philosophical Writings Novalis 1798 German German
2752 The Wild Swans at Coole William Butler Yeats 1917 Irish English
2781 Mist Miguel de Unamuno 1914 Spanish English
2788 A Cultural History Of The Modern Age Egon Friedell 1927 Austrian English
2792 Dog Years Günter Grass 1963 German German
2846 Things Georges Perec 1965 French French
2852 A Bullet In The Ballet Caryl Brahms &S. J. Simon 1937 British English
2853 The Counterlife Philip Roth 1986 American English
2857 A Mercy Toni Morrison 2008 American English
2865 Endgame Samuel Beckett 1957 Irish French
2874 The Moral Essays Giacomo Leopardi 1832 Italian Italian
2876 River of Fire Qurratulain Hyder 1959 Indian Urdu
2883 Septology Jon Fosse 2019 Norwegian Norwegian
2893 The Caretaker Harold Pinter 1960 British English
2894 Seven Days In New Crete Robert Graves 1949 British English
2897 Speculations About Jakob Uwe Johnson 1959 German German
2910 Villa Des Roses Willem Elsschot 1913 Belgian Dutch
2949 Eva Trout Elizabeth Bowen 1968 Irish English
2956 Sanatorium Under The Sign Of The Hourglass Bruno Schulz 1937 Polish Polish
2960 A Poem Without A Hero Anna Akhmatova 1960 Russian Russian
2964 The History Man Malcolm Bradbury 1975 British English
2978 My Friends Emmanuel Bove 1924 French French
2999 A Cloud In Trousers Vladimir Mayakovsky 1915 Russian Russian
3009 Labyrinths Christopher Okigbo 1971 Nigerian English
3034 Novel on Yellow Paper Stevie Smith 1936 British English
3040 Manservant And Maidservant Ivy Compton-Burnett 1947 British English
3056 The Invention of Solitude Paul Auster 1982 American English
3066 Three Guineas Virginia Woolf 1938 British English
3074 Lunch Poems Frank O'Hara 1964 American English
3082 Flappers And Philosophers F. Scott Fitzgerald 1920 American English
3175 Spring And All William Carlos Williams 1923 American English
3179 The Quick And The Dead Joy Williams 2000 American English
3225 The Driver's Seat Muriel Spark 1970 British English
3251 Lost in the Cosmos Walker Percy 1983 American English
3260 The 42nd Parallel John Dos Passos 1930 American English
3263 The Selected Works of Cesare Pavese Cesare Pavese 1968 Italian Italian
3273 Bohemian Lights Ramón del Valle-Inclán 1920 Spanish Spanish
3279 Holy Week Louis Aragon 1958 French French
3290 Candida George Bernard Shaw 1898 Irish English
3293 The Subterraneans Jack Kerouac 1958 American English
3303 The Cocktail Party T. S. Eliot 1950 British English
3308 Camp Concentration Thomas M. Disch 1968 American English
3309 The Theater and Its Double Antonin Artaud 1938 French French
3324 Torrents of Spring Ivan Turgenev 1872 Russian Russian
3324 By the Open Sea August Strindberg 1890 Swedish Swedish
3324 None but the Brave Arthur Schnitzler 1895 Austrian German
3324 Hell Henri Barbusse 1908 French French
3324 I Thought of Daisy Edmund Wilson 1929 American English
3324 The Return of Philip Latinowicz Miroslav Krleža 1932 Croatian Croatian
3324 Eyeless in Gaza Aldous Huxley 1936 British English
3324 Summer Will Show Sylvia Townsend Warner 1936 British English
3324 Back Henry Green 1946 British English
3324 Asphodel Hilda Doolittle 1921 American English
3373 The Green Child Herbert Read 1935 British English
3380 The Shadow Line Joseph Conrad 1917 British English
3382 Like Life Lorrie Moore 1990 American English
3383 Poems Miguel de Unamuno 1907 Spanish Spanish
3387 Human Poems César Vallejo 1939 Peruvian Spanish
3390 La Realidad Y El Deseo Luis Cernuda 1936 Spanish Spanish
3404 The Unfortunates B. S. Johnson 1969 British English
3416 Bécon Les Bruyères Emmanuel Bove 1927 French French
3426 The Violent Bear It Away Flannery O'Connor 1960 American English
3447 Look At Me Anita Brookner 1983 British English
3460 The Complete Fiction Of Bruno Schulz Bruno Schulz 1989 Polish Polish
3489 Seminario Sulla Gioventù Aldo Busi 1984 Italian Italian
3492 Selected Poems Pierre Ronsard 1501 French French
3511 Scrutiny F. R. Leavis 1932 British English
3515 In the American Grain William Carlos Williams 1925 American English
3518 Poems of Friedrich Hölderlin Friedrich Holderlin 1800 German German
3527 Poetry and the Age Randall Jarrell 1953 American English
3529 Uit Hoofts Lyriek P. C. Hooft 1636 Dutch Dutch
3539 C Tom McCarthy 2010 British English
3540 May Herman Gorter 1889 Dutch Dutch
3541 Her Body and Other Parties Carmen Maria Machado 2017 American English
3567 The Return Of The Caravels António Lobo Antunes 1988 Portuguese Portuguese
3574 Horcynus Orca Stefano D'Arrigo 1975 Italian Italian
3579 Flowering Judas and Other Stories Katherine Anne Porter 1930 American English
3581 Selected Poems Andrew Marvell 1681 British English
3583 Married Life David Vogel 1986 Jewish English
3595 Les Destinées Alfred de Vigny 1864 French French
3596 Time of Silence Luis Martín-Santos 1962 Spanish Spanish
3603 A Girl Is A Half Formed Thing Eimear McBride 2013 Irish English
3606 A Throw Of The Dice Will Never Abolish Chance Stéphane Mallarmé 1897 French French
3629 Party Going Henry Green 1939 British English
3630 I And My Chimney Herman Melville 1856 American English
3630 Life Of Quintus Fixlein Jean-Paul Richter 1796 German German
3630 The Happy Island Dawn Powell 1938 American English
3635 Odes John Keats 1820 British English
3636 Goat Song Konstantin Vaginov 1927 Russian Russian