The Greatest Philosophical 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
1 Ulysses James Joyce 1922 Irish English
2 In Search of Lost Time Marcel Proust 1913 French French
7 Moby-Dick Herman Melville 1851 American English
10 Anna Karenina Leo Tolstoy 1877 Russian Russian
11 Crime and Punishment Fyodor Dostoevsky 1866 Russian Russian
12 War and Peace Leo Tolstoy 1869 Russian Russian
18 The Brothers Karamazov Fyodor Dostoevsky 1880 Russian Russian
20 Madame Bovary Gustave Flaubert 1857 French French
21 The Trial Franz Kafka 1925 Czech German
23 The Stranger Albert Camus 1942 French French
25 The Magic Mountain Thomas Mann 1924 German German
27 To the Lighthouse Virginia Woolf 1927 British English
28 Middlemarch George Eliot 1871 British English
30 The Divine Comedy Dante Alighieri 1308 Italian Italian
34 The Master and Margarita Mikhail Bulgakov 1967 Russian Russian
36 Invisible Man Ralph Ellison 1952 American English
39 Frankenstein Mary Shelley 1818 British English
40 Les Misérables Victor Hugo 1862 French French
42 The Red and the Black Stendhal 1830 French French
45 Fictions Jorge Luis Borges 1944 Argentinian Spanish
48 Journey to the End of The Night Louis-Ferdinand Céline 1932 French French
50 Brave New World Aldous Huxley 1932 British English
51 The Life And Opinions Of Tristram Shandy Laurence Sterne 1759 British English
54 The Old Man and the Sea Ernest Hemingway 1952 American English
57 The Idiot Fyodor Dostoevsky 1869 Russian Russian
71 Hamlet William Shakespeare 1600 British English
75 Essays Michel de Montaigne 1580 French French
76 The Plague Albert Camus 1947 French French
77 Leaves of Grass Walt Whitman 1855 American English
78 A Passage to India E. M. Forster 1924 British English
80 Candide Voltaire 1759 French French
82 The Man Without Qualities Robert Musil 1930 Austrian German
88 A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man James Joyce 1916 Irish English
89 The Picture of Dorian Gray Oscar Wilde 1890 Irish English
94 Demons Fyodor Dostoevsky 1872 Russian Russian
96 Faust Johann Wolfgang von Goethe 1808 German German
99 The Unbearable Lightness of Being Milan Kundera 1984 Czech Czech
101 Waiting for Godot Samuel Beckett 1953 Irish French
104 Dead Souls Nikolai Gogol 1842 Russian Russian
106 Oedipus the King Sophocles -429 Greek Ancient greek
108 Walden Henry David Thoreau 1854 American English
111 The Waste Land T. S. Eliot 1922 British English
112 Doctor Zhivago Boris Pasternak 1957 Russian Russian
114 The Name of the Rose Umberto Eco 1980 Italian Italian
116 A Sentimental Education Gustave Flaubert 1869 French French
123 Memoirs of Hadrian Marguerite Yourcenar 1951 French French
125 Antigone Sophocles -441 Greek Ancient greek
131 King Lear William Shakespeare 1608 British English
133 Confessions Augustine 397 Roman Latin
135 Doctor Faustus Thomas Mann 1947 German German
140 The Second Sex Simone de Beauvoir 1949 French French
145 Gargantua and Pantagruel Francois Rabelais 1532 French French
150 Fahrenheit 451 Ray Bradbury 1953 American English
152 The Prince Niccolo Machiavelli 1532 Italian Italian
153 A Clockwork Orange Anthony Burgess 1962 British English
156 Poems of Emily Dickinson Emily Dickinson 1890 American English
162 Silent Spring Rachel Carson 1962 American English
163 Siddhartha Hermann Hesse 1922 German German
171 Steppenwolf Hermann Hesse 1927 German German
172 Man's Fate Andre Malraux 1933 French French
173 A Room of One's Own Virginia Woolf 1929 British English
177 The Interpretation of Dreams Sigmund Freud 1899 Austrian German
178 The Flowers of Evil Charles Baudelaire 1857 French French
179 Fathers and Sons Ivan Turgenev 1862 Russian Russian
180 On the Origin of Species Charles Darwin 1859 British English
182 The Moviegoer Walker Percy 1961 American English
194 Oblomov Ivan Goncharov 1859 Russian Russian
198 Blood Meridian Cormac McCarthy 1985 American English
200 The Book of Disquiet Fernando Pessoa 1982 Portuguese Portuguese
202 Invisible Cities Italo Calvino 1972 Italian Italian
206 The Gulag Archipelago Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn 1973 Russian Russian
207 Zorba the Greek Nikos Kazantzakis 1946 Greek Greek
214 Life and Fate Vasily Grossman 1980 Russian Russian
220 The Republic Plato -379 Greek Ancient greek
222 Thus Spake Zarathustra Friedrich Nietzsche 1883 German German
226 The Alexandria Quartet Lawrence Durrell 1957 British English
229 Democracy in America Alexis de Tocqueville 1835 French French
231 Death of Virgil Hermann Broch 1945 Austrian German
235 The Ambassadors Henry James 1903 American English
240 Death in Venice Thomas Mann 1912 German German
245 Nausea Jean Paul Sartre 1938 French French
249 A Hero of Our Time Mikhail Lermontov 1840 Russian Russian
262 Austerlitz W. G. Sebald 2001 German German
275 The Confessions of Jean-Jacques Rousseau Jean-Jacques Rousseau 1782 French French
282 The Sorrows of Young Werther Johann Wolfgang von Goethe 1774 German German
292 Of Human Bondage W. Somerset Maugham 1915 British English
295 Franz Kafka Franz Kafka 1971 Czech Unknown
298 Herzog Saul Bellow 1964 American English
305 The Confusions of Young Törless Robert Musil 1906 Austrian German
312 Labyrinths Jorge Luis Borges 1962 Argentinian Spanish
313 Meditations Marcus Aurelius 161 Roman Greek
315 Relativity Albert Einstein 1916 German German
316 Pensées Blaise Pascal 1670 French French
319 The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money John Maynard Keynes 1936 British English
324 Communist Manifesto Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels 1848 German German
326 The Unnamable Samuel Beckett 1953 Irish French
327 Solaris Stanislaw Lem 1961 Polish Polish
328 Das Kapital Karl Marx 1867 German German
334 Parallel Lives Plutarch 100 Greek Greek
341 The Human Comedy Honoré de Balzac 1830 French French
343 The Sonnets William Shakespeare 1609 British English
345 Leviathan Thomas Hobbes 1651 British English
348 The Glass Bead Game Hermann Hesse 1943 German German
349 The Death of Ivan Ilyich Leo Tolstoy 1886 Russian Russian
354 Hopscotch Julio Cortazar 1963 Argentinian Spanish
363 The Left Hand Of Darkness Ursula K. Le Guin 1969 American English
368 Stranger in a Strange Land Robert A. Heinlein 1961 American English
369 Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus Ludwig Wittgenstein 1921 Austrian German
373 The Duino Elegies Rainer Maria Rilke 1923 German German
374 Ethics Baruch de Spinoza 1677 Dutch Latin
375 Kolyma Stories Varlam Shalamov 1954 Russian Russian
377 The Education of Henry Adams Henry Adams 1907 American English
383 Oedipus at Colonus Sophocles -401 Greek Ancient greek
388 The Complete Works of Plato Plato -387 Greek Ancient greek
389 The Alchemist Paulo Coelho 1988 Brazilian Portuguese
394 Nadja André Breton 1928 French French
398 The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge Rainer Maria Rilke 1910 German German
402 The Nicomachean Ethics Aristotle -334 Greek Ancient greek
403 The Words Jean Paul Sartre 1963 French French
404 The Federalist Papers Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, John Jay 1787 American English