Greater Books

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The Globe and Mail (Martin Levin, Charlotte Gray, André Alexis, A L Kennedy, and Alberto Manguel, eds.), 50 Greatest Books of All Time [2008]

73 entries: 68 monographical, five otherwise

Unranked—arranged topically

The "great books" project enacted by the Toronto daily, the Globe and Mail, was led by Levin. Besides Manguel, quite a few acclaimed writers contributed articles, including Mary Beard, Colm Tóibín, and Jane Smiley. This list is essentially what I call a book-as-list, except it took the form of a series of newspaper articles. Those articles are no longer accessible at the paper's website (though presumably available via an academic database or two). However, a discussion about the list is still up: 'Martin Levin on the Greatest Books Series'.

  1. Mark Twain

  2. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
    1884—English

  3. Marcel Proust

  4. À la Recherche du Temps Perdu
    In Search of Lost Time; In Remembrance of Things Past
    originally published in seven volumes, two of which originally published as two books each, 1913-27—French


  5. Charles Darwin

  6. On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life
    1859—English

  7. Dante

  8. La Divina Commedia
    The Divine Comedy
    originally entitled La Commedia; written ca. 1308-21—Italian


  9. Plato

  10. Politeia
    The Republic
    early Fourth Century B C—Greek


  11. Miguel de Cervantes

  12. El Ingenioso Hidalgo Don Quijote de la Mancha
    Don Quixote
    originally published in two volumes, 1605 and 1615—Spanish


  13. James Joyce

  14. Ulysses
    published in part serially Mar. 1918-Dec. 1920 in the Little Review; in its entirety, 1922—English

  15. Karl Marx

  16. Das Kapital, Kritik der Politischen Ökonomie
    originally published in three volumes 1867, 1885, and 1894—German

  17. Augustine of Hippo

  18. Confessionum Libri Tredecim
    The Confessions of St. Augustine
    written 397-98—Latin


  19. Niccolò Machiavelli

  20. Il Principe
    The Prince
    1532—Italian


  21. F Scott Fitzgerald

  22. The Great Gatsby
    1925—English

  23. George Eliot

  24. Middlemarch: A Study of Provincial Life
    originally published serially Dec. 1871-Dec. 1872—English

  25. Adam Smith

  26. An Inquiry Into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations
    1776; revised through third edition, 1784—English

  27. Sigmund Freud

  28. Die Traumdeutung
    The Interpretation of Dreams
    1899—German


  29. Jonathan Swift

  30. Travels Into Several Remote Nations of the World, in Four Parts. By Lemuel Gulliver, First a Surgeon, and Then a Captain of Several Ships
    Gulliver's Travels
    1726; revised 1735—English


  31. Gabriel García Márquez

  32. Cien Anõs de Soledad
    One Hundred Years of Solitude
    1967—Spanish


  33. William Shakespeare

  34. King Lear
    1606—English

  35. Immanuel Kant

  36. Kritik der Reinen Vernunft
    Critique of Pure Reason
    1781; revised 1787—German


  37. Jane Austen

  38. Pride and Prejudice>
    originally anonymously published 1813—English

    Homer
  39. Iliad

  40. ca. Ninth-Eighth centuries B C—Greek

  41. Odýsseia

  42. The Odyssey
    ca. Ninth-Eighth centuries B C—Greek


  43. Fyodor Dostoevsky
    Brat'â Karamazovy
    The Brothers Karamazov
    originally published serially 1880 in Rússkij Véstnik—Russian


    T S Eliot
    • Collected Poems, 1909-1962

  44. 1936; expanded 1963; includes Prufrock and Other Observations [1917]; Poems: 1920 [1920]; 'The Waste Land'; 'The Hollow Men'; Ash Wednesday [1930]; Journey of the Magi [1927]; A Song for Simeon [1928]; Animula [1929]; Marina [1930]; Triumphal March [1931]; Sweeney Agonistes: Fragments of an Aristophanic Melodrama [1932]; Four Quartets; The Cultivation of Christmas Trees [1954]; selections from The Rock; two poems, 'Coriolan' and 'Difficulties of a Statesman', included with Triumphal March and Sweeney Agonistes in a section entitled Unfinished Poems; plus sections entitled Minor Poems, and Occasional Verses; 1936 edition, entitled Collected Poems, 1909-1935, only included 'Burnt Norton' from Four Quartets and did not include The Cultivation of Christmas Trees or the Occasional Verses section—English

  45. Prufrock and Other Observations

  46. 1917—English

  47. Poems: 1920

  48. 1920—English

  49. Journey of the Magi

  50. 1927; illustrations by Edward McKnight Kauffer; eighth of a series of 37 pamphlets collectively entitled Ariel Poems—English

  51. A Song for Simeon

  52. 1927; with an illustration by Edward McKnight Kauffer; 16th of a series of 37 pamphlets collectively entitled Ariel Poems—English

  53. Animula

  54. 1929; illustrations by Gertrude Hermes; 23rd of a series of 37 pamphlets collectively entitled Ariel Poems—English

  55. Marina

  56. 1930; illustrations by Edward McKnight Kauffer; 29th of a series of 37 pamphlets collectively entitled Ariel Poems—English

  57. Ash Wednesday

  58. 1930—English

  59. Triumphal March

  60. 1931; illustrations by Edward McKnight Kauffer; 35th of a series of 37 pamphlets collectively entitled Ariel Poems; later made part of 'Coriolan' in the Unfinished Poems section of Eliot's Collected Poems—English

  61. Sweeney Agonistes: Fragments of an Aristophanic Melodrama

  62. 1932—English

  63. Four Quartets

  64. originally published in four volumes: Burnt Norton, in Collected Poems 1909-1935, 1936; East Coker, in the New English Weekly, 1940; The Dry Salvages, in the New English Weekly, 1941; Little Gidding, in the New English Weekly, 1942—English

  65. The Cultivation of Christmas Trees

  66. 1954; illustrations by David Jones; part of a second series of Ariel Poems—English

  67. Vladimir Nabokov

  68. Lolita
    1955—English
    --
  69. Quran

  70. Koran
    Seventh Century—Arabic


  71. Charles Dickens

  72. Our Mutual Friend
    originally published serially May 1864-Nov. 1865—English

  73. Jorge Luis Borges

  74. Ficciones
    originally entitled El Jardín de Senderos que se Bifurcan, published 1941; expanded 1944 and 1956—Spanish

  75. Herodotus

  76. Historiē
    History
    Fifth Century B C—Greek


  77. Herman Melville

  78. Moby-Dick; or, The Whale
    1851—English

  79. Gustave Flaubert
    Madame Bovary
    originally published serially Oct. 1856-Dec. 1856 in La Revue de Paris—French

    Franz Kafka
    • The Collected Stories of Franz Kafka

  80. 1971; includes Die Verwandlung [1915]; In der Strafkolonie [1919]; Betrachtung (Contemplation), 1912; Eine Landarzt. Kleine Erzählungen (A Country Doctor), 1919; Ein Hungerkünstler (A Hunger Artist), 1924; Beim Bau der Chinesischen Mauer (The Great Wall of China), 1931; and other stories previously published but uncollected in book form—German

  81. Die Verwandlung

  82. The Metamorphosis
    originally published 1915 in Die Weißen Blätter—German


  83. In der Strafkolonie

  84. In the Penal Colony
    1919—German


    --
  85. The Bible

  86. The Globe and Mail specifies the King James Version, translated 1604-11 to English from the Hebrew and Aramaic (Old Testament) and the Greek (New Testament), revised 1769 by Benjamin Blayney—Hebrew; Aramaic; Greek

  87. Isaac Newton
    Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica
    The Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy
    1687; revised 1713 and 1726—Latin


    William Butler Yeats
    • The Collected Poems of W B Yeats

  88. 1933; expanded 1950; revised 1956; includes The Wind Among the Reeds [1899]; The Shadowy Waters [originally published May 1900 in the North American Review; revised for inclusion in Poems, 1899-1905; theatrical version published separately 1906; both versions included here]; Michael Robartes and the Dancer [1921]; The Tower [1928]; The Winding Stair [1929]; Words for Music Perhaps and Other Poems [1932]; New Poems [1938]; selections from The Wanderings of Oisin and Other Poems, 1889; The Countess Kathleen and Various Legends and Lyrics, 1892; In the Seven Woods: Being Poems Chiefly of the Irish Heroic Age, 1904; The Green Helmet and Other Poems, 1910; Responsibilities, 1914; The Wild Swans at Coole, Other Verses and a Play in Verse, 1917, expanded 1919; A Full Moon in March, 1935; and Last Poems and Two Plays, 1939—English

  89. The Wind Among the Reeds

  90. 1899—English

  91. The Shadowy Waters

  92. 1900; originally published May 1900 in the North American Review; revised for inclusion in Poems, 1899-1905; theatrical version published separately 1906; both versions included in the author's collected poems—English

  93. Michael Robartes and the Dancer

  94. 1920—English

  95. The Tower

  96. 1928; originally published as Seven Poems and a Fragment, 1922; The Cat and the Moon, 1924; and October Blast, 1927—English

  97. The Winding Stair

  98. 1929—English

  99. Words for Music Perhaps and Other Poems

  100. 1932—English

  101. New Poems

  102. 1938—English

  103. Galileo

  104. Dialogo Sopra i due Massimi Sistemi del Mondo
    Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems
    1632—Italian


    Sophocles
  105. Oidipous epi Kolōnō

  106. Oedipus at Colonus
    401 B C—Greek


  107. Oidipous Tyrannos

  108. Oedipus Rex; Oedipus the King
    ca. 429 B C—Greek


  109. Antigone

  110. ca. 441 B C—Greek

  111. Vyasa

  112. Mahabharata
    includes Bhagavad Gita; ca. Ninth Century B C-Fourth Century—Sanskrit

  113. Lewis Carroll

  114. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
    1865—English

  115. Jean-Jacques Rousseau

  116. Du Contrat Social ou Principes du Droit Politique
    The Social Contract
    1762—French


  117. Michel de Montaigne

  118. Les Essais
    Essays
    originally published in three volumes: 1580, 1588, and 1595—French


  119. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  120. Faust
    originally published in two volumes: first, Faust. Der Tragödie Erster Teil, published in part, 1790; in its entirey, 1808; revised 1829; second, Faust. Der Tragödie Zweiter Teil, 1832—German

  121. Rachel Carson

  122. Silent Spring
    originally published Jun. 1962 in the New Yorker—English

  123. David Hume
    An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding
    1748—English

    • Anton Chekhov

  124. Stories
    late Nineteenth-early Twentieth centuries—Russian

  125. Leo Tolstoy

  126. Voyna i Mir"
    War and Peace
    originally entitled 1805, published in part, 1865 and 1867; retitled and published in its entirety, 1869—Russian


  127. Mary Wollstonecraft

  128. A Vindication of the Rights of Woman
    1792—English

  129. Giovanni Boccaccio

  130. Il Decameron, Cognominato Prencipe Galeotto
    ca. 1351-53—Italian

  131. Samuel Beckett

  132. En Attendant Godot
    Waiting for Godot
    1953—French


  133. Murasaki Shikibu
    Genji Monogatari
    The Tale of Genji
    ca. early Eleventh Century—Japanese


    • Denis Diderot et al.

  134. Encyclopédie, ou Dictionnaire Raisonné des Sciences, des Arts et des Métiers
    published in 28 volumes, 1751-72—French

  135. Henry James

  136. The Portrait of a Lady
    originally published serially Oct. 1880-Nov. 1881 in Macmillan's and Nov. 1880-Dec. 1881 in the Atlantic Monthly—English