Andrew Taylor, Books That Changed the World: The 50 Most Influential Books in Human History [2008]
86 entries: 83 monographical, 3 otherwise
Unrankedarranged chronologically
One of the simplest lists, except that one of these 50 is Shakespeare's First Folio.
- Homer
Iliad
ca. Ninth-Eighth centuries B CGreek
- Herodotus
Historiē>
History
Fifth Century B CGreek
- Confucius (Kǒng Zǐ) (Kǒng Fūzǐ) (K'ung Fu-tzu)
Analects>
Lún Yǔ
written and compiled by the author's pupils; ca. Fifth Century B C-Second CenturyChinese
- Plato
Politeia>
The Republic
early Fourth Century B CGreek
--
- The Bible
Hebrew; Aramaic; Greek
- Horace (Quintus Horatius Flaccus)
Carmina
Odes
originally published in four volumes: first-third, 23 B C; fourth, 13 B CLatin
- Ptolemy (Claudius Ptolemaeus)
Geographike Hyphegesis>
Geography
Second CenturyGreek
- Vatsayana
Kama Sutra>
ca. Fourth-Third centuries B CSanskrit
--
- Quran
Koran
Seventh CenturyArabic
- Avicenna
Al-Qanun fi al-Tibb>
The Canon of Medicine
1025Arabic
- Geoffrey Chaucer
Canterbury Tales
1478English
- Niccolò Machiavelli
Il Principe
The Prince
1532Italian
- Gerardus Mercator
Atlas Sive Cosmographicae Meditationes de Fabrica Mundi et Fabricati Figura>
Atlas, or, Cosmographic Meditations on the Creation of the World and the Form of Creation
originally published in three volumes: 1585, 1589, and 1595Latin
- Miguel de Cervantes
El Ingenioso Hidalgo Don Quijote de la Mancha
Don Quixote
originally published in two volumes, 1605 and 1615Spanish
William Shakespeare
- Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, and Tragedies
The First Folio
1623; includes 36 of the author's playsEnglish
- The Two Gentlemen of Verona
ca. 1590-94English
- Romeo and Juliet
ca. 1591-97English
- The First Part of Henry VI
ca. 1592English
- The Second Part of Henry VI
ca. 1592English
- The Third Part of Henry VI
ca. 1592English
- The Taming of the Shrew
ca. 1592-94English
- Richard III
ca. 1592-7English
- Titus Andronicus
1594English
- The Comedy of Errors
1594English
- A Midsummer Night's Dream
ca. 1595-1600English
- The Merchant of Venice
ca. 1596-98English
- The Merry Wives of Windsor
ca. 1597-1602English
- The First Part of Henry IV
1597English
- Richard II
1597English
- Love's Labour Lost
1598English
- King John
ca. 1598English
- Much Ado About Nothing
ca. 1598-99English
- Julius Caesar
1599English
- Henry V
1599English
- The Second Part of Henry IV
1600English
- Twelfth Night; or, What You Will
1602English
- Hamlet
1602English
- Troilus and Cressida
ca. 1602-09English
- As You Like It
1603English
- Measure for Measure
1604English
- Othello
ca. 1604English
- Coriolanus
written ca. 1605-08English
- King Lear
1606English
- All's Well That Ends Well
ca. 1606-08English
- Macbeth
ca. 1607English
- Timon of Athens
written ca. 1607English
- The Tempest
1611English
- The Winter's Tale
ca. 1611English
- Henry VIII
ca. 1613English
- Antony and Cleopatra
ca. 1606-08English
- Cymbeline
written ca. 1609English
- William Harvey
Exercitatio Anatomica de Motu Cordis et Sanguinis in Animalibus>
On the Motion of the Heart and Blood in Animals
1628Latin
- Galileo
Dialogo Sopra i due Massimi Sistemi del Mondo>
Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems
1632Italian
- Isaac Newton
Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica>
The Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy
1687; revised 1713 and 1726Latin
- Samuel Johnson
A Dictionary of the English Language>
1755English
- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Die Leiden des Jungen Werthers>
The Sorrows of Young Werther
1774; revised 1787German
- Adam Smith
An Inquiry Into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations
1776; revised through third edition, 1784English
- Thomas Paine
Common Sense; Addresed to the Inhabitants of America
1776English
- William Wordsworth; Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Lyrical Ballads, With a Few Other Poems>
1798; expanded 1800 and 1802English
- Jane Austen
Pride and Prejudice
originally anonymously published 1813English
- Charles Dickens
A Christmas Carol
1843English
- Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels
Manifest der Kommunistischen Partei
The Communist Manifesto
1848German
- Herman Melville
Moby-Dick; or, The Whale
1851English
- Harriet Beecher Stowe
Uncle Tom's Cabin
1852English
- Gustave Flaubert
Madame Bovary
originally published serially Oct. 1856-Dec. 1856 in La Revue de ParisFrench
- Charles Darwin
On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life>
1859English
- John Stuart Mill
On Liberty>
1859English
- Leo Tolstoy
Voyna i Mir"
War and Peace
originally entitled 1805, published in part, 1865 and 1867; retitled and published in its entirety, 1869Russian
- The New Haven District Telephone Company
The Telephone Directory
1878English
--
- Kitab alf Laylah Wa-Laylah
The Thousand and One Nights; The Arabian Nights
Ninth-Fifteenth centuries; Taylor specifies Richard Burton's versionArabic
- Arthur Conan Doyle
A Study in Scarlet>
originally published 1887 in Beeton's Christmas AnnualEnglish
- Sigmund Freud
Die Traumdeutung>
The Interpretation of Dreams
1899German
--
- The Protocols of the Elders of Zion
published in part serially 1903 in Znamya; in its entirety, 1905, as part of Sergei Nilus's Velikoe v" Malom" i Antihrist" (The Great Within the Miniscule and Antichrist)Russian
- Wilfred Owen
Poems>
1920; four poems previously published; 'Memoir' by Edmund Blunden added for 1931 edition; revised 1933; retitled The Collected Poems of Wilfred Owen, 1963, with a new introduction and notes by C Day Lewis plus four drafts of 'Anthem for Doomed Youth' and an unfinished poem, 'Wild With All Regrets'English
- Albert Einstein
Über die Spezielle und die Allgemeine Relativitätstheorie, Gemeinverständlich>
Relativity, the Special and the General Theory: A Popular Exposition
1917; revised through fourteenth edition, 1922German
- James Joyce
Ulysses>
published in part serially Mar. 1918-Dec. 1920 in the Little Review; in its entirety, 1922English
- D H Lawrence
Lady Chatterley's Lover
abridged version, 1928; complete work, 1960English
- John Maynard Keynes
The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money>
1936English
- Primo Levi
Se Questo è un Uomo
Survival in Auschwitz
1947Italian
- George Orwell
Nineteen Eighty-Four
1949English
- Simone de Beauvoir
Le Deuxième Sexe>
The Second Sex
published in part serially in Les Temps Modernes; in its entirety in two volumes, 1949French
- J D Salinger
Catcher in the Rye
1951English
- Chinua Achebe
Things Fall Apart
1958English
- Rachel Carson
Silent Spring
originally published Jun. 1962 in the New YorkerEnglish
- Máo Zédōng
Máo Zhuxí Yulù
Quotations From Chairman Mao Tse-tung
1966Chinese
- J K Rowling
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone
1997English