Greater Books

*Lubbock* *Baldwin* *Eliot* *Powys* *Durant* *Invitation* *Classics* *Hundred* *France* *Downs* *Rexroth* *Zulli* *Read* *List* *Ward* *Magill* *Oriental* *Adler* *Good* *Learning* *Bloom* *Fadiman* *Foundation* *Kanigel* *SeymourSmith* *Trinity* *Utne* *Campbell* *Norway* *Dirda* *Great* *Guardian* *O'Hear* *Zane* *GlobeMail* *Smart* *Taylor* *Telegraph* *Van Doren* *Harvard* *Reynolds* *World* *Deposit* *Newman* *Graphic* *Recommended* *Educated*

J. Peder Zane, The Top Ten: Writers Pick Their Favorite Books [2007]

182 entries: 167 monographical, 15 otherwise

Ranked

Zane's book compiles lists from 125 writers naming "the ten greatest works of fiction of all time." The cumulative top ten that emerged from the project, presented at the beginning of the book, does not reveal any surprises. While some of the contributors definitely saw this project as an opportunity to promote obscure works, many of them clearly did not, producing lists no more idiosyncratic than most of the "great books" lists created by critics and scholars. Given that the top ten does not include any poetry or non-fiction, I have drawn out a longer list from this book. Thankfully, at least a few contributors ignored the "fiction" requirement, so we at least have one quasi-historical work, the Bible, plus a little poetry. Zane provides a master list with all 544 works collectively named by the 125 participants, and places them in order of the number of points they received (a first-place ranking from one of the 125 gets the work 10 points, a second-place ranking nine points, and so on). I haveve included all the works that received at least 10 points; therefore, all works that an author listed no. 1 are included. I could include all 544 titles—nothing in this project's guidelines demands otherwise; I might do so eventually. For now, you would have to read the book to see the works that received less than 10 points or to see which authors listed each of these works. A good article from Time magazine about the book is still online.

  1. Leo Tolstoy

  2. Anna Karenina
    published in part serially 1873-7 in Rússkij Véstnik; in its entirety, 1877—Russian

  3. Gustave Flaubert

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

  5. Leo Tolstoy

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


  7. Vladimir Nabokov

  8. Lolita
    1955—English

  9. Mark Twain

  10. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
    1884—English

  11. William Shakespeare

  12. Hamlet
    1602—English

  13. F Scott Fitzgerald

  14. The Great Gatsby
    1925—English

  15. Marcel Proust
    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


    • Anton Chekhov

  16. Stories
    late Nineteenth-early Twentieth centuries—Russian

  17. George Eliot

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

  19. Miguel de Cervantes

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


  21. Herman Melville

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

  23. Charles Dickens

  24. Great Expectations
    originally published serially Dec. 1860-Aug. 1861 in All the Year Round—English

  25. James Joyce

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

  27. Homer

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


  29. James Joyce

  30. Dubliners
    1914—English

  31. Fyodor Dostoevsky

  32. Prestuplénie i Nakazániye
    Crime and Punishment
    originally published serially Jan.-Dec. 1866 in Rússkij Véstnik—Russian


  33. William Shakespeare

  34. King Lear
    1606—English

  35. Jane Austen

  36. Emma
    originally anonymously published 1815—English

  37. Gabriel García Márquez

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


  39. William Faulkner

  40. The Sound and the Fury
    1929—English

  41. Virginia Woolf

  42. To the Lighthouse
    1927 —English

  43. Fyodor Dostoevsky

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


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


    • Flannery O'Connor

  46. Stories
    Twentieth Century—English

  47. Laurence Sterne

  48. The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman
    originally published in nine volumes, 1759-67—English

  49. Jane Austen

  50. Pride and Prejudice
    originally anonymously published 1813—English

  51. Emily Brontë

  52. Wuthering Heights
    originally published 1847 under the pseudonym, Ellis Bell; revised 1850—English

    --
  53. The Bible

  54. —Hebrew; Aramaic; Greek

  55. Vladimir Nabokov

  56. Pale Fire
    1962—English

  57. William Faulkner

  58. Absalom, Absalom!
    1936—English

  59. Henry James

  60. 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

  61. Harper Lee

  62. To Kill a Mockingbird
    1960—English

  63. Geoffrey Chaucer

  64. Canterbury Tales
    1478—English

  65. Joseph Conrad

  66. Heart of Darkness
    originally published serially Feb.-Apr. 1899 in Blackwood's—English

  67. Virginia Woolf

  68. Mrs. Dalloway
    published in part, Jul. 1923, as 'Mrs. Dalloway in Bond Street', in the Dial; in its entirety, 1925—English

  69. Ralph Ellison

  70. Invisible Man
    1952—English

  71. Charles Dickens

  72. Bleak House
    originally published serially Mar. 1852-Sep. 1853—English

  73. Franz Kafka

  74. Der Prozess
    The Trial
    1925—German


  75. Toni Morrison

  76. Beloved
    1987—English

  77. Charlotte Brontë

  78. Jane Eyre: An Autobiography
    originally published under the pseudonym, Currer Bell, 1847—English

  79. Albert Camus

  80. L'Étranger
    The Stranger
    1942—French


  81. John Steinbeck

  82. The Grapes of Wrath
    1939—English

  83. Robert Penn Warren

  84. All the King's Men
    1946—English

  85. Ford Madox Ford

  86. The Good Soldier
    1915—English

  87. J D Salinger

  88. Catcher in the Rye
    1951—English

  89. Jane Austen

  90. Persuasion
    originally anonymously published 1817—English

  91. William Shakespeare

  92. Macbeth
    ca. 1607—English

  93. Aeschylus

  94. Oresteia
    The House of Atreus
    458 B C—Greek


  95. Nathaniel Hawthorne

  96. The Scarlet Letter
    1850—English

  97. Lewis Carroll

  98. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
    1865—English

  99. Stendhal

  100. Le Rouge et le Noir, Chronique du XIXe Siècle
    The Red and the Black
    1830—French


    John Updike
  101. Rabbit, Run

  102. 1960—English

  103. Rabbit Redux

  104. 1971—English

  105. Rabbit Is Rich

  106. 1981—English

  107. Rabbit at Rest
    1990—English

    • Isaac Babel

  108. Stories
    Twentieth Century—Russian

  109. F Scott Fitzgerald

  110. Tender Is the Night
    originally published serially Jan.-Apr. 1934 in Scribner's Magazine—English

  111. James Joyce

  112. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
    originally published serially Feb. 1914-Sep. 1915, in the Egoist—English

  113. Joseph Heller

  114. Catch-22
    1961—English

  115. Kurt Vonnegut
    Slaughterhouse-Five, or The Children's Crusade: A Duty-Dance with Death
    1969—English

    • John Cheever

  116. Stories
    Twentieth Century—English

  117. John Milton

  118. Paradise Lost
    1667; revised 1674—English

  119. Virgil (Publius Vergilius Maro)

  120. Aeneid
    First Century B C—Latin

  121. Cormac McCarthy

  122. Blood Merdian or The Evening Redness in the West
    1985—English

  123. Walt Whitman

  124. Leaves of Grass
    1855; expanded and revised through ninth edition, 1892—English

  125. Nikolai Gogol

  126. Mërtvyâ Duši
    Dead Souls
    1842—Russian


  127. Thomas Mann
    Der Zauberberg
    The Magic Mountain
    1924—German


    • Eudora Welty

  128. Stories
    Twentieth Century—English

  129. Mikhail Bulgakov

  130. Mástyer i Margaríta
    The Master and Margarita
    published in part, 1966-67, in Moskva; in its entirety, 1973; revised 1989—Russian


  131. Charles Dickens

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

  133. William Faulkner

  134. As I Lay Dying
    1930—English

    The Hamlet
    1940—English

  135. Ernest Hemingway

  136. The Sun Also Rises
    1926—English

  137. Homer

  138. Iliad
    ca. Ninth-Eighth centuries B C—Greek

  139. Giovanni Boccaccio

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

  141. Fyodor Dostoevsky

  142. Besy
    Demons; The Devils; The Possessed
    1872—Russian


  143. Christina Stead

  144. The Man Who Loved Children
    1940—English

  145. Stendhal
    Le Chartreuse de Parme
    The Charterhouse of Parma
    1839—French


    • Ernest Hemingway

  146. Stories
    Twentieth Century—English

  147. Halldór Laxness

  148. Sjálfstætt Fólk
    Independent People
    originally published in two volumes, 1934 and 1935—Icelandic


    --
  149. Kitab alf Laylah Wa-Laylah

  150. The Thousand and One Nights; The Arabian Nights
    Ninth-Fifteenth centuries—Arabic


  151. Fyodor Dostoevsky

  152. Zapaski iz Podpol'â
    Notes From Underground
    1864—Russian


  153. Zora Neale Hurston

  154. Their Eyes Were Watching God
    1937—English

  155. Stephen King

  156. The Stand
    1978—English

  157. William Shakespeare

  158. The Tempest
    1611—English

  159. Sherwood Anderson

  160. Winesburg, Ohio: A Group of Tales of Ohio Small-Town Life
    1919; twenty-two stories, ten of which originally published in periodicals: 'The Book of the Grotesque', Feb. 1916 in Masses; 'Hands', Mar. 1916 in Masses; 'Paper Pills' (originally entitled 'The Philosopher'), Jun.-Jul. 1916 in the Little Review, ; 'The Strength of God', Aug. 1916 in Masses; 'Queer', Dec. 1916 in Seven Arts; 'The Untold Lie', Jan. 17 in Seven Arts; 'Mother', Mar. 1917 in Seven Arts; 'The Thinker', Sep. 1917 in Seven Arts; 'The Man of Ideas', Jun. 1918 in the Little Review; 'An Awakening', Dec. 1918 in the Little Review—English

  161. Lord Byron (George Gordon, Lord Byron)

  162. Don Juan
    originally published in six volumes: Jul. 1819; Aug. 1821; Jul. 1823; Aug. 1823; Dec. 1823; Mar. 1824—English

  163. Daniel Defoe

  164. The Life and Strange Surprizing Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, of York, Mariner
    originally anonymously published 1719—English

  165. Henry Fielding

  166. The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling
    1749—English

  167. E M Forster

  168. A Passage to India
    1924—English

  169. Samuel Richardson

  170. Clarissa, or, the History of a Young Lady
    1748—English

  171. Voltaire
    Candide, ou L'Optimisme
    1759—French

    • Jorge Luis Borges

  172. Labyrinths
    English translations of stories mostly originally published in Ficciones and El Aleph—Spanish

  173. Raymond Chandler

  174. The Long Goodbye
    1953—English

    Evan S Connell
  175. Mrs. Bridge

  176. 1959—English

  177. Mr. Bridge

  178. 1969—English

  179. Thomas Hardy
    Tess of the d'Urbervilles: A Pure Woman Faithfully Presented
    published in part serially Jul.-Dec. 1891 in the Graphic—English

    • Franz Kafka

  180. Stories
    early Twentieth Century—German

  181. George Orwell

  182. Nineteen Eighty-Four
    1949—English

  183. Jonathan Swift

  184. 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


  185. Rebecca West

  186. The Fountain Overflows
    1956—English

  187. James Agee

  188. A Death in the Family
    1957—English

  189. Italo Calvino
    Le Città Invisibili
    Invisible Cities
    1972—Italian


    • Emily Dickinson

  190. Poems
    Nineteenth Century—English

  191. E M Forster

  192. Howards End
    1910—English

  193. Graham Greene
    The Power and the Glory
    1940—English

    • Alice Munro

  194. Stories
    late Twentieth Century—English

    Anthony Powell
  195. A Question of Upbringing

  196. 1951—English

  197. A Buyer's Market

  198. 1952—English

  199. The Acceptance World

  200. 1955—English

  201. At Lady Molly's

  202. 1957—English

  203. Casanova's Chinese Restaurant

  204. 1960—English

  205. The Kindly Ones

  206. 1962—English

  207. The Valley of Bones

  208. 1964—English

  209. The Soldier's Art

  210. 1966—English

  211. The Military Philosophers

  212. 1968—English

  213. Books Do Furnish a Room

  214. 1971—English

  215. Temporary Kings

  216. 1973—English

  217. Hearing Secret Harmonies

  218. 1975—English

  219. Muriel Spark

  220. The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie
    1961—English

  221. Harriet Doerr

  222. Stones for Ibarra
    1984—English

  223. Günter Grass

  224. Die Blechtrommel
    The Tin Drum
    1959—German


  225. William Shakespeare

  226. Romeo and Juliet
    ca. 1591-97—English

  227. Charles Dickens

  228. The Personal History, Adventures, Experience and Observation of David Copperfield the Younger of Blunderstone Rookery (Which He Never Meant to Publish on Any Account)
    originally published serially May 1849-Nov. 1850—English

  229. Theodore Dreiser
    Sister Carrie
    1900—English

    • William Faulkner

  230. 'The Bear'
    originally entitled 'Lion', published Dec. 1935 in Harper's; revised and retitled May 1942 for inclusion in the Saturday Evening Post; included in Go Down, Moses and Other Stories, 1942—English

  231. Ernest Hemingway

  232. For Whom the Bell Tolls
    1940—English

  233. Denis Johnson

  234. Jesus' Son
    1992—English

  235. Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa

  236. Il Gattopardo
    The Leopard
    1958—Italian


  237. Katherine Anne Porter

  238. Ship of Fools
    1962—English

    Sophocles
  239. Antigone

  240. ca. 441 B C—Greek

  241. Oidipous epi Kolōnō

  242. Oedipus at Colonus
    401 B C—Greek


  243. Oidipous Tyrannos

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


  245. John Steinbeck

  246. East of Eden
    1952—English

  247. Robert Louis Stevenson

  248. Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
    1886—English

  249. George Eliot

  250. Daniel Deronda
    1876—English

  251. Gabriel García Márquez

  252. El Amor en los Tiempos del Cólera
    Love in the Time of Cholera
    1985—Spanish


  253. Shirley Hazzard

  254. The Transit of Venus
    1980—English

  255. William Maxwell

  256. So Long, See You Tomorrow
    1979—English

  257. Toni Morrison

  258. Song of Solomon
    1977—English

  259. Émile Zola

  260. Germinal
    originally published serially Apr. 1884-Jan. 1885 in Gil Blas—French

  261. John Fante

  262. Ask the Dust
    1939—English

  263. Ford Madox Ford

  264. Parade's End
    originally published in four volumes: Some Do Not..., 1924; No More Parades, 1925; A Man Could Stand Up, 1926; Last Post, 1928—English

  265. Kazuo Ishiguro

  266. The Remains of the Day
    1989—English

  267. Henry James
    The Ambassadors
    originally published serially 1903 in the North American Review—English

    • J D Salinger

  268. Nine Stories
    originally published 1948-53 in varied periodicals: the New Yorker, Harper's, and the Information World Review—English

  269. William Makepeace Thackeray

  270. Vanity Fair: A Novel Without a Hero
    originally published serially Jan. 1847-Jul. 1848—English

  271. Richard Wright
    Native Son
    1940—English

    • Vyasa

  272. Bhagavad Gita
    part of the Mahabharata; ca. Ninth Century B C-Fourth Century—Sanskrit

  273. Abe Kobo

  274. Suna no Onna
    The Woman in the Dunes
    1962—Japanese


  275. Chinua Achebe

  276. Things Fall Apart
    1958—English

  277. John Banville

  278. The Untouchable
    1997—English

  279. Samuel Beckett
    Mal Vu Mal Dit
    Ill Seen Ill Said
    1981—French


    • Peter Blegvad

  280. The Book of Leviathan
    selection of Leviathan comic strips—English

  281. Millen Brand

  282. The Outward Room
    1937—English

  283. Elizabeth Barrett Browning

  284. Casa Guidi Windows
    1851—English

  285. Truman Capote
    Answered Prayers
    1986—English

    --
    • The Golden Argosy: The Most Celebrated Short Stories in the English Language

  286. 1955; anthology of 39 stories, four of which (Stephen Vincent Benét's The Devil and Daniel Webster, Max Beerbohm's The Happy Hypocrite, Booth Tarkington's Monsier Beaucaire, and Henry Van Dyke's The Story of the Other Wise Man) count as monographical works

  287. Stephen Vincent Benét

  288. The Devil and Daniel Webster
    originally published 1936 in the Saturday Evening Post—English

  289. Henry Van Dyke

  290. The Story of the Other Wise Man
    1895—English

  291. Booth Tarkington

  292. Monsieur Beaucaire
    1900—English

  293. Max Beerbohm

  294. The Happy Hypocrite
    originally published Oct. 1896 in the Yellow Book—English

  295. Willa Cather

  296. The Professor's House
    1925—English

  297. Kate Chopin

  298. The Awakening
    1899—English

    J M Coetzee
  299. Disgrace

  300. 1999—English

  301. Waiting for the Barbarians

  302. 1980—English

  303. Katherine Dunn

  304. Geek Love
    1989—English

  305. Louise Eldrich

  306. Love Medicine
    1984—English

  307. William Gaddis

  308. J R
    1975—English

  309. Robert Graves

  310. I, Claudius: From the Autobiography of Tiberius Claudius, Born 10 B C, Murdered and Deified A D 54
    1934—English

  311. Henry James

  312. The Golden Bowl
    1904—English

  313. T E Lawrence

  314. Seven Pillars of Wisdom
    1922—English

  315. C S Lewis

  316. The Screwtape Letters
    1942—English

  317. Sándor Márai

  318. A Gyertyák Csonkig Égnek
    Embers
    1942—Hungarian


  319. Herman Melville

  320. The Confidence-Man: His Masquerade
    1857—English

    Harold Pinter
  321. The Birthday Party

  322. 1958—English

  323. The Homecoming

  324. 1965—English

  325. Mercè Rodoreda

  326. La Plaça del Diamant
    The Time of the Doves
    1962—Catalan


  327. William Shakespeare

  328. Antony and Cleopatra
    ca. 1606-08—English

  329. Tanizaki Junichiro

  330. Sasameyuki
    The Makioka Sisters
    published in part serially Jan.-Mar. 1943 in Chuo Koron; in its entirety in three volumes: 1946, 1947, and 1948—Japanese


    Émile Zola
  331. L'Assommoir

  332. 1877—French

  333. Nana

  334. originally published serially 1879-80 in La Voltaire—French