Best Novels(since 1850 and only one per writer)selected by piero scaruffi |
(The lists by language are way more reliable ==>)
(I am very reluctant to add novels written after 1990 because it's too soon to judge them)
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Best novels in...:Best novels in chronological order Best 20th century novels Best 21st century novels Best female writers |
In 2019 Brett Abrahamsen tried to compile an accurate and updated list.
Here it is. I didn't change anything although you will notice
discrepancies. I guess in my mind books have a slightly different
order than on my website.
1. The Trial 2. The Red and the Black 3. Buddenbrooks 4. The Golden Bowl 5. Ulysses 6. Gargantua and Pantagruel 7. Don Quixote 8. The Master and Margarita 9. Wuthering Heights 10. The Man Without Qualities 11. Ada 12. Insatiability 13. The Charterhouse of Parma 14. Gravity's Rainbow 15. Demons 16. Light In August 17. Journey to the End of the Night 18. To the Lighthouse 19. Crime and Punishment 20. The Idiot 21. Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship 22. The Recognitions 23. Nostromo 24. One Hundred Years of Solitude 25. The Castle 26. Giles Goat Boy 27. Anna Karenina 28. Dead Souls 29. Moby Dick 30. In Search of Lost Time 31. Zeno's Conscience 32. The Obscene Bird of Night 33. Elective Affinities 34. Midnight's Children 35. The Brothers Karamazov 36. The Stranger 37. The Death of Virgil 38. War and Peace 39. Oblomov 40. Doctor Faustus 41. Herzog 42. Madame Bovary 43. The Lost Steps 44. Hopscotch 45. The Experience of Pain 46. Pere Goriot 47. Conversation in the Cathedral 48. Book of Memoirs 49. The Joke 50. The General of the Dead Army 51. Abraham's Valley 52. The Moon and the Bonfires 53. L'Assommoir 54. Pride and Prejudice 55. Effi Briest 56. The Dictionary of the Khazars 57. Pan 58. Hourglass 59. The Tale of Genji 60. An Ordinary Life 61. Satantango 62. Chronicle of the Stone 63. The Magic Mountain 64. Les Miserables 65. If On a Winter's Night a Traveler 66. Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis 67. Lazarillo de Tormes 68. Possession 69. Fortunata and Jacinta 70. Makioka Sisters 71. Arturo's Island 72. Ancuta's Inn 73. Palace of the Peacock 74. Germinal 75. The Counterfeiters 76. Auto-da-Fe 77. The Great Eastern 78. Amadis of Gaul 79. Atonement 80. At Swim-two-birds 81. Marketa Lazarova 82. De Verwondering / The Wonder 83. The Devil's Elixirs 84. A Private Affair 85. Kelidar 86. Paradiso 87. The Epic of Gilgamesh 88. The Great Gatsby 89. The Death of Artemio Cruz 90. Under the Volcano 91. Adrienne Mesurat 92. The Wings of the Dove 93. Mastro-don Gesualdo 94. The Engineer of Human Souls 95. Voss 96. The Erl-King 97. On Heroes and Tombs 98. Middlemarch 99. The Marquise of O 100. Underworld Also in contention: Dream Story, Howard's End, Finnegan's Wake, The Plague, Anniversaries, Too Loud a Solitude, Hard-boiled Wonderland and the End of the World, That Awful Mess on Via Merulana, The Crown Weaver, San Manuel Bueno, Martir, A Hero of Our Time, Petersburg, Requiem, Soul Mountain, Fateless, Solaris |