The Best Novels of all Time

in chronological order

according to my Timelines of World Literatures


Best novels | Best literature | Best poetry | Best theater

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(++ and +++ in chronological order)
Murasaki Shikibu (Japan, 973): "Genji Monogatari" (100#)
Giovanni Boccaccio (Italy, 1313): "Decameron" (1353)
Unknown (Spain): "Amadis de Gaula"(1508)
Francois Rabelais (French, 1494): "Gargantua et Pantagruel" (1552)
Unknown (Spain): "Lazarillo de Tormes"(1554)
Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra (Spain, 1547): "El Ingenioso Hidalgo Don Quixote de la Mancha" (1615)
Cao Xueqin/ Tsao Chan (China, 171#): "Hong-lou Meng/ The Dream of the Red Chamber/ Story of the Stone/ Chronicles of the Stone" (17##)
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (German, 1749): "Wilhelm Meister" (1796)
Heinrich Kleist (German, 1777): "Die Marquise von O" (1808)
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (German, 1749): "Die Wahlverwandtschaften" (1809)
Jane Austen (Britain, 1775): "Pride and Prejudice" (1813)
Ernst Hoffmann (German, 1776): "Die Elexiere des Teufels" (1815)
Stendhal (French, 1783): "Le Rouge et le Noir" (1830)
Honore' de Balzac (French, 1799): "Le Peau De Chagrin" (1831)
Victor Hugo (French, 1802): "Notre-Dame de Paris" (1831)
Honore' de Balzac (French, 1799): "Eugenie Grandet" (1833)
Honore' de Balzac (French, 1799): "Le Pere Goriot" (1835)
Stendhal (French, 1783): "La Chartreuse de Parma" (1839)
Mikhail Lermontov (Russia, 1814): "Geroi Nashego Vremeni/ A Hero of Our Time" (1840)
Nikolai Gogol (Russia, 1809): "Mertvye Dushi/ Dead Souls" (1842)
Honore' de Balzac (French, 1799): "Les Illusions Perdues" (1843)
Emily Bronte (Britain, 1818): "Wuthering Heights" (1847)
Herman Melville (USA, 1819): "Moby Dick" (1851)
Gustave Flaubert (French, 1821): "Madame Bovary" (1857)
Ivan Goncharov (Russia, 1812): "Oblomov" (1859)
Victor Hugo (French, 1802): "Les Miserables" (1862)
Fyodor Dostoevsky (Russia, 1821): "Prestuplenie i Nakazanie/ Crime and Punishment/ Delitto e Castigo" (1866)
Fyodor Dostoevsky (Russia, 1821): "Idiot" (1869)
  • Gustave Flaubert (1821): "L'Education Sentimentale" (1869)
    Lev Tolstoy (Russia, 1828): "Voina i Mir/ War and Peace/ Guerra e Pace" (1869)
    George Eliot (Britain, 1819): "Middlemarch" (1872)
    Fyodor Dostoevsky (Russia, 1821): "Besy/ Possessed/ Demoni" (1873)
    Lev Tolstoy (Russia, 1828): "Anna Karenina" (1877)
    Emile Zola (French, 1840): "L'Assommoir" (1877)
    Fyodor Dostoevsky (Russia, 1821): "Bratia Karamazovy/ Brothers Karamazov" (1880)
    Joris Huysmans (French, 1848): "A Rebours" (1884)
    Emile Zola (French, 1840): "Germinal" (1885)
    Benito Perez-Galdos (Spain, 1843): "Fortunata y Jacinta" (1887)
    Giovanni Verga (Italy, 1840): "Mastro don Gesualdo" (1889)
    Wilhelm Raabe (German, 1831): "Stopfkuchen" (1891)
    Knut "Hamsun" Pedersen (Norway, 1859): "Pan" (1894)
    Theodor Fontane (German, 1819): "Effi Briest" (1895)
    Theodor Fontane (German, 1819): "Der Stechlin" (1899)
    Thomas Mann (German, 1875): "Buddenbrooks" (1901)
    Henry James (USA, 1843): "The Wings of the Dove" (1902)
    Henry James (USA, 1843): "The Ambassadors" (1903)
    Joseph Conrad (Poland, 1857): "Nostromo" (1904)
    Henry James (USA, 1843): "The Golden Bowl" (1904)
    Luigi Pirandello (Italy, 1867): "Il Fu Mattia Pascal" (1904)
    Edward-Morgan Forster (Britain, 1879): "Howards End" (1910)
    Boris Bugayev "Andrey Bely" (Russia, 1880): "Petersburg" (1912)
    Miguel de Unamuno y Jugo (Spain, 1864): "Niebla/ Fog" (1913)
    Franz Kafka (German, 1883): "Der Prozess/ The Trial" (1915)
    James Joyce (Ireland, 1882): "Ulysses" (1922)
    Franz Kafka (German, 1883): "Das Schloss/ Castle" (1922)
    Marcel Proust (French, 1871): "A La Recherche du Temps Perdu" (1922)
    Italo Svevo (Italy, 1861): "Coscienza di Zeno" (1923)
    Thomas Mann (German, 1875): "Der Zauberberg" (1924)
    Francis-Scott Fitzgerald (USA, 1896): "The Great Gatsby" (1925)
    Andre' Gide (French, 1869): "Les Faux-monnayeurs" (1925)
    Arthur Schnitzler (German, 1862): "Traumnovelle" (1925)
    Julien Green (French, 1900): "Adrienne Mesurat" (1927)
    Virginia Woolf (Britain, 1882): "To the Lighthouse" (1927)
    Mihail Sadoveanu (Romania, 1880): "Hanu Ancutei/ Ancuta's Inn" (1928)
    William Faulkner (USA, 1897): "The Sound and the Fury" (1929)
    Stanislaw Witkiewicz (Poland, 1885): "Nienasycenie/ Insatiability" (1930)
    Vladislav Vancura (Czech, 1891): "Marketa Lazarova" (1931)
    Louis-Ferdinand Celine (French, 1894): "Voyage a Bout de la Nuit" (1932)
    William Faulkner (USA, 1897): "Light in August" (1932)
    Joseph Roth (German, 1894): "Radetskymarsch" (1932)
    Robert Musil (German, 1880): "Der Mann ohne Eigenschaften/Man Without Qualities" (1933)
    Karel Capek (Czech, 1890): "Obycejny Zivot/ An Ordinary Life" (1934)
    Elias Canetti (German, 1905): "Die Blendung/ Auto Da Fe" (1935)
    James Joyce (Ireland, 1882): "Finnegan's Wake" (1939)
    Flann O'Brien (Ireland, 1911): "At Swim-two-birds" (1939)
    Mikhail Bulgakov (Russia, 1891): "Master i Margarita/ The Master and Margarita" (1940)
    Jorge-Luis Borges (Argentina, 1899): "The Library of Babel" (1941)
    Albert Camus (French, 1913): "L'Etranger" (1942)
    Hermann Broch (German, 1886): "Der Tod des Vergil" (1945)
    Julien Gracq (French, 1910): "Un Beau Tenebreux" (1945)
    Albert Camus (French, 1913): "La Peste" (1947)
    Malcolm Lowry (Britain, 1909): "Under the Volcano" (1947)
    Thomas Mann (German, 1875): "Doktor Faustus" (1947)
    Junichiro Tanizaki (Japan, 1886): "Sasameyuki/ Makioka Sisters" (1948)
    Paul Bowles (USA, 1910): "The Sheltering Sky" (1949)
    Cesare Pavese (Italy, 1908): "La Luna e i Falo`" (1950)
    Alejo Carpentier (Cuba, 1904): "Los Pasos Perdidos" (1953)
    William Gaddis (USA, 1922): "The Recognitions" (1955)
    Rafael Sanchez-Ferlosio (Spain, 1927): "El Jarama/ The River" (1955)
    Italo Calvino (Italy, 1923): "Il Barone Rampante" (1957)
    CarloEmilio Gadda (Italy, 1893): "Quer Pasticciaccio Brutto de Via Merulana" (1957)
    Elsa Morante (Italy, 1912): "L'Isola di Arturo" (1957)
    Patrick White (Australia, 1912): "Voss" (1957)
    Wilson Harris (Guyana, 1921): "Palace of the Peacock" (1960)
    Vasily Grossman (Russia, 1905): "Zhizn i Sudha/ Life And Fate" (1960)
  • John Barth (USA, 1930): "The Sot-Weed Factor" (1960)
    Ernesto Sabato (Argentina, 1911): "Sobre Heroes y Tumbas" (1961)
    Carlos Fuentes (Mexico, 1928): "La Muerte de Artemio Cruz" (1962)
    Doris Lessing (Zimbabwe, 1919): "The Golden Notebook" (1962)
    Julio Cortazar (Argentina, 1914): "Rayuela/Hopscotch" (1963)
    Beppe Fenoglio (Italy, 1922): "Una Questione Privata" (1963)
    Janet Frame (New Zealand, 1924): "Scented Gardens For The Blind" (1963)
    Ismail Kadare (Albania, 1936): "Gjenerali i Ushtrise Se Vdekur/ The General of the Dead Army" (1963)
    Saul Bellow (USA, 1915): "Herzog" (1964)
    John Barth (USA, 1930): "Giles Goat Boy" (1966)
    Miguel Delibes (Spain, 1920): "Cinco Horas con Mario" (1966)
    Jose Lezama-Lima (Cuba, 1910): "Paraiso" (1966)
    Mario Vargas-Llosa (Peru, 1936): "La Casa Verde" (1966)
    Milan Kundera (Czech, 1929): "Zert/ The Joke/ Lo Scherzo" (1967)
    Gabriel Garcia-Marquez (Colombia, 1928): "Cien Anos de Soledad" (1967)
    Vladimir Nabokov (Russia, 1899): "Ada" (1969)
    Mario Vargas-Llosa (Peru, 1936): "Conversacion en la Catedral" (1969)
    Jose Donoso (Chile, 1925): "El Obsceno Pajaro de la Noche" (1970)
    Michel Tournier (French, 1924): "Le Roi des Aulnes" (1970)
    Danilo Kis (Serbia, 1935): "Pescanik/ Hourglass" (1972)
    Thomas Pynchon (USA, 1937): "Gravity's Rainbow" (1973)
    Thomas Bernhard (German, 1931): "Korrektur/ Correction" (1975)
    Andreas Embirikos (Greece, 1901): "The Great Eastern" (1975)
    Juan Goytisolo (Spain, 1931): "Juan Sin Tierra" (1975)
    Imre Kertesz (Hungary, 1929): "Sorstalansag/ Fateless" (1975)
    Bohumil Hrabal (Czech, 1914): "Prilis Hlucna Samota/ Too Loud a Solitude (1976)
    Sasha Sokolov (Canada, 1943): "Shkola Dlya Durakov/ School For Fools" (1976)
    Josef Skvorecky (Czech, 1924): "Priben Inzennyra Lidskych Dusi/ The Engineer of Human Souls" (1977)
    Georges Perec (French, 1936): "La Vie Mode d'Emploi/ Life A User's Manual" (1978)
    Italo Calvino (Italy, 1923): "Se una Notte d'Inverno un Viaggiatore" (1979)
    Nadine Gordimer (South Africa, 1923): "The Burger's Daughter" (1979)
    Cormac McCarthy (USA, 1933): "Suttree" (1979)
    Elfriede Jelinek (German, 1946): "Die Ausgesperrten/ Wonderful Times" (1980)
    Salman Rushdie (India, 1947): "Midnight's Children" (1980)
    German Espinosa (Colombia, 1938): "La Tejedora de Coronas" (1982)
    Uwe Johnson (German, 1934): "Jahrestage/ Anniversaries" (1983)
    Mahmud Dowlatabadi (1940): "Kelidar" (1984)
    Jose Saramago (Portugal, 1922): "O Ano da Morte de Ricardo Reis" (1984)
    Peer Hultberg (Denmark, 1935): "Requiem" (1985)
    Laszlo Krasznahorkai (Hungary, 1954): "Satantango" (1985)
    Haruki Murakami (Japan, 1949): "Sekai no Owari to Ha-doboirudo Wanda-rando/ Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World" (1985)
    Peter Carey (Australia, 1943): "Illywhacker" (1986)
    Peter Nadas (Hungary, 1942): "Emlekiratok Konyve/ Book of Memoirs" (1986)
    Joseph McElroy (USA, 1930): "Women and Men" (1987)
    Toni Morrison (USA, 1942): "Beloved" (1987)
    Milorad Pavic (Serbia, 1929): "Hazarski Recnik/ Dictionary of the Khazars" (1988)
    Gao Xingjian/Xingjian (China, 1940): "Soul Mountain" (1989)
    Kazuo Ishiguro (Japan, 1954): "The Remains of the Day" (1989)
    Antonia Byatt (Britain, 1936): "Possession" (1990)
    Orhan Pamuk (Turkey, 1952): "Kara Kitap/ Black Book" (1990)
    Agustina Bessa-Luis (Portugal, 1922): "Vale Abraao/ Abraham's Valley" (1991)
    Don DeLillo (USA, 1936): "Underworld" (1997)
    Ian McEwan (Britain, 1948): "Atonement" (2001)
    Roberto Bolano (Chile, 1953): "2666" (2003)
    Mikhail Shishkin (Russia, 1961): "Venerin Volos/ Maidenhair" (2005)
    Mircea Cartarescu (Romania, 1956): "Orbitor/ Blinding" (2007)
    Hilary Mantel (Britain, 1952): "Wolf Hall" (2008)
    Eugene Vodolazkin (Russia, 1964): "Laurus" (2012)
    Elena Ferrante (Italy, 1943): "L'Amica Geniale/ My Brilliant Friend" (2014)
    Olga Tokarczuk (Poland, 1962): "Ksiegi Jakubowe/ The Books of Jacob" (2014)
    Jenny Erpenbeck (Germany, 1967): "Gehen Ging Gegangen/ Go Went Gone" (2015)
    Solvej Balle (Denmark, 1962): “Om Udregning af Rumfang I/ On the Calculation of Volume I" (2020)