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List of English-language books considered the best

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This is a list of English-language novels that multiple media outlets and commentators have considered to be among the best of all time. The books included on this list are on at least three "best/greatest of all time" lists.

List

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Name Author Year Ref.
The Adventures of Augie March Saul Bellow 1953 [1][2][3]
All The King's Men Robert Penn Warren 1946 [1][4][2]
Animal Farm George Orwell 1945 [1][4][2]
Appointment in Samarra John O'Hara 1934 [1][4][2]
Atonement Ian McEwan 2001 [1][4][5]
Beloved Toni Morrison 1987 [1][4][5][3]
A Bend in the River V. S. Naipaul 1979 [4][2][3]
The Big Sleep Raymond Chandler 1939 [1][4][5][6]
Brave New World Aldous Huxley 1932 [4][2][3][6]
Catch-22 Joseph Heller 1961 [1][4][5]
The Catcher In The Rye J.D. Salinger 1951 [1][4][2][5][6]
A Clockwork Orange Anthony Burgess 1963 [1][2][3]
A Dance to the Music of Time Anthony Powell 1951-75 [1][4][5]
The Day of the Locust Nathanael West 1939 [1][4][2]
Deliverance James Dickey 1970 [1][4][2]
The Golden Notebook Doris Lessing 1962 [1][4][2][3]
The Good Soldier Ford Madox Ford 1915 [4][2][3]
Go Tell It on the Mountain James Baldwin 1953 [1][2][5]
The Grapes of Wrath John Steinbeck 1939 [1][4][2][5][6]
The Great Gatsby F. Scott Fitzgerald 1925 [1][4][2][5][6]
Heart of Darkness Joseph Conrad 1899 [4][2][5]
Light in August William Faulkner 1932 [1][4][2]
Lolita Vladimir Nabokov 1955 [1][4][2][5][3][6]
Lord of the Flies William Golding 1954 [1][4][2]
The Lord of the Rings J.R.R. Tolkien 1954 [1][5][6]
The Maltese Falcon Dashiell Hammett 1930 [4][2][3]
The Moviegoer Walker Percy 1961 [1][4][2]
Lucky Jim Kingsley Amis 1954 [1][4][5]
Midnight's Children Salman Rushdie 1981 [1][4][2][5][3][6]
Mrs. Dalloway Virginia Woolf 1925 [1][5][3]
Nineteen Eighty-Four George Orwell 1949 [1][2][5][3][6]
Of Human Bondage W. Somerset Maugham 1915 [4][2][3]
On The Road Jack Kerouac 1957 [1][2][5][6]
A Passage to India E.M. Forster 1924 [1][4][2][5]
Portnoy's Complaint Philip Roth 1969 [1][4][2]
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie Muriel Spark 1961 [1][2][5]
Scoop Evelyn Waugh 1938 [4][2][5]
Sophie's Choice William Styron 1979 [4][2][6]
The Sound and the Fury William Faulkner 1929 [1][2][3][6]
The Sun Also Rises Ernest Hemingway 1926 [1][4][2]
To Kill a Mockingbird Harper Lee 1960 [1][4][5]
To the Lighthouse Virginia Woolf 1927 [1][4][2][3]
Tropic of Cancer Henry Miller 1934 [1][2][3]
Ulysses James Joyce 1922 [2][5][3][6]
Under the Net Iris Murdoch 1954 [1][2][5]
Under the Volcano Malcolm Lowry 1947 [1][2][3][6]
Wide Sargasso Sea Jean Rhys 1966 [1][2][5]

Publications

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See also

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References

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  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z aa ab ac ad ae af ag ah ai aj ak al am Grossman, Lev; Lacayo, Richard (October 16, 2005). "ALL-TIME 100 Novels". Time. Retrieved February 21, 2024.
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z aa ab ac ad ae af ag ah ai aj ak al am "100 Best Novels". The Modern Library. Retrieved February 21, 2024.
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s "The 100 best novels written in English: the full list". The Guardian. August 17, 2015. Retrieved February 21, 2024.
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z aa ab ac ad ae af ag ah Meyer, Dick (May 7, 2009). "100 Years, 100 Novels, One List". NPR.
  5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y "100 novels everyone should read". Telegraph. January 16, 2009. Archived from the original on January 21, 2009. Retrieved November 29, 2023.
  6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Le Monde's 100 Books of the Century (1999)[incomplete short citation]