Guardian U.K. Observor
100 Greatest Books
1.
Don Quixote Miguel De Cervantes /The story of the gentle knight and his servant Sancho Panza has entranced readers for centuries.
2. Pilgrim's Progress John Bunyan / The one with the Slough of Despond and Vanity Fair.
3. Robinson Crusoe Daniel Defoe The first English novel.
4. Gulliver's Travels Jonathan Swift / A wonderful satire that still works for all ages, despite the savagery of Swift's vision.
5. Tom Jones Henry Fielding /The adventures of a high-spirited orphan boy: an unbeatable plot and a lot of sex ending in a blissful marriage.
6. Clarissa Samuel Richardson /One of the longest novels in the English language, but unputdownable.
7. Tristram Shandy Laurence Sterne / One of the first bestsellers, dismissed by Dr Johnson as too fashionable for its own good.
8. Dangerous Liaisons Pierre Choderlos De Laclos / An epistolary novel and a handbook for seducers: foppish, French, and ferocious.
9. Emma Jane Austen /Near impossible choice between this and Pride and Prejudice. But Emma never fails to fascinate and annoy.
10. Frankenstein Mary Shelley /Inspired by spending too much time with Shelley and Byron.
11. Nightmare Abbey Thomas / Love PeacockA classic miniature: a brilliant satire on the Romantic novel.
12. The Black Sheep Honore De Balzac / Two rivals fight for the love of a femme fatale. Wrongly overlooked.
13. The Charterhouse of Parma Stendhal / Penetrating and compelling chronicle of life in an Italian court in post-Napoleonic France.
14. The Count of Monte Cristo Alexandre Dumas / A revenge thriller also set in France after Bonaparte: a masterpiece of adventure writing.
15. Sybil Benjamin Disraeli / Apart from Churchill, no other British political figure shows literary genius.
16.David Cooperfield Charles Dickens / This highly autobiographical novel is the one its author liked best.
17. Wuthering Heights Emily Bronte / Catherine Earnshaw and Heathcliff have passed into the language. Impossible to ignore.
18. Jane Eyre Charlotte Bronte / Obsessive emotional grip and haunting narrative.
19. Vanity Fair William Makepeace Thackeray / The improving tale of Becky Sharp.
20. The Scarlet Letter Nathaniel Hawthorne / A classic investigation of the American mind.
21. Moby-Dick Herman Melville / ' Call me Ishmael' is one of the most famous opening sentences of any novel.
22. Madame Bovary Gustave Flaubert / You could summarise this as a story of adultery in provincial France, and miss the point entirely.
23. The Woman in White Wilkie Collins / Gripping mystery novel of concealed identity, abduction, fraud and mental cruelty.
24. Alice's Adventures In Wonderland Lewis Carroll / A story written for the nine-year-old daughter of an Oxford don that still baffles most kids.
25. Little Women Louisa M. Alcott / Victorian bestseller about a New England family of girls.
26. The Way We Live Now Anthony Trollope / A majestic assault on the corruption of late Victorian England.
27. Anna Karenina Leo Tolstoy / The supreme novel of the married woman's passion for a younger man.
28. Daniel Deronda George Eliot / A passion and an exotic grandeur that is strange and unsettling.
29. The Brothers Karamazov Fyodor Dostoevsky / Mystical tragedy by the author of Crime and Punishment.
30. The Portrait of a Lady Henry James / The story of Isabel Archer shows James at his witty and polished best.
31. Huckleberry Finn Mark Twain Twain / was a humorist, but this picture of Mississippi life is profoundly moral and still incredibly influential.
32. Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde Robert Louis Stevenson / A brilliantly suggestive, resonant study of human duality by a natural storyteller.
33. Three Men in a Boat Jerome K. Jerome / One of the funniest English books ever written.
34. The Picture of Dorian Gray Oscar Wilde / A coded and epigrammatic melodrama inspired by his own tortured homosexuality.
35. The Diary of a Nobody George Grossmith / This classic of Victorian suburbia will always be renowned for the character of Mr Pooter.
36. Jude the Obscure Thomas Hardy / Its savage bleakness makes it one of the first twentieth-century novels.
37. The Riddle of the Sands Erskine Childers / A prewar invasion-scare spy thriller by a writer later shot for his part in the Irish republican rising.
38. The Call of the Wild Jack London / The story of a dog who joins a pack of wolves after his master's death.
39. Nostromo Joseph Conrad / Conrad's masterpiece: a tale of money, love and revolutionary politics.
40. The Wind in the Willows Kenneth Grahame / This children's classic was inspired by bedtime stories for Grahame's son.
41. In Search of Lost Time Marcel Proust / An unforgettable portrait of Paris in the belle epoque. Probably the longest novel on this list.
42. The Rainbow D. H. Lawrence / Novels seized by the police, like this one, have a special afterlife.
43. The Good Soldier Ford Madox Ford / This account of the adulterous lives of two Edwardian couples is a classic of unreliable narration.
44. The Thirty-Nine Steps John Buchan / A classic adventure story for boys, jammed with action, violence and suspense.
45. Ulysses James Joyce / Also pursued by the British police, this is a novel more discussed than read.
46. Mrs Dalloway Virginia Woolf / Secures Woolf's position as one of the great twentieth-century English novelists.
47. A Passage to India E. M. Forster / The great novel of the British Raj, it remains a brilliant study of empire.
48. The Great Gatsby F. Scott Fitzgerald / The quintessential Jazz Age novel.
49. The Trial Franz Kafka / The enigmatic story of Joseph K.
50. Men Without Women Ernest Hemingway / He is remembered for his novels, but it was the short stories that first attracted notice.
51. Journey to the End of the Night Louis-Ferdinand Celine / The experiences of an unattractive slum doctor during the Great War: a masterpiece of linguistic innovation.
52. As I Lay Dying William Faulkner / A strange black comedy by an American master.
53. Brave New World Aldous Huxley / Dystopian fantasy about the world of the seventh century AF (after Ford). 54. Scoop Evelyn Waugh The supreme Fleet Street novel.
55. USA John Dos Passos / An extraordinary trilogy that uses a variety of narrative devices to express the story of America.
56. The Big Sleep Raymond Chandler / Introducing Philip Marlowe: cool, sharp, handsome - and bitterly alone.
57. The Pursuit Of Love Nancy Mitford / An exquisite comedy of manners with countless fans.
58. The Plague Albert Camus / A mysterious plague sweeps through the Algerian town of Oran.
59. Nineteen Eighty-Four George Orwel / l This tale of one man's struggle against totalitarianism has been appropriated the world over.
60. Malone Dies Samuel Beckett / Part of a trilogy of astonishing monologues in the black comic voice of the author of Waiting for Godot.
61.Catcher in the Rye J.D. Salinger / A week in the life of Holden Caulfield. A cult novel that still mesmerises.
62. Wise Blood Flannery O'Connor / A disturbing novel of religious extremism set in the Deep South.
63. Charlotte's Webb E. B. White / How Wilbur the pig was saved by the literary genius of a friendly spider.
64. The Lord Of The Rings J. R. R. Tolkien / Enough said!
65. Lucky Jim Kingsley Amis / An astonishing debut: the painfully funny English novel of the Fifties.
66. Lord of the Flies William Golding / Schoolboys become savages: a bleak vision of human nature.
67. The Quiet American Graham Greene / Prophetic novel set in 1950s Vietnam.
68 On the Road Jack Kerouac / The Beat Generation bible.
69. Lolita Vladimir Nabokov / Humbert Humbert's obsession with Lolita is a tour de force of style and narrative.
70. The Tin Drum Gunter Grass / Hugely influential, Rabelaisian novel of Hitler's Germany.
71. Things Fall Apart Chinua Achebe / Nigeria at the beginning of colonialism. A classic of African literature.
72. The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie Muriel Spark/ A writer who made her debut in The Observer - and her prose is like cut glass.
73. To Kill A Mockingbird Harper Lee / Scout, a six-year-old girl, narrates an enthralling story of racial prejudice in the Deep South.
74. Catch-22 Joseph Heller / '[He] would be crazy to fly more missions and sane if he didn't, but if he was sane he had to fly them. If he flew them he was crazy and didn't have to; if he didn't want to he was sane and had to.'
75. Herzog Saul Bellow / Adultery and nervous breakdown in Chicago.
76. One Hundred Years of Solitude Gabriel Garcia Marquez / A postmodern masterpiece.
77. Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont Elizabeth Taylor / A haunting, understated study of old age.
78. Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy John Le Carre / A thrilling elegy for post-imperial Britain.
79. Song of Solomon Toni Morrison / The definitive novelist of the African-American experience. 80. The Bottle Factory Outing Beryl Bainbridge Macabre comedy of provincial life.
81. The Executioner's Song Norman Mailer / This quasi-documentary account of the life and death of Gary Gilmore is possibly his masterpiece.
82. If on a Winter's Night a Traveller Italo Calvino / A strange, compelling story about the pleasures of reading.
83. A Bend in the River V. S. Naipaul / The finest living writer of English prose. This is his masterpiece: edgily reminiscent of Heart of Darkness.
84. Waiting for the Barbarians J.M. Coetzee / Bleak but haunting allegory of apartheid by the Nobel prizewinner.
85. Housekeeping Marilynne Robinson / Haunting, poetic story, drowned in water and light, about three generations of women.
86. Lanark Alasdair Gray / Seething vision of Glasgow. A Scottish classic.
87. The New York Trilogy Paul Auster / Dazzling metaphysical thriller set in the Manhattan of the 1970s.
88. The BFG Roald Dahl / A bestseller by the most popular postwar writer for children of all ages.
89. The Periodic Table Primo Levi / A prose poem about the delights of chemistry.
90. Money Martin Amis / The novel that bags Amis's place on any list.
91. An Artist of the Floating World Kazuo Ishiguro / A collaborator from prewar Japan reluctantly discloses his betrayal of friends and family.
92. Oscar And Lucinda Peter Carey/ A great contemporary love story set in nineteenth-century Australia by double Booker prizewinner.
93. The Book of Laughter and Forgetting Milan Kundera / Inspired by the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968, this is a magical fusion of history, autobiography and ideas.
94. Haroun and the Sea af Stories Salman Rushdie / In this entrancing story Rushdie plays with the idea of narrative itself.
95. La Confidential James Ellroy / Three LAPD detectives are brought face to face with the secrets of their corrupt and violent careers.
96. Wise Children Angela Carter / A theatrical extravaganza by a brilliant exponent of magic realism.
97. Atonement Ian McEwan / Acclaimed short-story writer achieves a contemporary classic of mesmerising narrative conviction.
98. Northern Lights Philip Pullman / Lyra's quest weaves fantasy, horror and the play of ideas into a truly great contemporary children's book.
99. American Pastoral Philip Roth / For years, Roth was famous for Portnoy's Complaint . Recently, he has enjoyed an extraordinary revival.
100. Austerlitz W. G. Sebald / Posthumously published volume in a sequence of dream-like fictions spun from memory, photographs and the German past.
_________________________________________________________
From Wikipedia,
Modern Library Board's List
THE GREAT GATSBY - by F. Scott Fitzgerald
A PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST AS A YOUNG MAN - by James Joyce
LOLITA - by Vladimir Nabokov
BRAVE NEW WORLD - by Aldous Huxley
THE SOUND AND THE FURY - Wm. Faulkner
CATCH-22 - Joseph Heller
DARKNESS AT NOON - by Arthur Koestler
SONS AND LOVERS - by D.H. Lawrence
THE GRAPES OF WRATH by John Steinbeck
UNDER THE VOLCANO by Malcolm Lowry
THE WAY OF ALL FLESH by Samuel Butler
1984 by George Orwell
I, CLAUDIUS by Robert Graves
TO THE LIGHTHOUSE by Virginia Woolf
AN AMERICAN TRAGEDY by Theodore Dreiser
THE HEART IS A LONELY HUNTER by Carson McCullers
SLAUGHTERHOUSE-FIVE by Kurt Vonnegut
INVISIBLE MAN by Ralph Ellison
NATIVE SON by Richard Wright
HENDERSON THE RAIN KING by Saul Bellow
APPOINTMENT IN SAMARRA by John O'Hara
U.S.A. (trilogy) by John Dos Passos
WINESBURG, OHIO by Sherwood Anderson
A PASSAGE TO INDIA by E.M. Forster
THE WINGS OF THE DOVE by Henry James
THE AMBASSADORS by Henry James
TENDER IS THE NIGHT by F. Scott Fitzgerald
THE STUDS LONIGAN TRILOGY by James T. Farrell
THE GOOD SOLDIER by Ford Madox Ford
ANIMAL FARM by George Orwell
THE GOLDEN BOWL by Henry James
SISTER CARRIE by Theodore Dreiser
A HANDFUL OF DUST by Evelyn Waugh
AS I LAY DYING by William Faulkner
ALL THE KING'S MEN by Robert Penn Warren
THE BRIDGE OF SAN LUIS REY by Thornton Wilder
HOWARDS END by E.M. Forster
GO TELL IT ON THE MOUNTAIN by James Baldwin
THE HEART OF THE MATTER by Graham Greene
LORD OF THE FLIES by William Golding
DELIVERANCE by James Dickey
A DANCE TO THE MUSIC OF TIME (series) by Anthony Powell
POINT COUNTER POINT by Aldous Huxley
THE SUN ALSO RISES by Ernest Hemingway
THE SECRET AGENT by Joseph Conrad
NOSTROMO by Joseph Conrad
THE RAINBOW by D.H. Lawrence
WOMEN IN LOVE by D.H. Lawrence
TROPIC OF CANCER by Henry Miller
THE NAKED AND THE DEAD by Norman Mailer
PORTNOY'S COMPLAINT by Philip Roth
PALE FIRE by Vladimir Nabokov
LIGHT IN AUGUST by William Faulkner
ON THE ROAD by Jack Kerouac
THE MALTESE FALCON by Dashiell Hammett
PARADE'S END by Ford Madox Ford
THE AGE OF INNOCENCE by Edith Wharton
ZULEIKA DOBSON by Max Beerbohm
THE MOVIEGOER by Walker Percy
DEATH COMES FOR THE ARCHBISHOP by Willa Cather
FROM HERE TO ETERNITY by James Jones
THE WAPSHOT CHRONICLES by John Cheever
THE CATCHER IN THE RYE by J.D. Salinger
A CLOCKWORK ORANGE by Anthony Burgess
OF HUMAN BONDAGE by W. Somerset Maugham
HEART OF DARKNESS by Joseph Conrad
MAIN STREET by Sinclair Lewis
THE HOUSE OF MIRTH by Edith Wharton
THE ALEXANDRIA QUARTET by Lawrence Durell
A HIGH WIND IN JAMAICA by Richard Hughes
A HOUSE FOR MR BISWAS by V.S. Naipaul
THE DAY OF THE LOCUST by Nathanael West
A FAREWELL TO ARMS by Ernest Hemingway
SCOOP by Evelyn Waugh
THE PRIME OF MISS JEAN BRODIE by Muriel Spark
FINNEGANS WAKE by James Joyce
KIM by Rudyard Kipling
A ROOM WITH A VIEW by E.M. Forster
BRIDESHEAD REVISITED by Evelyn Waugh
THE ADVENTURES OF AUGIE MARCH by Saul Bellow
ANGLE OF REPOSE by Wallace Stegner
A BEND IN THE RIVER by V.S. Naipaul
THE DEATH OF THE HEART by Elizabeth Bowen
LORD JIM by Joseph Conrad
RAGTIME by E.L. Doctorow
THE OLD WIVES' TALE by Arnold Bennett
THE CALL OF THE WILD by Jack London
LOVING by Henry Green
MIDNIGHT'S CHILDREN by Salman Rushdie
TOBACCO ROAD by Erskine Caldwell
IRONWEED by William Kennedy
THE MAGUS by John Fowles
WIDE SARGASSO SEA by Jean Rhys
UNDER THE NET by Iris Murdoch
SOPHIE'S CHOICE by William Styron
THE SHELTERING SKY by Paul Bowles
THE POSTMAN ALWAYS RINGS TWICE by James M. Cain
THE GINGER MAN by J.P. Donleavy
THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS by Booth Tarkington
******************************************************************
Great Books: Index by Period and Culture: Non-Western Literature
Periods and Nationalities
3000-1500 BCE
1500-1000 BCE
Indian Subcontinent
Chinese
1000-500 BCE
Indian Subcontinent
Chinese
5th C BCE
Indian Subcontinent
Chinese
4th C BCE
Indian Subcontinent
Chinese
3rd C BCE
Indian Subcontinent
Chinese
2nd C BCE
Indian Subcontinent
Chinese
1st C BCE
1st C CE
Indian Subcontinent
Chinese
2nd C
3rd C
4th C
Indian Subcontinent
Native American
5th C
Indian Subcontinent
Chinese
6th C
Middle East
Indian Subcontinent
Chinese
7th C
Middle East
Indian Subcontinent
Chinese
Japanese
8th C
Chinese
Japanese
Other Asian, Pacific
9th C
Middle East
Chinese
Japanese
10th C
11th C
Middle East
Indian Subcontinent
Chinese
Japanese
Other Asian, Pacific
12th C
Middle East
Indian Subcontinent
Chinese
Japanese
Native American
13th C
Middle East
Chinese
Japanese
14th C
Middle East
Indian Subcontinent
Chinese
Japanese
15th C
Middle East
Indian Subcontinent
Japanese
16th C
Middle East
Indian Subcontinent
Chinese
Japanese
Native American
17th C
Middle East
Indian Subcontinent
Chinese
Japanese
18th C
19th C
Indian Subcontinent
Japanese
Other Asian, Pacific
20th C
Middle East
- Sa'di, Musharrif ad-Din bin Muslih
- Bialik, Chaim Nachman
- Gibran, Khalil
- Bayatli, Yahya Kemal
- Agnon, S. Y.
- Husayn, Taha
- Scholem, Gershom
- Fathy, Hassan
- Hikmet, Nazim
- Hedayat, Sadeq
- Mahfuz, Najib (Mahfouz, Naguib)
- Talmon, J. T.
- Carmi, T.
- Shahar, David
- Batatu, Hanna
- Salih, Tayeb
- Adunis
- Kaniuk, Yoram
- Pagis, Dan
- Zach, Nathan
- Sa'adawi, Nawal el
- Appelfeld, Aharon
- Amichai, Yehuda
- Shabtai, Yaakov
- Said, Edward
- Yehoshua, A. B.
- Ravikovitch, Dalia
- Oz, Amos
- Darwish, Mahmud
- Pamuk, Orhan
- Grossman, David
Indian Subcontinent
Chinese
Japanese
Other Asian, Pacific
African
Native American
Anthologies and Auxiliary Reading
Anthologies, 20th Century
Middle East
Other Asian, Pacific
Anthologies
Middle East
Indian Subcontinent
Chinese
Japanese
Other Asian, Pacific
African
Native American
Anthologies, Oral Tradition
Auxiliary Reading, Non-Western
- Angulo, Jaime de. Indian Tales
- Barthélemy St.-Hilaire, Jules. The Buddha and His Religion
- Bowra, Sir Cecil Maurice. Primitive Song
- Brown, Dee Alexander. Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West
- Byron, Robert. The Road to Oxiana
- David-Neel, Alexandra. My Journey to Lhasa
- Debo, Angie. Geronimo: The Man, His Time, His Place
- Deloria, Vine, Jr.. Custer Died for Your Sins
- Dumont, René. Stranglehold on Africa
- Handy, E. S. Craighill and Elizabeth Green Handy. Native Planters in Old Hawaii: Their Life, Lore, and Environment
- Hanley, Gerald. Warriors: Life and Death Among the Somalis
- Heyerdahl, Thor. Kon-Tiki
- Hinton, William. Fanshen: A Documentary of Revolution in a Chinese Village
- La Barre, Weston. The Ghost Dance: Origins of Religion
- Matthiessen, Peter. In the Spirit of Crazy Horse
- Morse, Edward S.. Japanese Homes and Their Surroundings
- Needham, Joseph. Science and Civilization in China
- Scully, Vincent. Pueblo: Mountain, Village, Dance
- Smith, Margaret. Rabia the Mystic & Her Fellow Saints in Islam
- Spence, Jonathan. The Memory Palace of Matteo Ricci
- Spence, Jonathan. The Death of Woman Wang
- Spence, Jonathan. The Gate of Heavenly Peace
- Trench, Richard. Forbidden Sands: A Search in the Sahara
- Villas Boas, Orlando and Claudio. Xingu: The Indians, Their Myths
- Webb, George. A Pima Remembers
Auxiliary Reading, Oral Tradition
-------------------------
Great Books of the Western World (2nd ed., 1990)
ee also Mortimer Adler's statement on how the Great Books of the Western World were chosen.
Frequently Asked Questions
Who wrote this list?
See the heading above and the credit below to find out who wrote this list. If you don't like the selections in this list or the arrangement, take it up with the author(s).
Why isn't my favorite author listed here?
This list may not include your favorite author, but he or she may be on other Great Books lists. Check the author index to see.
See the Great Books FAQ for more about the Great Books and these lists of them.
- The Syntopicon: An Index to the Great Ideas
- Angel to Love
- The Syntopicon (continued)
- Man to World
- Homer
- Iliad
- Odyssey
- Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Aristophanes
- Aeschylus. Plays
- Sophocles. Plays
- Euripides. Plays
- Aristophanes. Plays
- Herodotus, Thucydides
- Herodotus. History
- Thucydides. The History of the Peloponnesian War
- Plato
- Dialogues
- Seventh Letter
- Aristotle (I)
- Works
- Aristotle (II)
- Works (continued)
- Hippocrates, Galen
- Hippocrates. Hippocratic Writings
- Galen. On the Natural Faculties
- Euclid, Archimedes, Nicomachus
- Euclid. Elements
- Archimedes. Works (including The Method)
- Nicomachus. Introduction to Arithmetic
- Lucretius, Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius, Plotinus
- Lucretius The Way Things Are
- Epictetus. Discourses
- Marcus Aurelius. The Meditations
- Plotinus. The Six Enneads
- Virgil
- Eclogues
- Georgics
- Aeneid
- Plutarch
- Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans
- Tacitus
- Annals
- Histories
- Ptolemy, Copernicus, Kepler
- Ptolemy. Almagest
- Copernicus. On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres
- Kepler. Epitome of Copernican Astronomy
- Kepler. The Harmonies of the World
- Augustine
- The Confessions
- The City of God
- On Christian Doctrine
- Thomas Aquinas (I)
- Summa Theologica
- Thomas Aquinas (II)
- Summa Theologica (continued)
- Dante, Chaucer
- Dante. Divine Comedy
- Chaucer. Troilus and Criseyde
- Chaucer. Canterbury Tales
- Calvin
- Institutes of the Christian Religion
- Machiavelli, Hobbbes
- Machiavelli. The Prince
Hobbes. Leviathan, or, Matter, Form and Power of a Commonwealth Ecclesiastical and Civil
- Rabelais
- Gargantua and Pantagruel
- Erasmus, Montaigne
- Erasmus. Praise of Folly
- Montaigne. Essays
- Shakespeare (I)
- The Plays and Sonnets
- Shakespeare (II)
- The Plays and Sonnets (continued)
- Gilbert, Galileo, Harvey
- Gilbert. On the Loadstone and Magnetic Bodies
- Galileo. Concerning the Two New Sciences
- Harvey. On the Motion of the Heart and Blood in Animals
- Harvey. On the Circulation of the Blood
- Harvey. On the Generation of Animals
- Cervantes
- The History of Don Quixote de la Mancha
- Bacon, Descartes, Spinoza
- Bacon. Advancement of Learning
- Bacon. Novum Organum
- Bacon. New Atlantis
- Descartes. Rules for the Direction of the Mind
- Descartes. Discourse on the Method
- Descartes. Meditations on First Philosophy
- Descartes. Objections Against the Meditations and Replies
- Descartes. The Geometry
- Spinoza. Ethics
- Milton
- English minor poems
- Paradise Lost
- Samson Agonistes
- Areopagitica
- Pascal
- The Provincial Letters
- Pensees
- Scientific Treatises
- Moliere, Racine
- Moliere. The School for Wives
- Moliere. The Critique of the School for Wives
- Moliere. Tartuffe
- Moliere. Don Juan
- Moliere. The Miser
- Moliere. The Would-Be Gentleman
- Moliere. The Would-Be Invalid
- Racine. Berenice
- Newton, Huygens
- Newton. Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy
- Newton. Optics
- Huygens. Treatise on Light
- Locke, Berkeley
- Locke. A Letter Concerning Toleration
- Locke. Concerning Civil Government, Second Essay
- Locke. An Essay Concerning Human Understanding
- Berkeley. The Principles of Human Knowledge
- Hume. An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding
- Swift, Voltaire, Diderot
- Swift. Gulliver's Travels
- Voltaire. Candide
- Diderot. Rameau's Nephew
- Montesquieu, Rousseau
- Montesquieu. The Spirit of Laws
- Rousseau. On the Origin of Inequality
- Rousseau. On Political Economy
- Rousseau. The Social Contract
- Smith
- An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations
- Gibbon (I)
- History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
- Gibbon (II)
- History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (continued)
- Kant
- The Critique of Pure Reason
- The Critique of Practical Reason, and Other Ethical Treatises
- The Critique of Judgment
- American State Papers, The Federalist, Mill
- Declaration of Independence
- Articles of Confederation
- The Constitution
- Hamilton, Madison, Jay. The Federalist
- Mill. On Liberty
- Mill. Representative Government
- Mill. Utilitarianism
- Boswell
- Life of Samuel Johnson, LL. D.
- Lavoisier, Faraday
- Lavoisier. Elements of Chemistry
- Faraday. Experimental Researches in Electricity
- Hegel, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche
- Hegel. The Philosophy of Right
- Hegel. The Philosophy of History
- Kierkegaard. Fear and Trembling
- Nietzsche. Beyond Good and Evil
- Tocqueville
- Democracy in America
- Goethe, Balzac
- Goethe. Faust: Parts One and Two
- Balzac. Cousin Bette
- Austen, Eliot
- Austen. Emma
- Eliot. Middlemarch
- Dickens
- Little Dorrit
- Melville, Twain
- Melville. Moby Dick, or, The Whale
- Twain. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
- Darwin
- The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection
- The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex
- Marx, Engels
- Marx (edited by Engels). Capital
- Marx and Engels. Manifesto of the Communist Party
- Tolstoy
- War and Peace
- Dostoyevsky, Ibsen
- Dostoyevsky. The Brothers Karamazov
- Ibsen. A Doll's House
- Ibsen. The Wild Duck
- Ibsen. Hedda Gabler
- Ibsen. The Master Builder
- James
- The Principles of Psychology
- Freud
- The Major Works of Sigmund Freud
- 20th Century Philosophy and Religion
- James. Pragmatism
- Bergson. An Introduction to Metaphysics
- Dewey. Experience and Education
- Whitehead. Science and the Modern World
- Russell. The Problems of Philosophy
- Heidegger. What is Metaphysics?
- Wittgenstein. Philosophical Investigations
- Barth. The Word of God and the Word of Man
- 20th Century Natural Science
- Poincare. Science and Hypothesis
- Planck. Scientific Autobiography and Other Papers
- Whitehead. An Introduction to Mathematics
- Einstein. Relativity: The Special and the General Theory
- Eddington. The Expanding Universe
- Bohr. Atomic Theory and the Description of Nature (selections)
- Bohr. Discussion with Einstein on Epistemological Problemns in Atomic Physics
- Hardy. A Mathematician's Apology
- Heisenberg. Physics and Philosophy
- Schrodinger. What is Life?
- Dobzhansky. Genetics and the Origin of Species
- Waddington. The Nature of Life
- 20th Century Social Science (I)
- Veblen. The Theory of the Leisure Class
- Tawney. The Acquisitive Society
- Keynes. The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money
- 20th Century Social Science (II)
- Frazer. The Golden Bough (selections)
- Weber. Essays in Sociology (selections)
- Huizinga. The Waning of the Middle Ages
- Levi-Strauss. Structural Anthropology (selections)
- 20th Century Imaginative Literature (I)
- James. The Beast in the Jungle
- Shaw. Saint Joan
- Conrad. Heart of Darkness
- Chekhov. Uncle Vanya
- Pirandello. Six Characters in Search of an Author
- Proust. Remembrance of Things Past. "Swann in Love"
- Cather. A Lost Lady
- Mann. Death in Venice
- Joyce. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
- 20th Century Imaginative Literature (II)
- Woolf. To the Lighthouse
- Kafka. Metamorphosis
- Lawrence. The Prussian Officer
- Eliot. The Waste Land
- O'Neill. Mourning Becomes Electra
- Fitzgerald. The Great Gatsby
- Faulkner. A Rose for Emily
- Brecht. Mother Courage and Her Children
- Hemingway. The Short Happy Life of Macomber
- Orwell. Animal Farm
- Beckett. Waiting for Godot
Source: Great Books of the Western World. Ed. by Mortimer J. Adler, Clifton Fadiman, Philip W. Goetz. 2nd ed. Chicago: Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1990. © 1990
Note: I have not been able to examine the second edition of Great Books; I have compiled this list from library catalogs.
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