sefs240's "The 100 Best Novels of the 20th Century"

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This was compiled by combining several other "definitive" lists (Modern Library, Radcliffe, Western Canon, etc). I tried to incorporate as many educated opinions as possible in constructing this list. Please remember that these are 20th century, English-language novels only, with the exceptions of Heart of Darkness (originally published in 1899) and Darkness at Noon (originally published in German). I included these two because most other lists did.

Pages: 1

  1. 1.
    Ulysses
    by James Joyce
  2. 2.
    The Sound and the Fury: The Corrected Text
    by William Faulkner
  3. 3.
    Lolita
    by Vladimir Nabokov
  4. 4.
    The Great Gatsby
    by F. Scott Fitzgerald
  5. 5.
    To the Lighthouse (Annotated)
    by Virginia Woolf
  6. 6.
    Nineteen Eighty-four
    by George Orwell
  7. 7.
  8. 8.
    Invisible Man: A Novel
    by Ralph Ellison
  9. 9.
    The Ambassadors
    by Henry James
  10. 10.
    The Sun Also Rises
    by Ernest Hemingway
  11. 11.
    The Grapes of Wrath (Centennial Edition)
    by John Steinbeck
  12. 12.
    Native Son
    by Richard Wright
  13. 13.
    A Passage to India (Penguin Classics)
    by E. M. Forster
  14. 14.
    Sons and Lovers (Penguin Classics)
    by D. H. Lawrence
  15. 15.
    The Catcher in the Rye
    by J. D. Salinger
  16. 16.
    Catch-22: A Novel (Simon & Schuster Classics)
    by Joseph Heller
  17. 17.
    Women in Love (Penguin Classics)
    by D. H. Lawrence
  18. 18.
    Pale Fire (Everyman's Library Classics & Contemporary Classics)
    by Vladimir Nabokov
  19. 19.
    The Good Soldier (Barnes & Noble Classics Series)
    by Ford Madox Ford
  20. 20.
    Brave New World
    by Aldous Huxley
  21. 21.
    Animal Farm: Centennial Edition
    by George Orwell
  22. 22.
    Heart of Darkness (Norton Critical Editions)
    by Joseph Conrad
  23. 23.
    As I Lay Dying (Modern Library)
    by William Faulkner
  24. 24.
    A Farewell to Arms (Scribner Classics)
    by Ernest Hemingway
  25. 25.
    Under the Volcano: A Novel (P.S.)
    by Malcolm Lowry
  26. 26.
    Finnegans Wake (Classic, 20th-Century, Penguin)
    by James Joyce
  27. 27.
    Slaughterhouse-Five: A Novel
    by Kurt Vonnegut
  28. 28.
    On the Road (Penguin Great Books of the 20th Century)
    by Jack Kerouac
  29. 29.
    Gravity's Rainbow
    by Thomas Pynchon
  30. 30.
    The Heart of the Matter
    by Graham Greene
  31. 31.
    Lord of the Flies (Penguin Great Books of the 20th Century)
    by William Golding
  32. 32.
    The Wings of the Dove (Modern Library Classics)
    by Henry James
  33. 33.
    ?
  34. 34.
    Howards End (Dover Thrift Editions)
    by E. M. Forster
  35. 35.
    The Golden Bowl (Penguin Modern Classics)
    by Henry James
  36. 36.
    Tender is the Night
    by F. Scott Fitzgerald
  37. 37.
    Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard (Penguin Classics)
    by Joseph Conrad
  38. 38.
    Dubliners (Oxford World's Classics)
    by James Joyce
  39. 39.
    A Clockwork Orange (Essential.penguin)
    by Anthony Burgess
  40. 40.
    The Age of Innocence (Oxford World's Classics)
    by Edith Wharton
  41. 41.
    Light in August (The Corrected Text)
    by William Faulkner
  42. 42.
    Lord Jim: A Tale (Penguin Classics)
    by Joseph Conrad
  43. 43.
    Go Tell It on the Mountain
    by James Baldwin
  44. 44.
  45. 45.
    Brideshead Revisited
    by Evelyn Waugh
  46. 46.
    Mrs. Dalloway
    by Virginia Woolf
  47. 47.
    The Crying of Lot 49 (Perennial Fiction Library)
    by Thomas Pynchon
  48. 48.
    Beloved
    by Toni Morrison
  49. 49.
    Henderson the Rain King (Penguin Modern Classics)
    by Saul Bellow
  50. 50.
    The House of Mirth
    by Edith Wharton

Pages: 1

This is sefs240's list. Only sefs240 can edit it. You can make your own version of this list.
Created by sefs240 on Jan 29, 2008.
 

Comments

freakclub99

Why? — 3 years ago

I always find it irritating to see “The Great Gatbsy” being included in the lists of great novels. I regard F. Scott Fitzgerald highy, and have heard great witticisms from him, but this book is simply immature. It has no brilliant plot; no brilliant ideas can be derived from it; and it is not even a good meditation on life. When I hear people say it is The Great American Novel, I just go like, “Are Americans that silly?” To just compare it to Melville’s masterpice, Moby Dick, makes me shudder. People please remove it from your list.

Aug 07, 09:13PM | 1 comment | Reply to this



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