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

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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

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.




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