Top 100 Novels

Modern Library's Top 100 Novels of the 20th Century

100. The Magnificent Ambersons by Booth Tarkington
99. The Ginger Man by J.P. Donleavy
98. The Postman Always Rings Twice by James M. Cain
97. The Sheltering Sky by Paul Bowles
96. Sophie's Choice by William Styron
95. Under the Net by Iris Murdoch
94. Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys
93. The Magus by John Fowles
92. Ironweed by William Kennedy
91. Tobacco Road by Erskine Caldwell
90. Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie
89. Loving by Henry Green
88. The Call of the Wild by Jack London
87. The Old Wives' Tale by Arnold Bennett
86. Ragtime by E.L. Doctorow
85. Lord Jim by Joseph Conrad
84. The Death of the Heart by Elizabeth Bowen
83. A Bend in the River by V.S. Naipaul
82. Angle of Repose by Wallace Stegner
81. The Adventures of Augie March by Saul Bellow
80. Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh
79. A Room with a View by E.M. Forster
78. Kim by Rudyard Kipling
77. Finnegans Wake by James Joyce
76. The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark
75. Scoop by Evelyn Waugh
74. A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway
73. The Day of the Locust by Nathanael West
72. A House for Mr Biswas by V.S. Naipaul
71. A High Wind in Jamaica by Richard Hughes
70. The Alexandria Quartet by Lawrence Durell
69. The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton
68. Main Street by Sinclair Lewis
67. Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
66. Of Human Bondage by W. Somerset Maugham
65. A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
64. The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
63. The Wapshot Chronicle by John Cheever
62. From Here to Eternity by James Jones
61. Death Comes for the Archbishop by Willa Cather
60. The Moviegoer by Walker Percy
59. Zuleika Dobson by Max Beerbohm
58. The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton
57. Parade's End by Ford Madox Ford
56. The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett
55. On the Road by Jack Kerouac
54. Light in August by William Faulkner
53. Pale Fire by Vladimir Nabokov
52. Portnoy's Complaint by Philip Roth
51. The Naked and the Dead by Norman Mailer
50. Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller
49. Women in Love by D.H. Lawrence
48. The Rainbow by D.H. Lawrence
47. Nostromo by Joseph Conrad
46. The Secret Agent by Joseph Conrad
45. The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway
44. Point Counter Point by Aldous Huxley
43. A Dance to the Music of Time by Anthony Powell
42. Deliverance by James Dickey
41. Lord of the Flies by William Golding
40. The Heart of the Matter by Graham Greene
    
39. Go Tell It On the Mountain by James Baldwin
    
38. Howards End by E.M. Forster
    
37. The Bridge of San Luis Rey by Thornton Wilder
    
36. All the King's Men by Robert Penn Warren
    
35. As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner
    
34. A Handful of Dust by Evelyn Waugh
    
33. Sister Carrie by Theodore Dreiser
    
32. The Golden Bowl by Henry James
    
31. Animal Farm by George Orwell
    
30. The Good Soldier by Ford Madox Ford
29. The Studs Lonigan Trilogy by James T. Farrell
28. Tender is the Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald
27. The Ambassadors by Henry James
26. The Wings of the Dove by Henry James
25. A Passage to India by E.M. Forster
24. Winesburg, Ohio by Sherwood Anderson
23. U.S.A. (trilogy) by John Dos Passos
22. Appointment in Samarra by John O'Hara
21. Henderson the Rain King by Saul Bellow
20. Native Son by Richard Wright
19. Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
18. Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut
17. The Heart is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers
16. An American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser
15. To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf
14. I, Claudius by Robert Graves
13. 1984 by George Orwell
12. The Way of All Flesh by Samuel Butler
11. Under the Volcano by Malcolm Lowry
10. The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
9. Sons and Lovers by D.H. Lawrence
8. Darkness at Noon by Arthur Koestler
7. Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
6. The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner
5. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
4. Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
3. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce
2. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
1. Ulysses by James Joyce