Modern Library 100 Best Novels

Modern Library's 100 Best Novels is a list of the best English-language novels of the 20th century as selected by the Modern Library. In the spring of 1998 the Modern Library polled its editorial board to find the best 100 novels of the 20th century.

Editors' list

Editors' list

# Year Title Author

1. 1922 Ulysses James Joyce

2. 1925 The Great Gatsby F. Scott Fitzgerald

3. 1916 A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man James Joyce

4. 1955 Lolita Vladimir Nabokov

5. 1932 Brave New World Aldous Huxley

6.1929 The Sound and the Fury William Faulkner (fb2)

7. 1961 Catch-22 Joseph Heller

8. 1940 Darkness at Noon Arthur Koestler

9. 1913 Sons and Lovers D. H. Lawrence

10. 1939 The Grapes of Wrath John Steinbeck

11. 1947 Under the Volcano Malcolm Lowry

12. 1903 The Way of All Flesh Samuel Butler

13. 1949 Nineteen Eighty-Four George Orwell

14. 1934 I, Claudius Robert Graves

15. 1927 To the Lighthouse Virginia Woolf

16. 1925 An American Tragedy Theodore Dreiser

17. 1940 The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter Carson McCullers

18. 1969 Slaughterhouse-Five Kurt Vonnegut

19. 1952 Invisible Man Ralph Ellison

20. 1940 Native Son Richard Wright

21. 1959 Henderson the Rain King Saul Bellow

22. 1934 Appointment in Samarra John O'Hara

23. 1938 U.S.A. (trilogy) John Dos Passos

24. 1919 Winesburg, Ohio Sherwood Anderson

25. 1924 A Passage to India E. M. Forster

26. 1902 The Wings of the Dove Henry James

27. 1903 The Ambassadors Henry James

28. 1934 Tender Is the Night F. Scott Fitzgerald

29. 1935 Studs Lonigan (trilogy) James T. Farrell

30. 1915 The Good Soldier Ford Madox Ford

31. 1945 Animal Farm George Orwell

32. 1904 The Golden Bowl Henry James

33. 1900 Sister Carrie Theodore Dreiser

34. 1934 A Handful of Dust Evelyn Waugh

35. 1930 As I Lay Dying William Faulkner

36. 1946 All the King's Men Robert Penn Warren

37. 1927 The Bridge of San Luis Rey Thornton Wilder

38. 1910 Howards End E. M. Forster

39. 1953 Go Tell It on the Mountain James Baldwin

40. 1948 The Heart of the Matter Graham Greene

41. 1954 Lord of the Flies William Golding

42. 1970 Deliverance James Dickey

43. 1951-1975 A Dance to the Music of Time (series) Anthony Powell

44. 1928 Point Counter Point Aldous Huxley

45. 1926 The Sun Also Rises Ernest Hemingway

46. 1907 The Secret Agent Joseph Conrad

47. 1904 Nostromo Joseph Conrad

48. 1915 The Rainbow D. H. Lawrence

49. 1920 Women in Love D. H. Lawrence

50. 1934 Tropic of Cancer Henry Miller

51. 1948 The Naked and the Dead Norman Mailer

52. 1969 Portnoy's Complaint Philip Roth

53. 1962 Pale Fire Vladimir Nabokov

54. 1932 Light in August William Faulkner

55. 1957 On the Road Jack Kerouac

56. 1930 The Maltese Falcon Dashiell Hammett

57. 1924-1928 Parade's End Ford Madox Ford

58. 1920 The Age of Innocence Edith Wharton

59. 1911 Zuleika Dobson Max Beerbohm

60. 1961 The Moviegoer Walker Percy

61. 1927 Death Comes for the Archbishop Willa Cather

62. 1951 From Here to Eternity James Jones

63. 1957 The Wapshot Chronicle John Cheever

64. 1951 The Catcher in the Rye J. D. Salinger

65. 1962 A Clockwork Orange Anthony Burgess

66. 1915 Of Human Bondage W. Somerset Maugham

67. 1902 Heart of Darkness Joseph Conrad

68. 1920 Main Street Sinclair Lewis

69. 1905 The House of Mirth Edith Wharton

70. 1957-1960 The Alexandria Quartet Lawrence Durrell

71. 1929 A High Wind in Jamaica Richard Hughes

72. 1961 A House for Mr Biswas V. S. Naipaul

73. 1939 The Day of the Locust Nathanael West

74. 1929 A Farewell to Arms Ernest Hemingway

75. 1938 Scoop Evelyn Waugh

76. 1962 The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie Muriel Spark

77. 1939 Finnegans Wake James Joyce

78. 1901 Kim Rudyard Kipling

79. 1908 A Room with a View E. M. Forster

80. 1945 Brideshead Revisited Evelyn Waugh

81. 1953 The Adventures of Augie March Saul Bellow

82. 1971 Angle of Repose Wallace Stegner

83. 1979 A Bend in the River V. S. Naipaul

84. 1938 The Death of the Heart Elizabeth Bowen

85. 1900 Lord Jim Joseph Conrad

86. 1975 Ragtime E. L. Doctorow

87. 1908 The Old Wives' Tale Arnold Bennett

88. 1903 The Call of the Wild Jack London

89. 1945 Loving Henry Green

90. 1980 Midnight's Children Salman Rushdie

91. 1932 Tobacco Road Erskine Caldwell

92. 1983 Ironweed William Kennedy

93. 1965 The Magus John Fowles

94. 1966 Wide Sargasso Sea Jean Rhys

95. 1954 Under the Net Iris Murdoch

96. 1979 Sophie's Choice William Styron

97. 1949 The Sheltering Sky Paul Bowles

98. 1934 The Postman Always Rings Twice James M. Cain

99. 1955 The Ginger Man J. P. Donleavy

100. 1918 The Magnificent Ambersons Booth Tarkington