In April 2011, I began catching up on those classics of English language literature I had yet to read. To help myself out and have some fun along the way I decided to bring together a list of some of the most influential and significant books (based on various other similar lists compiled by the “experts”) and go through them in order of publication. For more on the reasoning and methodology of my selections, see this post.
(UPDATE: This list was revised on Dec. 28, 2011)
Links to my review of each title marks my progress so far.
1. The Pilgrim’s Progress by John Bunyan (1678)
2. Oroonoko by Aphra Behn (1688)
3. Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe (1719)
4. Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe (1722)
5. Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift (1726)
6. Tom Jones by Henry Fielding (1749)
7. The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole (1764)
8. Pride And Prejudice by Jane Austen (1813)
9. Frankenstein by Mary Shelley (1818; 1831)
10. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë (1847)
11. Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë (1847)
12. Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray (1847-8)
13. The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Brontë (1848)
14. The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne (1850)
15. Moby-Dick by Herman Melville (1851)
16. Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe (1852)
17. A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens (1859)
18. Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland & Through The Looking-Glass by Lewis Carroll (1865/1871)
19. The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins (1868)
20. Little Women by Louisa May Alcott (1868-9)
21. Middlemarch by George Eliot (1871-2)
22. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain (1876)
23. The Portrait of A Lady by Henry James (1881)
24. Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson (1883)
25. The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde (1890)
26. The Sign of Four by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1890)
27. Tess of The d’Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy (1891)
28. The Time Machine by H.G. Wells (1895)
29. Kim by Rudyard Kipling (1901)
30. Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad (1902)
31. The Call of The Wild by Jack London (1903)
32. The Napoleon of Notting Hill by G.K. Chesterton (1904)
33. The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett (1911)
34. The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton (1920)
35. Ulysses by James Joyce (1922)
36. A Passage To India by E.M. Forster (1924)
37. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald (1925)
38. Orlando by Virginia Woolf (1928)
39. Lady Chatterly’s Lover by D.H. Lawrence (1928)
40. The Sound And The Fury by William Faulkner (1929)
41. The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett (1930)
42. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley (1932)
43. I, Claudius by Robert Graves (1934)
44. The Nine Tailors by Dorothy L. Sayers (1934)
45. The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler (1939)
46. The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck (1939)
47. For Whom The Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway (1940)
48. Native Son by Richard Wright (1940)
49. Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh (1945)
50. Nineteen Eight-Four by George Orwell (1949)
51. The Lion, The Witch, And The Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis (1950)
52. The Catcher In The Rye by J.D. Salinger (1951)
53. Foundation by Isaac Asimov (1951)
54. Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury (1953)
55. Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison (1953)
56. Charlotte’s Web by E.B. White (1953)
57. Lord of The Flies by William Golding (1954)
58. The Lord of The Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien (1954-5)
59. Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov (1955)
60. The Stars My Destination by Alfred Bester (1956)
61. On The Road by Jack Kerouac (1957)
62. Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe (1958)
63. The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz by Mordecai Richler (1959)
64. To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee (1960)
65. Catch-22 by Joseph Heller (1961)
66. A Canticle For Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller, Jr. (1961)
67. The Moviegoer by Walker Percy (1961)
68. Stranger In A Strange Land by Robert A. Heinlein (1961)
69. A Wrinkle In Time by Madeleine L’Engle (1962)
70. Charlie And The Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl (1964)
71. Herzog by Saul Bellow (1964)
72. Dune by Frank Herbert (1965)
73. Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys (1966)
74. True Grit by Charles Portis (1968)
75. Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut (1969)
76. Master And Commander by Patrick O’Brian (1969)
77. The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin (1970)
78. Fifth Business by Robertson Davies (1970)
79. Watership Down by Richard Adams (1972)
80. Carrie by Stephen King (1974)
81. The Forever War by Joe Haldeman (1976)
82. Bridge To Terabithia by Katherine Paterson (1977)
83. A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole (1980)
84. The Book of The New Sun by Gene Wolfe (1980-3)
85. Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie (1981)
86. The Color Purple by Alice Walker (1983)
87. Neuromancer by William Gibson (1984)
88. Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy (1985)
89. Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card (1986)
90. Beloved by Toni Morrison (1988)
91. A Prayer For Owen Meany by John Irving (1989)
92. In The Time of The Butterflies by Julia Alvarez (1994)
93. The View From Saturday by E.L. Konigsburg (1997)
94. Stardust by Neil Gaiman (1999)
95. The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver (1999)
96. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier And Clay by Michael Chabon (2000)
97. The Years of Rice And Salt by Kim Stanley Robinson (2003)
98. Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke (2004)
99. Gilead by Marilynne Robinson (2004)
100. The Book Thief by Markus Zusak (2005)
