The Ancient World and Dark Ages
2000 B.C.E. to 700 C.E.
| Date BCE
|
Title | Author | Country | Type |
| c.2100– 1200 |
The Epic of Gilgamesh | Anonymous | Babylon | Poetry |
| c.1990 | The Shipwrecked Sailor | Anonymous | Egypt | Story |
| c.1875 | The Tale of Sinuhe | Anonymous | Egypt | Story |
| The Eloquent Peasant | Anonymous | Egypt | Story | |
| c.1200– 100 |
The Hebrew Bible (Old Testament) | Various | Israel | Prose and Poetry |
| c.750 | Iliad | Homer | Greece | Poetry |
| The Odyssey | Homer | Greece | Poetry | |
| c.700 | Theogony | Hesiod | Greece | Poetry |
| Works and Days | Hesiod | Greece | Poetry | |
| c.610– 580 |
Sappho’s Poems | Sappho | Greece | Poetry |
| c.600– 500 |
Fables | Aesop | Greece | Stories |
| c.500– 440 |
Epinician Odes | Pindar | Greece | Poetry |
| 458 | The Oresteia | Aeschylus | Greece | Drama series |
| c.450– 425 |
Prometheus Bound | Aeschylus | Greece | Drama |
| 442–441 | Antigone | Sophocles | Greece | Drama |
| 431 | Medea | Euripides | Greece | Drama |
| 430 | Oedipus Rex | Sophocles | Greece | Drama |
| 423 | The Clouds | Aristophanes | Greece | Drama |
| c.420– 410 |
Electra | Sophocles | Greece | Drama |
| 418 | Electra | Euripides | Greece | Drama |
| 414 | The Birds | Aristophanes | Greece | Drama |
| 411 | Lysistrata | Aristophanes | Greece | Drama |
| 406 | The Bacchae | Euripides | Greece | Drama |
| c.400BCE –400CE |
Mahabharata | Anonymous | India | Poetry |
| 300–200 | The Voyage of the Argonauts | Appollonius of Rhodes | Greece | Poetry series |
| Idylls | Theocritus | Greece | Poetry | |
| Ramayana | Valmiki | India | Poetry | |
| c.270 | Causes | Callimachus | Greece | Poetry |
| c.200 | Menaechmi (The Twin Brothers) | Plautus | Rome | Drama |
| c.50 | On the Nature of Things | Lucretius | Rome | Poetry |
| c.41–37 | Eclogues | Virgil | Rome | Poetry |
| c.35–30 | Satires | Horace | Rome | Poetry |
| c.29–16 | Elegies | Sextus Propertius | Rome | Poetry |
| c.29–19 | Aeneid | Virgil | Rome | Poetry |
| 19 | Odes | Horace | Rome | Poetry |
| c.10 | Art of Love
|
Ovid | Rome | Poetry |
|
Date CE
|
Title |
Author |
Country | Type |
| c.8 | Metamorphoses | Ovid | Rome | Poetry |
| c.50 | Media | Lucius Annaeus Seneca | Rome | Drama |
| Hercules Furens | Lucius Annaeus Seneca | Rome | Drama | |
| c.60-70 | Satyricon | Arbiter Petronius | Rome | Prose and Poetry |
| c.65–100 | The New Testament | Various | Israel | Prose and Poetry |
| c.100 | Parallel Lives | Plutarch | Greece | Biography |
| c.100– 127 |
Satires | Juvenal | Rome | Poetry series |
| c.150 | The Golden Ass | Lucius Apuleius | Rome | Prose narrative |
| c.300 | The Vision of Vasavadatta | Bhasa | India | Drama |
| c.400 | The Recognition of Sakuntala | Kalidasa | India | Drama |
| 610–632 | Qur’an | Mohammed | Arabia | Prose |
| c.700 | Beowulf | Anonymous | England | Poetry |
Middle Ages to the Renaissance
701 to 1500 C.E.
| Date
|
Title | Author | Country | Type |
| c.759 | Anthology of a Myriad Leaves | Kakinomoto no Hitomaro and others |
Japan | Poetry |
| c.991 | The Battle of Maldon | Anonymous | England | Poetry |
| c.1000 | The Pillow Book of Sei Shonagon | Sei Shonagon | Japan | Diary |
| The Thousand and One Nights | Anonymous | Persia | Stories | |
| 1000 –1300 |
The Poetic Edda | Anonymous | Iceland | Poetry |
| c.1010 | The Book of Kings | Abolgasem | Persia | Stories |
| c.1020 | The Tale of Genji | Murasaki Shikibu | Japan | Prose narrative |
| c.1100 | Rubáiyát | Omar Khayyam | Persia | Poetry |
| Song of Roland | Anonymous | France | Poetry | |
| c.1100 –1250 |
Volsungsaga | Anonymous | Iceland | Poetry |
| c.1140 | The Poem of the Cid | Anonymous | Spain | Poetry |
| c.1145 | King Rother | Anonymous | Germany | Poetry |
| c.1177 –1181 |
Launcelot | Chrétien de Troyes | France | Poetry |
| c.1180 | Lais | Marie de France | France | Poetry |
| 1181–90 | Perceval | Chrétien de Troyes | France | Poetry |
| c.1190 | The Conference of the Birds | Farid od-Din Attar | Persia | Poetry |
| c.1200 | The Nibelungenlied | Anonymous | Germany | Poetry |
| The Prose Edda | Snorri Sturlson | Iceland | Prose narrative | |
| c.1200 –1210 |
Parzival | Wolfram von Eschenbach | Germany | Poetry |
| 1210 | Tristan und Isolde | Gottfied von Strassburg | Germany | Poetry |
| 1220 | The Tale of the Heike | Anonymous | Japan | Prose narrative |
| 1230–75 | Romance of the Rose | Guillaume de Lorris, Jean de Meun | France | Poetry |
| c.1250 | The Saga of Burnt Njal | Anonymous | Iceland | Poetry |
| Mathnawi | Jalal od-Din Rumi | Persia | Poetry | |
| c.1270 | The Garden of Roses | Musharrif od-Din Sadi | Persia | Poetry |
| 1294 | The New Life | Alighieri Dante | Italy | Poetry and prose |
| 1307 | The Divine Comedy | Alighieri Dante | Italy | Poetry |
| 1327 | Le Rime | Francesco Petrarch | Italy | Poetry |
| 1348 | Decameron | Giovanni Boccaccio | Italy | Poetry |
| c.1350 | Diwan | Mohammad Shams od-Din Hafiz | Persia | Poetry |
| 1352 | The Triumphs | Giovanni Boccaccio | Italy | Poetry |
| c. 1360 –1400 |
Romance of Three Kingdoms | Luo Guanzhong | China | Novel |
| Outlaws of the Marsh | Luo Guanzhong | China | Novel | |
| 1362 | The Vision of Piers the Ploughman | William Langland | England | Poetry |
| c.1382–86 | Troilus and Cressida | Geoffrey Chaucer | England | Poetry |
| 1387 | Sir Gawain and the Green Knight | Anonymous | England | Poetry |
| c.1387 –1400 |
The Canterbury Tales | Geoffrey Chaucer | England | Poetry |
| c.1400 | Atsumori | Zeami Motokiyo | Japan | Drama |
| 1461 | The Great Testament | François Villon | France | Poetry |
| 1485 | Everyman | Anonymous | England | Drama |
| Le Morte Darthur | Thomas Malory | England | Poetry | |
| 1486 | Orlando Innamorato | Matteo Maria Boiardo | Italy | Poetry |
| 1492 | Prison of Love | Diego de San Pedro | Spain | Novel |
| 1494 | Narrenschiff | Sebastian Brant | Germany | Poetry |
| 1499 | La Celestina | Fernando de Rojas | Spain | Novel |
Sixteenth–Seventeenth Centuries 1501 to 1700 C.E.
| Date
|
Title | Author | Country | Type |
| 1509 | The Ship of Fools | Alexander Barclay | England | Poetry |
| 1516 | Orlando Furioso | Ludovico Ariosto | Italy | Poetry |
| Utopia | Thomas More | England | Novel | |
| 1517 | The Tunnyng of Elynour Rummyng | John Skelton | England | Poetry |
| 1528 | The Book of the Courtier | Baldasarre Castiglione | Italy | Dialogue |
| 1532 | Pantagruel | Francois Rabelais | France | Novel |
| 1534 | Gargantua | Francois Rabelais | France | Novel |
| 1558 | Heptaméron | Marguerite de Navarre | France | Stories |
| 1572 | The Lusiads | Luis de Camoëns | Portugal | Poetry |
| 1575 | Jerusalem Delivered | Torquato Tasso | Italy | Poetry |
| 1580-81 | Arcadia | Philip Sidney | England | Poetry |
| 1586 | The Spanish Tragedy | Thomas Kyd | England | Drama |
| 1587 | Tamburlaine the Great | Christopher Marlowe | England | Drama |
| Doctor Faustus | Christopher Marlowe | England | Drama | |
| Oroonoko | Aphra Behn | England | Novel | |
| 1589 | The Faerie Queen | Edmund Spenser | England | Poetry |
| c.1590 | The Golden Lotus | Anonymous | China | Novel |
| c.1590-99 | Satires | John Donne | England | Poetry |
| Elegies | John Donne | England | Poetry | |
| 1591 | Astrophel and Stella | Philip Sidney | England | Poetry |
| 1592 | Edward II | Christopher Marlowe | England | Drama |
| 1594 | A Midsummer Night’s Dream | William Shakespeare | England | Drama |
| c.1596 | Romeo and Juliet | William Shakespeare | England | Drama |
| c.1597 | The Merchant of Venice | William Shakespeare | England | Drama |
| Henry IV, Part 1 | William Shakespeare | England | Drama | |
| 1598 | The Peony Pavilion | Tang Xianzu | China | Drama |
| 1599 | The Passionate Shepherd to His Love | Christopher Marlowe | England | Poem |
| Julius Caesar | William Shakespeare | England | Drama | |
| 1601 | Hamlet | William Shakespeare | England | Drama |
| 1603 | A Woman Killed with Kindness | Thomas Heywood | England | Drama |
| 1604 | Othello | William Shakespeare | England | Drama |
| 1604-05 | The Honest Whore | Thomas Dekker | England | Drama |
| 1605-15 | Don Quixote | Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra | Spain | Novel |
| 1606 | Volpone | Ben Jonson | England | Drama |
| c.1606 | Macbeth | William Shakespeare | England | Drama |
| King Lear | William Shakespeare | England | Drama | |
| c.1608 | The Faithful Shepherdess | John Fletcher | England | Drama |
| 1609 | Sonnets | William Shakespeare | England | Poetry |
| 1610 | The Alchemist | Ben Jonson | England | Drama |
| 1611 | The Tempest | William Shakespeare | England | Drama |
| 1613 | The Duchess of Malfi | John Webster | England | Drama |
| c.1614 | The Sheep Well | Lope de Vega | Spain | Drama |
| 1632 | Dorothy | Lope de Vega | Spain | Poetry |
| 1633 | ‘Tis Pity She’s a Whore | John Ford | England | Drama |
| The Temple | George Herbert | England | Poetry | |
| 1635 | Life is a Dream | Pedro Calderón de la Barca | Spain | Drama |
| 1637 | Le Cid | Pierre Corneille | France | Drama |
| 1643 | The Mayor of Zalamea | Pedro Calderón de la Barca | Spain | Drama |
| 1648 | Hesperides | Robert Herrick | England | Poetry |
| 1662 | The School for Wives | Molière | France | Drama |
| 1664 | Tartuffe | Molière | France | Drama |
| 1666 | The Misanthrope | Molière | France | Drama |
| 1667 | Paradise Lost | John Milton | England | Poetry |
| Andromache | Jean Racine | France | Drama | |
| 1668-94 | Fables | Jean de La Fontaine | France | Poetry |
| 1670 | The Bourgeois Gentleman | Molière | France | Drama |
| 1671 | Paradise Regained | John Milton | England | Poetry |
| Samson Agonistes | John Milton | England | Poetry | |
| 1675 | The Country Wife | William Wycherley | England | Drama |
| 1676 | The Plain Dealer | William Wycherley | England | Drama |
| 1677 | All for Love | John Dryden | England | Poetry |
| Phaedra | Jean Racine | France | Drama | |
| 1678 | The Pilgrim’s Progress | John Bunyan | England | Poetry |
| 1681 | To His Coy Mistress | Andrew Marvell | England | Poem |
| Absalom and Achitophel | John Dryden | England | Poetry | |
| 1682 | The Life of an Amorous Man | Ihara Saikaku | Japan | Novel |
| 1692 | Dream | Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz | Mexico | Poem |
| 1699 | The Adventures of Telemachus | François de Salignac de la Mothe Fénelon | France | Novel |
| 1700 | The Way of the World | William Congreve | England | Drama |
Eighteenth Century
1701 to 1800
| Date
|
Title | Author | Country | Type |
| 1712–14 | The Rape of the Lock | Alexander Pope | England | Poem |
| 1719 | Robinson Crusoe | Daniel Defoe | England | Novel |
| 1722 | Moll Flanders | Daniel Defoe | England | Novel |
| 1726 | Gulliver’s Travels | Jonathan Swift | England | Novel |
| 1728 | The Beggar’s Opera | John Gay | England | Drama |
| 1728–42 | The Dunciad | Alexander Pope | England | Poetry |
| 1731 | Manon Lescant | l’Abbé (Antoine François) Prévost | France | Novel |
| 1731–41 | The Life of Marianne | Pierre Marivaux | France | Novel |
| 1740 | Pamela | Samuel Richardson | England | Novel |
| 1742 | Joseph Andrews | Henry Fielding | England | Novel |
| 1748 | Clarissa | Samuel Richardson | England | Novel |
| 1749 | Tom Jones | Henry Fielding | England | Novel |
| Elegy Written in a Churchyard | Thomas Gray | England | Poem | |
| 1751 | The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle | Tobias Smollett | England | Novel |
| 1753 | The Mistress of the Inn | Carlo Goldoni | Italy | Drama |
| 1759–67 | Tristram Shandy | Laurence Sterne | England | Novel |
| 1759 | Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia | Samuel Johnson | France | Novel |
| Candide | François-Marie Arouet de Voltaire | England | Novel | |
| 1764 | The Castle of Otranto | Horace Walpole | England | Novel |
| 1766 | The Vicar of Wakefield | Oliver Goldsmith | England | Novel |
| 1771 | Humphrey Clinker | Tobias Smollett | England | Novel |
| 1773 | She Stoops to Conquer | Oliver Goldsmith | England | Drama |
| 1774 | The Sorrows of Young Werther | Johann Wolfgang von Goethe | Germany | Novel |
| 1775 | The Rivals | Richard Sheridan | England | Drama |
| The Barber of Seville | Pierre Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais | France | Drama | |
| c.1776 | Saul | Vittorio Alfieri | Italy | Drama |
| 1777 | The School for Scandal | Richard Sheridan | England | Drama |
| 1778 | Evelina | Fanny Burney | England | Novel |
| 1779 | Nathan the Wise | Gotthold Ephraim Lessing | Germany | Drama |
| 1782 | Dangerous Liaisons | Pierre Choderlos de Laclos | France | Novel |
| 1785 | The Marriage of Figaro | Pierre Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais | France | Drama |
| 1786 | Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect | Robert Burns | Scotland | Poetry |
| 1789 | Songs of Innocence | William Blake | England | Poetry |
| 1791 | The Dream of the Red Chamber | Cao Zhan | China | Novel |
| Life of Samuel Johnson | James Boswell | England | Biography | |
| Autobiography | Benjamin Franklin | USA | Biography | |
| 1794 | The Mysteries of Udolpho | Ann Radcliff | England | Novel |
| Songs of Experience | William Blake | England | Poetry | |
| 1795 | Ode to Joy | Friedrich Schiller | Germany | Poem |
| 1795-96 | William Meister’s Apprenticeship | Johann Wolfgang von Goethe | Germany | Novel |
| 1796 | Jacques the Fatalist and His Master | Denis Diderot | France | Novel |
| 1797 | The Rime of the Ancient Mariner | Samuel Taylor Coleridge | England | Poem |
| 1797-99 | Hyperion | Friedrich Hölderlin | Germany | Novel |
| 1797-1806 | Hymns and Fragments | Friedrich Hölderlin | Germany | Poetry |
| 1798 | Speed the Plough | Thomas Morton | England | Drama |
| Lyrical Ballads | William Wordsworth, Samuel Coleridge | England | Poetry | |
| Wieland | Charles Brockden Brown | USA | Novel | |
| 1799 | Ormond | Charles Brockden Brown | USA | Novel |
| 1800 | Castle Rackrent | Maria Edgeworth | Ireland | Novel |
Nineteenth Century
1801 to 1900 C.E.
| Date
|
Title | Author | Country | Type |
| 1802 | Delphine | Madame de Stael | France | Novel |
| 1804 | William Tell | Friedrich Schiller | Germany | Drama |
| 1805 | René | François René de Chateaubriand | France | Novel |
| The Marquise of O… | Heinrich von Kleist | Germany | Story | |
| 1807 | Poems | William Wordsworth | England | Poetry |
| 1808-32 | Faust | Johann Wolfgang von Goethe | Germany | Drama |
| 1810 | The Lady of the Lake | Walter Scott | Scotland | Poetry |
| 1812 | Poems | Johann Wolfgang von Goethe | Germany | Poetry |
| 1812-57 | Grimm’s Fairy Tales | Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm | Germany | Stories |
| 1813 | Pride and Prejudice | Jane Austen | England | Novel |
| Swiss Family Robinson | Johann David Wyss | Switzer. | Novel | |
| 1814 | Waverly | Walter Scott | Scotland | Novel |
| Mansfield Park | Jane Austen | England | Novel | |
| 1815 | Sense and Sensibility | Jane Austen | England | Novel |
| 1815-16 | The Devil’s Elixir | E.T.A. Hoffmann | Germany | Novel |
| 1816 | Kubla Khan | Samuel Taylor Coleridge | England | Poem |
| Emma | Jane Austen | England | Novel | |
| 1818 | Northanger Abbey | Jane Austen | England | Novel |
| Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage | George Gordon Byron | England | Poetry | |
| Endymion | John Keats | England | Poetry | |
| Nightmare Abbey | Thomas Love Peacock | England | Novel | |
| Frankenstein | Mary Shelley | England | Novel | |
| Ozmandias | Percy Bysshe Shelley | England | Poem | |
| 1819 | Ivanhoe | Walter Scott | Scotland | Novel |
| Rip Van Winkle | Washington Irving | USA | Story | |
| 1819-24 | Don Juan | George Gordon Byron | England | Poetry |
| 1820 | Odes | John Keats | England | Poetry |
| Prometheus Unbound | Percy Byssche Shelley | England | Poetry | |
| Melmouth the Wanderer | Charles Maturin | Ireland | Novel | |
| The Legend of Sleepy Hollow | Washington Irving | USA | Story | |
| 1821 | Prince Friedrich of Homburg | Heinrich von Kleist | Germany | Drama |
| Poems | William Cullen Bryant | USA | Poetry | |
| 1825 | Diary | Samuel Pepys | England | Diary |
| Boris Godunov | Alexander Pushkin | Russia | Poetry | |
| Eugene Onegin | Alexander Pushkin | Russia | Poetry | |
| The Talisman | Walter Scott | Scotland | Novel | |
| 1825-42 | The Betrothed | Alessandro Manzoni | Italy | Novel |
| 1826 | The Last of the Mohicans | James Fennimore Cooper | USA | Novel |
| 1827 | Book of Songs | Heinrich Heine | Germany | Poetry |
| 1831 | Queen Margot | Alexandre Dumas | France | Drama |
| Scarlet and Black | Stendhal | France | Novel | |
| Notre Dame de Paris | Victor-Marie Hugo | France | Novel | |
| 1831-35 | Canti | Giacomo Leopardi | Italy | Poetry |
| 1833 | Eugénie Grandet | Honoré de Balzac | France | Novel |
| Lélia | George Sand | France | Novel | |
| 1834 | Old Goriot | Honoré de Balzac | France | Novel |
| The Last Days of Pompeii | Edward Bulwer-Lytton | England | Novel | |
| 1835 | Chatterton | Alfred de Vigny | France | Drama |
| Young Goodman Brown | Nathaniel Hawthorne | USA | Story | |
| 1836 | The Government Inspector | Nikolai Gogol | Russia | Drama |
| 1837 | Twice-Told Tales | Nathaniel Hawthorne | USA | Stories |
| 1839 | The Charterhouse of Parma | Stendhal | France | Novel |
| Oliver Twist | Charles Dickens | England | Novel | |
| 1840 | A Hero of Our Time | Mikhail Lermontov | Russia | Novel |
| Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque | Edgar Allan Poe | USA | Stories | |
| 1841 | The Murders in the Rue Morgue | Edgar Allan Poe | USA | Story |
| The Deerslayer | James Fennimore Cooper | USA | Novel | |
| 1842 | My Last Duchess | Robert Browning | England | Poem |
| Dead Souls | Nikolai Gogol | Russia | Novel | |
| The Demon | Mikhail Lermontov | Russia | Poem | |
| 1843 | A Christmas Carol | Charles Dickens | England | Novella |
| 1843-47 | A Harlot High and Low | Honoré de Balzac | France | Novel |
| 1844 | Poems | Elizabeth Barrett Browning | England | Poetry |
| The Luck of Barry Lyndon | William Makepeace Thackeray | England | Novel | |
| The Count of Monte-Cristo | Alexandre Dumas | France | Novel | |
| 1845 | The Three Musketeers | Alexandre Dumas | France | Novel |
| Carmen | Prosper Mérimée | France | Novel | |
| The Raven and Other Poems | Edgar Allan Poe | USA | Poetry | |
| 1846 | Cousin Bette | Honoré de Balzac | France | Novel |
| The Devil’s Pool | George Sand | France | Novel | |
| The Man in the Iron Mask | Alexandre Dumas | France | Novel | |
| The Cask of Amontillado | Edgar Allan Poe | USA | Story | |
| 1846-63 | The Book of Nonsense | Edward Lear | England | Novel |
| 1847 | Jane Eyre | Charlotte Brontë | England | Novel |
| Wuthering Heights | Emily Brontë | England | Novel | |
| Evangeline | Henry Wadsworth Longfellow | USA | Poetry | |
| 1848 | Mary Barton | Elizabeth Gaskell | England | Novel |
| Vanity Fair | William Makepeace Thackeray | England | Novel | |
| 1850 | Poems | Elizabeth Barrett Browning | England | Poetry |
| David Copperfield | Charles Dickens | England | Novel | |
| In Memoriam | Alfred Lord Tennyson | England | Poetry | |
| The Prelude | William Woodsworth | England | Poetry | |
| The Black Tulip | Alexandre Dumas | France | Novel | |
| The Scarlet Letter | Nathaniel Hawthorne | USA | Novel | |
| 1851 | Moby Dick | Herman Melville | USA | Novel |
| 1852 | Camille | Alexandre Dumas (fils) | France | Drama |
| Enamels and Cameos | Théophile Gautier | France | Poetry | |
| A Sportsman’s Sketches | Ivan Turgenev | Russia | Novel | |
| Uncle Tom’s Cabin | Harriet Beecher Stowe | USA | Novel | |
| 1853 | Les Chatiments | Victor-Marie Hugo | France | Novel |
| Bleak House | Charles Dickens | England | Novel | |
| Bartleby the Scrivener | Herman Melville | USA | Story | |
| 1854 | Hard Times | Charles Dickens | England | Novel |
| 1855 | Men and Women | Robert Browning | England | Poetry |
| North and South | Elizabeth Gaskell | England | Novel | |
| The Warden | Anthony Trollope | England | Novel | |
| Leaves of Grass | Walt Whitman | USA | Poetry | |
| 1857 | Madame Bovary | Gustave Flaubert | France | Novel |
| The Flowers of Evil | Charles Baudelaire | France | Poetry | |
| Barchester Towers | Anthony Trollope | England | Novel | |
| Little Dorrit | Charles Dickens | England | Novel | |
| 1859 | A Tale of Two Cities | Charles Dickens | England | Novel |
| Idylls of the King | Alfred Lord Tennyson | England | Poetry | |
| The Virginians | William Makepeace Thackeray | England | Novel | |
| Oblomov | Ivan Alexandrovich Goncharov | Russia | Novel | |
| 1860 | The Storm | Alexander Ostrovsky | Russia | Drama |
| The Mill on the Floss | George Eliot | England | Novel | |
| The Woman in White | Wilkie Collins | England | Novel | |
| 1861 | Great Expectations | Charles Dickens | England | Novel |
| Silas Marner | George Eliot | England | Novel | |
| 1862 | Goblin Market and Other Poems | Christina Rossetti | England | Poetry |
| Les Miserables | Victor-Marie Hugo | France | Novel | |
| Fathers and Sons | Ivan Turgenev | Russia | Novel | |
| 1864 | A Journey to the Centre of the Earth | Jules Verne | France | Novel |
| 1865 | Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland | Lewis Carroll | England | Novel |
| 1865-69 | War and Peace | Leo Tolstoy | Russia | Novel |
| 1866 | Crime and Punishment | Fyodor Dostoyevski | Russia | Novel |
| Poems and Ballads | Algernon Swinburne | England | Poetry | |
| 1867 | Peer Gynt | Henrik Ibsen | Norway | Drama |
| 1868 | The Moonstone | Wilkie Collins | England | Novel |
| Little Women | Louisa May Alcott | USA | Novel | |
| 1868-70 | The Earthly Paradise | William Morris | England | Poetry |
| 1869 | Lorna Doone | Richard Blackmore | England | Novel |
| Phineas Finn | Anthony Trollope | England | Novel | |
| A Sentimental Education | Gustave Flaubert | France | Novel | |
| Collected Poems | Matthew Arnold | England | Poetry | |
| 1870 | Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea | Jules Verne | France | Novel |
| 1870-81 | The House of Life | Dante Gabriel Rosetti | England | Poetry |
| 1871 | Through the Looking-Glass | Lewis Carroll | England | Novel |
| 1872 | Fairy Tales and Stories | Hans Christian Andersen | Denmark | Stories |
| Erewhon | Samuel Butler | England | Novel | |
| Middlemarch | George Eliot | England | Novel | |
| The Possessed | Fyodor Dostoyevski | Russia | Novel | |
| 1873 | Around the World in Eighty Days | Jules Verne | France | Novel |
| A Season in Hell | Arthur Rimbaud | France | Poetry | |
| 1874 | L’Après-midi d’un faune | Stéphane Mallarmé | France | Poetry |
| Far from the Madding Crowd | Thomas Hardy | England | Novel | |
| The Idiot | Fyodor Dostoyevski | Russia | Novel | |
| Anna Karenina | Leo Tolstoy | Russia | Novel | |
| 1876 | Daniel Deronda | George Eliot | England | Novel |
| The Adventures of Tom Sawyer | Mark Twain | USA | Novel | |
| 1879 | Daisy Miller | Henry James | England | Novel |
| The Egoist | George Meredith | England | Novel | |
| Jacques Vingtras | Jules Valles | France | Novel | |
| A Doll’s House | Henrik Ibsen | Norway | Drama | |
| 1880 | Nana | Émile Zola | France | Novel |
| The Brothers Karamazov | Fyodor Dostoyevski | Russia | Novel | |
| Ben-Hur | Lew Wallace | USA | Novel | |
| 1881 | Sagesse | Paul Verlaine | France | Poetry |
| 1882 | Ismaelillo | José Marti | Cuba | Poetry |
| Mademoiselle Fifi | Guy de Maupassant | France | Stories | |
| 1883 | Treasure Island | Robert Louis Stevenson | Scotland | Novel |
| 1884 | Cavalleria Rusticana | Giovanni Verga | Italy | Novel |
| The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn | Mark Twain | USA | Novel | |
| 1885 | Germinal | Émile Zola | France | Novel |
| 1886 | The Mayor of Casterbridge | Thomas Hardy | England | Novel |
| The Death of Ivan Ilyich | Leo Tolstoy | Russia | Novella | |
| Kidnapped | Robert Louis Stevenson | Scotland | Novel | |
| Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde | Robert Louis Stevenson | Scotland | Novella | |
| 1887 | Poésies | Stéphane Mallarmé | France | Poetry |
| The Father | August Strindberg | Sweden | Drama | |
| 1889 | Three Men in a Boat | Jerome K. Jerome | England | Novel |
| The Master of Ballantrae | Robert Louis Stevenson | Scotland | Novel | |
| Miss Julie | August Strindberg | Sweden | Drama | |
| A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court | Mark Twain | USA | Novel | |
| 1890 | Poems | Emily Dickinson | USA | Poetry |
| 1891 | Tess of the D’Urbervilles | Thomas Hardy | England | Novel |
| News from Nowhere | William Morris | England | Novel | |
| The Picture of Dorian Gray | Oscar Wilde | England | Novel | |
| Hedda Gabler | Henrik Ibsen | Norway | Drama | |
| An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge | Ambrose Bierce | USA | Story | |
| 1892 | Pelleas and Melisande | Maurice Maeterlinck | Belgium | Drama |
| The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes | Arthur Conan Doyle | England | Stories | |
| The Diary of a Nobody | George and Weedon Grossmith | England | Novel | |
| Ward Number Six | Anton Chekhov | Russia | Story | |
| The Yellow Wallpaper | Charlotte Perkins Gilman | USA | Story | |
| 1893 | The Master Builder | Henrik Ibsen | Norway | Drama |
| The Second Mrs. Tanqueray | Arthur Wing Pinero | England | Drama | |
| 1894 | Arms and the Man | George Bernard Shaw | Ireland | Drama |
| Esther Waters | George Moore | Ireland | Novel | |
| The Jungle Book | Rudyard Kipling | England | Stories | |
| Tevye Stories | Sholom Aleichem | Ukraine | Stories | |
| 1895 | The Importance of Being Ernest | Oscar Wilde | England | Drama |
| The Time Machine | H.G. Wells | England | Novel | |
| Effi Briest | Theodor Fontane | Germany | Novel | |
| Lilith | George MacDonald | Scotland | Novel | |
| The Red Badge of Courage | Stephen Crane | USA | Novel | |
| 1895-99 | Poems | W.B. Yeats | Ireland | Poetry |
| 1896 | The Sea Gull | Anton Chekhov | Russia | Drama |
| Jude the Obscure | Thomas Hardy | England | Novel | |
| The Bostonians | Henry James | England | Novel | |
| A Shropshire Lad | Alfred E. Housman | England | Poetry | |
| 1897 | Dracula | Bram Stoker | Ireland | Novel |
| 1898 | Youth | Joseph Conrad | England | Novel |
| The War of the Worlds | H.G. Wells | England | Novel | |
| Cyrano de Bergerac | Edmond Rostand | France | Drama | |
| The Open Boat | Stephen Crane | USA | Story | |
| The Turn of the Screw | Henry James | USA | Novella | |
| 1899 | Heart of Darkness | Joseph Conrad | England | Novella |
| Hunger | Knut Hamsun | Norway | Novel | |
| 1900 | Lord Jim | Joseph Conrad | England | Novel |
| Uncle Vanya | Anton Chekhov | Russia | Drama | |
| Sister Carrie | Theodore Dreiser | USA | Novel | |
| Monsieur Beaucaire | Booth Tarkington | USA | Novel |
Early Twentieth Century
1901 to 1940 C.E.
| Date
|
Title | Author | Country | Type |
| 1901 | Kim | Rudyard Kipling | England | Novel |
| Buddenbrooks | Thomas Mann | Germany | Novel | |
| The Three Sisters | Anton Chekhov | Russia | Drama | |
| Resurrection | Leo Tolstoy | Russia | Novel | |
| The Dance of Death | August Strindberg | Sweden | Drama | |
| 1902 | The Hound of the Baskervilles | Arthur Conan Doyle | England | Novel |
| 1903 | The Cherry Orchard | Anton Chekhov | Russia | Drama |
| Man and Superman | George Bernard Shaw | Ireland | Drama | |
| The Way of All Flesh | Samuel Butler | England | Novel | |
| The Riddle of the Sands | Erskine Childers | England | Novel | |
| The Ambassadors | Henry James | USA | Novel | |
| The Call of the Wild | Jack London | USA | Novel | |
| 1904 | Riders to the Sea | John Millington Synge | Ireland | Drama |
| Nostromo | Joseph Conrad | England | Novel | |
| The Golden Bowl | Henry James | USA | Novel | |
| The Sea Wolfe | Jack London | USA | Novel | |
| Cabbages and Kings | O. Henry | USA | Stories | |
| 1905 | Songs of Life and Hope | Rubén Darío | Nicaragua | Poetry |
| The Voysey Inheritance | Harley Granville-Barker | England | Drama | |
| Major Barbara | George Bernard Shaw | Ireland | Drama | |
| The House of Mirth | Edith Wharton | USA | Novel | |
| 1906 | The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard | Anatole France | France | Novel |
| The Jungle | Upton Sinclair | USA | Novel | |
| 1906-28 | The Forsyte Saga | John Galsworthy | England | Novels |
| 1907 | Songs of a Sourdough | Robert Service | Canada | Poetry |
| Mother | Maxim Gorky | Russia | Novel | |
| The Playboy of the Western World | John Millington Synge | Ireland | Drama | |
| The Secret Agent | Joseph Conrad | England | Novel | |
| The Longest Journey | E.M. Forster | England | Novel | |
| The Education of Henry Adams | Henry Adams | USA | Memoir | |
| 1908 | Anne of Green Gables | Lucy Maude Montgomery | Canada | Novel |
| The Old Wives’ Tale | Arnold Bennett | England | Novel | |
| The Man Who Was Thursday | G.K. Chesterton | England | Novel | |
| A Room With a View | E.M. Forster | England | Novel | |
| Tono Bungay | H.G. Wells | England | Novel | |
| 1909 | Penguin Island | Anatole France | France | Novel |
| 1910 | Howards End | E.M. Forster | England | Novel |
| Jean-Christophe | Romain Rolland | France | Novel | |
| 1911 | The Innocence of Father Brown | G.K. Chesterton | England | Stories |
| Under Western Eyes | Joseph Conrad | England | Novel | |
| Ethan Frome | Edith Wharton | USA | Novel | |
| 1911-14 | Hail and Farewell | George Moore | Ireland | Novels |
| 1912 | Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town | Stephen Leacock | Canada | Stories |
| Death in Venice | Thomas Mann | Germany | Novel | |
| The Gods are Athirst | Anatole France | France | Novel | |
| Zuleika Dobson | Max Beerbohm | England | Novel | |
| Poetical Works | Robert Bridges | England | Poetry | |
| Gitanjali: Song Offerings | Rabindranath Tagore | India | Poetry | |
| Riders of the Purple Sage | Zane Grey | USA | Novel | |
| 1912-22 | In Search of Lost Time | Marcel Proust | France | Novels |
| 1913 | The Lost Domain | Henry Alain-Fournier | France | Novel |
| Le Grand Meaulnes | Henri Alain-Fournier | France | Novel | |
| My Childhood | Maxim Gorky | Russia | Memoir | |
| Son and Lovers | D.H. Lawrence | England | Novel | |
| 1914 | Platero and I | Juan Ramón Jiménez | Spain | Poetry |
| Dubliners | James Joyce | Ireland | Stories | |
| Tarzan of the Apes | Edgar Rice Burroughs | USA | Novel | |
| 1915 | The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock | T.S. Eliot | England | Poem |
| The Good Soldier | Ford Maddox Ford | England | Novel | |
| The Rainbow | D.H. Lawrence | England | Novel | |
| Of Human Bondage | W. Somerset Maughham | England | Novel | |
| The Thirty-Nine Steps | John Buchan | Scotland | Novel | |
| Spoon River Anthology | Edgar Lee Masters | USA | Poetry | |
| 1916 | Under Fire | Henri Barbusse | France | Novel |
| The Underdogs | Mariano Azuela | Mexico | Novel | |
| The Metamorphosis | Franz Kafka | Czech. | Novel | |
| Pygmalion | George Bernard Shaw | Ireland | Drama | |
| Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man | James Joyce | Ireland | Novel | |
| The Brook Kerith | George Moore | Ireland | Novel | |
| Chicago Poems | Carl Sandburg | USA | Poetry | |
| 1917 | La Jeune Parque | Paul Valéry | France | Poetry |
| A Cloud in Trousers | Vladimir Mayakovsky | Russia | Poetry | |
| 1918 | The Breasts of Tiresias | Guillaume Apollinaire | France | Drama |
| The Twelve | Alexander Blok | Russia | Poetry | |
| Poems | Gerard Manley Hopkins | England | Poetry | |
| My Ántonia | Willa Cather | USA | Novel | |
| The Magnificent Ambersons | Booth Tarkington | USA | Novel | |
| 1919 | The True Story of Ah Q | Lu Hsun | China | Novella |
| The Moon and Sixpence | W. Somerset Maughham | England | Novel | |
| Winesburg, Ohio | Sherwood Anderson | USA | Novel | |
| 1920 | Poems | Wilfred Owen | England | Poetry |
| Cheri | Colette | France | Novel | |
| Main Street | Sinclair Lewis | USA | Novel | |
| A Few Figs from Thistles | Edna St. Vincent Millay | USA | Poetry | |
| The Age of Innocence | Edith Wharton | USA | Novel | |
| 1920-23 | The Good Soldier Schweik | Jaroslav Hasek | Czech. | Novels |
| 1921 | Six Characters in Search of an Author | Luigi Pirandello | Italy | Drama |
| Women in Love | D.H. Lawrence | England | Novel | |
| Héloïse and Abelard | George Moore | Ireland | Novel | |
| Poems | Marianne Moore | USA | Poetry | |
| 1922 | The Kiss of the Leper | Francois Mauriac | France | Novel |
| Ulysses | James Joyce | Ireland | Novel | |
| The Worm Ouroboros | E.R. Eddison | England | Novel | |
| The Waste Land | T.S. Eliot | England | Poetry | |
| The Garden Party and Other Stories | Katherine Mansfield | New Zealand | Stories | |
| Babbitt | Sinclair Lewis | USA | Novel | |
| The Facade | Edith Sitwell | USA | Novel | |
| Tales of the Jazz Age | F. Scott Fitzgerald | USA | Stories | |
| 1923 | Duino Elegies | Rainer Maria Rilke | Germany | Poetry |
| The Confessions of Zeno | Italo Svevo | Italy | Novel | |
| Chapeyev | Dmitry Furmanov | Russia | Novel | |
| Saint Joan | George Bernard Shaw | Ireland | Drama | |
| New Hampshire | Robert Frost | USA | Poetry | |
| Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening | Robert Frost | USA | Poem | |
| Tulips and Chimneys | e.e. cummings | USA | Poetry | |
| Harmonium | Wallace Stevens | USA | Poetry | |
| 1924 | Juno and the Paycock | Sean O’Casey | Ireland | Drama |
| The Magic Mountain | Thomas Mann | Germany | Novel | |
| The Iron Flood | Alexander Serafimovich | Russia | Novel | |
| A Passage to India | E.M. Forster | England | Novel | |
| The Most Dangerous Game | Richard Connell | USA | Story | |
| So Big | Edna Ferber | USA | Novel | |
| Billy Budd, Foretopman | Herman Melville | USA | Novel | |
| 1925 | The Trial | Franz Kafka | Czech. | Novel |
| Residence on Earth and Other Poems | Pablo Neruda | Chile | Poetry | |
| The Murder of Roger Ackroyd | Agatha Christie | England | Novel | |
| The Hollow Men | T.S. Eliot | England | Poetry | |
| Parade’s End | Ford Maddox Ford | England | Novel | |
| Mrs Dalloway | Virginia Woolf | England | Novel | |
| An American Tragedy | Theodore Dreiser | USA | Novel | |
| The Great Gatsby | F. Scott Fitzgerald | USA | Novel | |
| In Our Time | Ernest Hemingway | USA | Stories | |
| Arrowsmith | Sinclair Lewis | USA | Novel | |
| 1925-70 | The Cantos | Ezra Pound | USA | Poetry |
| 1926 | The Castle | Franz Kafka | Czech. | Novel |
| Orpheus | Jean Cocteau | France | Drama | |
| The Counterfeiters | André Gide | France | Novel | |
| The Plough and the Stars | Eugene O’Casey | Ireland | Drama | |
| Winnie-the-Pooh | A.A. Milne | England | Stories | |
| The Sun Also Rises | Ernest Hemingway | USA | Novel | |
| 1927 | Jalna | Mazo de la Roche | Canada | Novel |
| To the Lighthouse | Virginia Woolf | England | Novel | |
| Steppenwolf | Herman Hesse | Germany | Novel | |
| Death Comes for the Archbishop | Willa Cather | USA | Novel | |
| Elmer Gantry | Sinclair Lewis | USA | Novel | |
| The Killers | Ernest Hemingway | USA | Story | |
| The Bridge of San Luis Rey | Thornton Wilder | USA | Novel | |
| 1928 | Strange Fugitive | Morley Callaghan | Canada | Novel |
| The Three-Penny Opera | Bertolt Brecht | Germany | Drama | |
| All Quiet on the Western Front | Erich Maria Remarque | Germany | Novel | |
| Nadja | André Breton | France | Novel | |
| And Quiet Flows the Don | Mikhail Sholokov | Russia | Novel | |
| Lady Chatterley’s Lover | D.H. Lawrence | England | Novel | |
| Point Counter Point | Aldous Huxley | England | Novel | |
| The Tower | W.B. Yeats | Ireland | Poetry | |
| 1928-35 | Gypsy Ballads | Federico Garcia Lorca | Spain | Poetry |
| 1929 | The Time of Indifference | Alberto Moravia | Italy | Novel |
| Children of the Game | Jean Cocteau | France | Novel | |
| A High Wind in Jamaica | Richard Hughes | England | Novel | |
| A Farewell to Arms | Ernest Hemingway | USA | Novel | |
| The Sound and the Fury | William Faulkner | USA | Novel | |
| Look Homeward, Angel | Thomas Wolfe | USA | Novel | |
| 1929-43 | Peter the Great | Alexy Tolstoy | Russia | Novel |
| 1930 | Cakes and Ale | W. Somerset Maughham | England | Drama |
| Private Lives | Noel Coward | England | Drama | |
| As I Lay Dying | William Faulkner | USA | Novel | |
| The Maltese Falcon | Dashiell Hammett | USA | Novel | |
| Destry Rides Again | Max Brand | USA | Novel | |
| The Bridge | Hart Crane | USA | Poetry | |
| 1930-36 | USA | John Dos Passos | USA | Novels |
| 1930-43 | The Man Without Qualities | Robert Musil | Austria | Novels |
| 1931 | The Family | Pa Chin | China | Novel |
| The Waves | Virginia Woolf | England | Novel | |
| Night Flight | Antoine de Saint-Exupery | France | Novel | |
| The Good Earth | Pearl S. Buck | USA | Novel | |
| That Evening Sun Go Down | William Faulkner | USA | Story | |
| At the Mountains of Madness | H.P. Lovecraft | USA | Novel | |
| 1932 | Brave New World | Aldous Huxley | England | Novel |
| Journey to the End of the Night | Louis-Ferdinand Céline | France | Novel | |
| Viper’s Tangle | Francois Mauriac | France | Novel | |
| The Crime of Inspector Maigret | Georges Simenon | France | Novel | |
| Tobacco Road | Erskine Caldwell | USA | Novel | |
| The Thin Man | Dashiell Hammett | USA | Novel | |
| Guys and Dolls | Damon Runyan | USA | Stories | |
| 1932-35 | The Studs Lonigan Trilogy | James T. Farrell | USA | Novels |
| 1933 | Blood Wedding | Federico Garcia Lorca | Spain | Drama |
| Man’s Fate | André Malraux | France | Novel | |
| The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas | Gertrude Stein | USA | Novel | |
| Miss Lonelyhearts | Nathaniel West | USA | Novel | |
| 1933-51 | Le Réel | Louis Aragon | France | Novels |
| 1934 | Such is My Beloved | Morley Callaghan | Canada | Novel |
| How the Steel Was Tempered | Nikolai Ostrovsky | Russia | Novel | |
| A Handful of Dust | Evelyn Waugh | England | Novel | |
| I, Claudius | Robert Graves | England | Novel | |
| Tender is the Night | F. Scott Fitzgerald | USA | Novel | |
| Appointment in Samarra | John O’Hara | USA | Novel | |
| Tropic of Cancer | Henry Miller | USA | Novel | |
| The Postman Always Rings Twice | James M. Cain | USA | Novel | |
| 1934-35 | Independent People | Halldór Laxness | Iceland | Novel |
| 1935 | The Tower of Babels | Elias Canetti | Belgium | Novel |
| Old Tales Retold | Lu Hsun | China | Stories | |
| Murder in the Cathedral | T.S. Eliot | England | Drama | |
| The Treasure of the Sierra Madre | B. Traven | Mexico | Novel | |
| Call It Sleep | Henry Roth | USA | Novel | |
| Awake and Sing! | Clifford Odets | USA | Drama | |
| 1936 | Rickshaw Boy | Lao She | China | Novel |
| Eyeless in Gaza | Aldous Huxley | England | Novel | |
| Absalom, Absalom! | William Faulkner | USA | Novel | |
| The Snows of Kilimanjaro | Ernest Hemingway | USA | Story | |
| Gone with the Wind | Margaret Mitchell | USA | Novel | |
| 1937 | Out of Africa | Isak Dinesen | Denmark | Memoir |
| The Hobbitt | J.R.R. Tolkien | England | Novel | |
| Bread and Wine | Ignazio Silone | Italy | Novel | |
| Of Mice and Men | John Steinbeck | USA | Novel | |
| The Red Pony | John Steinbeck | USA | Stories | |
| 1938 | Falling of Trees | Gabriela Mistral | Chile | Poetry |
| Rebecca | Daphne du Maurier | England | Novel | |
| Brighton Rock | Graham Greene | England | Novel | |
| Scoop | Evelyn Waugh | England | Novel | |
| The Years | Virginia Woolf | England | Novel | |
| Nausea | Jean-Paul Sartre | France | Novel | |
| The Death of the Heart | Elizabeth Bowen | Ireland | Novel | |
| Human Poems | Cesar Vallejo | Peru | Poetry | |
| The Fathers | Allen Tate | USA | Novel | |
| Our Town | Thornton Wilder | USA | Drama | |
| 1939 | The Mask of Dimitrios | Eric Ambler | England | Novel |
| Mother Courage and her Children | Bertolt Brecht | Germany | Drama | |
| Finnegans Wake | James Joyce | Ireland | Novel | |
| At Swim-Two-Birds | Flann O’Brien | Ireland | Novel | |
| The Day of the Locust | Nathaniel West | USA | Novel | |
| The Grapes of Wrath | John Steinbeck | USA | Novel | |
| The Big Sleep | Raymond Chandler | USA | Novel | |
| The Little Foxes | Lillian Hellman | USA | Drama | |
| Pale Horse, Pale Rider | Katherine Anne Porter | USA | Stories | |
| 1940 | The Don Flows Home to the Sea | Mikhail Sholokov | Russia | Novel |
| The Power and the Glory | Graham Greene | England | Novel | |
| Darkness at Noon | Arthur Koestler | England | Novel | |
| Another Time | W.H. Auden | England | Poetry | |
| For Whom the Bell Tolls | Ernest Hemingway | USA | Novel | |
| Native Son | Richard Wright | USA | Novel | |
| The Heart is a Lonely Hunter | Carson McCullers | USA | Novel | |
| Native Son | Richard Wright | USA | Novel |
Mid-Twentieth Century
1941 to 1960 C.E.
| Date
|
Title | Author | Country | Type |
| 1941 | As For Me and My House | Sinclair Ross | Canada | Novel |
| Herself Surprised | Joyce Cary | England | Novel | |
| Nightfall | Isaac Asimov | USA | Story | |
| The Secret Life of Walter Mitty | James Thurber | USA | Story | |
| A Curtain of Green | Eudora Welty | USA | Stories | |
| 1942 | David | Earl Birney | Canada | Poetry |
| The Outsider | Albert Camus | Algeria | Novel | |
| To Be a Pilgrim | Joyce Cary | England | Novel | |
| 1943 | The Little Prince | Antoine de Saint-Exupéry | France | Novella |
| The Fountainhead | Ayn Rand | USA | Novel | |
| A Tree Grows in Brooklyn | Betty Smith | USA | Novel | |
| 1944 | Antigone | Jean Anouilh | France | Drama |
| Our Lady of the Flowers | Jean Genet | France | Novel | |
| No Exit | Jean-Paul Sartre | France | Drama | |
| Fictions | Jorge Luis Borges | Argentina | Stories | |
| The Horse’s Mouth | Joyce Cary | England | Novel | |
| 1945 | Two Solitudes | Hugh MacLennan | Canada | Novel |
| The Tin Flute | Gabrielle Roy | Canada | Novel | |
| By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept | Elizabeth Smart | Canada | Novel | |
| Loving | Henry Green | England | Novel | |
| Animal Farm | George Orwell | England | Novel | |
| The Madwoman of Chaillot | Jean Giraudoux | France | Drama | |
| Gigi | Colette | France | Novel | |
| The Caucasian Chalk Circle | Bertolt Brecht | Germany | Drama | |
| Magister Ludi (The Glass Bead Game) | Herman Hesse | Germany | Novel | |
| The Glass Menagerie | Tennessee Williams | USA | Drama | |
| Black Boy | Richard Wright | USA | Novel | |
| 1945–9 | Roads to Freedom | Jean-Paul Sartre | France | Novels |
| 1946 | Brideshead Revisited | Evelyn Waugh | England | Novel |
| Zorba the Greek | Nikos Kazantzakis | Greece | Novel | |
| Mr. President | Miguel Angel Asturias | Guatemala | Novel | |
| Lord Weary’s Castle | Robert Lowell | USA | Poetry | |
| The Iceman Cometh | Eugene O’Neill | USA | Drama | |
| All the King’s Men | Robert Penn Warren | USA | Novel | |
| Fern Hill | Dylan Thomas | Wales | Poem | |
| Bridge on the Drina | Ivo Andric | Yugoslavia | Novel | |
| 1946–58 | Paterson | William Carlos Williams | USA | Poetry |
| 1946–59 | Gormenghast | Mervyn Peake | England | Novels |
| 1947 | Under the Volcano | Malcolm Lowry | Canada | Novel |
| Who Has Seen the Wind? | W.O. Mitchell | Canada | Novel | |
| Poems for People | Dorothey Livesay | Canada | Poetry | |
| The Path to the Nest of Spiders | Italo Calvino | Italy | Novel | |
| The Age of Anxiety | W.H. Auden | England | Poetry | |
| The Maids | Jean Genet | France | Drama | |
| Eustace and Hilda | L.P. Hartley | England | Novel | |
| Snow Country | Yasunari Kawabata | Japan | Novel | |
| A Streetcar Named Desire | Tennessee Williams | USA | Drama | |
| 1947-57 | The Dark at the Top of the Stairs | William Inge | USA | Drama |
| 1948 | Ring Round the Moon | Jean Anouilh | France | Drama |
| Cry, the Beloved Country | Alan Paton | South Africa | Novel | |
| The Heart of the Matter | Graham Greene | England | Novel | |
| Death Fugue | Paul Célan | Romania | Poem | |
| The Naked and the Dead | Norman Mailer | USA | Novel | |
| Guard of Honor | James Gould Cozzens | USA | Novel | |
| 1949 | The Second Sex | Simone de Beauvoir | France | Novel |
| Men of Maize | Miguel Angel Asturias | Guatemala | Novel | |
| The Aleph | Jorge Luis Borges | Argentina | Stories | |
| Nineteen Eighty-Four | George Orwell | England | Novel | |
| The Third Man | Graham Greene | England | Novel | |
| The Man With the Golden Arm | Nelson Algren | USA | Novel | |
| Death of a Salesman | Arthur Miller | USA | Drama | |
| The Sheltering Sky | Paul Bowles | USA | Novel | |
| Shane | Jack Schaefer | USA | Novel | |
| 1950 | Cabbagetown | Hugh Garner | Canada | Novel |
| The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe | C.S. Lewis | England | Novel | |
| A Town Like Alice | Nevil Shute | England | Novel | |
| The Martian Chronicles | Ray Bradbury | USA | Stories | |
| I, Robot | Isaac Asimov | USA | Stories | |
| The Family Moskat | Isaac Bashevis Singer | USA | Novel | |
| Come Back, Little Sheba | William Inge | USA | Drama | |
| 1951 | Memoirs of Hadrian | Marguerite Yourcenar | Belgium | Novel |
| The Day of the Triffids | John Wyndham | England | Novel | |
| The End of the Affair | Graham Greene | England | Novel | |
| The Catcher in the Rye | J.D. Salinger | USA | Novel | |
| Lie Down in Darkness | William Styron | USA | Novel | |
| From Here to Eternity | James Jones | USA | Novel | |
| Spartacus | Howard Fast | USA | Novel | |
| Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night | Dylan Thomas | Wales | Poem | |
| 1951–75 | A Dance to the Music of Time | Anthony Powell | England | Novels |
| 1951–93 | Foundation | Isaac Asimov | USA | Novels |
| 1952 | The Mountain and the Valley | Ernest Buckler | Canada | Novel |
| A Many-splendoured Thing | Han Suyin | China | Novel | |
| The Chairs | Eugene Ionesco | France | Drama | |
| Waiting for Godot | Samuel Beckett | Ireland | Drama | |
| Invisible Man | Ralph Ellison | USA | Novel | |
| The Old Man and the Sea | Ernest Hemingway | USA | Novel | |
| Wise Blood | Flannery O’Connor | USA | Novel | |
| East of Eden | John Steinbeck | USA | Novel | |
| Charlotte’s Web | E.B. White | USA | Novel | |
| 1953 | Childhood’s End | Arthur C. Clarke | England | Novel |
| The Adventures of Augie March | Saul Bellow | USA | Novel | |
| The Long Goodbye | Raymond Chandler | USA | Novel | |
| The Demolished Man | Alfred Bester | USA | Novel | |
| The Waking | Theodore Roethke | USA | Poetry | |
| Fahrenheit 451 | Ray Bradbury | USA | Novel | |
| 1954 | Lucky Jim | Kingsley Amis | England | Novel |
| Lord of the Flies | William Golding | England | Novel | |
| Under the Net | Iris Murdoch | England | Novel | |
| The Mandarins | Simone de Beauvoir | France | Novel | |
| Go Tell It on the Mountain | James Baldwin | USA | Novel | |
| Under Milk Wood | Dylan Thomas | Wales | Drama | |
| 1954–55 | Lord of the Rings | J.R.R. Tolkien | England | Novels |
| 1955 | The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne | Brian Moore | Canada | Novel |
| Pedro Paramo | Juan Rulfo | Mexico | Novel | |
| The Chrysalids | John Wyndham | England | Novel | |
| The Quiet American | Graham Greene | England | Novel | |
| The Less Deceived | Philip Larkin | England | Poetry | |
| The Recognitions | William Gaddis | USA | Novel | |
| The Ginger Man | J.P. Donleavy | USA | Novel | |
| The Talented Mr. Ripley | Patricia Highsmith | USA | Novel | |
| Howl and Other Poems | Allen Ginsberg | USA | Poetry | |
| A Good Man Is Hard to Find | Flannery O’Connor | USA | Story | |
| A Child’s Christmas in Wales | Dylan Thomas | Wales | Memoir | |
| 1956 | Let Us Compare Mythologies | Leonard Cohen | Canada | Poetry |
| Look Back in Anger | John Osburn | England | Drama | |
| Long Day’s Journey into Night | Eugene O’Neill | USA | Drama | |
| The Visit | Friedrich Dürrenmatt | Switzer. | Drama | |
| Things of This World | Richard Wilbur | USA | Poetry | |
| Cat on a Hot Tin Roof | Tennessee Williams | USA | Drama | |
| The Stars My Destination | Alfred Bester | USA | Novel | |
| 1956–57 | The Cairo Trilogy | Naguib Mahfouz | Egypt | Novels |
| 1957 | Voss | Patrick White | Australia | Novel |
| Room at the Top | John Braine | England | Novel | |
| On the Beach | Nevil Shute | England | Novel | |
| Jealousy | Alain Robbe-Grillet | France | Novel | |
| Endgame | Samuel Beckett | Ireland | Drama | |
| Doctor Zhivago | Boris Pasternak | Russia | Novel | |
| The Wapshot Chronicle | John Cheever | USA | Novel | |
| On the Road | Jack Kerouac | USA | Novel | |
| Atlas Shrugged | Ayn Rand | USA | Novel | |
| 1957–60 | The Alexandria Quartet | Laurence Durrell | England | Novels |
| 1958 | Gabriela, Clove and Cinnamon | Jorge Amado | Brazil | Novel |
| The Caretaker | Harold Pinter | England | Drama | |
| The Once and Future King | T.H. White | England | Novel | |
| Saturday Night and Sunday Morning | Alan Sillitoe | England | Novel | |
| Things Fall Apart | Chinua Achebe | Nigeria | Novel | |
| The Hostage | Brendan Behan | Ireland | Drama | |
| The Leopard | Giusseppe Tomasi de Lampedusa | Italy | Novel | |
| Lolita | Valdimir Nabokov | Russia | Novel | |
| Exodus | Leon Uris | USA | Novel | |
| Breakfast at Tiffany’s | Truman Capote | USA | Novella | |
| A Coney Island of the Mind | Lawrence Ferlinghetti | USA | Poetry | |
| 1959 | The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz | Mordecai Richler | Canada | Novel |
| Morley Callaghan’s Stories | Morley Callaghan | Canada | Stories | |
| The Tin Drum | Günter Grass | Germany | Novel | |
| The Golden Notebook | Doris Lessing | England | Novel | |
| Goldfinger | Ian Fleming | England | Novel | |
| Archangels Don’t Play Pinball | Dario Fo | Italy | Drama | |
| Henderson the Rain King | Saul Bellow | USA | Novel | |
| Naked Lunch | William S. Burroughs | USA | Novel | |
| Life Studies | Robert Lowell | USA | Poetry | |
| The Galton Case | Ross Macdonald | USA | Novel | |
| 1960 | The Woman at the Washington Zoo | Randal Jarrell | USA | Poetry |
| To Kill A Mockingbird | Harper Lee | USA | Novel | |
| A Canticle for Leibowitz | Walter M. Miller | USA | Novel | |
| 1960–90 | Rabbit Angstrom | John Updike | USA | Novel |
Late Twentieth Century
From 1961 C.E.
| Date
|
Title | Author | Country | Type |
| 1961 | On Heroes and Tombs | Ernesto Sabato | Argentina | Novel |
| The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie | Muriel Spark | England | Novel | |
| Solaris | Stanislaw Lem | Poland | Novel | |
| Zima Junction | Yevgeny Yevtushenko | Russia | Poetry | |
| A House for Mr Biswas | V.S. Naipaul | Trinidad | Novel | |
| Stranger in a Strange Land | Robert A. Heinlein | USA | Novel | |
| Catch 22 | Joseph Heller | USA | Novel | |
| The Moviegoer | Walker Percy | USA | Novel | |
| 1962 | The Green House | Mario Vargas Llosa | Peru | Novel |
| The Death of Artemio Cruz | Carlos Fuentes | Mexico | Novel | |
| Pale Fire | Vladimir Nabokov | Russia | Novel | |
| The Changeling | Thomas Middleton | England | Drama | |
| A Clockwork Orange | Anthony Burgess | England | Novel | |
| Who’s Afraid of Virginia Wolf? | Edward Albee | USA | Drama | |
| The Reivers | William Faulkner | USA | Novel | |
| Ship of Fools | Katherine Anne Porter | USA | Novel | |
| One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest | Ken Kesey | USA | Novel | |
| The Man in the High Castle | Philip K. Dick | USA | Novel | |
| 1963 | Hugh Garner’s Best Stories | Hugh Garner | Canada | Stories |
| The Garden Party | Vaclav Havel | Czech. | Drama | |
| The Clown | Heinrich Boll | Germany | Novel | |
| Hopscotch | Julio Cortazar | Argentina | Novel | |
| Selected Poems | Octavio Paz | Mexico | Poetry | |
| The Spy Who Came in from the Cold | John Le Carré | England | Novel | |
| The Crucible | Arthur Miller | USA | Drama | |
| Another Country | James Baldwin | USA | Novel | |
| 1964 | The Stone Angel | Margaret Laurence | Canada | Novel |
| Herzog | Saul Bellow | USA | Novel | |
| The Swimmer | John Cheever | USA | Story | |
| The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch | Philip K. Dick | USA | Novel | |
| 1965 | Dune | Frank Herbert | USA | Novel |
| 1965-70 | Sea of Fertility | Yukio Mishima | Japan | Novel series |
| 1966 | Beautiful Losers | Leonard Cohen | Canada | Novel |
| St. Urbain’s Horseman | Mordecai Richler | Canada | Novel | |
| The Magus | John Fowles | England | Novel | |
| Wide Sargasso Sea | Jean Rhys | England | Novel | |
| The Crystal World | J.G. Ballard | England | Novel | |
| Giles Goat-Boy | John Barth | USA | Novel | |
| In Cold Blood | Truman Capote | USA | Novel | |
| The Fixer | Bernard Malamud | USA | Novel | |
| The Crying of Lot 49 | Thomas Pynchon | USA | Novel | |
| Live or Die | Anne Sexton | USA | Poetry | |
| 1967 | One Hundred Years of Solitude | Gabriel Garcia Marquez | Colombia | Novel |
| The Silent Cry | Oe Kenzaburo | Japan | Novel | |
| Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead | Tom Stoppard | USA | Drama | |
| The Chosen | Chaim Potok | USA | Novel | |
| The Confessions of Nat Turner | William Styron | USA | Novel | |
| Camp Concentration | Thomas Disch | USA | Novel | |
| 1968 | Les Belles-Soeurs | Michel Tremblay | Canada | Drama |
| Cancer Ward | Alexander Solzhenitsyn | Russia | Novel | |
| The First Circle | Alexander Solzhenitsyn | Russia | Novel | |
| The Lion in Winter | James Goldman | USA | Drama | |
| A Wizard of Earthsea | Ursula K. Le Guin | USA | Novel | |
| The Armies of the Night | Norman Mailer | USA | Novel | |
| Couples | John Updike | USA | Novel | |
| Myra Breckinridge | Gore Vidal | USA | Novel | |
| 1969 | Selected Poetry | Irving Layton | Canada | Poetry |
| Little Painted Mouths | Manuel Puig | Argentina | Novel | |
| The French Lieutenant’s Woman | John Fowles | England | Novel | |
| Slaughterhouse Five | Kurt Vonnegut | USA | Novel | |
| Portnoy’s Complaint | Philip Roth | USA | Novel | |
| Them | Joyce Carol Oates | USA | Novel | |
| The Godfather | Mario Puzo | USA | Novel | |
| The Left Hand of Darkness | Ursula K. Le Guin | USA | Novel | |
| 1970 | Fifth Business | Robertson Davies | Canada | Novel |
| Kamouraska | Anne Hébert | Canada | Novel | |
| I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings | Maya Angelou | USA | Memoir | |
| Deliverance | James Dickey | USA | Novel | |
| 1971 | Power Politics | Margaret Atwood | Canada | Poetry |
| Live of Girls and Women | Alice Munro | Canada | Stories | |
| Crow | Ted Hughes | England | Novel | |
| In a Free State | V.S. Naipaul | Trinidad | Novel | |
| The Bell Jar | Sylvia Plath | USA | Novel | |
| Angle of Repose | Wallace Stegner | USA | Novel | |
| 1971-83 | Riverworld | Philip José Farmer | USA | Novels |
| 1972 | More Poems for People | Milton Acorn | Canada | Poetry |
| Selected Poems | Al Purdy | Canada | Poetry | |
| All Creatures Great and Small | James Herriot | England | Stories | |
| Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas | Hunter S. Thompson | USA | Novel | |
| The Sunlight Dialogues | John Gardner | USA | Novel | |
| 1973 | The Rachel Papers | Martin Amis | England | Novel |
| Gravity’s Rainbow | Thomas Pynchon | USA | Novel | |
| Burr | Gore Vidal | USA | Novel | |
| 1974 | The Diviners | Margaret Laurence | Canada | Novel |
| The Conservationist | Nadine Gordimer | S. Africa | Novel | |
| The Black Prince | Iris Murdoch | England | Novel | |
| Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance | Robert Pirsig | USA | Novel | |
| 1975 | The Periodic Table | Primo Levi | Italy | Memoir |
| The Monkey Wrench Gang | Edward Abbey | USA | Novel | |
| Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror | John Ashbery | USA | Poetry | |
| Ragtime | E.L. Doctorow | USA | Novel | |
| 1976 | The World According to Garp | John Irving | USA | Novel |
| Roots: The Saga of an American Family | Alex Haley | USA | Novel | |
| 1977 | The Invention of the World | Jack Hodgins | Canada | Novel |
| The Wars | Timothy Findlay | Canada | Novel | |
| Aunt Julia and the Script-Writer | Mario Vargas Llosa | Peru | Novel | |
| The Gin Game | D.L. Coburn | USA | Drama | |
| Song of Solomon | Toni Morrison | USA | Novel | |
| 1978 | The Sea, the Sea | Iris Murdoch | England | Novel |
| Buried Child | Sam Shepard | USA | Drama | |
| 1978- | The Dark Tower | Stephen King | USA | Novels |
| 1979 | Jitters | David French | Canada | Drama |
| If On a Winter’s Night A Traveller | Italo Calvino | Italy | Novel | |
| A Bend in the River | V.S. Naipaul | Trinidad | Novel | |
| The Burgher’s Daughter | Nadine Gordimer | S. Africa | Novel | |
| The Ghost Writer | Philip Roth | USA | Novel | |
| Sophie’s Choice | William Styron | USA | Novel | |
| 1979-92 | The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy | Douglas Adams | England | Novels |
| 1980 | A Part of Speech | Joseph Brodsky | Russia | Poetry |
| A Confederacy of Dunces | John Kennedy Toole | USA | Novel | |
| Battlefield Earth | L. Ron Hubbard | USA | Novel | |
| 1981 | The Alley Cat | Yves Beauchemin | Canada | Novel |
| Famous Last Words | Timothy Findlay | Canada | Novel | |
| Obasan | Joy Kogawa | Canada | Novel | |
| The White Hotel | D.M. Thomas | England | Novel | |
| Midnight’s Children | Salman Rushdie | India | Novel | |
| What We Talk About When We Talk About Love | Raymond Carver | USA | Stories | |
| 1982 | Schindler’s List | Thomas Keneally | Australia | Novel |
| Shoeless Joe | W.P. Kinsella | Canada | Novel | |
| Noises Off | Michael Frayn | England | Drama | |
| Baltasar and Blimunda | José Sagamago | Portugal | Novel | |
| “Master Harold”…and the Boys | Athol Fugard | S. Africa | Drama | |
| The Changing Light at Sandover | James Merrill | USA | Poetry | |
| The Color Purple | Alice Walker | USA | Novel | |
| 1983 | A Time for Judas | Morley Callaghan | Canada | Novel |
| The Life and Times of Michael K | J.M. Coetzee | S. Africa | Novel | |
| Ironweed | William Kennedy | USA | Novel | |
| Ancient Evenings | Norman Mailer | USA | Novel | |
| 1984 | Neuromancer | William Gibson | Canada | Novel |
| The Unbearable Lightness of Being | Milan Kundera | Czech. | Novel | |
| Hotel du Lac | Anita Brookner | England | Novel | |
| Bright Lights, Big City | Jay McInerney | USA | Novel | |
| Foreign Affairs | Alison Lurie | USA | Novel | |
| Glengarry Glen Ross | David Mamet | USA | Drama | |
| 1985 | Black Robe | Brian Moore | Canada | Novel |
| The Handmaid’s Tale | Margaret Atwood | Canada | Novel | |
| Love in the Time of Cholera | Gabriel Garcia Marquez | Colombia | Novel | |
| Continental Drift | Russell Banks | USA | Novel | |
| White Noise | Don DeLillo | USA | Novel | |
| Lonesome Dove | Larry McMurtry | USA | Novel | |
| The Accidental Tourist | Anne Tyler | USA | Novel | |
| 1985-86 | Ender’s Game/Speaker for the Dead | Orson Scott Card | USA | Novels |
| 1987 | The Stone Diaries | Carol Shields | Canada | Novel |
| In the Skin of A Lion | Michael Ondaatje | Canada | Novel | |
| The Radiant Way | Margaret Drabble | England | Novel | |
| Ellen Foster | Kaye Gibbons | USA | Novel | |
| Misery | Stephen King | USA | Novel | |
| Beloved | Toni Morrison | USA | Novel | |
| The Bonfire of the Vanities | Tom Wolfe | USA | Novel | |
| 1988 | Oscar and Lucinda | Peter Carey | Australia | Novel |
| The Satanic Verses | Salman Rushdie | India | Novel | |
| Freaky Deaky | Elmore Leonard | USA | Novel | |
| The Joy Luck Club | Amy Tan | USA | Novel | |
| Breathing Lessons | Anne Tyler | USA | Novel | |
| 1989 | The Remains of the Day | Kazuo Ishiguro | England | Novel |
| The Quincunx | Charles Palliser | England | Novel | |
| The Storyteller | Mario Vargas Llosa | Peru | Novel | |
| A Prayer for Owen Meany | John Irving | USA | Novel | |
| 1990 | Soul Mountain | Gao Xingjian | China | Novel |
| Possession | A.S. Byatt | England | Novel | |
| V. and Other Poems | Tony Harrison | England | Poetry | |
| Omeros | Derek Walcott | St. Lucia | Poetry | |
| Six Degrees of Separation | John Guare | USA | Drama | |
| Get Shorty | Elmore Leonard | USA | Novel | |
| 1991 | Generation X | Douglas Coupland | Canada | Novel |
| The Van | Roddy Doyle | Ireland | Novel | |
| The Book of Disquiet | Fernando Pessoa | Portugal | Novel | |
| 1991-95 | Regeneration | Pat Barker | England | Novels |
| 1992 | The English Patient | Michael Ondaatje | Canada | Novel |
| The Crow Road | Iain Banks | Scotland | Novel | |
| Angels in America | Tony Kushner | USA | Drama | |
| Oleanna | David Mamet | USA | Drama | |
| 1993 | Away | Jane Urquhart | Canada | Novel |
| Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha | Roddy Doyle | Ireland | Novel | |
| 1994 | Captain Corelli’s Mandolin | Louis de Bernieres | England | Novel |
| The Hippopotamus | Stephen Fry | England | Novel | |
| Felicia’s Journey | William Trevor | Ireland | Novel | |
| 1995 | A Fine Balance | Rohinton Mistry | Canada | Novel |
| The Information | Martin Amis | England | Novel | |
| 1996 | Harlot’s Ghost | Norman Mailer | USA | Novel |
| Fall on Your Knees | Ann-Marie MacDonald | Canada | Novel | |
| Selected Stories | Mavis Gallant | Canada | Stories | |
| 1997 | Underworld | Don DeLillo | USA | Novel |
| Mason and Dixon | Thomas Pynchon | USA | Novel | |
| American Pastoral | Philip Roth | USA | Novel | |
| 1998 | On the Occasion of My Last Afternoon | Kaye Gibbons | USA | Novel |
| A Man in Full | Tom Wolfe | USA | Novel | |
| 1999 | Barney’s Version | Mordecai Richler | Canada | Novel |
| Hearts in Atlantis | Stephen King | USA | Story | |
| 2000 | Pastoralia | George Saunders | USA | Stories |
Christian Kresall 