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THE MODERN LIBRARY'S BEST NOVELS LIST (RANDOM HOUSE)

 

1. ULYSSES by James Joyce
2. THE GREAT GATSBY by F. Scott Fitzgerald
3. A PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST AS A YOUNG MAN by James Joyce
4. LOLITA by Vladimir Nabokov
5. BRAVE NEW WORLD by Aldous Huxley
6. THE SOUND AND THE FURY by William Faulkner
7. CATCH-22
8. DARKNESS AT NOON by Arthur Koestler
9. SONS AND LOVERS by D.H. Lawrence
10. THE GRAPES OF WRATH by John Steinbeck
11. UNDER THE VOLCANO by Malcolm Lowry
12. THE WAY OF ALL FLESH by Samuel Butler
13. 1984 by George Orwell
14. I, CLAUDIUS by Robert Graves
15. TO THE LIGHTHOUSE by Virginia Woolf
16. AN AMERICAN TRAGEDY by Theodore Dreiser
17. THE HEART IS A LONELY HUNTER by Carson McCullers
18. SLAUGHTERHOUSE-FIVE by Kurt Vonnegut
19. INVISIBLE MAN by Ralph Ellison
20. NATIVE SON by Richard Wright
21. HENDERSON THE RAIN KING by Saul Bellow
22. APPOINTMENT IN SAMARRA by John O'Hara
23. U.S.A. (trilogy) by John Dos Passos
24. WINESBURG, OHIO by Sherwood Anderson
25. A PASSAGE TO INDIA by E.M. Forster
26. THE WINGS OF THE DOVE by Henry James
27. THE AMBASSADORS by Henry James
28. TENDER IS THE NIGHT by F. Scott Fitzgerald
29. THE STUDS LONIGAN TRILOGY by James T. Farrell
30. THE GOOD SOLDIER by Ford Madox Ford
31. ANIMAL FARM by George Orwell
32. THE GOLDEN BOWL by Henry James
33. SISTER CARRIE by Theodore Dreiser
34. A HANDFUL OF DUST by Evelyn Waugh
35. AS I LAY DYING by William Faulkner
36. ALL THE KING'S MEN by Robert Penn Warren
37. THE BRIDGE OF SAN LUIS REY by Thornton Wilder
38. HOWARDS END by E.M. Forster
39. GO TELL IT ON THE MOUNTAIN by James Baldwin
40. THE HEART OF THE MATTER by Graham Greene
41. LORD OF THE FLIES by William Golding
42. DELIVERANCE by James Dickey
43. A DANCE TO THE MUSIC OF TIME (series) by Anthony Powell
44. POINT COUNTER POINT by Aldous Huxley
45. THE SUN ALSO RISES by Ernest Hemingway
46. THE SECRET AGENT by Joseph Conrad
47. NOSTROMO by Joseph Conrad
48. THE RAINBOW by D.H. Lawrence
49. WOMEN IN LOVE by D.H. Lawrence
50. TROPIC OF CANCER by Henry Miller
51. THE NAKED AND THE DEAD by Norman Mailer
52. PORTNOY'S COMPLAINT by Philip Roth
53. PALE FIRE by Vladimir Nabokov
54. LIGHT IN AUGUST by William Faulkner
55. ON THE ROAD by Jack Kerouac
56. THE MALTESE FALCON by Dashiell Hammett
57. PARADE'S END by Ford Madox Ford
58. THE AGE OF INNOCENCE by Edith Wharton
59. ZULEIKA DOBSON by Max Beerbohm
60. THE MOVIEGOER by Walker Percy
61. DEATH COMES FOR THE ARCHBISHOP by Willa Cather
62. FROM HERE TO ETERNITY by James Jones
63. THE WAPSHOT CHRONICLES by John Cheever
64. THE CATCHER IN THE RYE by J.D. Salinger
65. A CLOCKWORK ORANGE by Anthony Burgess
66. OF HUMAN BONDAGE by W. Somerset Maugham
67. HEART OF DARKNESS by Joseph Conrad
68. MAIN STREET by Sinclair Lewis
69. THE HOUSE OF MIRTH by Edith Wharton
70. THE ALEXANDRIA QUARTET by Lawrence Durell
71. A HIGH WIND IN JAMAICA by Richard Hughes
72. A HOUSE FOR MR BISWAS by V.S. Naipaul
73. THE DAY OF THE LOCUST by Nathanael West
74. A FAREWELL TO ARMS by Ernest Hemingway
75. SCOOP by Evelyn Waugh
76. THE PRIME OF MISS JEAN BRODIE by Muriel Spark
77. FINNEGANS WAKE by James Joyce
78. KIM by Rudyard Kipling
79. A ROOM WITH A VIEW by E.M. Forster
80. BRIDESHEAD REVISITED by Evelyn Waugh
81. THE ADVENTURES OF AUGIE MARCH by Saul Bellow
82. ANGLE OF REPOSE by Wallace Stegner
83. A BEND IN THE RIVER by V.S. Naipaul
84. THE DEATH OF THE HEART by Elizabeth Bowen
85. LORD JIM by Joseph Conrad
86. RAGTIME by E.L. Doctorow
87. THE OLD WIVES' TALE by Arnold Bennett
88. THE CALL OF THE WILD by Jack London
89. LOVING by Henry Green
90. MIDNIGHT'S CHILDREN by Salman Rushdie
91. TOBACCO ROAD by Erskine Caldwell
92. IRONWEED by William Kennedy
93. THE MAGUS by John Fowles
94. WIDE SARGASSO SEA by Jean Rhys
95. UNDER THE NET by Iris Murdoch
96. SOPHIE'S CHOICE by William Styron
97. THE SHELTERING SKY by Paul Bowles
98. THE POSTMAN ALWAYS RINGS TWICE by James M. Cain
99. THE GINGER MAN by J.P. Donleavy
100. THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS by Booth Tarkington

1. THE EDUCATION OF HENRY ADAMS by Henry Adams
2. THE VARIETIES OF RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE by William James
3. UP FROM SLAVERY by Booker T. Washington
4. A ROOM OF ONE'S OWN by Virginia Woolf
5. SILENT SPRING by Rachel Carson
6. SELECTED ESSAYS, 1917-1932 by T. S. Eliot
7. THE DOUBLE HELIX by James D. Watson
8. SPEAK, MEMORY by Vladimir Nabokov
9. THE AMERICAN LANGUAGE by H. L. Mencken
10. THE GENERAL THEORY OF EMPLOYMENT, INTEREST, AND MONEY by John Maynard Keynes
11. THE LIVES OF A CELL by Lewis Thomas
12. THE FRONTIER IN AMERICAN HISTORY by Frederick Jackson Turner
13. BLACK BOY by Richard Wright
14. ASPECTS OF THE NOVEL by E. M. Forster
15. THE CIVIL WAR by Shelby Foote
16. THE GUNS OF AUGUST by Barbara Tuchman
17. THE PROPER STUDY OF MANKIND by Isaiah Berlin
18. THE NATURE AND DESTINY OF MAN by Reinhold Niebuhr
19. NOTES OF A NATIVE SON by James Baldwin
20. THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ALICE B. TOKLAS by Gertrude Stein
21. THE ELEMENTS OF STYLE by William Strunk and E. B. White
22. AN AMERICAN DILEMMA by Gunnar Myrdal
23. PRINCIPIA MATHEMATICA by Alfred North Whitehead and Bertrand Russell
24. THE MISMEASURE OF MAN by Stephen Jay Gould
25. THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP by Meyer Howard Abrams
26. THE ART OF THE SOLUBLE by Peter B. Medawar
27. THE ANTS by Bert Hoelldobler and Edward O. Wilson
28. A THEORY OF JUSTICE by John Rawls
29. ART AND ILLUSION by Ernest H. Gombrich
30. THE MAKING OF THE ENGLISH WORKING CLASS by E. P. Thompson
31. THE SOULS OF BLACK FOLK by W.E.B. Du Bois
32. PRINCIPIA ETHICA by G. E. Moore
33. PHILOSOPHY AND CIVILIZATION by John Dewey
34. ON GROWTH AND FORM by D'Arcy Thompson
35. IDEAS AND OPINIONS by Albert Einstein
36. THE AGE OF JACKSON, Arthur Schlesinger by Jr.
37. THE MAKING OF THE ATOMIC BOMB by Richard Rhodes
38. BLACK LAMB and Grey Falcon by Rebecca West
39. AUTOBIOGRAPHIES by W. B. Yeats
40. SCIENCE AND CIVILIZATION IN CHINA by Joseph Needham
41. GOODBYE TO ALL THAT by Robert Graves
42. HOMAGE TO CATALONIA by George Orwell
43. THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF MARK TWAIN by Mark Twain
44. CHILDREN OF CRISIS by Robert Coles
45. A STUDY OF HISTORY by Arnold J. Toynbee
46. THE AFFLUENT SOCIETY by John Kenneth Galbraith
47. PRESENT AT THE CREATION by Dean Acheson
48. THE GREAT BRIDGE by David McCullough
49. PATRIOTIC GORE by Edmund Wilson
50. SAMUEL JOHNSON by Walter Jackson Bate
51. THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF MALCOLM X by Alex Haley and Malcolm X
52. THE RIGHT STUFF by Tom Wolfe
53. EMINENT VICTORIANS by Lytton Strachey
54. WORKING by Studs Terkel
55. DARKNESS VISIBLE by William Styron
56. THE LIBERAL IMAGINATION by Lionel Trilling
57. THE SECOND WORLD WAR by Winston Churchill
58. OUT OF AFRICA by Isak Dinesen
59. JEFFERSON AND HIS TIME by Dumas Malone
60. IN THE AMERICAN GRAIN by William Carlos Williams
61. CADILLAC DESERT by Marc Reisner
62. THE HOUSE OF MORGAN by Ron Chernow
63. THE SWEET SCIENCE by A. J. Liebling
64. THE OPEN SOCIETY AND ITS ENEMIES by Karl Popper
65. THE ART OF MEMORY by Frances A. Yates
66. RELIGION AND THE RISE OF CAPITALISM by R. H. Tawney
67. A PREFACE TO MORALS by Walter Lippmann
68. THE GATE OF HEAVENLY PEACE by Jonathan D. Spence
69. THE STRUCTURE OF SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTIONS by Thomas S. Kuhn
70. THE STRANGE CAREER OF JIM CROW by C. Vann Woodward
71. THE RISE OF THE WEST by William H. McNeill
72. THE GNOSTIC GOSPELS by Elaine Pagels
73. JAMES JOYCE by Richard Ellmann
74. FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE by Cecil Woodham-Smith
75. THE GREAT WAR AND MODERN MEMORY by Paul Fussell
76. THE CITY IN HISTORY by Lewis Mumford
77. BATTLE CRY OF FREEDOM by James M. McPherson
78. WHY WE CAN'T WAIT by Martin Luther King by Jr.
79. THE RISE OF THEODORE ROOSEVELT by Edmund Morris
80. STUDIES IN ICONOLOGY by Erwin Panofsky
81. THE FACE OF BATTLE by John Keegan
82. THE STRANGE DEATH OF LIBERAL ENGLAND by George Dangerfield
83. VERMEER by Lawrence Gowing
84. A BRIGHT SHINING LIE by Neil Sheehan
85. WEST WITH THE NIGHT by Beryl Markham
86. THIS BOY'S LIFE by Tobias Wolff
87. A MATHEMATICIAN'S APOLOGY by G. H. Hardy
88. SIX EASY PIECES by Richard P. Feynman
89. PILGRIM AT TINKER CREEK by Annie Dillard
90. THE GOLDEN BOUGH by James George Frazer
91. SHADOW AND ACT by Ralph Ellison
92. THE POWER BROKER by Robert A. Caro
93. THE AMERICAN POLITICAL TRADITION by Richard Hofstadter
94. THE CONTOURS OF AMERICAN HISTORY by William Appleman Williams
95. THE PROMISE OF AMERICAN LIFE by Herbert Croly
96. IN COLD BLOOD by Truman Capote
97. THE JOURNALIST AND THE MURDERER by Janet Malcolm
98. THE TAMING OF CHANCE by Ian Hacking
99. OPERATING INSTRUCTIONS by Anne Lamott
100. MELBOURNE by Lord David Cecil

On July 21, 1998, the Radcliffe Publishing Course compiled and released its own list of the century's top 100 novels, at the request of the Modern Library editorial board.

1. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
2. The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
3. The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
4. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
5. The Color Purple by Alice Walker
6. Ulysses by James Joyce
7. Beloved by Toni Morrison
8. The Lord of the Flies by William Golding
9. 1984 by George Orwell
10. The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner
11. Lolita by Vladmir Nabokov
12. Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
13. Charlotte's Web by E.B. White
14. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce
15. Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
16. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
17. Animal Farm by George Orwell
18. The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway
19. As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner
20. A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway
21. Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
22. Winnie-the-Pooh by A.A. Milne
23. Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
24. Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
25. Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison
26. Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
27. Native Son by Richard Wright
28. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey
29. Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut
30. For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway
31. On the Road by Jack Kerouac
32. The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway
33. The Call of the Wild by Jack London
34. To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf
35. Portrait of a Lady by Henry James
36. Go Tell it on the Mountain by James Baldwin
37. The World According to Garp by John Irving
38. All the King's Men by Robert Penn Warren
39. A Room with a View by E.M. Forster
40. The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien
41. Schindler's List by Thomas Keneally
42. The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton
43. The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand
44. Finnegans Wake by James Joyce
45. The Jungle by Upton Sinclair
46. Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf
47. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum
48. Lady Chatterley's Lover by D.H. Lawrence
49. A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
50. The Awakening by Kate Chopin
51. My Antonia by Willa Cather
52. Howards End by E.M. Forster
53. In Cold Blood by Truman Capote
54. Franny and Zooey by J.D. Salinger
55. The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie
56. Jazz by Toni Morrison
57. Sophie's Choice by William Styron
58. Absalom, Absalom! by William Faulkner
59. A Passage to India by E.M. Forster
60. Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton
61. A Good Man Is Hard to Find by Flannery O'Connor
62. Tender Is the Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald
63. Orlando by Virginia Woolf
64. Sons and Lovers by D.H. Lawrence
65. Bonfire of the Vanities by Tom Wolfe
66. Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut
67. A Separate Peace by John Knowles
68. Light in August by William Faulkner
69. The Wings of the Dove by Henry James
70. Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe
71. Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier
72. A Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
73. Naked Lunch by William S. Burroughs
74. Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh
75. Women in Love by D.H. Lawrence
76. Look Homeward, Angel by Thomas Wolfe
77. In Our Time by Ernest Hemingway
78. The Autobiography of Alice B. Tokias by Gertrude Stein
79. The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett
80. The Naked and the Dead by Norman Mailer
81. Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys
82. White Noise by Don DeLillo
83. O Pioneers! by Willa Cather
84. Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller
85. The War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells
86. Lord Jim by Joseph Conrad
87. The Bostonians by Henry James
88. An American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser
89. Death Comes for the Archbishop by Willa Cather
90. The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame
91. This Side of Paradise by F. Scott Fitzgerald
92. Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand
93. The French Lieutenant's Woman by John Fowles
94. Babbitt by Sinclair Lewis
95. Kim by Rudyard Kipling
96. The Beautiful and the Damned by F. Scott Fitzgerald
97. Rabbit, Run by John Updike
98. Where Angels Fear to Tread by E.M. Forster
99. Main Street by Sinclair Lewis
100. Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie

Driving Westward to San Diego

Plutonic rubble, boulders, gravel,
dust storms, sandstorms, stone and bone-dry
desolation, post-nuclear waste, post firestorm
the tors and pillars of a city we erased
with fire from the air. Human work.
But we are blameless for this dead debris.
The earth's heart, under its thin skin,
with magna-red intensity.
overheats its igneous rock
beyond the limits of our own ferocity.
Driving westward on the interstate
above the east escarpment of the Coastal Range
we cross the ridge into a lush valley
green with Pacific rains,
land that seems like God's work,
in whose name we killed for it and cleared it:
lining streets with oleander, almond,
rows of ginkgo, fig, euphorbis,
white moons of giant clematis,
domesticated flames of of rose and lily beds, nothing here but what we ourselves devised,
nothing here but what we devised,
undulating fence lines, squared-off farms,
all dimensions ample and humane.
--Barry Goldensohn