Everyone has different opinions and preferences when the debate of “What are the Greatest books ever written” comes up. From casual readers to historians, avid readers, and even literary critics, the debate continues to earn new arguments. Is it a novel that left a subtle impact on the world? Or is it a novel with captivating figurative language?
Here is a list of 10 novels that, for different reasons, have been considered some of the greatest books literature has seen. Also, this is in no particular order.
1. To Kill a Mockingbird
Many people consider Harper Lee to be one of the most influential authors to have ever existed. She famously published only a single novel up until 2015 when she published its controversial sequel, just before she died.
To Kill a Mockingbird was published Jon July 11, 1960, and it immediately became a literary classic. The novel discusses racism in the American South through the perspective of a clever young girl named Jean Louise Finch. The novel features some iconic characters, most notably the sympathetic and just lawyer ‘Atticus Finch’ who changed people’s perspectives and served as a role model at a time in the United States when tensions regarding race were high.
To Kill a Mockingbird won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1962 and was adapted into a feature movie the following year. The movie won an Academy award in 1962, giving its characters and the story further influence and life over the American social sphere.
2. The Great Gatsby
The Great Gatsby is a must-read book by American writer F. Scott Fitzgerald for anyone who is pursuing a future in literature or English -that means you may have to read it in school.
The novel follows a young man (Nick Carraway) who recently moved to New York City and is befriended by an eccentric nouveau riche neighbor with mysterious origins, Jay Gatsby. The novel criticizes the idea of the “American Dream” and provides an insider’s look into the Jazz Age of the 1920s in United States history.
3. Ulysses
Written by Irish novelist, James Joyce, the book was first published in the year 1922. Largely considered a masterpiece, Ulysses is stylistically dense and exhilarating. It has also been a topic of numerous volumes of analysis and commentary. The plot of the novel is loosely similar to events in Odysseus’s journey home after the Trojan War.
The novel has three central characters, Leopold Bloom, Stephen Dedalus, and Molly who are intended to be modern counterparts of Ulysses, Telemachus, and Penelope respectively. All the events and activities that make up the plot taktakeace on a single day in and immediately around Dublin.
4. The Catcher in the Rye
The book is written by J. D Salinger and was published in 1951. The novel is centered around the life of the main character, Holden Caulfield after he was expelled from prep school in two days. Disillusioned and confused, Holden begins to search for the truth and rails against the “phoniness” of the adult world.
The centcentralme of this classic novel is the “loss of innocence.” The protagonist, Holden, wants to be the “catcher in the rye” -a person who saves children from falling off a cliff. This is a metaphor for entering into the hood. The name Holden is also significant as it can be read as “hold on.” Holden’s wish is to remain innocent and true in a world full of “phonies” as he puts it.
According to Salinger in an interview, the novel was intended to be a semi-autobiography.
5. Pride and Prejudice
Initially titled “First Impressions“, this book is fondly regarded as one of the most-loved books among the reading public and literary scholars. This romantic novel of manners was published in 1813 and is written by Jane Austen. This classical novel centers on the turbulent relationship between Fitzwilliam Darcy; a rich aristocratic landowner and Elizabeth Bennet; the daughter of a country gentleman. “Pride and Prejudice” is written with superb character delineation and incisive wit.
The book takes us into the Regency era in Great Britain, and its humor lies in Jane Austen’s honest depiction of manners, marriage, education, and money during this period. Austen portrayed that world in all pride and prejudice, with unwavering accuracy and satire.
6. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, now known as “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” is a novel by Mark Twain, published in the year 1884 in the United Kingdom and the United States in 1885. The novel is one of the most celebrated works of American fiction; with the 1885 novel condemning the institutionalized racism of the pre-Civil War South.
Huck, the novel’s central character and narrator runs away from his abusive father, together with his companion, Jim the runaway slave. Both of them make a long and repeatedly interrupted journey down the Mississippi River in a raft. During the journey, Huck comes in contact with different characters and types in whom the book memorably portrays almost every class living on or along the river.
“The Adventures of Tom Sawyer” (1876) and Adventures of Huckleberry brought a change to America’s view on children’s literature and American literature in general. It presented the first deeply felt portrayal of boyhood.
7. Alice’s Adventure in Wonderland
Now popularly shortened to Alice In Wonderland, this book by Lewis Carroll is the most widely beloved British Children’s book. Written by Lewis Carrol, the book was published in 1865 and it quickly became one of the most popular works of English-language fiction.
The story centers around a young girl named Alice, who falls asleep in a meadow and dreams that she follows the White Rabbit down a rabbit hole. She has many astonishing, often extraordinary adventures with thoroughly illogical and strange creatures. Alice often changes in size unexpectedly as she grows as tall as a house and shrinks to 3 inches in another part of the book.
The story was originally told by Carroll to Alice, Lorin’s, Lorinadith Liddell; Henry George Liddell’s daughters on a picnic in July 1862. Alice asked Carroll to write out the stories for her to which he responded by giving her a hand-lettered collection titled Alice’s Adventures Under Ground. A visitor visited the Liddell home, saw the Storybook and ad, and vised Carroll to publish it. Carroll revised the hand letters, expanded them and this classic was born.
The book appeared at a time when children’s literature was generally about teaching moral lessons. Critics were harsh on the book and failed to appreciate the nonsense that so captivated young children. But Carrol understood how children’s minds worked, and the way he turned logic on its head appealed to them. The work gained so much popularity, leading Carroll to write consequent books in the series like “Through the Looking-Glass, and “What Alice Found There.” The book has also inspired numerous theatrical performances, ballets, and films.
8. To the Lighthouse
To the Lighthouse is a novel by the British author, Virginia Woolf. The novel is centered around the Ramsay Family, as well as their visits to the Isle of Skye in Scotland between 1910 and 1920.
The novel includes little dialoguedialogueost no direct action; instead, most of the book is written as thoughts and observatobservationse Lighthouse” is often cited as an example of the literary technique of multiple focalizations. The book follows and extends the tradition of modernist novelists like James Joyce and Marcel Proust.
Virginia Woolf highlights adult relationships and recalls childhood emotions. The novel has numerous themes, and among them are those ofctivity, loss, and the problem of perception and the nature of art.
The Modern Library named To the Lighthouse No. 15 on its list of the 100 best English-English-languageof the 20th century, and in 2005, Time magazine chose the novel as one of the hundred best English-language books since 1923.
9. The Sound and the Fury
The Sound and the Fury is another masterpiece on our list written by William Faulkner. The book employs many different narrative styles, including stream of consciousness. Published in the year 1929, the book did not immediately get the ground running in terms of sales or popularity. It wasn’t until 1931 when Faulkner published his sixth novel –which he later claimed was written only for money– did “The Sound and the Fury” also become commercially successful, earning Faulkner the critical attention and respect he deserved.
The book is set in Jefferson, Mississippi, during the first third of the twentieth century. Faulkner’s novel revolves around the Compson family, former Southern aristocrats who are facing a hard time dealing with the dissolution of their family and its reputation. In the next three decades or so in the novel, the family goes bankrupt and loses its religious faith and respect for the town of Jefferson. As a result, many of them die tragically.
10. Nineteen Eighty-four
Nineteen Eighty-four is an English Novel written by George Orwell. The book was written as a warning against totalitarianism; mass surveillance and repressive regimentation of people and behavior in a society. The novel takes place in a distant future, the year 1984. In this futuristic world of the novel, more than 50% of the world had fallen victim to perpetual war, omnipresent government surveillance, and propaganda.
The chilling world of the book where people lead wretched, fearful lives left a big impression, and his ideas entered mainstream culture in a way that only a few books ever achieved. The title of the book, as well as many of its concepts such as the Thought Police, and Big Brother and r, became common words used for modern social and political abuses.
George Orwell was a democratic socialist himself and he modeled the tmodeledritarian government in the novel after Stalinist Russia. Extensively, the novel examines the role of truth and facts within politics and how they are manipulated.