A reading list, arranged by publication year

100 Classic Books Everyone Should Read

1605 to 1899

These 100 classic books shaped world literature long before modern literary prizes existed. The list runs from Don Quixote in 1605 through the great novels of the nineteenth century, and every entry includes a summary and the historical moment that produced it.

Books by year

Newest first. The year links to everything published or awarded that year.

100 Classic Books Everyone Should Read, newest first
Published	Book and author
1899	The Awakening by Kate Chopin
1899	Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
1898	The Turn of the Screw by Henry James
1898	The War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells
1897	Dracula by Bram Stoker
1895	Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy
1895	The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane
1895	The Time Machine by H. G. Wells
1894	The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling
1892	The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle
1891	Tess of the d'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy
1890	The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
1889	A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court by Mark Twain
1889	Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K. Jerome
1887	A Study in Scarlet by Arthur Conan Doyle
1886	Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson
1886	The Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy
1886	Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson
1885	The Rise of Silas Lapham by William Dean Howells
1885	King Solomon's Mines by H. Rider Haggard
1885	Germinal by Émile Zola
1884	Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
1883	The Adventures of Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi
1883	Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson
1881	The Portrait of a Lady by Henry James
1880	Heidi by Johanna Spyri
1880	The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky
1878	The Return of the Native by Thomas Hardy
1877	Black Beauty by Anna Sewell
1877	Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
1876	The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
1875	The Way We Live Now by Anthony Trollope
1874	Far from the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy
1872	Around the World in Eighty Days by Jules Verne
1871	Middlemarch by George Eliot
1871	Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There by Lewis Carroll
1870	Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas by Jules Verne
1869	War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
1869	The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoevsky
1868	Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
1868	The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins
1866	Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky
1865	Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
1864	Notes from Underground by Fyodor Dostoevsky
1864	Journey to the Center of the Earth by Jules Verne
1862	Les Misérables by Victor Hugo
1862	Fathers and Sons by Ivan Turgenev
1861	Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl by Harriet Jacobs
1861	Silas Marner by George Eliot
1861	Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
1860	The Mill on the Floss by George Eliot
1860	The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins
1859	Oblomov by Ivan Goncharov
1859	A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
1859	Adam Bede by George Eliot
1857	Barchester Towers by Anthony Trollope
1857	Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert
1855	North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell
1855	Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman
1854	Walden by Henry David Thoreau
1853	Cranford by Elizabeth Gaskell
1853	Twelve Years a Slave by Solomon Northup
1853	Bleak House by Charles Dickens
1852	Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe
1851	Moby-Dick; or, The Whale by Herman Melville
1850	The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
1850	David Copperfield by Charles Dickens
1848	The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Brontë
1848	Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray
1847	Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë
1847	Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë
1845	Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass by Frederick Douglass
1846	The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas
1844	The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas
1843	A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
1842	Dead Souls by Nikolai Gogol
1840	A Hero of Our Time by Mikhail Lermontov
1838	Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens
1835	Père Goriot by Honoré de Balzac
1833	Eugene Onegin by Alexander Pushkin
1831	The Hunchback of Notre-Dame by Victor Hugo
1830	The Red and the Black by Stendhal
1827	The Betrothed by Alessandro Manzoni
1826	The Last of the Mohicans by James Fenimore Cooper
1819	Ivanhoe by Walter Scott
1818	Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
1817	Persuasion by Jane Austen
1815	Emma by Jane Austen
1813	Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
1811	Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen
1782	Dangerous Liaisons by Pierre Choderlos de Laclos
1774	The Sorrows of Young Werther by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
1759	Tristram Shandy by Laurence Sterne
1759	Candide by Voltaire
1749	Tom Jones by Henry Fielding
1726	Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift
1719	Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe
1678	The Pilgrim's Progress by John Bunyan
1667	Paradise Lost by John Milton
1605	Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes