Greatest Works of Literature – By Author

To make the list found below, I have taken my ‘Best Literature of All Time’ meta-list and organized it by author, in chronological order by author’s date of birth. The meta-list is a compilation of over 30 different ‘Best Literature of All Time’ lists I found in books, magazines and the Internet (the ‘original source lists’). For each author, I have provided dates of birth and death, the author’s country of origin, and, if different, the country where the author did most of his or her writing, and, where there is any chance of confusion, the language or languages that the author’s books were written in.  Below the author’s name, I have listed the works that were included on at least three of the original source lists. These works are organized by chronological order, with the ratings provided in parentheses. The entry for each work consists of:  the main title of the book, in boldface, and an alternative title (if any) in parentheses; the date the work was written and/or published; the type or category of literature of the work; and a number in parentheses indicating the number of original source lists this work was on.  (Note: In the case of plays, the date is usually the date the play was first performed.)

Although most of the works on the list are individual books, some are bodies of work, such as an author’s entire output of poetry, short stories or other form. To distinguish these from individual books, I have italicized the entries, and left the date of publication blank. If a particular poem or short story has received special notice, I have indicated it in boldface.

HOMER (c. 850–800 BCE) [Ancient Greece]
The Iliad (c. 800-725 BCE) [poetry: narrative] (on 21 lists)
The Odyssey
(c. 700 BCE) [poetry: narrative] (on 23 lists)

HESIOD (c. 750-650 BCE) [Ancient Greece]
Theogony (c. 700 BCE) [poetry: narrative] (on 3 lists)

SAPPHO (c. 630 – 570 BCE) [Ancient Greece]
Poems (esp. Fragment 42 and Fragment 155) [poetry: lyric] (on 4 lists)

AESOP (c. 620-584 BCE) [Ancient Greece]
Fables (esp. The Tortoise and the Hare and The Grasshopper and the Ant) (c. 600-560 BCE) [fiction: fables] (on 5 lists)

LAOZI (Lao Tze) (c. 604 – ? BCE) [China]
Tao Te Ching (c. 624-604 BCE) [non-fiction: philosophy/religion] (on 6 lists)

AESCHYLUS (525–455 BCE) [Ancient Greece]
The Persians (472 BCE) [drama] (on 3 lists)
The Suppliant Women (463 BCE) [drama] (on 3 lists)
Prometheus Bound (c. 480-410 BCE) [drama] (attribution in question) (on 3 lists)
The Oresteia Trilogy: Agamemnon, The Libation Bearers, The Eumenides (458 BCE) [drama] (on 11 lists)

SUN TZU (544-496 BCE) [China]
The Art of War (c. 500-400 BCE) [non-fiction: military treatise] (attribution in question) (on 3 lists)

PINDAR (498-444 BCE) [Ancient Greece]
 Victory Odes (c. 490-443 BCE) [poetry: lyric] (on 3 lists).

SOPHOCLES (c. 497–405 BCE) [Ancient Greece]
Oedipus the King (c. 450 BCE) [drama] (on 17 lists)
Women of Trachis (c. 450 BCE) [drama] (on 3 lists)
Ajax (c. 447 BCE) [drama] (on 3 lists)
Antigone (442-441 BCE) [drama] (on 11 lists)
Electra (418-414 BCE) [drama] (on 6 lists)
Philoctetes (409 BCE) [drama] (on 3 lists)
Oedipus at Colonus (401 BCE) [drama] (on 5 lists)

HERODOTUS (c. 484–425 BCE) [Ancient Greece]
The Histories (441 BCE) [non-fiction: history] (on 11 lists)

EURIPIDES (c. 480–406 BCE) [Ancient Greece]
Alcestis (438 BCE) [drama] (on 5 lists)
Medea (c. 431 BCE) [drama] (on 13 lists)
Hippolytus (c. 428 BCE) [drama] (on 4 lists)
Andromache (c. 425 BCE) [drama] (on 3 lists)
Hecuba (c. 424 BCE) [drama] (on 3 lists)
Electra (c. 420 BCE) [drama] (on 5 lists)
Heracles (c. 416 BCE) [drama] (on 3 lists)
Trojan Women (415 BCE) [drama] (on 5 lists)
Iphigenia in Tauris (414 BCE) [drama] (on 3 lists)
Ion (414 BCE) [drama] (on 3 lists)
Helen (412 BCE) [drama] (on 3 lists)
Orestes (408 BCE) [drama] (on 3 lists)
The Bacchae (405 BCE) [drama] (on 7 lists)
Iphigenia at Aulis (405 BCE) [drama] (on 3 lists)
Cyclops (400? BCE) [drama] (on 3 lists)

THUCYDIDES (460–395 BCE) [Ancient Greece]
The Peloponnesian War (c. 400 BCE) [nonfiction: history] (on 9 lists)

ARISTOPHANES (c. 446–386 BCE) [Ancient Greece]
The Knights (424 BCE) [drama] (on 4 lists)
The Clouds (423 BCE) [drama] (on 6 lists)
The Wasps (422 BCE) [drama] (on 3 lists)
Lysistrata (411 BCE) [drama] (on 8 lists)
The Frogs (405 BCE) [drama] (on 5 lists)
The Birds (c. 400 BCE) [drama] (on 7 lists)
The Assemblywomen (392 BCE) [drama] (on 3 lists)

PLATO (424–347 BCE) [Ancient Greece]
Apology (c. 399-387 BCE) [nonfiction: philosophy] (on 10 lists)
Crito (c. 399-387 BCE) [nonfiction: philosophy] (on 4 lists)
Meno (c. 387-380 BCE) [nonfiction: philosophy] (on 4 lists)
The Republic (c. 380 BCE) [nonfiction: philosophy] (on 9 lists)
The Symposium (c. 380-360 BCE) [nonfiction: philosophy] (on 5 lists)
Phaedo (c. 380-360 BCE) [nonfiction: philosophy] (on 5 lists)

ARISTOTLE (384–322 BCE) [Ancient Greece]
Poetics (335-323 BCE) [nonfiction: philosophy/criticism] (on 9 lists)
Nicomachean Ethics (335-323 BCE) [nonfiction: philosophy] (on 7 lists)
Physics (335-323 BCE) [nonfiction: philosophy] (on 6 lists)
Politics (335-323 BCE) [nonfiction: philosophy] (on 6 lists)
Rhetoric (335-323 BCE) [nonfiction: philosophy] (on 4 lists)
Metaphysics (335-323 BCE) [nonfiction: philosophy] (on 4 lists)
On the Soul (335-323 BCE) [nonfiction: philosophy] (on 4 lists)

MENCIUS (372-289 BCE) [China]
The Book of Mencius (c. 309-289 BCE) [nonfiction: philosophy/religious text] (on 5 lists)

ZHUANGZI (369-286 BCE) [China]
The Book of Zhuangzi (c. 306-286 BCE) [nonfiction: philosophy/religious text] (on 4 lists)

PATANJALI (c. 322-150 BCE) [India] [Sanskrit?]
Yoga Sutras [nonfiction: philosophy/religion] (on 3 lists)

VISHNU SHARMA (c. 300-200 BCE) [India] [Sanskrit]
The Panchatantra (c. 300-200 BCE) [fiction: fables] (on 4 lists)

HAN FEI (c. 281-233 BCE) [China]
The Han Feizi (c. 240-233) [nonfiction: political philosophy] (on 3 lists)

PLAUTUS (c. 254–184 BCE) [Ancient Rome]
The Menaechmi (c. 254-184 BCE) [drama] (on 4 lists)
Amphitryon (c. 220-184 BCE) [drama] (on 3 lists)
Pseudolus (c. 220-184 BCE) [drama] (on 3 lists)

SIMA QIAN (c. 145-86 BCE) [China]
Records of the Grand Historian (Shi Ji) (109-91 BCE) [nonfiction: history] (on 5 lists)

LUCRETIUS (c. 99–55 BCE) [Ancient Rome] [Latin]
On the Nature of Things (50 BCE) [poetry: philosophy] (on 8 lists)

CATULLUS (c. 84-54 BCE) [Ancient Rome]
Poems (esp. Attis) (c. 65-54 BCE) [poetry] (on 3 lists)

VIRGIL (70–19 BCE) [Ancient Rome]
Eclogues (39-38 BCE) [poetry] (on 3 lists)
Aeneid (29-19 BCE) [poetry: narrative] (on 17 lists)

HORACE (65–8 BCE) [Ancient Rome]
Odes (65-8 BCE) [poetry: lyric] (on 7 lists)

OVID (43 BCE–18 CE) [Ancient Rome]
The Art of Love (1 CE) [poetry] (on 3 lists)
Metamorphoses (2-8 CE) [poetry: narrative] (on 8 lists)

PETRONIUS (27-66 CE) [Ancient Rome]
Satyricon (c. 54-66 CE) [fiction: novel] (on  5 lists)

PLUTARCH (46–120 CE) [Ancient Rome]
Parallel Lives of the Noble Greeks and Romans (100-125 CE) [nonfiction: biography] (on 7 lists)

TACITUS (56-117 CE) [Ancient Rome]
Annals (109 CE) [nonfiction: history] (on 5 lists)

JUVENAL
(c. 98-138 CE) [Ancient Rome]
Satires [poetry] (on 3 lists)

MARCUS AURELIUS (121–180 CE) [Ancient Rome]
Meditations (c. 180 CE) [nonfiction: essays/philosophy] (on 7 lists)

APULEIUS (125–180 CE) [Ancient Rome/Algeria] [Latin]
The Golden Ass (c. 158-180 CE) [fiction: novel] (on 5 lists)

LUCIAN (125-190?) [Ancient Greece//Syria] [Greek]
Satires [fiction] (on 3 lists)

KĀLIDĀSA (300-400 CE?) [India] [Sanskrit]
The Recognition of Sakuntala (Abhijñānaśākuntalam) (c. 350 CE?) [drama] (on 10 lists)

AUGUSTINE OF HIPPO (354–430) [Algeria/Roman Empire] [Latin]
The Confessions (c. 400 CE) [non-fiction: memoir] (on 12 lists)
The City of God (426 CE) [non-fiction: religion/philosophy] (on 3 lists)

TAO YUANMING (Tao Qian) (365-427) [China]
The Return [poetry] (on 3 lists)
Returning to the Farm to Dwell [poetry] (on 3 lists)
Begging for Food [poetry] (on 3 lists)
On Moving House [poetry] (on 3 lists)
In the Sixth Month of 408, Fire [poetry] (on 3 lists)
Twenty Poems after Drinking Wine [poetry] (on 3 lists)
On Reading the Seas and Mountain Classic [poetry] (on 3 lists)

BHARTRIHARI (c. 400-500 CE?) [India] [Sanskrit]
The Three Centuries (Satakatraya) (c. 450-500 CE) [poetry] (on 4 lists)

LI BAI (Li Po) (701-762 CE) [China]
Poems (esp. A Quiet Night ThoughtLong YearningFarewell to Meng Hao-jan, Drinking Alone in the Moonlight, The Moon at the Fortified Pass, and Chuang Tzu and the Butterfly) (on 3 lists)

DU FU (Tu Fu) (712-770 CE) [China]
Poems (esp. Song of an Old CypressTo My Retired Friend Wei, Thinking of Li Bai at the End of the Sky, Spring Night in the Left Office, Moonlit Night, and Ballad of the Army Carts (on 3 lists)

KUKAI (774-835 CE) [Japan]
The Ten Stages of the Development of Mind (Jujushinron) (830 CE) [nonfiction: philosophy/psychology] (on 3 lists)

FERDOWSI (940-1020) [Persia] [Persian]
The Book of Kings (Shahnameh) (1010) [poetry: narrative] (on 6 lists)

SEI SHONAGON (966-1017) [Japan]
The Pillow Book (1002) [nonfiction/poetry] (on 5 lists)

SHIKIBU MURASAKI (973–1025) [Japan]
The Tale of Genji (c. 1021) [fiction: novel] (on 14 lists)

SOMADEVA (c. 1000-1100?) [India] [Sanskrit]
The Ocean of Rivers of Story (Kathasaritsagara) (c. 1050-1080) [fiction: legends/folktales] (on 3 lists)

OMAR KHAYYAM (1048-1131) [Persia/Uzbekistan] [Persian]
The Rubaiyat (1100?) [poetry] (attribution in question) (on 6 lists)

AL-HARIRI OF BASRA (1054-1122) [Iraq] [Arabic]
The Assemblies of al-Hariri (Maqamat al-Hariri) (c. 1100-1122) [poetry] (on 3 lists)

AL-GHAZALI (1058-1111) [Persia/Iran] [Arabic]
Deliverance from Error (Al-Munqidh min al-dalal) (c. 1100) [nonfiction: memoir/religion] (on 3 lists)

CHRÉTIEN DE TROYES (c. 1130-1190?) [France] [French]
Perceval, the Story of the Grail (1181-1190) [poetry: narrative] (on 3 lists)

ZHU XI (1130-1200) [China]
Commentary on the Four Books (Sishu Zhangju Jizhu) (c. 1180-1200) [nonfiction: religion/philosophy] (on 3 lists)

MAIMONIDES (1135-1204) [Spain, Morocco, Egypt] [Judeo-Arabic, Hebrew]
Guide for the Perplexed (c. 1190-1204) [nonfiction: philosophy/religion] (on 3 lists)

ATTAR OF NISHAPUR (Farid al-Din Attar) (1145-1221) [Persia] [Persian]
The Conference of the Birds (1177) [poetry] (on 4 lists)

MARIE DE FRANCE (c. 1160- c. 1215) [France, England] [Anglo-Norman French]
Lais of Marie de France (c. 1155-1170) [poetry] (on 3 lists)

GOTTFRIED VON STRASSBURG (1150? – c. 1210) [Germany]
Tristan (c. 1210) [fiction: romance] (on 4 lists)

WOLFRAM VON ESCHENBACH (1170-1220) [Germany] [German]
Parzifal (1200-1220) [poetry: narrative] (on 3 lists)

JAYADEVA (c. 1200-1300?) [India] [Sanskrit]
Song of Govinda (Gita Govinda) (c. 1250?) [poetry: narrative] (on 4 lists)

GUILLAUME DE LORRIS (1200-1240) [France] [French]
Romance of the Rose, Part One (1230) [poetry: narrative] (on 3 lists)

JALALU’L-DIN RUMI (1207-1273) [Persia, Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan] [Persian]
The Masnavi (1258-1273) [poetry] (on 6 lists)

THOMAS AQUINAS (1225 –1274) [Italy] [Latin]
Summa Theologica (1265-1274) [nonfiction: religion] (on 3 lists)

JEAN DE MEUN (1240-1305) [France] [French]
Romance of the Rose, Part Two (1275) [poetry: narrative] (on 3 lists)

DANTE ALIGHIERI (1265-1321) [Italy] [Italian]
The New Life (1295) [poetry/prose] (on 3 lists)
The Divine Comedy
(1265-1321) [poetry: narrative] (on 24 lists)

YOSHIDA KENKO (1283-1350?) [Japan]
Essays in Idleness (Tsurezuregusa) (1330-1332) [nonfiction: essays] (on 3 lists)

SHI NAI’AN (1296-1372) [China]
Water Margin (Outlaws of the Marsh) [fiction: novel] (on 5 lists)

PETRARCH (1304-1374) [Italy] [Italian]
Lyric poems (esp. Sonnets To Laura in Life: 109) (on 4 lists)

GIOVANNI BOCCACCIO (1313 – 1375) [Italy] [Italian]
The Decameron (1350-1353) [fiction: linked stories] (on 8 lists)

HAFEZ (1326-1390) [Persia/Iran] [Persian]
Poems (esp. O beautiful wine bearer, bring forth the cup (Ghazal 1)) (on 4 lists)

LUO GUANZHONG (1330-1400) [China]
Romance of the Three Kingdoms (c. 1380-1400) [fiction: novel] (on 4 lists)

IBN KHALDUN (1332-1406) [Tunisia, Spain, Egypt] [Arabic]
Muqaddimah (1377) [nonfiction: history] (on 3 lists)

GEOFFREY CHAUCER (c. 1343–1400) [England] [Middle English]
The Canterbury Tales (c. 1343-1400) [fiction/poetry: stories/poems] (on 16 lists)
Troilus and Criseyde (c. 1385) [poetry: narrative] (on 4 lists)

CHRISTINE DE PIZAN (1363–1430) [Italy] [French]
The Book of the City of Ladies (1405) [fiction: allegory] (on 3 lists)

ZEAMI MOTOKIYO (1363-1443) [Japan]
Atsumori [drama] (on 3 lists)

THOMAS MALORY (1405–1471) [England] [English]
Le Morte D’Arthur (1485) [fiction: tales] (on 7 lists)

FERNANDO DE ROJAS (1465-1541) [Spain]
The Spanish Bawd (La Celestina) (1499) [drama] (on 4 lists)

ERASMUS (1466–1536) [The Netherlands] [Latin]
 The Praise of Folly (1511) [nonfiction: essay] (on 7 lists)

NICCOLÒ MACHIAVELLI (1469–1527) [Italy] [Italian]
The Prince (1513) [nonfiction: political philosophy] (on 13 lists)

LUDOVICO ARIOSTO (1474-1533) [Italy]
Orlando Furioso (1532) [poetry: narrative] (on 4 lists)

MICHELANGELO BUONARROTI (1475-1564) [Italy]
Sonnets and Madrigals [poetry] (on 3 lists)

BALDASSARE CASTIGLIONE (1478-1529) [Italy]
The Book of the Courtier (1528) [nonfiction: manners/fiction: dialogue] (on 4 lists)

THOMAS MORE (1478–1535) [England]
Utopia (1516) [fiction: philosophical] (on 7 lists)

FUŻŪLĪ (1483-1556) [Turkey] [Azerbaijani Turkic, Persian, and Arabic]
Epic of Layla and Majnun (Dâstân-ı Leylî vü Mecnun) (c. 1540-1556) [poetry: narrative] (on 3 lists)

MARGUERITE DE NAVARRE (1492-1549) [France]
The Heptameron (1558) [fiction: linked stories] (on 3 lists)

FRANÇOIS RABELAIS (c. 1494–1553) [France]
Gargantua and Pantagruel (1532-1534) [fiction: novels] (on 14 lists)

WU CHENG’EN (1500-1582) [China]
Journey to the West (Monkey) (c. 1540-1560) [fiction: novel] (on 6 lists)

GIORGIO VASARI (1511–1574) [Italy]
Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects (1550) [nonfiction: biography/criticism] (on 4 lists)

LUÍS VAZ DE CAMÕES (1524-1580) [Portugal]
The Lusiads (1572) [poetry: narrative] (on 3 lists)

MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE (1533–1592) [France]
Essays (1580) [nonfiction: essays] (on 14 lists)

TORQUATO TASSO (1544-1595) [Italy]
Jerusalem Delivered (1581) [poetry: narrative] (on 3 lists)

MIGUEL DE CERVANTES (1547–1616) [Spain]
Don Quixote, Part 1 (1605) [fiction: novel] (on 27 lists)
Don Quixote, Part 2 (1615) [fiction: novel] (on 27 lists)

LANLING XIAOXIAO SHENG (c. 1550-1620?) [China]
The Plum in the Golden Vase (Jin Ping Mei) (c. 1600?) [fiction: novel] (on 6 lists)

EDMUND SPENSER (1552–1599) [England]
The Faerie Queene (1590, 1596) [poetry: narrative] (on 3 lists)

PHILIP SYDNEY (1554-1586) [England]
Astrophel and Stella (c. 1580-1589) [poetry: narrative] (on 3 lists)

THOMAS KYD
(1558-1594) [England]
The Spanish Tragedy (1582-1592) [drama] (on 3 lists)

FRANCIS BACON (1561–1626) [England]
Essays (1597) [nonfiction: essays] (on 3 lists)
The Advancement of Learning (1605) [nonfiction: education/science] (on 3 lists)
Novum Organum (1620) [nonfiction: science] (on 3 lists)
New Atlantis (1623) [fiction: philosophy/allegory] (on 3 lists)

LOPE DE VEGA (1562-1635) [Spain]
Lost in a Mirror (Fuente Ovejuna) (1619) [drama]

CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE (1564–1593) [England]
Tamburlaine, Pts. 1 and 2 (1587-1588) [drama] (on 3 lists)
Doctor Faustus (1588) [drama] (on 5 lists)
The Jew of Malta (c. 1589) [drama] (on 3 lists)
Edward II (1592) [drama] (on 3 lists)

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE (1564–1616) [England]
A Comedy of Errors (1589) [drama] (on 9 lists)
Henry VI, Pt. 1, 2, 3 (1591) [drama] (on 5 lists)
Titus Andronicus
(1592) [drama] (on 5 lists)
Richard III (1592-93) [drama] (on 11 lists)
Romeo and Juliet (1594) [drama] (on 11 lists)
The Taming of the Shrew (1594) [drama] (on 9 lists)
Two Gentlemen of Verona (1594) [drama] (on 9 lists)
A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1594-95) [drama] (on 13 lists)
Richard II (1595) [drama] (on 9 lists)
Love’s Labour’s Lost (1595) [drama] (on 6 lists)
Merchant of Venice (1596) [drama] (on 11 lists)
King John (1596) [drama] (on 5 lists)
Henry IV, Parts I and II (1597) [drama] (on 10 lists)
Much Ado about Nothing (1598) [drama] (on 9 lists)
Henry V (1598) [drama] (on 9 lists)
The Merry Wives of Windsor (1598) [drama] (on 6 lists)
Twelfth Night (1599) [drama] (on 10 lists)
As You Like It (1599) [drama] (on 10 lists)
Julius Caesar (1599) [drama] (on 11 lists)
Hamlet (1600) [drama] (on 21 lists)
All’s Well That Ends Well (1602) [drama] (on 9 lists)
Troilus and Cressida (1602) [drama] (on 5 lists)
Othello (1604) [drama] (on 14 lists)
Measure for Measure (1604) [drama] (on 10 lists)
King Lear (1605) [drama] (on 15 lists)

Macbeth (1605) [drama] (on 11 lists)
Antony and Cleopatra (1606) [drama] (on 10 lists)
Timon of Athens (1606) [drama] (on 5 lists)
Coriolanus (1607) [drama] (on 8 lists)
Sonnets (c. 1609) [poetry] (on 7 lists)
The Winter’s Tale (1610) [drama] (on 9 lists)
The Tempest (1611) [drama] (on 10 lists)
Cymbeline (1611) [drama] (on 5 lists)
Henry VIII (1613) [drama] (on 5 lists)

GALILEO GALILEI (1564-1642) [Italy]
Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems (1632) [nonfiction: science] (on 5 lists)

JOHN DONNE (1572 – 1631) [England]
Poems (esp. Holy Sonnet X [“Death be not proud…”]) (on 6 lists)

BEN JONSON (1572–1637) [England]
Volpone (c. 1607) [drama] (on 5 lists)
The Alchemist (1612) [drama] (on 4 lists)
Poems (esp. On my First Son and Song To Celia (“Drink to me only with  thine eyes”)) (on 3 lists)

JOHN WEBSTER
(1580–1634) [England]
The Duchess of Malfi (1614) [drama] (on 3 lists)

JOHN FORD (1586–1639) [England]
‘Tis Pity She’s a Whore (1633) [drama] (on 3 lists)

THOMAS HOBBES (1588–1679) [England]
Leviathan (1651) [nonfiction: philosophy] (on 7 lists)

ROBERT HERRICK (1591-1674) [England]
Poems (esp. Upon Julia’s Clothes(on 3 lists)

RENÉ DESCARTES (1596–1650) [France]
Discourse on Method (1637) [nonfiction: philosophy] (on 6 lists)
Meditations on First Philosophy (1641) [nonfiction: philosophy] (on 4 lists)

PEDRO CALDERÓN DE LA BARCA (1600–1681) [Spain]
Life is a Dream (1629-1635) [drama] (on 4 lists)

PIERRE CORNEILLE (1606–1684) [France]
The Cid (1637) [drama] (on 4 lists)

JOHN MILTON (1608–1674) [England]
Lycidas (1637) [poetry] (on 3 lists)
Areopagitica (1644) [nonfiction: political tract] (on 4 lists)

Paradise Lost
(1667) [poetry: narrative] (on 12 lists)
Paradise Regained (1671) [poetry] (on 5 lists)
Samson Agonistes (1671) [closet drama] (on 4 lists)
Minor Poems (c. 1628-1674) [poetry] (on 4 lists)

FRANÇOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD (1613-1680) [France]
Maxims (1680) [nonfiction: sayings] (on 3 lists)

HANS JAKOB CHRISTOFFEL VON GRIMMELSHAUSEN (1621–1676) [Germany]
Simplicius Simplicissimus (1668) [fiction: novel] (on 3 lists)

ANDREW MARVELL (1621-1678) [England]
Poems (esp. To His Coy Mistress) (on 3 lists)

JEAN DE LA FONTAINE (1621-1695) [France]
Fables (1668-1694) [fiction: stories] (on 4 lists)

MOLIÈRE (1622–1673) [France]
The Would-Be Gentleman (1655) [drama] (on 5 lists)
Ridiculous Precieuses (1659) (drama] (on 3 lists)
The School for Husbands (1661) (drama] (on 3 lists)
The School for Wives (1662) [drama] (on 5 lists)
Don Juan (1665) [drama] (on 4 lists)
The Misanthrope (1666) [drama] (on 6 lists)
The Physician in Spite of Himself (1666) [drama] (on 3 lists)
The Miser (1668) [drama] (on 6 lists)
Tartuffe (1669) [drama] (on 9 lists)
The Learned Ladies (1672) [drama] (on 3 lists)

The Imaginary Invalid (1673) [drama] (on 4 lists)

BLAISE PASCAL (1623-1662) [France]
Pensées (1669) [non-fiction: philosophy/religion] (on 7 lists)

JOHN BUNYAN (1628-1688) [England]
The Pilgrim’s Progress (1679) [fiction: allegory] (on 9 lists)

JOHN DRYDEN (1631-1700) [England]
All For Love (1678) [drama] )n 3 lists)

BENEDICT DE SPINOZA (1632-1677) [The Netherlands]
Ethics (1677) [nonfiction: philosophy] )n 5 lists)

JOHN LOCKE (1632-1704) [England]
Two Treatises of Government (1689) [nonfiction: political philosophy] (on 3 lists)
An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690) [nonfiction: philosophy] (on 3 lists)

MADAME DE LA FAYETTE (1634-1693) [France]
The Princess of Cleves (1678) [fiction: novel] (on 5 lists)

JEAN RACINE (1639–1699) [France]
Andromache (1667) [drama] (on 3 lists)
Phaedra (1677) [drama] (on 6 lists)

APHRA BEHN (1640-1689) [England]
Oroonoko (1688) [fiction: novel] (on 3 lists)

WILLIAM WYCHERLEY (1640-1715) [England]
The Country Wife (1675) [drama] (on 3 lists)
The Plain Dealer (1676) [drama] (on 3 lists)

MATSUO BASHO (1644-1694) [Japan]
The Seashell Game (Kai Ōi) (1672) [poetry/nonfiction: anthology/commentary] (on 4 lists)
Shriveled Chestnuts (Minashiguri) (1683) [poetry: anthology] (on 4 lists)
Record of a Weather-Exposed Skeleton (Nozarashi Kikō) (1684) [nonfiction: travel] (on 4 lists)
Winter Days (Fuyu no Hi) (1684) [poetry] (on 4 lists)
Spring Days (Haru no Hi) (1686) [poetry] (on 4 lists)
A Visit to Kashima Shrine (Kashima Kikō) (1687) [nonfiction: travel/poetry] (on 4 lists)
Record of a Travel-Worn Satchel (Oi no Kobumi, or Utatsu Kikō) (1688) [nonfiction: travel/poetry] (on 4 lists)
A Visit to Sarashina Village (Sarashina Kikō) (1688) [nonfiction: travel/poetry] (on 4 lists)
Wasteland (Arano) (1689) [poetry] (on 4 lists)
The Gourd (Hisago) (1690) [poetry] (on 4 lists)
The Monkey’s Raincoat (Sarumino) (1691) [poetry] (on 4 lists)
Saga Diary (Saga Nikki) (1691) [nonfiction: memoir/travel/poetry] (on 4 lists)
On Transplanting the Banana Tree (Bashō no Utsusu Kotoba) (1691) [poetry] (on 4 lists)
On Seclusion (Heikan no Setsu) (1692) [poetry?] (on 4 lists)
The Narrow Road to the Interior (Oku no Hosomichi) (1694) [non-fiction: travel/prose/poetry] (on 7 lists)
A Sack of Charcoal (Sumidawara) (1694) [poetry] (on 4 lists)
The Detached Room (Betsuzashiki) (1694) [poetry?] (on 4 lists)
The Monkey’s Raincoat, Continued (Zoku Sarumino) (1698) [poetry] (on 4 lists)

CHIKAMATSU MONZAEMON (1653-1725) [Japan]
The Love Suicides at Sonezaki (1703) [drama] (on 4 lists)

DANIEL DEFOE (1659-1731) [England]
Robinson Crusoe (1719) [fiction: novel] (on 10 lists)
Moll Flanders (1722) [fiction: novel] (on 5 lists)

JONATHAN SWIFT (1667-1745) [Ireland, England]
Gulliver’s Travels (1726) [fiction: novel] (on 17 lists)

WILLIAM CONGREVE (1670-1729) [England]
Love for Love (1695) [drama] (on 3 lists)
The Way of the World (1700) [drama] (on 5 lists)

JOHN GAY (1685-1732) [England]
The Beggar’s Opera (1728) [musical drama/ballad opera] (on 3 lists)

ALEXANDER POPE (1688-1744) [England]
Poems (esp. Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot(on 3 lists)

SAMUEL RICHARDSON (1689-1761) [England]
Pamela (1740) [fiction: novel] (on 4 lists)
Clarissa (1748) [fiction: novel] (on 6 lists)

TAKEDA IZUMO (II) (1691-1756) [Japan]
The Treasury of Loyal Retainers (Kanadehon Chushingura) (c. 1748) [drama] (on 3 lists)

VOLTAIRE (1694-1778) [France]
Candide (1759) [fiction: novel] (on 14 lists)

ABBÉ PRÉVOST (1697-1763) [France]
Manon Lescaut (1731) [fiction: novel] (on 4 lists)

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN (1706-1790) [US]
The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin (1791) [nonfiction: memoir] (on 3 lists)

HENRY FIELDING (1707-1754) [England]
Joseph Andrews (1742) [fiction: novel] (on 5 lists)
The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling (1749) [fiction: novel] (on 11 lists)

SAMUEL JOHNSON (1709-1784) [England]
The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia (1759) [fiction: novella] (on 5 lists)

DAVID HUME (1711-1776) [Scotland]
Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion (1779) [nonfiction: philosophy] (on 3 lists)

JEAN-JACQUES ROUSSEAU  (1712-1778) [Switzerland, France]
The Social Contract (1762) [non-fiction: political philosophy] (on 4 lists)
Émile, or On Education (1762) [non-fiction: education] (on 3 lists)
Confessions (1781) [non-fiction: memoir] (on 8 lists)

LAURENCE STERNE (1713-1768) [Ireland, England]
The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman (1759) [fiction: novel] (on 14 lists)

DENIS DIDEROT (1713-1784) [France]
Rameau’s Nephew (1761-1772) [nonfiction: philosophy/fiction: dialogue] (on 4 lists)
Jacques the Fatalist (1771-1778) [fiction: novel] (on 7 lists)

CAO XUEQIN (1715-1764) [China]
Dream of the Red Chamber (The Story of the Stone) (1763-1764 [manuscripts], 1791 [1st printed ed.]) [fiction: novel] (on 10 lists)

HORACE WALPOLE (1717-1797) [England]
The Castle of Otranto (1765) [fiction: novel] (on 3 lists)

TOBIAS SMOLLETT (1721-1771) [Scotland]
The Expedition of Humphry Clinker (1771) [fiction: novel] (on 4 lists)

IMMANUEL KANT (1724-1804) [Germany]
Critique of Pure Reason (1781) [nonfiction: philosophy] (on 4 lists)

OLIVER GOLDSMITH (1730-1774) [Ireland, England]
The Vicar of Wakefield (1766) [fiction: novel] (on 6 lists)
She Stoops to Conquer (1773) [drama] (on 6 lists)

PIERRE BEAUMARCHAIS (1732-1784) [France]
The Marriage of Figaro (1784) [drama] (on 3 lists)

EDWARD GIBBON (1737-1794) [England]
The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1776-1788) [nonfiction: history] (on 8 lists)

THOMAS PAINE (1737-1809) [England, Colonial America, France]
Common Sense (1776) [nonfiction: political philosophy] (on 3 lists)
The Rights of Man (1791) [nonfiction: political philosophy] (on 3 lists)

JAMES BOSWELL (1740-1795) [Scotland]
The Life of Samuel Johnson (1791) [nonfiction: biography] (on 9 lists)

PIERRE CHODERLOS DE LACLOS (1741-1803) [France]
Dangerous Liaisons (1782) [fiction: novel] (on 7 lists)

THOMAS JEFFERSON (1743-1826) [US]
The Declaration of Independence (1776) (with others) [nonfiction: political document] (on 3 lists)

JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE (1749-1832) [Germany]
The Sorrows of Young Werther (1774) [fiction: novel] (on 6 lists)
Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship (1796) [fiction: novel] (on 4 lists)
Faust, Part One (1808) [drama] (on 12 lists)
Faust, Part Two (1832) [drama] (on 12 lists)
Poems (esp. The Erlking and Mignon’s Longing(on 4 lists)

RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN (1751-1816) [Ireland, England]
The Rivals (1775) [drama] (on 3 lists)
The School for Scandal (1777) [drama] (on 5 lists)

JAMES MADISON (1751-1836), ALEXANDER HAMILTON (1755-1804) and JOHN JAY (1745-1829) [US]
The Federalist Papers (1787-1788) [nonfiction: political philosophy] (on 4 lists)

FANNY BURNEY (1752-1840) [England]
Evelina (1778) [fiction: novel] (on 3 lists)

WILLIAM BLAKE (1757-1827) [England]
Poetical Sketches (1783) [poetry/prose] (on 3 lists)
Songs of Innocence (1789) [poetry] (on 8 lists)
The Marriage of Heaven and Hell (1790-1793) [poetry/prose] (on 3 lists)
Songs of Experience (1794) [poetry] (on 8 lists)

MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT (1759-1797) [England]
The Vindication of the Rights of Women (1792) [nonfiction: political philosophy] (on 5 lists)

ROBERT BURNS (1759-1796) [Scotland]
Poems (esp. A Red, Red Rose) (on 4 lists)

MARIA EDGEWORTH (1768-1849) [Ireland]
Castle Rackrent (1800) [fiction: novel] )n 3 lists)

FRIEDRICH HÖLDERLIN (1770-1843) [Germany]
Poems (esp. Bread and Wine and In the Middle of Life) (on 4 lists)
Hymns and Fragments [poetry] (on 3 lists)

WILLIAM WORDSWORTH (1770-1850) [UK]
The Prelude (1850) [poetry: epic] (on 4 lists)
Poems (esp. Daffodils (“I wandered lonely as a cloud”) (on 5 lists)

WALTER SCOTT (1771-1832) [UK: Scotland]
Waverley (1814) [fiction: novel] (on 4 lists)
Ivanhoe (1820) [fiction: novel] (on 5 lists)

SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE (1772-1834) [UK]
Poems (esp. Kubla Khan) (on 6 lists)
Essays (on 4 lists)

JANE AUSTEN (1775-1817) [UK]
Sense and Sensibility (1811) [fiction: novel] (on 5 lists)
Mansfield Park
(1814) [fiction: novel] (on 3 lists)
Pride and Prejudice
(1815) [fiction: novel] (on 20 lists)
Emma (1815) [fiction: novel] (on 10 lists)
Persuasion (1818) [fiction: novel] (on 4 lists)

HEINRICH VON KLEIST (1777-1811) [Germany]
Stories (1810-1811) [fiction: stories] (on 5 lists)
Prince of Homburg (1821) [drama] (on 3 lists)

CARL VON CLAUSEWITZ (1780-1831) [Germany]
On War (1832) [non-fiction: military treatise] (on 3 lists)

CHARLES MATURIN (1782-1824) [Ireland]
Melmoth the Wanderer (1820) [fiction: novel] (on 3 lists)

STENDHAL (1783-1842) [France]
The Red and the Black (1830) [fiction: novel] (on 15 lists)
The Charterhouse of Parma (1839) [fiction: novel] (on 8 lists)

THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK (1785-1866) [UK]
Nightmare Abbey (1818) [fiction: novel] (on 3 lists)

ALESSANDRO MANZONI (1785-1873) [Italy]
The Betrothed (1827) [fiction: novel] (on 6 lists)

JACOB GRIMM (1785-1863) [Germany] and WILHELM GRIMM (1786-1859) [Germany]
Fairy Tales (1812-1857) [fiction: stories] (on 4 lists)

LORD BYRON (1788-1824) [UK]
Poems (esp. So, We’ll Go No More A Roving and She Walks In Beauty) (on 3 lists)

JAMES FENIMORE COOPER (1789-1851) [US]
The Last of the Mohicans (1826) [fiction: novel] (on 4 lists)
The Deerslayer (1841) [fiction: novel] (on 3 lists)

PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY (1792-1822) [UK]
Poems (esp. Ozymandias) (on 3 lists)

JOHN KEATS (1795- 1821) [UK]
Poems (esp. La Belle Dame Sans Merci) (on 6 lists)

MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT SHELLEY (1797-1851) [UK]
Frankenstein (1818) [fiction: novel] ) (on 10 lists)

GIACOMO LEOPARDI (1798-1837) [Italy]
Poems (esp. The Canti) (on 7 lists)

ALEXANDER PUSHKIN (1799-1837) [Russia]
Boris Godunov (1825) [drama] (on 3 lists)
Tales (esp. The Queen of Spades) (on 4 lists)

HONORÉ DE BALZAC (1799-1850) [France]
The Wild Ass’s Skin (1831) [fiction: novel] (on 3 lists)
Louis Lambert (1832) [fiction: novel] (on 3 lists)
Eugénie Grandet (1833) [fiction: novel] (on 7 lists)
The Girl with the Golden Eyes (1833) [fiction: novel] (on 3 lists)
Le Père Goriot (1835) [fiction: novel] (on 10 lists)
Ursule Mirouët (1841) [fiction: novel] (on 3 lists)
Lost Illusions (1837-1843) [fiction: novels] (on 3 lists)
Cousin Bette (1846) [fiction: novel] (on 9 lists)
A Harlot High and Low (1847) [fiction: novel] (on 4 lists)

ALEXANDRE DUMAS (1802-1870) [France]
The Three Musketeers (1844) [fiction: novel] (on 7 lists)
The Count of Monte-Cristo (1846) [fiction: novel] (on 10 lists)

VICTOR HUGO (1802-1885) [France]
The Hunchback of Notre Dame (Notre-Dame of Paris) (1831) [fiction: novel] (on 8 lists)
Les Misérables (1862) [fiction: novel] (on 12 lists)

RALPH WALDO EMERSON (1803-1882) [US]
Essays, 1st Series (1841) [non-fiction: essays] (on 5 lists)
Essays, 2nd Series (1844) [non-fiction: essays] (on 5 lists)
Nature (1849) [non-fiction: essay] (on 4 lists)
Representative Men (1850) [non-fiction: essay] (on 5 lists)
The Conduct of Life (1860) [non-fiction: essays] (on 3 lists)
Poems (esp. Concord HymnDays, The Rhodora, and The Snow-storm) (on 5 lists)

NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE (1804-1864) [US]
The Scarlet Letter (1850) [fiction: novel] (on 9 lists)
Tales and Sketches (esp. Young Goodman Brown) (1837-1864) [fiction: stories] (on 3 lists)

ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE (1805-1859) [France]
Democracy in America (1835-1840) [nonfiction: sociology/political science] (on 6 lists)

HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN (1805-1875) [Denmark]
Fairy Tales and Stories (esp. The Emperor’s New Clothes and The Little Mermaid) (1822-1872) [fiction: children’s literature] (on 4 lists)

JOHN STUART MILL (1806-1873) [UK]
On Liberty (1859) [nonfiction: political philosophy] (on 7 lists)

EDGAR ALLAN POE (1809-1849) [US]
The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym (1838) [fiction: novella] (on 3 lists)
Tales (esp. The Tell-Tale Heart and The Cask of Amontillado) (on 10 lists)
Poems (esp. The Raven and Annabel Lee) (on 5 lists)

NIKOLAI GOGOL (1809-1852) [Ukraine, Russia]
The Government Inspector (The Inspector General) (1836) [drama] (on 3 lists)
Dead Souls (1842) [fiction: novel] (on 10 lists)
Tales (esp. The Overcoat and The Nose) (1831-1842) [fiction: stories] (on 3 lists)

CHARLES DARWIN (1809-1882) [UK]
On t
he Origin of Species (1859) [nonfiction: science] (on 12 lists)

ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON (1809-1892) [UK]
Poems (esp. The Charge of the Light Brigade) [poetry] (on 5 lists)

ELIZABETH GASKELL (1810-1865) [UK]
Mary Barton (1848) [fiction: novel] (on 3 lists)
North and South (1854-1855) [fiction: novel] (on 3 lists)

WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY (1811-1863) [UK]
Vanity Fair (1848) [fiction: novel] (on 11 lists)

HARRIET BEECHER STOWE (1811-1896) [US]
Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1851) [fiction: novel] (on 6 lists)

CHARLES DICKENS (1812-1870) [UK]
The Pickwick Papers (1837) [fiction: novel] (on 6 lists)
Oliver Twist (1838) [fiction: novel] (on 6 lists)
A Christmas Carol (1843) [fiction: novel] (on 7 lists)
David Copperfield (1849-1850) [fiction: novel] (on 13 lists)
Bleak House (1852-1853) [fiction: novel] (on 8 lists)
Hard Times (1854) [fiction: novel] (on 5 lists)
Little Dorrit (1857) [fiction: novel] (on 4 lists)
A Tale of Two Cities (1859) [fiction: novel] (on 8 lists)
Great Expectations (1860-1861) [fiction: novel] (on 12 lists)
Our Mutual Friend (1864-1864) [fiction: novel] (on 3 lists)

ROBERT BROWNING (1812-1889) [UK]
Poems (esp. My Last Duchess) [poetry] (on 3 lists)

IVAN GONCHAROV (1812-1891) [Russia]
Oblomov (1859) [fiction: novel] (on 5 lists)

MIKHAIL LERMONTOV (1814-1841) [Russia]
 A Hero of Our Time (1839, pub. 1840, revised 1841) [fiction: novel] (on 3 lists)

ANTHONY TROLLOPE (1815-1882) [UK]
The Warden (1855) [fiction: novel] (on 3 lists)
Barchester Towers (1857) [fiction: novel] (on 3 lists)
The Last Chronicle of Barset (1867) [fiction: novel] (on 4 lists)
Phineas Finn (1869) [fiction: novel] (on 3 lists)
The Way We Live Now (1875) [fiction: novel] (on 3 lists)

CHARLOTTE BRONTË (1816-1855) [UK]
Jane Eyre (1847) [fiction: novel] (on 15 lists)

HENRY DAVID THOREAU (1817-1862) [US]
Walden (1854) [nonfiction: memoir/philosophy] (on 9 lists)

EMILY BRONTË (1818-1848) [UK]
Wuthering Heights (1847) [fiction: novel] (on 16 lists)

KARL MARX (1818-1883) and FRIEDRICH ENGELS (1820-1895) [Germany]
The Communist Manifesto (1848) [nonfiction: political philosophy] (on 10 lists)
Das Kapital (Capital) (1867-1894) [non-fiction: economics] (on 5 lists)
(Volume 1 by Marx; Volumes 2 and 3 by Engels based on Marx’s notes)

IVAN TURGENEV (1818-1883) [Russia]
First Love (1860) [fiction: novella] (on 3 lists)
Fathers and Sons (1862) [fiction: novel] (on 8 lists)

FREDERICK DOUGLASS (1818-1895) [US]
Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave (1845) [nonfiction: memoir] (on 5 lists)

GEORGE ELIOT (1819-1880) [UK]
Adam Bede (1859) [fiction: novel] (on 3 lists)
The Mill on the Floss (1860) [fiction: novel] (on 6 lists)
Silas Marner (1861) [fiction: novel] (on 6 lists)
Middlemarch (1871-1872) [fiction: novel] (on 16 lists)
Daniel Deronda (1876) [fiction: novel] (on 3 lists)

HERMAN MELVILLE (1819-1891) [US]
Moby-Dick (1851) [fiction: novel] (on 22 lists)
Billy Budd (c. 1891, pub. 1924) [fiction: novel] (on 5 lists)
Stories (incl. Bartleby the Scrivener) (on 4 lists)

WALT WHITMAN (1819-1892) [US]
Leaves of Grass (1855) [poetry] (on 11 lists)

THEODOR FONTANE (1819-1898) [German]
Effi Briest (1896) [fiction: novel] (on 4 lists)

CHARLES BAUDELAIRE (1821-1867) [France]
Flowers of Evil (1857) [poetry] (on 5 lists)

GUSTAVE FLAUBERT (1821-1880) [France]
Madame Bovary (1857) [fiction: novel] (on 21 lists)
Sentimental Education (1869) [fiction: novel] (on 9 lists)

FYODOR DOSTOEVSKY (1821-1881) [Russia]
Crime and Punishment (1866) [fiction: novel] (on 19 lists)
The Brothers Karamazov (1880) [fiction: novel] (on 18 lists)
The Idiot (1869) [fiction: novel] (on 9 lists)
The Possessed (The Devils) (1872) [fiction: novel] (on 8 lists)
Notes from the Underground (1864) [fiction: novel] (on 4 lists)

MATTHEW ARNOLD (1822-1888) [UK]
Poems (esp. Dover Beach and The Scholar Gipsy) (on 3 lists)

ALEXANDER OSTROVSKY (1823-1886) [Russia]
The Storm (1860) [drama] (on 3 lists)

WILKIE COLLINS (1824-1889) [UK]
The Woman in White (1860) [fiction: novel] (on 6 lists)
The Moonstone (1868) [fiction: novel] (on 5 lists)

LEW WALLACE (1827-1905) [US]
Ben-Hur (1880) [fiction: novel] (on 3 lists)

JULES VERNE (1828-1905) [France]
Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea (1870) [fiction: novel] (on 5 lists)
Around the World In Eighty Days (1873) [fiction: novel] (on 3 lists)

HENRIK IBSEN (1828-1906) [Norway]
Brand (1866) [drama] (on 3 lists)
Peer Gynt
(1867) [drama] (on 5 lists)
A Doll’s House (1879) [drama] (on 11 lists)
Ghosts (1881) [drama] (on 3 lists)
The Wild Duck (1885) [drama] (on 3 lists)
Hedda Gabler (1890) [drama] (on 5 lists)
The Master Builder (1892) [drama] (on 4 lists)

LEO TOLSTOY (1828-1910) [Russia]
War and Peace (1869) [fiction: novel] (on 22 lists)
Anna Karenina (1877) [fiction: novel] (on 24 lists)
The Death of Ivan Ilych (1886) [fiction: novella] (on 7 lists)
The Kreutzer Sonata (1889) [fiction: novella] (on 4 lists)

EMILY DICKINSON (1830-1886) [US]
Poems (esp. Hope” Is the Thing with feathers) (on 7 lists)

CHRISTINA ROSSETTI (1830-1894) [UK]
Poems (esp. Remember) (on 4 lists)

NIKOLAI LESKOV (1831-1895) [Russia]
Tales (esp. The Enchanted Wanderer) (on 3 lists)

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT (1832-1888) [US]
Little Women (1868) [fiction: novel] (on 9 lists)

LEWIS CARROLL (1832-1898) [UK]
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1865) [fiction: novel] (on 15 lists)
Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There (1871) [fiction: novel] (on 8 lists)

WILLIAM MORRIS (1834-1896) [UK]
News from Nowhere (1890) [fiction: novel] (on 3 lists)

SAMUEL BUTLER (1835-1902) [UK]
Erewhon (1872) [fiction: novel] (in 3 lists)
The Way of All Flesh (c. 1889) [fiction: novel] (on 4 lists)

MARK TWAIN (1835-1910) [US]
The Adventure of Tom Sawyer (1876) [fiction: novel] (on 3 lists)
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884) [fiction: novel] (on 19 lists)

ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE (1837-1909) [UK]
Poems (esp. A Ballad of Death) (on 3 lists)

HENRY ADAMS (1838-1918) [US]
The Education of Henry Adams (1918) [nonfiction: memoir] (on 8 lists)

ÉMILE ZOLA (1840-1902) [France]
Thérèse Raquin (1867) [fiction: novel] (on 4 lists)
L’Assommoir (1877) [fiction: novel] (on 3 lists)
Nana (1880) [fiction: novel] (on 3 lists)
Germinal (1885) [fiction: novel] (on 5 lists)

GIOVANNI VERGA (1840-1922) [Italy]
Little Novels of Sicily (1883) [fiction: novel] (on 3 lists)
The House by the Medlar Tree (1890) [fiction: novel] (on 3 lists)

THOMAS HARDY (1840-1928) [UK]
Far From the Madding Crowd (1874) [fiction: novel] (on 5 lists)
The Return of the Native (1878) [fiction: novel] (on 5 lists)
The Mayor of Casterbridge (1886) [fiction: novel] (on 6 lists)
Tess of the D’Urbervilles (1891) [fiction: novel] (on 8 lists)
Jude the Obscure (1895) [fiction: novel] (on 7 lists)

WILLIAM JAMES (1842-1910) [US]
The Principles of Psychology (1890) [nonfiction: psychology] (on 3 lists)
The Varieties of Religious Experience
(1902) [nonfiction: psychology] (on 6 lists)
Pragmatism (1907) [nonfiction: philosophy] (on 5 lists)

HENRY JAMES (1843-1916) [US, UK]
The Bostonians (1886) [fiction: novel] (on 3 lists)
The Portrait of a Lady (1881) [fiction: novel] (on 9 lists)
The Wings of the Dove (1902) [fiction: novel] (on 4 lists)
The Ambassadors (1903) [fiction: novel] (on 7 lists)
The Golden Bowl (1904) [fiction: novel] (on 4 lists)
Short Novels and Tales (incl. The Turn of the Screw and Daisy Miller) (1864-1910) [fiction: stories] (on 9 lists)

BENITO PÉREZ GALDÓS (1843-1920) [Spain]
Fortunata and Jacinta (1886-1887) [fiction: novel] (on 3 lists)
Misericordia (1897) [fiction: novel] (on 3 lists)

GERARD MANLEY HOPKINS (1844-1889) [UK]
Poems (esp. The Windhover) (on 5 lists)

FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE (1844-1900) [Germany]
Thus Spake Zarathustra (1883) [nonfiction: philosophy] (on 6 lists)
Beyond Good and Evil (1886) [nonfiction: philosophy] (on 4 lists)

JOSÉ MARIA DE EÇA DE QUEIROZ
(1845-1900) [Portugal]
The Maias (1888) [fiction: novel] (on 3 lists)

BRAM STOKER (1847-1912) [Ireland]
Dracula (1897) [fiction: novel] (on 9 lists)

GEORGE GROSSMITH (1847-1912) and WEEDON GROSSMITH (1854-1919) [UK]
Diary of A Nobody (1892) [fiction: novel] (on 3 lists)

AUGUST STRINDBERG (1849-1912) [Sweden]
The Red Room (1880) [fiction: novel] (on 3 lists)
The Father (1887) [drama] (on 4 lists)
The People of Hemsö (1887) [fiction: novel] (on 3 lists)
Miss Julie (1888) [drama] (on 5 lists)
A Dream Play (1901) [drama] (on 3 lists)
The Dance of Death (1901) [drama] (on 3 lists)

The Ghost Sonata (1907) [drama] (on 4 lists)

GUY DE MAUPASSANT (1850-1893) [France]
Stories (esp. The Necklace) [fiction: stories] (on 5 lists)

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON  (1850-1894) [UK: Scotland]
Treasure Island (1883) [fiction: novel] (on 8 lists)
Kidnapped (1886) [fiction: novel] (on 4 lists)
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1886) [fiction: novella] (on 4 lists)
The Master of Ballantrae (1889) [fiction: novel] (on 3 lists)

KATE CHOPIN (1850-1904) [US]
The Awakening (1899) [fiction: novel] (on 5 lists)

ARTHUR RIMBAUD (1854-1891) [France]
The Drunken Boat (Le Bateau Ivre) (1871) [poetry] (on 3 lists)
A Season in Hell (Un Saison en Enfer) (1873) [poetry] (on 5 lists)
Illuminations (1874) [poetry] (on 3 lists)

OSCAR WILDE (1854-1900) [Ireland]
The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890) [fiction: novel] (on 8 lists)
The Importance of Being Earnest (1899) [drama] (on 6 lists)
De Profundis (1897, pub. 1905) [non-fiction: memoir] (on 3 lists)

JAMES GEORGE FRAZER (1854-1941) [UK: Scotland]
The Golden Bough (1890) [nonfiction: anthropology] (on 4 lists)

SIGMUND FREUD (1856-1939) [Austria]
The Interpretation of Dreams (1899) [nonfiction: psychology] (on 11 lists)
Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality (1905) [nonfiction: psychology] (on 5 lists)
Civilization and its Discontents (1930) [nonfiction: political philosophy] (on 5 lists)

GEORGE BERNARD SHAW (1856-1950) [Ireland]
Arms and the Man (1894) [drama] (on 3 lists)
Man and Superman (1902-1903) [drama] (on 5 lists)
Major Barbara (1905) [drama] (on 5 lists)
Pygmalion (1912-1913) [drama] (on 4 lists)
Heartbreak House (1919) [drama] (on 3 lists)
Saint Joan (1924) [drama] (on 8 lists)

JOSEPH CONRAD
(1857-1924) [Poland, UK] [English]
Lord Jim (1900) [fiction: novel] (on 8 lists)
Heart of Darkness (1902) [fiction: novella] (on 16 lists)
Nostromo (1904) [fiction: novel] (on 10 lists)
The Secret Agent (1907) [fiction: novel] (on 5 lists)
Under Western Eyes (1911) [fiction: novel] (on 3 lists)

ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE (1859-1930) [UK: Scotland]
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (1892) [fiction: stories] (on 4 lists)
The Hound of the Baskervilles (1902) [fiction: novel] (on 5 lists)
The Casebook of Sherlock Holmes (1927) [fiction: stories] (on 3 lists)

KENNETH GRAHAME (1859-1932) [UK: Scotland]
A Wind in the Willows (1908) [fiction: novel] (on 5 lists)

KNUT HAMSUN (1859-1952) [Norway]
Hunger (1890) [fiction: novel] (on 9 lists)

ANTON CHEKHOV (1860-1904) [Russia]
The Seagull (1896) [drama] (on 3 lists)
Uncle Vanya (1899-1900) [drama] (on 5 lists)
Three Sisters (1901) [drama] (on 4 lists)
The Cherry Orchard (1904) [drama] (on 11 lists)
Tales (incl. Ward Number Six and The Lady with the Dog) (1883-1903) [fiction: stories] (on 13 lists)

ITALO SVEVO (1861-1928) [Italy]
Zeno’s Conscience (The Confessions of Zeno) (1923) [fiction: novel] (on 7 lists)

RABINDRANATH TAGORE (1861-1941) [India] [Bengali]
— Poems (esp. Endless Time (Gitanjali #1); A Moment’s Indulgence (Gitanjali #5); The Lotus (Gitanjali #20); and The Gardener #38 (“My Love Once upon a Time”) (on 5 lists)
— Stories (esp. Kabuliwallah (The Fruitseller from Kabul), Kshudita Pashan (The Hungry Stones), and Nastanirh (The Broken Nest)) (on 3 lists)

EDITH WHARTON (1862-1937) [US]
The House of Mirth (1905) [fiction: novel] (on 8 lists)
Ethan Frome (1911) [fiction: novel] (on 4 lists)
The Age of Innocence (1920) [fiction: novel] (on 12 lists)

MAX WEBER (1864-1920) [Germany]
The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (1904) [nonfiction: history/economics] (on 3 lists)

RUDYARD KIPLING (1865-1936) [UK]
Kim (1901) [fiction: novel] (on 7 lists)

WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS (1865-1939) [Ireland]
Poems (esp. When You Are Old and The Second Coming) (on 9 lists)

H. G. WELLS (1866-1946) [UK]
The Time Machine (1895) [fiction: novel] (on 6 lists)
The Invisible Man (1897) [fiction: novel] (on 3 lists)
The War of the Worlds (1898) [fiction: novel] (on 7 lists)

NATSUME SOSEKI (1867-1916) [Japan]
Kokoro (1914) [fiction: novel] (on 6 lists)

ARNOLD BENNETT (1867-1931) [UK]
The Old Wives’ Tale (1908) [fiction: novel] (on 4 lists)

JOHN GALSWORTHY (1867-1933) [UK]
The Forsyte Saga (1906-1921) [fiction: novels] (on 5 lists)

LUIGI PIRANDELLO (1867-1936) [Italy]
Six Characters in Search of an Author (1921) [drama] (on 7 lists)

EDITH HAMILTON (1867-1963) [Germany, US] [English]
Mythology (1942) [nonfiction: history/criticism] (on 4 lists)

EDMOND ROSTAND (1868-1918) [France]
Cyrano de Bergerac (1897) [drama] (on 6 lists)

W.E.B. DU BOIS (1868-1963) [US]
The Souls of Black Folk (1903) [nonfiction: sociology] (on 6 lists)

WILLIAM STRUNK (1869-1946) [US] & E.B. WHITE (1899-1985) [US]
The Elements of Style (1918) [nonfiction: writing] (on 4 lists)

BOOTH TARKINGTON (1869-1946) [US]
The Magnificent Ambersons (1918) [fiction: novel] (on 3 lists)

MOHANDAS GANDHI (1869-1948) [India] [Gujarati]
An Autobiography: The Story of My Experiments with Truth (1929) [nonfiction: memoir] (on 5 lists)

ANDRÉ GIDE (1869-1951) [France]
The Counterfeiters (1925) [fiction: novel] (on 5 lists)

STEPHEN CRANE (1871-1900) [US]
The Red Badge of Courage (1895) [fiction: novel] (on 6 lists)

JOHN MILLINGTON SYNGE (1871-1909) [Ireland]
Riders to the Sea (1904) [drama] (on 3 lists)
The Playboy of the Western World (1907) [drama] (on 4 lists)

MARCEL PROUST (1871-1922) [France]
In Search of Lost Time (Remembrance of Things Past) (1913-1927) [fiction: novels] (on 23 lists)

THEODORE DREISER (1871-1945) [US]
Sister Carrie (1900) [fiction: novel] (on 6 lists)
An American Tragedy (1925) [fiction: novel] (on 7 lists)

MAX BEERBOHM (1872-1956) [UK]
Zuleika Dobson (1911) [fiction: novel] (on 3 lists)

FORD MADOX FORD (1873-1939) [UK]
The Good Soldier (1915) [fiction: novel] (on 7 lists)
 Parade’s End (1924-1928) [fiction: novel] (on 4 lists)

WILLA CATHER (1873-1947) [US]
My Ántonia (1918) [fiction: novel] (on 7 lists)
A Lost Lady (1923) [fiction: novel] (on 3 lists)
Death Comes for the Archbishop (1927) [fiction: novel] (on 4 lists)

LUCY MAUD MONTGOMERY (1874-1942) [Canada]
Anne of Green Gables (1908) [fiction: novel] (on 3 lists)

GERTRUDE STEIN (1874-1946) [US, France] [English]
The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas (1933) [nonfiction: biography] (on 9 lists)

ROBERT FROST (1874-1963) [US]
Poems (incl. Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening) (c. 1894-1963) (on 5 lists)

SOMERSET MAUGHAM (1874-1965) [UK]
Of Human Bondage (1915) [fiction: novel] (on 6 lists)

RAINER MARIA RILKE (1875-1926) [Czech Republic, Austria] [German]
New Poems: First Part and Other Part (1907) [poetry] (on 3 lists)
Selected Poetry (1894-1926) [poetry] (on 3 lists)

THOMAS MANN (1875-1955) [Germany]
Buddenbrooks (1901) [fiction: novel] (on 9 lists)
Death in Venice (1912) [fiction: novella] (on 7 lists)
The Magic Mountain (1924) [fiction: novel] (on 14 lists)
Doctor Faustus (1947) [fiction: novel] (on 5 lists)

JACK LONDON (1876-1916) [US]
The Call of the Wild (1903) [fiction: novel] (on 8 lists)

SHERWOOD ANDERSON (1876-1941) [US]
Winesburg, Ohio (1919) [fiction: stories] (on 6 lists)

HERMAN HESSE (1877-1962) [Germany, Switzerland] [German]
Siddhartha (1922) [fiction: novel] (on 4 lists)
Steppenwolf
(1927) [fiction: novel] (on 4 lists)
The Glass Bead Game (Magister Ludi) (1943) [fiction: novel] (on 4 lists)

ALFRED DÖBLIN (1878-1957) [Germany]
Berlin Alexanderplatz (1929) [fiction: novel] (on 4 lists)

UPTON SINCLAIR (1878-1968) [US]
The Jungle (1906) [fiction: novel] (on 4 lists)

WALLACE STEVENS (1879-1955) [US]
Collected Poems (1921-1954) [poetry] (on 6 lists)

ALBERT EINSTEIN (1879-1955) [Germany, US] [German]
Relativity: The Special and the General Theory (1916) [nonfiction: science] (on 4 lists)

E.M. FORSTER (1879-1970) [UK]
A Room With a View (1908) [fiction: novel] (on 4 lists)
Howards End (1910) [fiction: novel] (on 7 lists)
A Passage to India (1924) [fiction: novel] (on 11 lists)

LYTTON STRACHEY (1880-1932) [UK]
Eminent Victorians (1918) [nonfiction: biography] (on 3 lists)

PREMCHAND (1880-1936) [India] [Hindi, Urdu]
Stories (esp. Idgah and Kafan) [fiction: stories] (on 3 lists)

ROBERT MUSIL (1880-1942) [Austria]
The Confusions of Young Törless (1906) [fiction: novel] (on 3 lists)
The Man Without Qualities (1930, 1933, 1943) [fiction: novel] (on 8 lists)

SEAN O’CASEY (1880-1964) [Ireland]
Juno and the Paycock (1924) [drama] (on 5 lists)
The Plough and the Stars (1926) [drama] (on 4 lists)

LU XUN (Lu Hsun) (1881-1936) [China]
The True Story of Ah Q (1921-1922) [fiction: novella] (on 4 lists)
Stories (esp. A Madman’s Diary) [fiction: stories] (on 8 lists)

JAMES JOYCE (1882-1941) [Ireland]
Dubliners (1914) [fiction: stories] (on 6 lists)
Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916) [fiction: novel] (on 12 lists)
Ulysses (1922) [fiction: novel] (on 22 lists)
Finnegan’s Wake (1939) [fiction: novel] (on 7 lists)

VIRGINIA WOOLF (1882-1941) [UK]
Mrs. Dalloway (1925) [fiction: novel] (on 11 lists)
To the Lighthouse (1927) [fiction: novel] (on 14 lists)
A Room of One’s Own (1929) [non-fiction: essay] (on 8 lists)
Orlando: A Biography (1928) [fiction: novel] (on 5 lists)
The Waves (1931) [fiction: novel] (on 4 lists)

JEAN GIRAUDOUX (1882-1944) [France]
The Madwoman of Chaillot (1945) [drama] (on 4 lists)

A.A. MILNE (1882-1956) [UK]
Winnie-the-Pooh (1926) [fiction: novel] (on 6 lists)

JAROSLAV HAŠEK (1883-1923) [Czech Republic]
The Good Soldier Švejk (1926) [fiction: novel] (on 5 lists)

FRANZ KAFKA (1883-1924) [Czech Republic] [German]
The Trial (pub. 1925) [fiction: novel] (on 18 lists)
The Castle (pub. 1926) [fiction: novel] (on 9 lists)
Amerika (pub. 1927) [fiction: novel] (on 3 lists)
Stories (incl. The Metamorphosis) (fiction: stories) (on 17 lists)

JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES (1883-1946) [UK]
The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money (1936) [nonfiction: economics] (on 7 lists)

NIKOS KAZANTZAKIS (1883-1957) [Greece]
Zorba the Greek (1946) [fiction: novel] (on 5 lists)

WILLIAM CARLOS WILLIAMS (1883-1963) [US]
Paterson (1946-1958) [poetry] (on 3 lists)
Poems (incl. The Red Wheelbarrow) (on 3 lists)

D. H. LAWRENCE (1885-1930) [UK]
Sons and Lovers (1913) [fiction: novel] (on 13 lists)
The Rainbow (1915) [fiction: novel] (on 7 lists)
Women in Love (1920) [fiction: novel] (on 7 lists)
Lady Chatterley’s Lover (1928) [fiction: novel] (on 5 lists)

SINCLAIR LEWIS (1885-1951) [US]
Main Street (1920) [fiction: novel] (on 5 lists)
Babbitt (1922) [fiction: novel] (on 7 lists)

ISAK DINESEN (1885-1962) [Denmark]
Out of Africa (1937) [non-fiction: memoir] (on 10 lists)

EZRA POUND (1885-1972) [US, UK, Italy]
The Cantos (1917–1972) [poetry] (on 4 lists)

HENRY ALAIN-FOURNIER (1886-1914) [France]
Le Grand Meaulnes (1913) [fiction: novel] (on 3 lists)

HERMANN BROCH (1886-1951) [Austria]
The Death of Virgil (1945) [fiction: novel] (on 3 lists)

JUN’ICHIRŌ TANIZAKI (1886-1965) [Japan]
The Makioka Sisters (1948) [fiction: novel] (on 3 lists)

MARIANNE MOORE (1887-1972) [US]
Poems (esp. Poetry and The Fish) (on 5 lists)

KATHERINE MANSFIELD (1888-1923) [New Zealand, UK]
Stories (esp. The Garden Party) (1912-1923) [fiction: stories] (on 3 lists)

FERNANDO PESSOA (1888-1935) [Portugal]
The Book of Disquiet (1935) [fiction: novel] (on 5 lists)

T.E. LAWRENCE (1888-1935) [UK]
The Seven Pillars of Wisdom (1922) [nonfiction: memoir] (on 3 lists)

EUGENE O’NEILL (1888-1953) [US]
Mourning Becomes Electra (1931) [drama] (on 3 lists)
The Iceman Cometh (1939) [drama] (on 4 lists)
Long Day’s Journey Into Night (1940) [drama] (on 8 lists)

RAYMOND CHANDLER (1888-1959) [US]
The Big Sleep (1939) [fiction: novel] (on 7 lists)
The Long Goodbye (1953) [fiction: novel] (on 3 lists)

T. S. ELIOT (1888-1965) [US, UK]
Murder in the Cathedral (1935) [drama] (on 6 lists)
The Cocktail Party (1949) [drama] (on 3 lists)
Poems (incl. The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock and The Waste Land) (on 8 lists)
Essays [non-fiction: essays] (on 3 lists)

LUDWIG WITTGENSTEIN (1889 –1951) [Austria, UK] [German]
Philosophical Investigations (1953) [nonfiction: philosophy] (on 3 lists)

JEAN COCTEAU (1889-1963) [France]
Orpheus (1925) [drama] (on 3 lists)
Les Enfants Terribles (1929) [fiction: novel] (on 4 lists)

ANNA AKHMATOVA (1889-1966) [USSR]
Poems (incl. Requiem) (on 4 lists)

BORIS PASTERNAK (1890-1960) [USSR]
Doctor Zhivago (1957) [fiction: novel] (on 9 lists)

AGATHA CHRISTIE (1890-1976) [UK]
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd (1926) [fiction: novel] (on 3 lists)
And Then There Were None (1939) [fiction: novel] (on 4 lists)

JEAN RHYS (1890-1979) [Dominica, UK]
Wide Sargasso Sea (1966) [fiction: novel] (on 5 lists)

KATHERINE ANNE PORTER (1890-1980) [US]
Collected Stories (1965) [fiction: short stories] (on 4 lists)

MIKHAIL BULGAKOV (1891-1940) [USSR]
The Master and Margarita (1929-1939; pub. 1966) [fiction: novel] (on 9 lists)

ZORA NEALE HURSTON (1891-1960) [US]
Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937) [fiction: novel] (on 8 lists)

HENRY MILLER (1891-1980) [US]
Tropic of Cancer (1934) [fiction: novel] (on 8 lists)

AKUTAGAWA RYUNOSUKE (1892-1927) [Japan]
Rashomon and Other Stories (1915) [fiction: short stories] (on 3 lists)

REINHOLD NIEBUHR (1892-1971) [US]
The Nature and Destiny of Man (1943) [nonfiction: religion] (on 3 lists)

PEARL BUCK (1892-1973) [US]
The Good Earth (1931) [fiction: novel] (on 5 lists)

J.R.R. TOLKIEN (1892-1973) [UK]
The Hobbit (1937) [fiction: fantasy novel] (on 3 lists)
The Lord of the Rings (1956) [fiction: novels] (on 12 lists)

IVO ANDRIĆ (1892-1975) [Bosnia, Serbia] [Serbo-Croatian]
The Bridge on the Drina (1945) [fiction: novel] (on 3 lists)

JAMES M. CAIN (1892-1977) [US]
The Postman Always Rings Twice (1934) [fiction: crime novel] (on 4 lists)

REBECCA WEST (1892-1983) [UK]
Black Lamb and Grey Falcon (1941) [nonfiction: travel/history] (on 4 lists)

VLADIMIR MAYAKOVSKY (1893-1930) [USSR]
The Bedbug (1929) [drama] (on 3 lists)
Poems (esp. A Cloud in Trousers and Past One O’Clock) (on 4 lists)

MAO ZEDONG (1893-1976) [China]
Quotations From Chairman Mao Tse-Tung (1964-1976) [nonfiction: sayings] (on 6 lists)

JOSEPH ROTH (1894-1939) [Austria]
The Radetzky March (1932) [fiction: novel] (on 3 lists)

ISAAK BABEL (1894–1940) [USSR]
Stories (esp. The Story of My Dovecot and My First Goose) [fiction: stories] (on 4 lists)

DASHIELL HAMMETT (1894-1961) [US]
The Maltese Falcon (1929) [fiction: novel] (on 6 lists)

LOUIS-FERDINAND CÉLINE (1894-1961) [France]
Journey to the End of the Night (1932) [fiction: novel] (on 11 lists)

ALDOUS HUXLEY (1894-1963) [UK]
Brave New World (1932) [fiction: novel] (on 14 lists)
Point Counter Point (1928) [fiction: novel] (on 3 lists)

DAVID JONES (1895-1974) [UK]
In Parenthesis (1937) [poetry: narrative] (on 3 lists)

ROBERT GRAVES (1895-1985) [UK]
Goodbye to All That (1929) [nonfiction: memoir] (on 3 lists)
I, Claudius (1934) [fiction: novel] (on 4 lists)

LEWIS MUMFORD (1895-1990) [US]
The City in History (1961) [non-fiction: history/urban studies] (on 3 lists)

F. SCOTT FITZGERALD (1896-1940) [US]
The Great Gatsby (1925) [fiction: novel] (on 20 lists)
Tender is the Night (1934) [fiction: novel] (on 7 lists)

GIUSEPPE TOMASI DI LAMPEDUSA (1896-1957) [Italy]
The Leopard (1958) [fiction: novel] (on 6 lists)

ANDRÉ BRETON  (1896-1966) [France]
Nadja (1928) [fiction: novel] (on 5 lists)

JOHN DOS PASSOS (1896-1970) [US]
The 42nd Parallel (USA Trilogy I) (1930) [fiction: novel] (on 8 lists)
1919 (USA Trilogy II) (1932) [fiction: novel] (on 8 lists)
The Big Money (USA Trilogy III) (1936) [fiction: novel] (on 8 lists)

WILLIAM FAULKNER (1897-1962) [US]
The Sound and the Fury (1929) [fiction: novel] (on 17 lists)
As I Lay Dying (1930) [fiction: novel] (on 8 lists)
Light in August (1932) [fiction: novel] (on 7 lists)
Absalom, Absalom! (1936) [fiction: novel] (on 12 lists)
Stories (esp. A Rose for Emily and That Evening Sun Go Down) (fiction: stories) (on 5 lists)

THORNTON WILDER (1897-1975) [US]
The Bridge of San Luis Rey (1927) [fiction: novel] (on 4 lists)
Our Town (1938) [drama] (on 6 lists)
The Skin of Our Teeth (1942) [drama] (on 4 lists)

FEDERICO GARCÍA LORCA (1898-1936) [Spain]
Gypsy Ballads (1928) [poetry] (on 5 lists)
Blood Wedding (1932) [drama] (on 4 lists)
Selected Poems (1918-1936) [poetry] (on 4 lists)
The House of Bernarda Alba (1936) [drama] (on 3 lists)

BERTOLT BRECHT (1898-1956) [German]
Mother Courage and Her Children (1938-1939) [drama] (on 5 lists)
The Caucasian Chalk Circle (1943-1945) [drama] (on 5 lists)
The Good Woman of Setzuan (1939-1942) [drama] (on 4 lists)
The Threepenny Opera (1928) [musical drama] (with music by Kurt Weill) (on 3 lists)

C.S. LEWIS (1898-1963) [UK]
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (Chronicles of Narnia I) (1950) [fiction: novel] (on 5 lists)

ERICH MARIA REMARQUÉ (1898-1970) [German]
All Quiet on the Western Front (1929) [fiction: novel] (on 8 lists)

NEVIL SHUTE (1899-1960) [UK, Australia]
A Town Like Alice (1950) [fiction: novel] (on 3 lists)

ERNEST  HEMINGWAY (1899-1961) [US]
The Sun Also Rises (1926) [fiction: novel] (on 14 lists)
A Farewell to Arms (1929) [fiction: novel] (on 7 lists)
For Whom The Bell Tolls (1940) [fiction: novel] (on 8 lists)
The Old Man and the Sea (1952) [fiction: novel] (on 12 lists)
A Moveable Feast (1960, pub. 1964) [non-fiction: memoir] (on 3 lists)
Complete Short Stories (1923-1961, pub. 1987) [fiction: stories] (on 5 lists)

LAO SHE (1899-1966) [China]
Rickshaw Boy (Camel Xiangzi) (1937) [fiction: novel] (on 3 lists)

YASUNARI KAWABATA (1899-1972) [Japan]
Snow Country (1948) [fiction: novel] (on 5 lists)

VLADIMIR NABOKOV (1899-1977) [Russia, Germany, US] [Russian, English]
Speak, Memory (1951) [nonfiction: memoir] (on 5 lists)
Lolita (1955) [fiction: novel] (on 16 lists)
Pale Fire (1962) [fiction: novel] (on 8 lists)

E.B. WHITE (1899-1985) [US]
Charlotte’s Web (1952) [fiction: novel] (on 5 lists)

JORGE LUIS BORGES (1899-1986) [Argentina]
Ficciones (1944) [fiction: stories] (on 13 lists)
The Aleph and Other Stories (1949) [fiction: stories] (on 8 lists)
Dreamtigers (The Maker) (1960) [fiction/non-fiction: stories/essays/poems] (on 7 lists)
Labyrinths (1962) [fiction/non-fiction: stories/essays] (on 13 lists)

THOMAS WOLFE (1900-1938) [US]
Look Homeward, Angel (1929) [fiction: novel] (on 5 lists)

ANTOINE DE SAINT-EXUPÉRY (1900-1944) [France]
The Little Prince (1943) [fiction: children’s literature] (on 12 lists)

MARGARET MITCHELL (1900-1949) [US]
Gone With The Wind (1936) [fiction: novel] (on 11 lists)

ANDRÉ MALRAUX (1901-1976) [France]
Man’s Fate (1933) [fiction: novel] (on 5 lists)

LANGSTON HUGHES (1902-1967) [US]
Poems (esp. Harlem (Dream Deferred)) (on 3 lists)

JOHN STEINBECK (1902-1968) [US]
Of Mice and Men (1937) [fiction: novella] (on 5 lists)
The Grapes of Wrath (1940) [fiction: novel] (on 17 lists)
East of Eden (1952) [fiction: novella] (on 5 lists)

STELLA GIBBONS (1902-1989) [UK]
Cold Comfort Farm (1932) [fiction: novel] (on 3 lists)

ISAAC BASHEVIS SINGER (1902-1991) [US] [Yiddish]
The Family Moskat (1950) [fiction: novel] (on 3 lists)

HALLDÓR LAXNESS (1902-1998) [Iceland]
Independent People (1935) [fiction: novel] (on 6 lists)

NATHANAEL WEST (1903-1940) [US]
Miss Lonelyhearts (1933) [fiction: novel] (on 3 lists)
The Day of the Locust (1939) [fiction: novel] (on 3 lists)

GEORGE ORWELL (1903-1950) [UK]
Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949) [fiction: novel] (on 21 lists)
Animal Farm (1945) [fiction: novel] (on 11 lists)
Homage to Catalonia (1938) [nonfiction: memoir] (on 4 lists)
Essays [nonfiction: essays] (on 3 lists)

EVELYN WAUGH (1903-1966) [UK]
A Handful of Dust (1934) [fiction: novel] (on 4 lists)
Scoop (1938) [fiction: novel] (on 5 lists)
Brideshead Revisited (1945) [fiction: novel] (on 5 lists)

JOHN WYNDHAM (1903-1969) [UK]
Day of the Triffids (1951) [fiction: novel] (on 4 lists)

ERSKINE CALDWELL (1903-1987) [US]
Tobacco Road (1932) [fiction: novel] (on 3 lists)

MARGUERITE YOURCENAR (1903-1987) [Belgium, France] [French]
Memoirs of Hadrian (1951) [fiction: novel] (on 5 lists)

ALAN PATON (1903-1988) [South Africa]
Cry, The Beloved Country (1948) [fiction: novel] (on 5 lists)

BRUNO BETTELHEIM (1903-1990) [Austria, U.S.] [English]
The Uses of Enchantment (1976) [nonfiction: psychology/criticism] (on 4 lists)

PABLO NERUDA (1904-1973) [Chile]
Residence on Earth (1933-1935) [poetry] (on 3 lists)
Canto General (1943) [poetry: narrative] (on 3 lists)
Selected Poems (1923-1974) [poetry] (on 4 lists)

JAMES T. FARRELL (1904-1979) [US]
Young Lonigan (Studs Lonigan Trilogy I) (1932) [fiction: novel] (on 3 lists)
The Young Manhood of Studs Lonigan (Studs Lonigan Trilogy II) (1934) [fiction: novel] (on 3 lists)
Judgment Day (Studs Lonigan Trilogy III) (1935) [fiction: novel] (on 3 lists)

ALEJO CARPENTIER (1904-1980) [Cuba]
The Kingdom of This World (1949) [fiction: novella] (on 3 lists)
The Lost Steps (1953) [fiction: novel] (on 4 lists)

CHRISTOPHER ISHERWOOD (1904-1986) [UK, US]
The Berlin Stories (1945) [fiction: short novels] (on 3 lists)

GRAHAM GREENE (1904-1991) [UK]
Brighton Rock (1938) [fiction: novel] (on 4 lists)
The Power and the Glory (1940) [fiction: novel] (on 5 lists)
The Heart of the Matter (1948) [fiction: novel] (on 5 lists)
The End of the Affair (1951) [fiction: novel] (on 3 lists)
The Quiet American (1955) [fiction: novel] (on 3 lists)

JOHN O’HARA (1905-1970) [US]
Appointment in Samarra (1934) [fiction: novel] (on 4 lists)
Stories (incl. The Doctor’s Son) (fiction: stories) (on 3 lists)

HENRY GREEN (1905-1973) [UK]
Loving (1945) [fiction: novel] (on 5 lists)

JEAN-PAUL SARTRE (1905-1980) [France]
Nausea (1938) [fiction: novel] (on 6 lists)
Being and Nothingness (1943) [nonfiction: philosophy] (on 3 lists)
No Exit (1944) [drama] (on 4 lists)

ARTHUR KOESTLER (1905-1983) [Hungary, UK] [German]
Darkness at Noon (1940) [fiction: novel] (on 4 lists)

LILLIAN HELLMAN (1905-1984) [US]
The Little Foxes (1939) [drama] (on 3 lists)

MIKHAIL SHOLOKHOV (1905-1984) [Russia]
And Quiet Flows the Don (1928-1940) [fiction: novel] (on 3 lists)

ROBERT PENN WARREN (1905-1989) [US]
All the King’s Men (1946) [fiction: novel] (on 8 lists)

ANTHONY POWELL (1905-2000) [UK]
A Dance to the Music of Time (1951-1975) [fiction: novels] (on 3 lists)

T.H. WHITE (1906-1964) [UK]
The Once and Future King (1958) [fiction: novel]

DINO BUZZATI (1906-1972) [Italy]
The Tartar Steppe (1940) [fiction: novel] (on 3 lists)

HANNAH ARENDT (1906-1975) [Germany, US] [English]
The Origins of Totalitarianism (1951) [nonfiction: political philosophy] (on 3 lists)

SAMUEL BECKETT (1906-1989) [Ireland, France] [English, French]
Murphy (1938) [fiction: novel] (on 3 lists)
Molloy (Three Novels I) (1951) [fiction: novel] (on 6 lists)
Malone Dies (Three Novels II) (1951) [fiction: novel] (on 6 lists)
The Unnameable (Three Novels III) (1953) [fiction: novel] (on 6 lists)
Waiting for Godot (1953) [drama] (on 11 lists)
Endgame (1957) [drama] (on 5 lists)
Krapp’s Last Tape (1958) [drama] (on 3 lists)

HENRY ROTH (1906-1995) [US]
Call It Sleep (1934) [fiction: novel] (on 3 lists)

RACHEL CARSON (1907-1964) [US]
Silent Spring (1962) [nonfiction: science/environment] (on 9 lists)

W. H. AUDEN (1907-1973) [UK, US]
Poems (esp. Lullaby) (on 4 lists)

DAPHNE DUMAURIER (1907-1989) [UK]
Rebecca (1938) [fiction: novel] (on 8 lists)

LEON EDEL (1907-1997) [US, Canada]
Henry James: A Life (1953-1972) [nonfiction: biography] (on 3 lists)

ASTRID LINDGREN (1907-2002) [Sweden]
Pippi Longstocking (1945) [fiction: novel] (on 3 lists)

RICHARD WRIGHT (1908-1960) [US]
Native Son (1940) [fiction: novel] (on 10 lists)
Black Boy (1945) [nonfiction: memoir] (on 3 lists)

JOÃO GUIMARÃES ROSA (1908-1967) [Brazil]
The Devil to Pay in the Backlands (1956) [fiction: novel] (on 4 lists)

WILLIAM SAROYAN (1908-1981) [US]
The Time of Your Life (1939) [drama] (on 3 lists)

SIMONE DE BEAUVOIR (1908-1986) [France]
The Second Sex (1949) [nonfiction: sociology] (on 9 lists)

WILLIAM MAXWELL (1908-2000) [US]
So Long, See You Tomorrow (1980) [fiction: novel] (on 4 lists)

DEE BROWN (1908-2002) [US]
Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee (1970) [nonfiction: history] (on 3 lists)

CLAUDE LÉVI-STRAUSS (1908-2009) [France]
Tristes Tropiques (1955) [nonfiction: anthropology/memoir] (on 3 lists)

JAMES AGEE (1909-1955) [US] 
Let Us Now Praise Famous Men (with Walker Evans) (1941) [nonfiction: journalism/essay] (on 5 lists)
A Death in the Family (1957) [fiction: novel] (on 3 lists)

MALCOLM LOWRY (1909-1957) [UK]
Under the Volcano (1947) [fiction: novel] (on 9 lists)

NELSON ALGREN (1909-1981) [US]
The Man with the Golden Arm (1949) [fiction: novel] (on 3 lists)

WALLACE STEGNER (1909-1993) [US]
Angle of Repose (1971) [fiction: novel] (on 5 lists)

EUGÈNE IONESCO (1909-1994) [Romania, France] [French]
The Bald Soprano (1950) [drama] (on 4 lists)
The Chairs (1952) [drama] (on 3 lists)

ERNST GOMBRICH (1909-2001) [Austria, UK] [English]
The Story of Art (1950) [nonfiction: art history/criticism] (on 4 lists)

JEAN GENET (1910-1986) [France]
Our Lady of the Flowers (1942-1943) [fiction: novel] (on 3 lists)

PAUL BOWLES (1910-1999) [US, Morocco]
The Sheltering Sky (1949) [fiction: novel] (on 3 lists)

JULIEN GRACQ (1910-2007) [France]
The Opposing Shore (1951) [fiction: novel] (on 3 lists)

FLANN O’BRIEN (1911-1966) [Ireland]
At Swim-Two-Birds (1939) [fiction: novel] (on 3 lists)
The Third Policeman (1939-1940) [fiction: novel] (on 3 lists)

MERVYN PEAKE (1911-1968) [UK]
Titus Groan (The Gormenghast Trilogy I) (1946) [fiction: novel] (on 4 lists)
Gormenghast (The Gormenghast Trilogy II) (1950) [fiction: novel] (on 4 lists)
Titus Alone (The Gormenghast Trilogy III) (1959) [fiction: novel] (on 3 lists)

ELIZABETH BISHOP (1911-1979) [US]
The Complete Poems: 1927-1979 (1983) [poetry] (on 3 lists)

TENNESSEE WILLIAMS (1911-1983) [US]
The Glass Menagerie (1944) [drama] (on 4 lists)
A Streetcar Named Desire (1947) [drama] (on 6 lists)
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1955) [drama] ()on 3 lists)

MAX FRISCH (1911-1991) [Switzerland] [German]
I’m Not Stiller (1954) [fiction: novel] (on 4 lists)

WILLIAM GOLDING (1911-1993) [UK]
Lord of the Flies (1954) [fiction: novel] (on 7 lists)

NAGUIB MAHFOUZ (1911-2006) [Egypt] [Arabic]
Palace Walk (The Cairo Trilogy I) (1956) [fiction: novel] (on 4 lists)
Palace of Desire (The Cairo Trilogy II) (1957) [fiction: novel] (on 3 lists)
Sugar Street (The Cairo Trilogy III) (1957) [fiction: novel] (on 3 lists)

JOHN CHEEVER (1912-1982) [US]
The Wapshot Chronicle (1957) [fiction: novel] (on 3 lists)
The Stories of John Cheever (1978) [fiction: short stories] (on 8 lists)

BARBARA TUCHMAN (1912-1989) [US]
The Guns of August (1962) [non-fiction: history] (on 3 lists)

LAWRENCE DURRELL (1912-1990) [UK]
Justine (The Alexandria Quartet I) (1957) [fiction: novel] (on 4 lists)
Balthazar (The Alexandria Quartet II) (1958) [fiction: novel] (on 4 lists)
Mountolive (The Alexandria Quartet III) (1958) [fiction: novel] (on 4 lists)
Clea (The Alexandria Quartet IV) (1960) [fiction: novel] (on 4 lists)

PATRICK WHITE (1912-1990) [Australia]
Voss (1957) [fiction: novel] (on 4 lists)

STUDS TERKEL (1912-2008) [US]
Working (1974) [nonfiction: oral history] (on 3 lists)

ALBERT CAMUS (1913-1960) [France]
The Stranger (1942) [fiction: novel] (on 22 lists)
The Plague (1947) [fiction: novel] (on 7 lists)
The Fall (1956) [fiction: novel] (on 3 lists)

LEWIS THOMAS (1913-1993) [US]
The Lives of a Cell (1974) [nonfiction: science] (on 6 lists)

DYLAN THOMAS (1914-1953) [UK: Wales]
Collected Poems 1934-1952 (1952) [poetry] (on 3 lists)

BERNARD MALAMUD (1914-1986) [US]
The Fixer (1966) [fiction: novel] (on 4 lists)

JOHN HERSEY (1914-1993) [US]
Hiroshima (1946) [nonfiction: journalism] (on 5 lists)

RALPH ELLISON (1914-1994) [US]
Invisible Man (1952) [fiction: novel] (on 18 lists)

MARGUERITE DURAS (1914-1996) [France]
The Lover (1984) [fiction: novel] (on 4 lists)

WILLIAM BURROUGHS (1914-1997) [US]
Naked Lunch (1959) [fiction: novel] (on 3 lists)

OCTAVIO PAZ (1914-1998) [Mexico]
The Labyrinth of Solitude (1963) [nonfiction: essays] (on 4 lists)

ROLAND BARTHES (1915-1980) [France]
Mythologies (1972) [nonfiction: essays] (on 3 lists)

SAUL BELLOW (1915-2005) [US]
The Adventures of Augie March (1953) [fiction: novel] (on 6 lists)
Seize the Day (1956) [fiction: novel] (on 3 lists)
Henderson the Rain King (1959) [fiction: novel] (on 4 lists)
Herzog (1964) [fiction: novel] (on 6 lists)
Humboldt’s Gift (1975) [fiction: novel] (on 3 lists)

ARTHUR MILLER (1915-2005) [US]
Death of a Salesman (1949) [drama] (on 6 lists)
The Crucible (1952) [drama] (on 3 lists)

WALKER PERCY (1916-1990) [US]
The Moviegoer (1961) [fiction: novel] (on 5 lists)

SHELBY FOOTE (1916-2005) [US]
The Civil War (1958-1974) [nonfiction: history] (on 3 lists)

CARSON MCCULLERS (1917-1967) [US]
The Heart is a Lonely Hunter (1940) [fiction: novel] (on 6 lists)

ROBERT LOWELL (1917-1977) [US]
Poems (esp. My Last Afternoon with Uncle Devereaux Winslow) (on 3 lists)

JUAN RULFO (1917-1986) [Mexico]
Pedro Páramo (1955) [fiction: novel] (on 4 lists)

ANTHONY BURGESS (1917-1993) [UK]
A Clockwork Orange (1962) [fiction: novel] (on 7 lists)

WALTER JACKSON BATE (1918-1999) [US]
Samuel Johnson (1977) [nonfiction: biography] (on 4 lists)

MURIEL SPARK (1918-2006) [UK: Scotland]
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1961) [fiction: novel] (on 5 lists)

ALEKSANDR SOLZHENITSYN (1918-2008) [Russia]
One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich (1962) [fiction: novel] (on 6 lists)
The Gulag Archipelago (1973) [nonfiction: history/essay] (on 6 lists)
The Cancer Ward (1967) [fiction: novel] (on 4 lists)
The First Circle (1968) [fiction: novel] (on 3 lists)

PRIMO LEVI (1919-1987) [Italy]
If This Is a Man (Survival in Auschwitz) (1947) [non-fiction: memoir] (on 6 lists)
The Periodic Table (1975) [fiction: novel] (on 4 lists)

IRIS MURDOCH (1919-1999) [Ireland, UK]
Under the Net (1954) [fiction: novel] (on 3 lists)
The Sea, The Sea (1978) [fiction: novel] (on 3 lists)

J. D. SALINGER (1919-2010) [US]
The Catcher in the Rye (1951) [fiction: novel] (on 16 lists)

DORIS LESSING (1919-2013) [Zimbabwe, UK]
The Golden Notebook (1962) [fiction: novel] (on 8 lists)

PAUL CELAN (1920-1970) [Romania, France] [German]
Poems (incl. Death Fugue) (on 5 lists)

FRANK HERBERT (1920-1986) [US]
Dune (1965) [fiction: novel] (on 3 lists)

ISAAC ASIMOV (1920-1992) [Russia, US] [English]
Foundation (Foundation Trilogy I) (1951) [fiction: novel] (on 3 lists)

AMOS TUTUOLA (1920-1997) [Nigeria] [English]
The Palm-Wine Drinkard (1946) [fiction: novel] (on 4 lists)

MARIO PUZO (1920-1999) [US]
The Godfather (1969) [fiction: novel] (on 3 lists)

RAY BRADBURY (1920-2012) [US]
Fahrenheit 451 (1953) [fiction: novel] (on 5 lists)

RICHARD ADAMS (1920-2016) [UK]
Watership Down (1972) [fiction: novel] (on 3 lists)

JAMES JONES (1921-1977) [US]
From Here to Eternity (1951) [fiction: novel] (on 3 lists)

FRIEDRICH DÜRRENMATT (1921-1990) [Switzerland] [German]
The Visit (1956) [drama] (on 5 lists)

PATRICIA HIGHSMITH (1921-1995) [US]
The Talented Mr. Ripley (1955) [fiction: novel] (on 4 lists)

BETTY FRIEDAN (1921-2006) [US]
The Feminine Mystique (1963) [nonfiction: sociology] (on 5 lists)

STANISLAW LEM (1921-2006) [Poland]
Solaris (1961) [fiction: novel] (on 3 lists)

RICHARD WILBUR (1921-2017 ) [US]
Things of This World (1956) [poetry] (on 3 lists)

JACK KEROUAC (1922-1969) [US]
On the Road (1957) [fiction: novel] (on 11 lists)

KINGSLEY AMIS (1922-1995) [UK]
Lucky Jim (1953) [fiction: novel] (on 3 lists)

THOMAS KUHN (1922-1996) [US]
The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962) [nonfiction: science] (on 7 lists)

WILLIAM GADDIS (1922-1998) [US]
The Recognitions (1955) [fiction: novel] (on 3 lists)

KURT VONNEGUT, JR. (1922-2007) [US]
Cat’s Cradle (1963) [fiction: novel] (on 3 lists)
Slaughterhouse-Five (1969) [fiction: novel] (on 10 lists)

ALAIN ROBBE-GRILLET (1922-2008) [France]
Jealousy (1957) [fiction: novel] (on 4 lists)

HOWARD ZINN (1922-2010) [US]
 A People’s History of the United States (1980) [nonfiction: history] (on 3 lists)

ITALO CALVINO (1923-1985) [Italy]
The Baron in the Trees (Our Ancestors Trilogy II) (1957) [fiction: novel] (on 4 lists)
Invisible Cities (1972) [fiction: novel] (6 lists)
If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler (1979) [fiction: novel] (on 5 lists)

JAMES DICKEY (1923-1997) [US]
Deliverance (1970) [fiction: novel] (on 3 lists)

JOSEPH HELLER (1923-1999) [US]
Catch-22 (1961) [fiction: novel] (on 12 lists)

NORMAN MAILER (1923-2007) [US]
The Naked and the Dead (1948) [fiction: novel] (on 4 lists)
Armies of the Night (1968) [nonfiction: journalism/memoir] (on 3 lists)
The Executioner’s Song (1980) [fiction: novel] (on 3 lists)

NADINE GORDIMER (1923-2014) [South Africa]
The Conservationist (1974) [fiction: novel] (on 3 lists)

TRUMAN CAPOTE (1924-1984) [US]
Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1958) [fiction: novel] (on 3 lists)
In Cold Blood (1966) [non-fiction novel] (on 10 lists)

JAMES BALDWIN (1924-1987) [US]
Go Tell It on the Mountain (1953) [fiction: novel] (on 5 lists)
Notes of a Native Son (1955) [nonfiction: essays] (on 5 lists)

E.P. THOMPSON (1924-1993) [UK]
The Making of the English Working Class (1963) [nonfiction: social history] (on 3 lists)

KOBO ABE (1924-1993) [Japan]
The Woman in the Dunes (1962) [fiction: novel] (on 3 lists)

PAUL FUSSELL (1924-2012) [US]
The Great War and Modern Memory (1975) [nonfiction: criticism] (on 5 lists)

MICHEL TOURNIER (1924- ) [France]
The Ogre (1970) [fiction: novel] (on 3 lists)

FRANZ FANON (1925-1961) [France, Algeria] [French]
The Wretched of the Earth (1961) [nonfiction: history/political philosophy] (on 4 lists)

FLANNERY O’CONNOR (1925-1964) [US]
Wise Blood (1952) [fiction: novel] (on 3 lists)
Complete Stories (1971) [fiction: stories] (on 9 lists)

MALCOLM X (with Alex Haley) (1925-1965) [US]
The Autobiography of Malcolm X (1965) [nonfiction: memoir/biography] (on 7 lists)

YUKIO MISHIMA (1925-1970) [Japan]
The Sea of Fertility (tetralogy) (1970) [fiction: novels] (on 3 lists)

WILLIAM STYRON (1925-2006) [US]
Sophie’s Choice (1979) [fiction: novel] (on 6 lists)

GORE VIDAL (1925-2012) [US]
Myra Breckenridge (1968) [fiction: novel] (on 3 lists)

ELMORE LEONARD (1925-2013) [US]
Get Shorty (1990) [fiction: novel] (on 3 lists)

JAMES MERRILL (1926-1995) [US]
The Changing Light at Sandover (1982) [poetry] (on 3 lists)

ALLEN GINSBERG (1926-1997) [US]
Poems (incl. Howl) (on 3 lists)

JOHN FOWLES (1926-2005) [UK]
The Magus (1966) [fiction: novel] (on 3 lists)
The French Lieutenant’s Woman (1969) [fiction: novel] (on 3 lists)

HARPER LEE (1926-2016) [US]
To Kill a Mockingbird (1960) [fiction: novel] (on 15 lists)

GABRIEL GARCÍA MÁRQUEZ (1927-2014) [Colombia]
One Hundred Years of Solitude (1967) [fiction: novel] (on 26 lists)
Love in the Time of Cholera (1985) [fiction: novel] (on 12 lists)

GÜNTER GRASS (1927-2015) [Germany]
The Tin Drum (1959) [fiction: novel] (on 9 lists)

JOHN ASHBERY (1927-2017) [US]
Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror (1975) [poetry] (on 4 lists)

GALWAY KINNELL (1927-2014) [US]
Selected Poems (1982) [poetry] (on 3 lists)

PETER MATTHIESSEN (1927-2014 ) [US]
The Snow Leopard (1978) [nonfiction: nature/travel] (on 3 lists)

EDWARD ALBEE (1928-2016) [US]
Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1962) [drama] (on 3 lists)

JAMES WATSON (1928- ) [US]
The Double Helix (1968) [nonfiction: science] (on 4 lists)

ROBERT PIRSIG (1928-2017) [US]
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (1974) [non-fiction: philosophy] (on 3 lists)

WILLIAM KENNEDY (1928- ) [US]
Ironweed (The Albany Cycle) (1983) [fiction: novel] (on 5 lists)

MAYA ANGELOU (1928-2014) [US]
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969) [nonfiction: memoir] (on 4 lists)

ELIE WIESEL (1928- ) [Romania, US]
Night (1958) [nonfiction: memoir] (on 3 lists)

ANNE FRANK (1929-1945) [Germany, The Netherlands] [Dutch]
The Diary of a Young Girl (1947) [non-fiction: memoir] (on 9 lists)

MARIAMA BÂ (1929-1981) [Senegal] [French]
So Long a Letter (1981) [fiction: novel] (on 3 lists)

MILAN KUNDERA (1929-2023) [Czech Republic]
The Unbearable Lightness of Being (1984) [fiction: novel] (on 7 lists)

URSULA K. LEGUIN (1929-2018) [US]
The Left Hand of Darkness (1969) [fiction: novel] (on 4 lists)

HAROLD PINTER (1930-2008) [UK]
The Caretaker (1959) [drama] (on 4 lists)

FRANK MCCOURT (1930-2009) [Ireland, US]
Angela’s Ashes (1996) [nonfiction: memoir] (on 3 lists)

CHINUA ACHEBE (1930-2013 ) [Nigeria] [English]
Things Fall Apart (1958) [fiction: novel] (on 15 lists)
Arrow of God (1964) [fiction: novel] (on 3 lists)

TOM WOLFE (1931-2018) [US]
The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test (1968) [nonfiction: journalism] (on 6 lists)
The Right Stuff (1979) [nonfiction: history] (on 4 lists)
The Bonfire of the Vanities (1987) [fiction: novel] (on 3 lists)

JOHN LE CARRÉ (1931-2020) [UK]
The Spy Who Came In From the Cold (1963) [fiction: novel] (on 3 lists)
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (1974) [fiction: novel] (on 3 lists)

TONI MORRISON (1931-2019 ) [US]
Song of Solomon (1977) [fiction: novel] (on 8 lists)
Beloved (1987) [fiction: novel] (on 13 lists)

E.L. DOCTOROW (1931-2015) [US]
Ragtime (1975) [fiction: novel] (on 5 lists)
Billy Bathgate (1989) [fiction: novel] (on 4 lists)

ALICE MUNRO (1931- ) [Canada]
Stories (fiction: stories) (on 3 lists)

JOHN MCPHEE (1931- ) [US]
Annals of the Former World (1998) [nonfiction: science] (on 3 lists)

SYLVIA PLATH (1932-1963) [US]
The Bell Jar (1963) [fiction: novel] (on 5 lists)
Poems (on 4 lists)

JOHN UPDIKE (1932-2009) [US] 
Rabbit, Run (1960) [fiction: novel] (on 8 lists)
Rabbit Redux (1971) [fiction: novel] (on 3 lists)
Rabbit is Rich (1981) [fiction: novel] (on 6 lists)
Rabbit at Rest (1990) [fiction: novel] (on 4 lists)

V.S. NAIPAUL (1932-2018) [Trinidad & Tobago, UK]
A House for Mr. Biswas (1961) [fiction: novel] (on 4 lists)
In a Free State (1971) [fiction: novel] (on 3 lists)
A Bend in the River (1979) [fiction: novel] (on 4 lists)

UMBERTO ECO (1932-2016 ) [Italy]
The Name of the Rose (1980) [fiction: novel] (on 3 lists)

ATHOL FUGARD (1932-) [South Africa, US]
“Master Harold” … and the Boys (1982) [drama] (on 3 lists)

J. ANTHONY LUKAS (1933-1997) [US]
Common Ground: A Turbulent Decade in the Lives of Three American Families (1985) [nonfiction: journalism/history] (on 3 lists)

SUSAN SONTAG (1933-2004) [US]
Against Interpretation (1966) [nonfiction: essays] (on 3 lists)

PHILIP ROTH (1933-2018 ) [US]
Portnoy’s Complaint (1969) [fiction: novel] (on 5 lists)
Operation Shylock (1993) [fiction: novel] (on 4 lists)
The Ghost Writer (1979) [fiction: novel] (on 3 lists) 
American Pastoral (1997) [fiction: novel] (on 6 lists)      

The Human Stain (2000) [fiction: novel] (on 3 lists)

CORMAC MCCARTHY (1933- ) [US]
Blood Meridian (1985) [fiction: novel] (on 4 lists)

BRYCE COURTENAY (1933-2012) [South Africa, Australia]
The Power of One (1989) [fiction: novel] (on 3 lists)

JOAN DIDION (1934-2021) [US]
Slouching Towards Bethlehem (1968) [nonfiction: essays] (on 3 lists)
The Year of Magical Thinking (2005) [nonfiction: memoir] (on 3 lists)

J. G. FARRELL (1935-1979) [UK]
The Siege of Krishnapur (Empire Trilogy II) (1973) [fiction: novel] (on 3 lists)

KEN KESEY (1935-2001) [US]
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1962) [fiction: novel] (on 6 lists)

EDWARD SAID (1935-2003) [Palestine, US]
Orientalism (1978) [nonfiction: geopolitics] (on 5 lists)

CAROL SHIELDS (1935-2003) [US, Canada]
The Stone Diaries (1993) [fiction: novel] (on 4 lists)

FRANÇOISE SAGAN (1935-2004) [France]
Bonjour Tristesse (1954) [fiction: novel] (on 3 lists)

THOMAS KENEALLY (1935- ) [Australia]
Schindler’s Ark (Schindler’s List) (1982) [fiction: novel] (on 5 lists)

ROBERT CARO (1935-  ) [US]
The Power Broker (1974) [nonfiction: biography] (on 3 lists)

JOY KOGAWA (1935- ) [Canada]
Obasan (1981) [fiction: novel] (on 3 lists)

E. ANNIE PROULX (1935- ) [US]
The Shipping News (1993) [fiction: novel] (on 3 lists)

GEORGES PEREC (1936-1982) [France]
Life: A User’s Manual (1978) [fiction: novel] (on 3 lists)

DON DELILLO (1936- ) [US]
White Noise (1985) [fiction: novel] (on 6 lists)
Mao II (1991) [fiction: novel] (on 4 lists)
Underworld (1997) [fiction: novel] (on 5 lists)

JAMES M. MCPHERSON (1936- ) [US]
Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era (1988) [nonfiction: history] (on 3 lists)

A.S. BYATT (1936- ) [UK]
Possession (1990) [fiction: novel] (on 5 lists)

NEIL SHEEHAN (1936-2021) [US]
A Bright Shining Lie: John Paul Vann and America in Vietnam (1988) [nonfiction: journalism/history] (on 3 lists)

LARRY MCMURTRY (1936-2021) [US]
Lonesome Dove (1985) [fiction: novel] (on 3 lists)

JOHN KENNEDY TOOLE (1937-1969) [US]
A Confederacy of Dunces (1980) [fiction: novel] (on 5 lists)

HUNTER S. THOMPSON (1937-2005) [US]
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1971) [nonfiction: journalism/memoir] (on 4 lists)

THOMAS PYNCHON (1937- ) [US]
V. (1963) [fiction: novel] (on 3 lists)
The Crying of Lot 49 (1966) [fiction: novel] (on 3 lists)
Gravity’s Rainbow (1973) [fiction: novel] (on 6 lists)
Mason & Dixon (1997) [fiction: novel] (on 3 lists)

TOM STOPPARD (1937- ) [UK]
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead (1967) [drama] (on 3 lists)

JARED DIAMOND (1937- ) [US]
Guns, Germs and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies (1997) [nonfiction: science/history] (on 3 lists)

RICHARD RHODES (1937- ) [US]
The Making of the Atomic Bomb (1987) [nonfiction: science/history] (on 6 lists)

RAYMOND CARVER (1938-1988) [US]
Where I’m Calling From (1988) [fiction: short stories] (on 5 lists)

ROBERT STONE (1938-2015 ) [US]
Dog Soldiers (1974) [fiction: novel] (on 3 lists)

JOYCE CAROL OATES (1938- ) [US]
Them (1969) [fiction: novel] (on 4 lists)
Blonde (2000) [fiction: novel] (on 3 lists)

SEAMUS HEANEY (1939-2013) [Ireland]
New Selected Poems: 1966-1987 (1990) [poetry] (on 3 lists)

MARGARET ATWOOD (1939- ) [Canada]
The Handmaid’s Tale (1985) [fiction: novel] (on 9 lists)
The Blind Assassin (2000) [fiction: novel] (on 4 lists)

MICHAEL HERR (1940-2016) [US]
Dispatches (1977) [non-fiction: memoir/journalism] (on 5 lists)

J. M. COETZEE (1940- ) [South Africa, Australia]
The Life and Times of Michael K. (1983) [fiction: novel] (on 4 lists)
Disgrace (1999) [fiction: novel] (on 3 lists)

EDMUND MORRIS (1940-2019) [US]
The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt (1979) [nonfiction: biography] (on 3 lists)

STEPHEN JAY GOULD (1941-2002) [US]
The Mismeasure of Man (1981) [nonfiction: science/history (on 3 lists)

RICHARD DAWKINS (1941- ) [UK]
The Selfish Gene (1976) [nonfiction: science] (on 3 lists)

ANNE TYLER (1941- ) [US]
The Accidental Tourist (1985) [fiction: novel] (on 3 lists)

JOHN IRVING (1942- ) [US]
The World According to Garp (1978) [fiction: novel] (on 8 lists)
A Prayer For Owen Meany (1989) [fiction: novel] (on 3 lists)

ISABEL ALLENDE (1942- ) [Chile, US] [Spanish]
The House of the Spirits (1982) [fiction: novel] (on 5 lists)

STEPHEN HAWKING (1942-2018) [UK]
A Brief History of Time (1988) [nonfiction: science] (on 7 lists)

BOB WOODWARD (1943- ) and CARL BERNSTEIN (1944- ) [US]
All the President’s Men (1974) [nonfiction: journalism] (on 4 lists)

SAM SHEPARD (1943-2017) [US]
Buried Child (1978) [drama] (on 3 lists)
True West (1980) [drama] (on 3 lists)

PETER CAREY (1943- ) [Australia]
Oscar and Lucinda (1988) [fiction: novel] (on 4 lists)

MICHAEL ONDAATJE (1943- ) [Sri Lanka, Canada] [English]
The English Patient (1992) [fiction: novel] (on 3 lists)

ELAINE PAGELS (1943- ) [US]
The Gnostic Gospels (1989) [nonfiction: religion/history] (on 3 lists)

MARILYNNE ROBINSON (1943- ) [US]
Gilead (2004) [fiction: novel] (on 3 lists)

W.G. SEBALD (1944-2001) [Germany] [German]
The Rings of Saturn (1995) [non-fiction: travel/natural history] (on 4 lists)
Austerlitz (2001) [fiction: novel] (on 3 lists)

ALICE WALKER (1944- ) [US]
The Color Purple (1982) [fiction: novel] (on 8 lists)

AUGUST WILSON (1945-2005) [US]
Fences (1987) [drama] (on 3 lists)

DOUGLAS HOFSTADTER (1945- ) [US]
Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid (1979) [nonfiction: biography/mathematics] (on 5 lists)

ANNIE DILLARD (1945- ) [US]
Pilgrim at Tinker Creek (1974) [nonfiction: nature/memoir] (on 3 lists)

PHILIP PULLMAN (1946- ) [UK]
Northern Lights (The Golden Compass) (His Dark Materials I) (1995) [fiction: novel] (on 4 lists)
The Subtle Knife (His Dark Materials II) (1997) [fiction: novel] (on 3 lists)
The Amber Spyglass (His Dark Materials III) (2000) [fiction: novel] (on 3 lists)

TIM O’BRIEN (1946- ) [US]
The Things They Carried (1990) [fiction: linked stories] (on 6 lists)

DAVID MAMET (1947- ) [US]
Glengarry Glen Ross (1984) [drama] (on 3 lists)

STEPHEN KING (1947 – ) [US]
The Shining (1977) [fiction: novel] (on 3 lists)
The Stand (1978) [fiction: novel] (on 3 lists)

SALMAN RUSHDIE (1947- ) [India, UK] [English]
Midnight’s Children (1981) [fiction: novel] (on 21 lists)
The Satanic Verses (1988) [fiction: novel] (on 3 lists)

LAWRENCE WRIGHT (1947- ) [US]
The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11 (2006) [nonfiction: journalism] (on 4 lists)

PAULO COELHO (1947- ) [Brazil]
The Alchemist (1988) [fiction: novel] (on 6 lists)

TAYLOR BRANCH (1947- ) [US]
Parting the Waters: America in the King Years 1954-1963 (1988) [nonfiction: biography/history] (on 3 lists)

TONY JUDT (1948-2010) [UK, US]
Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945 (2005) [nonfiction: history] (on 3 lists)

WILLIAM GIBSON (1948- ) [US, Canada]
Neuromancer (1984) [fiction: novel] (on 3 lists)

IAN MCEWAN (1948- ) [UK]
Atonement (2001) [fiction: novel] (on 5 lists)

HARUKI MURAKAMI (1949- ) [Japan]
The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle (1994) [fiction: novel] (on 5 lists)

JANE SMILEY (1949- ) [US]
A Thousand Acres (1991) [fiction: novel] (on 3 lists)

LAURA ESQUIVEL (1950- ) [Mexico]
Like Water for Chocolate (1989) [fiction: novel] (on 3 lists)

GLORIA NAYLOR (1950- ) [US]
The Women of Brewster Place (1982) [fiction: novel] (on 3 lists)

EDWARD P. JONES (1951- ) [US]
The Known World (2003) [fiction: novel] (on 4 lists)

DOUGLAS ADAMS  (1952-2001) [UK]
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (1979) [fiction: novel] (on 7 lists)

ROHINTON MISTRY (1952- ) [India, Canada] [English]
A Fine Balance (1995) [fiction: novel] (on 5 lists)

AMY TAN (1952- ) [US]
The Joy Luck Club (1989) [fiction: novel] (on 5 lists)

MICHAEL CUNNINGHAM (1952- ) [US]
The Hours (1998) [fiction: novel] (on 3 lists)

HILARY MANTEL (1952-2022) [UK]
Wolf Hall (2009) [fiction: novel] (on 3 lists)

KAZUO ISHIGURO (1954- ) [Japan, UK] [English]
The Remains of the Day (1989) [fiction: novel] (on 6 lists)

LOUIS DE BERNIÈRES (1954- ) [UK]
Captain Corelli’s Mandolin (1994) [fiction: novel] (on 3 lists)

BARBARA KINGSOLVER (1955- ) [US]
The Poisonwood Bible (1998) [fiction: novel] (on 5 lists)

MICHAEL POLLAN (1955- ) [US]
The Omnivore’s Dilemma (2006) [non-fiction: food/environment]

TONY KUSHNER (1956- ) [US]
Angels in America (1992) [drama] (on 5 lists)

HA JIN (1956- ) [China, US] [English]
Waiting (1999) [fiction: novel] (on 6 lists)

TSITSI DANGAREMBGA (1959- ) [Zimbabwe] [English]
Nervous Conditions (1988) [fiction: novel] (on 3 lists)

JONATHAN FRANZEN (1959- ) [US]
The Corrections (2001) [fiction: novel] (on 5 lists)

JEFFREY EUGENIDES (1960- ) [US]
Middlesex (2002) [fiction: novel] (on 4 lists)

ARUNDHATI ROY (1961- ) [India] [English]
The God of Small Things (1997) [fiction: novel] (on 6 lists)

DAVID FOSTER WALLACE (1962-2008) [US]
Infinite Jest (1996) [fiction: novel] (on 3 lists)

YANN MARTEL (1963- ) [Canada] [English]
Life of Pi (2001) [fiction: novel] (on 4 lists)

DONNA TARTT (1963- ) [US]
The Secret History (1992) [fiction: novel] (on 3 lists)

J.K. ROWLING (1965- ) [UK]
Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone) (1997) [fiction: novel] (on 6 lists)
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (1998) [fiction: novel] (on 6 lists)
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (1999) [fiction: novel] (on 6 lists)
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2000) [fiction: novel] (on 6 lists)
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (2003) [fiction: novel] (on 6 lists)
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (2005) [fiction: novel] (on 6 lists)
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (2007) [fiction: novel] (on 6 lists)

JHUMPA LAHIRI (1967- ) [India, US] [English]
The Namesake (2003) [fiction: novel] (on 3 lists)

MICHELLE ALEXANDER (1967) [US]
The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness (2010) [nonfiction: sociology] (on 3 lists)

JUNOT DIAZ (1968- ) [Dominican Republic, US] [English]
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao (2007) [fiction: novel]

MARJANE SATRAPI (1969- ) [Iran, France] [French, English]
Persepolis (2000) [nonfiction: graphic memoir] (on 3 lists)

COLSON WHITEHEAD (1969- ) [US]
The Underground Railroad (2016) [fiction: novel] (on 3 lists)

SIDDHARTHA MUKHERJEE (1970- ) [India, US] [English]
The Emperor of All Maladies (2010) [nonfiction: medicine] (on 4 lists)

DAVE EGGERS (1970- ) [US]
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius (2000) [nonfiction: memoir] (on 3 lists)

REBECCA SKLOOT (1972- ) [US]
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks (2010) [nonfiction: biography/science] (on 3 lists)

ZADIE SMITH (1975- ) [UK]
White Teeth (2000) [fiction: novel] (on 5 lists)

MARKUS ZUSAK (1975- ) [Australia]
The Book Thief (2005) [fiction: novel} (on 6 lists)

TA-NEHISI COATES (1975- ) [US}
Between the World and Me  (2015) [nonfiction: memoir] (on 3 lists)

YUVAL NOAH HARARI (1976- ) [Israel] [Hebrew]
Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind (2014) [nonfiction: history] (on 3 lists)

EMILY ST. JOHN MANDEL (1979 – ) [Canada]
Station Eleven (2014) [fiction: novel] (on 3 lists)

ISHMAEL BEAH (1980- ) [Sierra Leone] [English]
A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier (2007) [non-fiction: memoir] (on 3 lists)

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