I collected over 30 lists of “Best Novels of All Time” from books and the Internet and combined them into one meta-list. The results are below: every novel on that was on at least three of the original source lists, in rank order (that is, with the novels on the most lists at the top). Novels on the same number of lists are organized chronologically. There are 297 books on the meta-list.
Some of the lists I found included only novels written in English or novels written in the 20th Century, so I reached out to include the novels on other lists of great books, with an eye to including pre- and post-20th Century novels and novels written in languages other than English. The original source lists use somewhat differing definitions of ‘novel’ and purists may find books on the list that don’t meet one or more of those definitions. I decided that, if at least three listers defined a book as a novel, I wouldn’t argue.
I have included book cover art for some of the books; I have used 1st edition covers (or title pages) in many cases.
To see the same list organized chronologically, go here.
On 25 Lists
One Hundred Years of Solitude (Colombia, 1967). By Gabriel García Márquez
On 24 Lists
The Great Gatsby (US, 1925). By F. Scott Fitzgerald
On 22 Lists
Lolita (USSR/US, 1955). By Vladimir Nabokov
On 21 Lists
Anna Karenina (Russia, 1877). By Leo Tolstoy
On 20 Lists
Madame Bovary (France, 1856). By Gustave Flaubert
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (US, 1884). By Mark Twain
On 19 Lists
Don Quixote (Spain, Pt. 1: 1605; Pt. 2: 1615). By Miguel de Cervantes
Wuthering Heights (UK, 1847). By Emily Bronte
Moby-Dick (US, 1851). By Herman Melville
Crime and Punishment (Russia, 1866). By Fyodor Dostoyevsky
On 18 Lists
Pride and Prejudice (UK, 1813). By Jane Austen
Jane Eyre (UK, 1847). By Charlotte Bronte
Middlemarch (UK, 1872). By George Eliot
The Trial (unfinished) (Austria-Hungary/Czechoslovakia, 1914-1915; pub. 1925). By Franz Kafka
Ulysses (Ireland/Switzerland/France, 1922). By James Joyce
In Search of Lost Time (in 7 volumes) (France, 1913-1927). By Marcel Proust
Nineteen Eighty-Four (UK, 1949). By George Orwell
The Catcher in the Rye (US, 1951). By J.D. Salinger
To Kill A Mockingbird (US, 1960). By Harper Lee
On 17 Lists
The Sound and the Fury (US, 1929). By William Faulkner
The Grapes of Wrath (US, 1939). By John Steinbeck
Catch-22 (US, 1961). By Joseph Heller
On 16 Lists
The Brothers Karamazov (Russia, 1880). By Fyodor Dostoevsky
Invisible Man (US, 1952). By Ralph Ellison
Beloved (US, 1987). By Toni Morrison
On 15 Lists
The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman (Ireland/Great Britain, 1759). By Laurence Sterne
War and Peace (Russia, 1869). By Leo Tolstoy
To The Lighthouse (UK, 1927). By Virginia Woolf
Things Fall Apart (Nigeria, 1958). By Chinua Achebe
On 14 Lists
The History of Tom Jones, A Foundling (Great Britain, 1749). By Henry Fielding
Frankenstein (UK, 1818). By Mary Shelley
The Red and the Black (France, 1830). By Stendhal
The Portrait of a Lady (US/UK, 1881). By Henry James
The Sun Also Rises (novella) (US, 1926). By Ernest Hemingway
The Stranger (The Outsider) (novella) (France, 1942). By Albert Camus
Midnight’s Children (India/UK, 1981). By Salman Rushdie
On 13 Lists
Gulliver’s Travels (Ireland, 1726). By Jonathan Swift
David Copperfield (UK, 1850). By Charles Dickens
Great Expectations (UK, 1861). By Charles Dickens
The Age of Innocence (US, 1920). By Edith Wharton
A Passage to India (UK, 1924). By E.M. Forster
Mrs. Dalloway (UK, 1925). By Virginia Woolf
On the Road (US, 1957). By Jack Kerouac
On 12 Lists
Robinson Crusoe (Great Britain, 1719). By Daniel Defoe
Emma (UK, 1816). By Jane Austen
The Scarlet Letter (US, 1850). By Nathaniel Hawthorne
Tess of the d’Urbervilles (UK, 1892). By Thomas Hardy
The Magic Mountain (Germany, 1924). By Thomas Mann
Their Eyes Were Watching God (US, 1937). By Zora Neale Hurston
On 11 Lists
Vanity Fair (UK, 1848). By William Thackeray
Bleak House (UK, 1853). By Charles Dickens
Les Misérables (France, 1862). By Victor Hugo
Heart of Darkness (novella) (Poland/UK, serial, 1899, book 1902). By Joseph Conrad
My Ántonia (US, 1918). By Willa Cather
Native Son (US, 1940). By Richard Wright
The Master and Margarita (USSR, 1940, pub. 1967). By Mikhail Bulgakov
The Golden Notebook (UK, 1962). By Doris Lessing
On 10 Lists
Candide (novella) (France/Switzerland, 1759). By Voltaire
Dead Souls (unfinished) (Russia, 1842). By Nikolai Gogol
Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland (UK, 1865). By Lewis Carroll
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (Ireland, 1916). By James Joyce
An American Tragedy (US, 1925). By Theodore Dreiser
Brave New World (UK, 1932). By Aldous Huxley
The Big Sleep (US, 1939). By Raymond Chandler
Go Tell It on the Mountain (US, 1953). By James Baldwin
The Leopard (Italy, 1958). By Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa
On 9 Lists
The Count of Monte Cristo (France, 1844). By Alexandre Dumas
A Tale of Two Cities (UK, 1859). By Charles Dickens
Little Women (US, 1869). By Louisa May Alcott
The Picture of Dorian Gray (Ireland, 1891). By Oscar Wilde
Dracula (Ireland, 1897). By Bram Stoker
A Farewell To Arms (US, 1929). By Ernest Hemingway
All The King’s Men (US, 1946). By Robert Penn Warren
The Old Man and the Sea (novella) (US, 1952). By Ernest Hemingway
Lord of the Flies (novella) (UK, 1954). By William Golding
The Lord of the Rings (trilogy) (UK, 1954-1955). By J.R.R. Tolkien
A House for Mr. Biswas (Trinidad & Tobago/UK, 1961). By V.S. Naipaul
Wide Sargasso Sea (novella) (Dominica/UK, 1966). By Jean Rhys
Slaughterhouse-Five (US, 1969). By Kurt Vonnegut
Song of Solomon (US, 1977). By Toni Morrison
The Handmaid’s Tale (Canada, 1985). By Margaret Atwood
On 8 Lists
The Three Musketeers (France, 1844). By Alexandre Dumas
The Awakening (novella) (US, 1899). By Kate Chopin
The Call of the Wild (US, 1903). By Jack London
Nostromo (Poland/UK, 1904). By Joseph Conrad
The House of Mirth (US, 1905). By Edith Wharton
Howards End (UK, 1910) By E.M. Forster
The Good Soldier (UK, 1915). By Ford Madox Ford
As I Lay Dying (US, 1930). By William Faulkner
Gone with the Wind (US, 1936). By Margaret Mitchell
Absalom, Absalom! (US, 1936). By William Faulkner
For Whom the Bell Tolls (US, 1940). By Ernest Hemingway
The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter (US, 1940). By Carson McCullers
The Man Without Qualities (unfinished) (3 volumes with drafts and notes) (Germany, 1942). By Robert Musil
Brideshead Revisited (UK, 1945). By Evelyn Waugh
The Tin Drum (Germany, 1959). By Günter Grass
Rabbit, Run (US, 1960). By John Updike
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (novella) (UK, 1961). By Muriel Spark
Pale Fire (USSR/US, 1962). By Vladimir Nabokov
Gravity’s Rainbow (US, 1973). By Thomas Pynchon
The Name of the Rose (Italy, 1980). By Umberto Eco
The Color Purple (US, 1982). By Alice Walker
Blood Meridian (US, 1985). By Cormac McCarthy
Love in the Time of Cholera (Colombia, 1985). By Gabriel Garcia Marquez
American Pastoral (US, 1997). By Philip Roth
Disgrace (South Africa, 1999). By J.M. Coetzee
Atonement (UK, 2001). By Ian McEwan
On 7 Lists
The Tale of Genji (Japan, c. 1000-1020). By Murasaki Shikibu
Clarissa (Great Britain, 1748). By Samuel Richardson
Le Pére Goriot (France, 1835). By Honore de Balzac
Fathers and Sons (Russia, 1862). By Ivan Turgenev
The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (novella) (UK, 1886). By Robert Louis Stevenson
Jude the Obscure (UK, 1895). By Thomas Hardy
Kim (UK, 1901). By Rudyard Kipling
Sons and Lovers (UK, 1913). By D.H. Lawrence
The Maltese Falcon (US, 1929). By Dashiell Hammett
Light in August (US, 1932). By William Faulkner
Tropic of Cancer (US/France, 1934). By Henry Miller
U.S.A. (trilogy) (US, 1930-1936). By John Dos Passos
Of Mice and Men (novella) (US, 1937). By John Steinbeck
Animal Farm (novella) (UK, 1945). By George Orwell
Under the Volcano (UK, 1947). By Malcolm Lowry
Malloy, Malone Dies, The Unnameable (trilogy) (Ireland/France, 1951-1953). By Samuel Beckett
The Chronicles of Narnia (series of 7 novels) (UK, 1950-1956). By C.S. Lewis
Herzog (US, 1964). By Saul Bellow
Portnoy’s Complaint (US, 1969). By Philip Roth
White Teeth (UK, 2000). By Zadie Smith
The Corrections (US, 2001). By Jonathan Franzen
On 6 Lists
The Sorrows of Young Werther (novella) (Germany, 1774, revised, 1787). By Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
Persuasion (UK, 1817). By Jane Austen
The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket (novella) (US, 1838). By Edgar Allan Poe
The Charterhouse of Parma (France, 1839). By Stendhal
Sentimental Education (France, 1869). By Gustave Flaubert
The Idiot (Russia, 1869). By Fyodor Dostoevsky
Germinal (France, 1885). By Émile Zola
The Hound of The Baskervilles (UK, 1902). By Arthur Conan Doyle
The Ambassadors (US/UK, 1903). By Henry James
The Golden Bowl (US/UK, 1904). By Henry James
Death Comes for the Archbishop (US, 1927). By Willa Cather
Journey to the End of the Night (France, 1932). By Louis-Ferdinand Céline
Rebecca (UK, 1938). By Daphne du Maurier
The Little Prince (novella) (France, 1943). By Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
The Adventures of Augie March (US, 1953). By Saul Bellow
Pedro Páramo (novella) (Mexico, 1955). By Juan Rulfo
Ragtime (US, 1975). By E.L. Doctorow
The World According to Garp (US, 1978). By John Irving
Housekeeping (US, 1981). By Marilynne Robinson
The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle (Japan, 1995). By Haruki Murakami
Infinite Jest (US, 1996). By David Foster Wallace
On 5 Lists
One Thousand and One Nights (The Arabian Nights) (linked stories) (Arabia/Persia/India, c. 800-1500; first European pub. 1704-1717). By Anonymous
Gargantua and Pantagruel (series of 5 books) (France, 1532-1564). By François Rabelais
The Last of the Mohicans (US, 1826). By James Fenimore Cooper
Silas Marner (novella) (UK, 1861). By George Eliot
The Moonstone (UK, 1868). By Wilkie Collins
The Possessed (The Devils; Demons) (Russia, 1872). By Fyodor Dostoevsky
The Return of the Native (UK, 1878). By Thomas Hardy
The Turn of the Screw (novella) (US, 1898). By Henry James
Lord Jim (Poland/UK, 1900). By Joseph Conrad
Sister Carrie (US, 1900). By Theodore Dreiser
Buddenbrooks (Germany, 1901). By Thomas Mann
The Jungle (US, 1906). By Upton Sinclair
The Wind in the Willows (UK, 1908). By Kenneth Grahame
The Rainbow (US, 1915). By D.H. Lawrence
Winesburg, Ohio (linked stories) (US, 1919). By Sherwood Anderson
Women in Love (UK, 1920). By D.H. Lawrence
Babbitt (US, 1922) By Sinclair Lewis
All Quiet on the Western Front (Germany, 1929). By Erich Maria Remarque
Tender Is the Night (US, 1934). By F. Scott Fitzgerald
Finnegans Wake (Ireland/France, 1939). By James Joyce
The Plague (France, 1947). By Albert Camus
Memoirs of Hadrian (France, 1951). By Marguerite Yourcenar
Charlotte’s Web (US, 1952). By E.B. White
Fahrenheit 451 (US, 1953). By Ray Bradbury
Doctor Zhivago (USSR, 1957). By Boris Pasternak
Atlas Shrugged (US, 1957). By Ayn Rand
The Moviegoer (US, 1961). By Walker Percy
A Clockwork Orange (novella) (UK, 1962). By Anthony Burgess
One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest (US, 1962). By Ken Kesey
The Bell Jar (US, 1966). By Sylvia Plath
The French Lieutenant’s Woman (UK, 1969). By John Fowles
Rabbit Redux (US, 1971). By John Updike
Invisible Cities (novella) (Italy, 1972). By Italo Calvino
A Bend in the River (Trinidad & Tobago/UK, 1979). By V.S. Naipaul
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (UK, 1979). By Douglas Adams
The House of the Spirits (Chile, 1982). By Isabel Allende
The Lover (novella) (France, 1984). By Marguerite Duras
Neuromancer (US/Canada, 1984). By William Gibson
The Unbearable Lightness of Being (Czechoslovakia, 1984). By Milan Kundera
The Joy Luck Club (US, 1989). By Amy Tan
Blindness (Portugal, 1995). By José Saramago
Underworld (US, 1997). By Don DeLillo
The Savage Detectives (Chile, 1998). By Roberto Bolaño
Austerlitz (Germany, 2001). By W.G. Sebald
The Road (US, 2006). By Cormac McCarthy
On 4 Lists
The Pilgrim’s Progress (England, 1678). By John Bunyan
Moll Flanders (Great Britain, 1722). By Daniel Defoe
The Vicar of Wakefield (Ireland/Great Britain, 1766). By Oliver Goldsmith
Lost Illusions (in 3 volumes) (France, 1837-1843). By Honoré de Balzac
Cousin Bette (France, 1846). By Honoré de Balzac
Oblomov (Russia, 1850). By Ivan Goncharov
The Death of Ivan Ilych (novella) (Russia, 1886). By Leo Tolstoy
The Red Badge of Courage (US, 1895). By Stephen Crane
The War of the Worlds (UK, 1898). By H.G. Wells
The Wings of The Dove (US/UK, 1902). By Henry James
The Good Soldier Švejk (Czechoslovakia, 1921-1923) by Jaroslav Hašek
Zeno’s Conscience (Confessions of Zeno) (Italy, 1923). By Italo Svevo
The Castle (unfinished) (Czechoslovakia, 1924, pub. 1926). By Franz Kafka
Appointment in Samarra (US, 1934). By John O’Hara
I, Claudius (UK, 1934). By Robert Graves
Independent People (Iceland, 1934-1935). By Halldór Laxness
Scoop (UK, 1938). By Evelyn Waugh
The Day of the Locust (US, 1939). By Nathanael West
The Power and the Glory (UK, 1940). By Graham Greene
Darkness at Noon (UK, 1940). By Arthur Koestler
Loving (UK, 1945). By Henry Green
The Naked and the Dead (US, 1948). By Norman Mailer
The Sheltering Sky (US, 1949). By Paul Bowles
Lucky Jim (UK, 1954). By Kingsley Amis
The Recognitions (US, 1955). By William Gaddis
Naked Lunch (US, 1959). By William S. Burroughs
Revolutionary Road (US, 1961). By Richard Yates
One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich (novella) (USSR, 1962). By Aleksandr Solzhenistyn
The Death of Artemio Cruz (Mexico, 1962). By Carlos Fuentes
In Cold Blood (US, 1966). By Truman Capote
A Dance to the Music of Time (series of 12 novels) (UK, 1951-1975). By Anthony Powell
If on a winter’s night a traveler (Italy, 1979). By Italo Calvino
The Stand (US, 1978). By Stephen King
Sophie’s Choice (US, 1979). By William Styron
A Confederacy of Dunces (US, 1980). By John Kennedy Toole
Rabbit Is Rich (US, 1981). By John Updike
Money: A Suicide Note (UK, 1984). By Martin Amis
White Noise (US, 1985). By Don DeLillo
The New York Trilogy (US, 1985-1986). By Paul Auster
Rabbit at Rest (US, 1990). By John Updike
The Things They Carried (linked stories) (US, 1990). By Tim O’Brien
My Name Is Red (Türkiye, 1998). By Orhan Pamuk
Harry Potter (series of 7 novels) (UK, 1997-2007). By J.K. Rowling
My Brilliant Friend (first volume of the Neapolitan Novels) (Italy, 2011). By Elena Ferrante
On 3 Lists
Dream of the Red Chamber (China, manuscripts, c. 1764; book 1791). By Cao Xueqin (with additions by Gao E and Cheng Weiyuan)
Nightmare Abbey (novella) (UK, 1818). By Thomas Love Peacock
Oliver Twist (UK, 1838). By Charles Dickens
Uncle Tom’s Cabin (US, 1852). By Harriet Beecher Stowe
The Way We Live Now (UK, 1875). By Anthony Trollope
Daniel Deronda (UK, 1876). By George Eliot
Three Men in a Boat (UK, 1889) by Jerome K. Jerome
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (novella) (US, 1900). By L. Frank Baum
A Room with a View (UK, 1908). By E.M. Forster
Of Human Bondage (UK, 1915. By W. Somerset Maugham
Main Street (US, 1920). By Sinclair Lewis
The Bridge of San Luis Rey (novella) (US, 1927). By Thornton Wilder
Parade’s End (in 4 volumes) (UK, 1924-1928) by Ford Madox Ford
Orlando: A Biography (UK, 1928). By Virginia Woolf
Berlin Alexanderplatz (Germany, 1929) by Alfred Döblin
Cold Comfort Farm (UK, 1932). By Stella Gibbons
A Handful of Dust (UK, 1934). By Evelyn Waugh
Call It Sleep (US, 1934). By Henry Roth
The Hobbit (UK, 1937) by J. R. R. Tolkien
The Death of the Heart (UK, 1938). By Elizabeth Bowen
Nausea (France, 1938) by Jean-Paul Sartre
At Swim-Two-Birds (Ireland, 1939). By Flann O’Brien
The Man Who Loved Children (Australia, 1940). By Christina Stead
The Fountainhead (US, 1943). By Ayn Rand
The Glass Bead Game (Magister Ludi) (Germany/Switzerland, 1943). By Herman Hesse
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (US, 1943) by Betty Smith
The Death of Virgil (Austria, 1945). By Hermann Broch
Zorba the Greek (Greece, 1946). By Nikos Kazantzakis
The Heart of the Matter (UK, 1948). By Graham Greene
The End of the Affair (UK, 1951). By Graham Greene
East of Eden (US, 1952). By John Steinbeck
Under the Net (UK, 1954). By Iris Murdoch
The Cairo Trilogy (Egypt, 1956-1957). By Naguib Mahfouz
Children of Gebelawi (Egypt, 1959) by Naguib Mahfouz
The Alexandria Quartet (UK, 1957-1960). By Lawrence Durrell
The Sot-Weed Factor (US, 1960). By John Barth
The Spy Who Came in From the Cold (UK, 1963). By John le Carré
A Personal Matter (Japan, 1964). By Kenzaburo Oe
Cancer Ward (USSR, 1966). By Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
The Confessions of Nat Turner (US, 1967). By William Styron
Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret. (US, 1970). By Judy Blume
Play It As It Lays (US, 1970). By Joan Didion
J R (US, 1975). By William Gaddis
Life: A User’s Manual (France, 1978). By Georges Perec
Waiting for the Barbarians (South Africa, 1980). By J. M. Coetzee
Schindler’s List (Schindler’s Ark) (Australia, 1982). By Thomas Keneally
Love Medicine (US, 1984). By Lousie Erdrich
Lonesome Dove (US, 1985). By Larry McMurtry
Bonfire of the Vanities (US, 1987). By Tom Wolfe
The Satanic Verses (India/UK, 1988). By Salman Rushdie
The Remains of the Day (UK, 1989). By Kazuo Ishiguro
Bastard Out of Carolina (US, 1992). By Dorothy Allison
The Poisonwood Bible (US, 1998). By Barbara Kingsolver
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay (US, 2000). By Michael Chabon
Middlesex (US, 2002). By Jeffrey Eugenides
Never Let Me Go (UK, 2005). By Kazuo Ishiguro
Half of a Yellow Sun (Nigeria, 2006). By Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Wolf Hall (UK, 2009). By Hilary Mantel
A Visit from the Goon Squad (US, 2010). By Jennifer Egan