Famous novels

Famous novels Of course. Here is a list of famous novels, categorized to help you explore different classics and modern masterpieces.

Famous novels Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen (1813): The quintessential novel of manners and romance, featuring the witty Elizabeth Bennet and the proud Mr. Darcy.
Moby-Dick by Herman Melville (1851): A monumental epic about Captain Ahab’s obsessive quest for revenge against the white whale.
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë (1847): A groundbreaking Gothic novel about an orphaned governess seeking love, independence, and morality.
Great Expectations by Charles Dickens (1861): A coming-of-age story about Pip, an orphan who learns hard lessons about wealth, class, and humanity.
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee (1960): A profound story of racial injustice and childhood innocence in the American South, told through the eyes of young Scout Finch.
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald (1925): A tragic critique of the American Dream set in the Jazz Age, centered on the mysterious millionaire Jay Gatsby.

Influential and acclaimed works from the mid-20th century to today.

The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger (1951): The iconic novel of teenage alienation and rebellion, narrated by the unforgettable Holden Caulfield.
To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf (1927): A landmark of modernist literature, exploring family dynamics and consciousness through stream-of-thought narrative.
*Catch-22* by Joseph Heller (1961): A satirical masterpiece about the absurdity of war and bureaucracy.
The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood (1985): A dystopian classic about a theocratic regime that subjugates women, more relevant than ever.
One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez (1967): The seminal work of magical realism, tracing the magical and tragic history of the Buendía family in Macondo.

Essential reads from around the world.

Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky (Russian, 1866): A psychological thriller exploring morality, guilt, and redemption after a murder.
One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez (Spanish, 1967): (Also listed above, it’s that important).
In Search of Lost Time by Marcel Proust (French, 1913–1927): A monumental, seven-volume novel exploring memory, time, and art.
Famous novels War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy (Russian, 1869): A vast epic that intertwines the lives of several aristocratic families with the Napoleonic Wars.

Novels that defined and elevated their genres.

Dune by Frank Herbert (1965): A complex epic of politics, religion, and ecology on a desert planet.
The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien (1954-55): The trilogy that defined modern high fantasy.
Foundation by Isaac Asimov (1951): A saga about the fall of a galactic empire and the mathematicians who plan to shorten the ensuing dark age.
Neuromancer by William Gibson (1984): The novel that coined the term “cyberspace” and launched the cyberpunk genre.
Kindred by Octavia E. Butler (1979): A genre-bending novel that uses time travel to explore the horrors of American slavery.

Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë (1847): A dark, passionate, and tragic tale of love and revenge on the Yorkshire moors, far darker than her sister’s Jane Eyre.
Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy (1877): A masterpiece of realist fiction, often hailed as one of the greatest novels ever written.
Little Women by Louisa May Alcott (1868-69): The beloved story of the four March sisters—Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy—growing up in Civil War-era New England.
Ulysses by James Joyce (1922): The landmark modernist novel that parallels Homer’s Odyssey through a single day in Dublin.
Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov (1955): A stunning and controversial novel about obsession, told through the unreliable and eloquent narration of Humbert Humbert.
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley (1932): A foundational dystopian novel that critiques consumerism, happiness, and the dangers of technology and social engineering.

Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut (1969): A satirical, anti-war novel that is “so it goes,” following the time-traveling experiences of Billy Pilgrim, a soldier who survived the firebombing of Dresden.
Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy (1985): A brutal and lyrical Western about a teenage runaway who joins a gang of scalp hunters along the U.S.-Mexico border in the 1850s.
Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison (1952): A landmark novel on the African American experience, following a nameless Black man’s journey from the South to Harlem and his struggle with social invisibility.
The Road by Cormac McCarthy (2006): A bleak, post-apocalyptic journey of a father and son trying to survive in a burned America. Winner of the Pulitzer Prize.
The Color Purple by Alice Walker (1982): An epistolary novel that tells the story of Celie, a young Black woman in the early 20th-century American South, and her journey to self-discovery and independence. Winner of the Pulitzer Prize.
Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie (1981): A work of magical realism that won the Booker Prize.

Famous novels Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert (French, 1856): A seminal realist novel about Emma Bovary, a doctor’s wife whose romantic illusions lead to despair and tragedy in provincial France.
The Stranger by Albert Camus (French, 1942): A key text of absurdist philosophy. It begins with the famous line, “Mother died today. Or maybe yesterday; I can’t be sure.”
The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky (Russian, 1880): A passionate philosophical novel that debates God, free will, and morality, centering on the murder of a family patriarch.
Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe (English, 1958): A foundational novel of modern African literature, it tells the story of Okonkwo, a proud Igbo warrior, and the devastating impact of British colonialism on his community.

And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie (1939): The world’s best-selling mystery novel, where ten strangers are lured to an isolated island and murdered one by one.
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson (Swedish, 2005): The first book in the Millennium series, a modern crime thriller that blends financial intrigue, family secrets, and investigative journalism.

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams (1979): A wildly humorous science fiction series that begins with the destruction of Earth to make way for a hyperspace bypass.
American Gods by Neil Gaiman (2001): A fantasy novel where old gods from mythology, brought to America by immigrants, battle new gods of technology and media.
The Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler (1993): A dystopian science fiction novel that feels incredibly prescient, following a young woman with hyperempathy who creates a new belief system in a collapsing America.