Greater Books

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The Globe and Mail (Martin Levin, Charlotte Gray, André Alexis, A L Kennedy, and Alberto Manguel, eds.), 50 Greatest Books of All Time [2008]

73 entries: 68 monographical, five otherwise

Unranked—arranged topically

The "great books" project enacted by the Toronto daily, the Globe and Mail, was led by Levin. Besides Manguel, quite a few acclaimed writers contributed articles, including Mary Beard, Colm Tóibín, and Jane Smiley. This list is essentially what I call a book-as-list, except it took the form of a series of newspaper articles. Those articles are no longer accessible at the paper's website (though presumably available via an academic database or two). However, a discussion about the list is still up: 'Martin Levin on the Greatest Books Series'.

  1. Mark Twain

    2. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
    1884—English

  2. Marcel Proust

    3. À la Recherche du Temps Perdu
    In Search of Lost Time; In Remembrance of Things Past
    originally published in seven volumes, two of which originally published as two books each, 1913-27—French

  3. Charles Darwin

    4. On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life
    1859—English

  4. Dante

    5. La Divina Commedia
    The Divine Comedy
    originally entitled La Commedia; written ca. 1308-21—Italian

  5. Plato

    6. Politeia
    The Republic
    early Fourth Century B C—Greek

  6. Miguel de Cervantes

    7. El Ingenioso Hidalgo Don Quijote de la Mancha
    Don Quixote
    originally published in two volumes, 1605 and 1615—Spanish

  7. James Joyce

    8. Ulysses
    published in part serially Mar. 1918-Dec. 1920 in the Little Review; in its entirety, 1922—English

  8. Karl Marx

    9. Das Kapital, Kritik der Politischen Ökonomie
    originally published in three volumes 1867, 1885, and 1894—German

  9. Augustine of Hippo

    10. Confessionum Libri Tredecim
    The Confessions of St. Augustine
    written 397-98—Latin

  10. Niccolò Machiavelli

    11. Il Principe
    The Prince
    1532—Italian

  11. F Scott Fitzgerald

    12. The Great Gatsby
    1925—English

  12. George Eliot

    13. Middlemarch: A Study of Provincial Life
    originally published serially Dec. 1871-Dec. 1872—English

  13. Adam Smith

    14. An Inquiry Into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations
    1776; revised through third edition, 1784—English

  14. Sigmund Freud

    15. Die Traumdeutung
    The Interpretation of Dreams
    1899—German

  15. Jonathan Swift

    16. Travels Into Several Remote Nations of the World, in Four Parts. By Lemuel Gulliver, First a Surgeon, and Then a Captain of Several Ships
    Gulliver's Travels
    1726; revised 1735—English

  16. Gabriel García Márquez

    17. Cien Anõs de Soledad
    One Hundred Years of Solitude
    1967—Spanish

  17. William Shakespeare

    18. King Lear
    1606—English

  18. Immanuel Kant

    19. Kritik der Reinen Vernunft
    Critique of Pure Reason
    1781; revised 1787—German

  19. Jane Austen

    20. Pride and Prejudice>
    originally anonymously published 1813—English

    Homer
  20. Iliad

    21. ca. Ninth-Eighth centuries B C—Greek

  21. Odýsseia

    22. The Odyssey
    ca. Ninth-Eighth centuries B C—Greek

  22. Fyodor Dostoevsky
    Brat'â Karamazovy
    The Brothers Karamazov
    originally published serially 1880 in Rússkij Véstnik—Russian

    T S Eliot
    • Collected Poems, 1909-1962

    23. 1936; expanded 1963; includes Prufrock and Other Observations [1917]; Poems: 1920 [1920]; 'The Waste Land'; 'The Hollow Men'; Ash Wednesday [1930]; Journey of the Magi [1927]; A Song for Simeon [1928]; Animula [1929]; Marina [1930]; Triumphal March [1931]; Sweeney Agonistes: Fragments of an Aristophanic Melodrama [1932]; Four Quartets; The Cultivation of Christmas Trees [1954]; selections from The Rock; two poems, 'Coriolan' and 'Difficulties of a Statesman', included with Triumphal March and Sweeney Agonistes in a section entitled Unfinished Poems; plus sections entitled Minor Poems, and Occasional Verses; 1936 edition, entitled Collected Poems, 1909-1935, only included 'Burnt Norton' from Four Quartets and did not include The Cultivation of Christmas Trees or the Occasional Verses section—English

  23. Prufrock and Other Observations

    24. 1917—English

  24. Poems: 1920

    25. 1920—English

  25. Journey of the Magi

    26. 1927; illustrations by Edward McKnight Kauffer; eighth of a series of 37 pamphlets collectively entitled Ariel Poems—English

  26. A Song for Simeon

    27. 1927; with an illustration by Edward McKnight Kauffer; 16th of a series of 37 pamphlets collectively entitled Ariel Poems—English

  27. Animula

    28. 1929; illustrations by Gertrude Hermes; 23rd of a series of 37 pamphlets collectively entitled Ariel Poems—English

  28. Marina

    29. 1930; illustrations by Edward McKnight Kauffer; 29th of a series of 37 pamphlets collectively entitled Ariel Poems—English

  29. Ash Wednesday

    30. 1930—English

  30. Triumphal March

    31. 1931; illustrations by Edward McKnight Kauffer; 35th of a series of 37 pamphlets collectively entitled Ariel Poems; later made part of 'Coriolan' in the Unfinished Poems section of Eliot's Collected Poems—English

  31. Sweeney Agonistes: Fragments of an Aristophanic Melodrama

    32. 1932—English

  32. Four Quartets

    33. originally published in four volumes: Burnt Norton, in Collected Poems 1909-1935, 1936; East Coker, in the New English Weekly, 1940; The Dry Salvages, in the New English Weekly, 1941; Little Gidding, in the New English Weekly, 1942—English

  33. The Cultivation of Christmas Trees

    34. 1954; illustrations by David Jones; part of a second series of Ariel Poems—English

  34. Vladimir Nabokov

    35. Lolita
    1955—English
    --
  35. Quran

    36. Koran
    Seventh Century—Arabic

  36. Charles Dickens

    37. Our Mutual Friend
    originally published serially May 1864-Nov. 1865—English

  37. Jorge Luis Borges

    38. Ficciones
    originally entitled El Jardín de Senderos que se Bifurcan, published 1941; expanded 1944 and 1956—Spanish

  38. Herodotus

    39. Historiē
    History
    Fifth Century B C—Greek

  39. Herman Melville

    40. Moby-Dick; or, The Whale
    1851—English

  40. Gustave Flaubert
    Madame Bovary
    originally published serially Oct. 1856-Dec. 1856 in La Revue de Paris—French

    Franz Kafka
    • The Collected Stories of Franz Kafka

    41. 1971; includes Die Verwandlung [1915]; In der Strafkolonie [1919]; Betrachtung (Contemplation), 1912; Eine Landarzt. Kleine Erzählungen (A Country Doctor), 1919; Ein Hungerkünstler (A Hunger Artist), 1924; Beim Bau der Chinesischen Mauer (The Great Wall of China), 1931; and other stories previously published but uncollected in book form—German

  41. Die Verwandlung

    42. The Metamorphosis
    originally published 1915 in Die Weißen Blätter—German

  42. In der Strafkolonie

    43. In the Penal Colony
    1919—German

    --
  43. The Bible

    44. The Globe and Mail specifies the King James Version, translated 1604-11 to English from the Hebrew and Aramaic (Old Testament) and the Greek (New Testament), revised 1769 by Benjamin Blayney—Hebrew; Aramaic; Greek

  44. Isaac Newton
    Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica
    The Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy
    1687; revised 1713 and 1726—Latin

    William Butler Yeats
    • The Collected Poems of W B Yeats

    45. 1933; expanded 1950; revised 1956; includes The Wind Among the Reeds [1899]; The Shadowy Waters [originally published May 1900 in the North American Review; revised for inclusion in Poems, 1899-1905; theatrical version published separately 1906; both versions included here]; Michael Robartes and the Dancer [1921]; The Tower [1928]; The Winding Stair [1929]; Words for Music Perhaps and Other Poems [1932]; New Poems [1938]; selections from The Wanderings of Oisin and Other Poems, 1889; The Countess Kathleen and Various Legends and Lyrics, 1892; In the Seven Woods: Being Poems Chiefly of the Irish Heroic Age, 1904; The Green Helmet and Other Poems, 1910; Responsibilities, 1914; The Wild Swans at Coole, Other Verses and a Play in Verse, 1917, expanded 1919; A Full Moon in March, 1935; and Last Poems and Two Plays, 1939—English

  45. The Wind Among the Reeds

    46. 1899—English

  46. The Shadowy Waters

    47. 1900; originally published May 1900 in the North American Review; revised for inclusion in Poems, 1899-1905; theatrical version published separately 1906; both versions included in the author's collected poems—English

  47. Michael Robartes and the Dancer

    48. 1920—English

  48. The Tower

    49. 1928; originally published as Seven Poems and a Fragment, 1922; The Cat and the Moon, 1924; and October Blast, 1927—English

  49. The Winding Stair

    50. 1929—English

  50. Words for Music Perhaps and Other Poems

    51. 1932—English

  51. New Poems

    52. 1938—English

  52. Galileo

    53. Dialogo Sopra i due Massimi Sistemi del Mondo
    Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems
    1632—Italian

    Sophocles
  53. Oidipous epi Kolōnō

    54. Oedipus at Colonus
    401 B C—Greek

  54. Oidipous Tyrannos

    55. Oedipus Rex; Oedipus the King
    ca. 429 B C—Greek

  55. Antigone

    56. ca. 441 B C—Greek

  56. Vyasa

    57. Mahabharata
    includes Bhagavad Gita; ca. Ninth Century B C-Fourth Century—Sanskrit

  57. Lewis Carroll

    58. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
    1865—English

  58. Jean-Jacques Rousseau

    59. Du Contrat Social ou Principes du Droit Politique
    The Social Contract
    1762—French

  59. Michel de Montaigne

    60. Les Essais
    Essays
    originally published in three volumes: 1580, 1588, and 1595—French

  60. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

    61. Faust
    originally published in two volumes: first, Faust. Der Tragödie Erster Teil, published in part, 1790; in its entirey, 1808; revised 1829; second, Faust. Der Tragödie Zweiter Teil, 1832—German

  61. Rachel Carson

    62. Silent Spring
    originally published Jun. 1962 in the New Yorker—English

  62. David Hume
    An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding
    1748—English

    • Anton Chekhov

    63. Stories
    late Nineteenth-early Twentieth centuries—Russian

  63. Leo Tolstoy

    64. Voyna i Mir"
    War and Peace
    originally entitled 1805, published in part, 1865 and 1867; retitled and published in its entirety, 1869—Russian

  64. Mary Wollstonecraft

    65. A Vindication of the Rights of Woman
    1792—English

  65. Giovanni Boccaccio

    66. Il Decameron, Cognominato Prencipe Galeotto
    ca. 1351-53—Italian

  66. Samuel Beckett

    67. En Attendant Godot
    Waiting for Godot
    1953—French

  67. Murasaki Shikibu
    Genji Monogatari
    The Tale of Genji
    ca. early Eleventh Century—Japanese

    • Denis Diderot et al.

    68. Encyclopédie, ou Dictionnaire Raisonné des Sciences, des Arts et des Métiers
    published in 28 volumes, 1751-72—French

  68. Henry James

    69. The Portrait of a Lady
    originally published serially Oct. 1880-Nov. 1881 in Macmillan's and Nov. 1880-Dec. 1881 in the Atlantic Monthly—English