Arthur Waldorn, Olga S Weber, and Arthur Zeiger, Good Reading: A Guide for Serious Readers, 23rd edition [1990]
106 entries: 81 monographical, 25 otherwise
Unranked—arranged alphabetically by author within chronological sections
The 23rd (and, apparently, final) edition of this long-running series features a list of 101 Significant Books, A Short List of Books to Read on Vacation, A Short List of Books to Read Before Entering College, and A Short List of Books to Read After Retirement. We are only interested here in the first list. Following the Greater Books guidelines, the final version of the Significant Books list is used. According to the list introductions found in both the 22nd and 23rd editions, the list of Significant Books was included in the first edition of Good Reading, in 1934, and has been revised "several times." The list is a good one, though it's perhaps the best (worst) example of the listmakers not bothering to list actual books in a list of books and, furthermore, having non-book entries that are incredibly vague (yes, Robert Frost did write poems, thanks). The only book included in the 22nd edition not found in the 23rd edition's list below is Theodore Dreiser's An American Tragedy. Beauvoir, Borges, Garcia Márquez, Woolf, and Zola were added in the 23rd.
I have also come across a copy of the 21st edition, from which we learn of the items added to the 22nd, as Kant's Critique of Pure Reason, Spinoza's Ethics, Dickinson, Nietzsche's Will to Power, Einstein's Theory of Relativity, Ellison's Invisible Man, Proust, and Yeats are not found in the earlier book. However, the items that appear in the 21st but not the 22nd are more numerous: Aristotle - Politics; Herodotus - History; Marcus Aurelius - Meditations; Cellini's autobiography; Franklin's autobiography; Pepys' diary; Butler - The Way of All Flesh; Maupassant - short stories; Wordsworth; Huxley - Brave New World; Lewis - Arrowsmith; Sandburg - Lincoln; Steinbeck - The Grapes of Wrath; and Veblen - The Theory of the Leisure Class. A couple authors's selections were changed from the 21st to the 22nd/ 23rd: Dickens' David Copperfield replaced Grand Expectations; while Lawrence's Women in Love replaced Sons and Lovers.
- Aeschylus
Oresteia
The House of Atreus
458 B C—Greek
Fables
ca. late Seventh-early Sixth centuries B C—Greek
Plays
late Fifth Century B C—Greek
- Aristotle
Ethika Nikomacheia
Nicomachean Ethics
Fourth Century B C—Greek
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- The Bible
—Hebrew; Aramaic; Greek
- Confucius (Kǒng Zǐ) (Kǒng Fūzǐ) (K'ung Fu-tzu)
Analects
Lún Yǔ
written and compiled by the author's pupils; ca. Fifth Century B C-Second Century—Chinese
Plays
late Fifth Century B C—Greek
Homer
- Iliad
ca. Ninth-Eighth centuries B C—Greek
- Odýsseia
The Odyssey
ca. Ninth-Eighth centuries B C—Greek
- Lǎozǐ (Lao-tzu) (Laocius)
Dàodéjǐng
Tao te Ching
ca. Sixth Century B C—Chinese
- Titus Lucretius Carus
De Rerum Natura
On the Nature of Things
First Century B C—Latin
Plato
- Politeia
The Republic
early Fourth Century B C—Greek
- Symposium
early Fourth Century B C—Greek
- Plutarch
Bìoi Paràllēloi
Parallel Lives; Lives of the Noble Greeks and Romans
First Century—Greek
Sophocles
- Antigone
ca. 441 B C—Greek
- Oidipous epi Kolōnō
Oedipus at Colonus
401 B C—Greek
- Oidipous Tyrannos
Oedipus Rex; Oedipus the King
ca. 429 B C—Greek
- Thucydides
History of the Peloponnesian War
early Fifth Century B C—Greek
- Virgil (Publius Vergilius Maro)
Aeneid
First Century B C—Latin
--
- Kitab alf Laylah Wa-Laylah
The Thousand and One Nights; The Arabian Nights
Ninth-Fifteenth centuries—Arabic
- Francis Bacon
Essays: Religious Meditations. Places of Perswasion and Disswasion. Seene and Allowed
1597; expanded 1612; expanded and retitled Essayes or Counsels, Civill and Morall, 1625—English
- Giovanni Boccaccio
Il Decameron, Cognominato Prencipe Galeotto
ca. 1351-53—Italian
- Miguel de Cervantes
El Ingenioso Hidalgo Don Quijote de la Mancha
Don Quixote
originally published in two volumes, 1605 and 1615—Spanish
- Geoffrey Chaucer
Canterbury Tales
1478—English
- Dante
La Divina Commedia
The Divine Comedy
originally entitled La Commedia; written ca. 1308-21—Italian
- Niccolò Machiavelli
Il Principe
The Prince
1532—Italian
- Thomas Malory
Le Morte d'Arthur
1485; revised through sixth edition, 1634—English
--
- Quran
Koran
Seventh Century—Arabic
- Michel de Montaigne
Les Essais
Essays
originally published in three volumes: 1580, 1588, and 1595—French
- Thomas More
Libellus Uere Aureus, nec Minus Salutaris Quam Festivus, de Optimo rei Publicae Statu Deque Nova Insula Utopia
Utopia
1516—Latin
- Omar Khayyam
The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam
ca. Eleventh-Twelfth centuries; compiled by Edward FitzGerald in five editions, 1859, 1868, 1872, 1879, and 1889—Persian
- François Rabelais
La Vie de Gargantua et de Pantagruel
originally published in five volumes: Les Horribles et Épouvantables Faits et Prouesses du Très Renommé Pantagruel Roi des Dipsodes, Fils du Grand Géant Gargantua, 1532; La Vie Très Horrifique du Grand Gargantua, Père de Pantagruel, 1534; Le Tiers Livre des Faicts et Dicts Héroïques du Bon Pantagruel, 1546; Le Quart Livre des Faicts et Dicts Héroïques du Bon Pantagruel, 1552; Le Cinquiesme et Dernier Livre des Faicts et Dicts Héroïques du Bon Pantagruel, 1564—French
Plays
late Sixteenth-early Seventeenth centuries—English
- James Boswell
The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D.
1791—English
- John Bunyan
The Pilgrim's Progress From This World to That Which Is to Come
1678—English
Poems
late Eighteenth Century—English
- Daniel Defoe
The Life and Strange Surprizing Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, of York, Mariner
originally anonymously published 1719—English
- René Descartes
Discours de la Méthode Pour Bien Conduire sa Raison, et Chercher la Vérité dans les Sciences
Discourse on the Method
1637—French
Poems
early Seventeenth Century—English
- Henry Fielding
The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling
1749—English
- Edward Gibbon
The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
originally published in six volumes: first, 1776; second-third, 1781; fourth-sixth, 1788—English
- Alexander Hamilton; John Jay; James Madison
The Federalist Papers
originally published 1787-1788 in the Independent Journal, the New-York Packet, and the Daily Advertiser—English
- Immanuel Kant
Kritik der Reinen Vernunft
Critique of Pure Reason
1781; revised 1787—German
- John Locke
An Essay Concerning Human Understanding
1689—English
- Thomas Robert Malthus
An Essay on the Principle of Population
originally anonymously published 1798; revised and published under the author's name, 1803—English
- John Milton
Paradise Lost
1667; revised 1674—English
"Comedies"
Seventeenth Century—French
- Thomas Paine
The Rights of Man: Being an Answer to Mr. Burke's Attack on the French Revolution
originally published in two volumes, 1791 and 1792—English
- Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Du Contrat Social ou Principes du Droit Politique
The Social Contract
1762—French
- Adam Smith
An Inquiry Into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations
1776; revised through third edition, 1784—English
- Baruch Spinoza
Ethica, Ordine Geometrico Demonstrata
Ethics
1677—Latin
- Laurence Sterne
The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman
originally published in nine volumes, 1759-67—English
- Jonathan Swift
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
- Voltaire
Candide, ou L'Optimisme
1759—French
- Jane Austen
Pride and Prejudice
originally anonymously published 1813—English
- Honoré de Balzac
Eugénie Grandet
1833—French
Poems
Nineteenth Century—English
Poems
early Nineteenth Century—English
Plays
late Nineteenth-early Twentieth centuries—Russian
- Charles Darwin
On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life
1859—English
- Charles Dickens
The Personal History, Adventures, Experience and Observation of David Copperfield the Younger of Blunderstone Rookery (Which He Never Meant to Publish on Any Account)
originally published serially May 1849-Nov. 1850—English
Poems
Nineteenth Century—English
- Fyodor Dostoevsky
Brat'â Karamazovy
The Brothers Karamazov
originally published serially 1880 in Rússkij Véstnik—Russian
- George Eliot
Middlemarch: A Study of Provincial Life
originally published serially Dec. 1871-Dec. 1872—English
Essays
Nineteenth Century—English
- Gustave Flaubert
Madame Bovary
originally published serially Oct. 1856-Dec. 1856 in La Revue de Paris—French
- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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
- Thomas Hardy
Tess of the d'Urbervilles: A Pure Woman Faithfully Presented
published in part serially Jul.-Dec. 1891 in the Graphic—English
- Nathaniel Hawthorne
The Scarlet Letter
1850—English
- Victor Hugo
Les Misérables
1862—French
Plays
Fadiman recommends several overlapping collections; late Nineteenth Century—Norwegian
Poems
early Nineteenth Century—English
- Karl Marx
Das Kapital, Kritik der Politischen Ökonomie
originally published in three volumes 1867, 1885, and 1894—German
- Herman Melville
Moby-Dick; or, The Whale
1851—English
- Friedrich Nietzsche
Der Wille zur Mach
The Will to Power
1901; revised 1906—German
Stories
Nineteenth Century—English
Poems
early Nineteenth Century—English
- Stendhal
Le Rouge et le Noir, Chronique du XIXe Siècle
The Red and the Black
1830—French
- William Makepeace Thackeray
Vanity Fair: A Novel Without a Hero
originally published serially Jan. 1847-Jul. 1848—English
- Henry David Thoreau
Walden; or, Life in the Woods
1854—English
- Leo Tolstoy
Voyna i Mir"
War and Peace
originally entitled 1805, published in part, 1865 and 1867; retitled and published in its entirety, 1869—Russian
- Mark Twain
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
1884—English
- Walt Whitman
Leaves of Grass
1855; expanded and revised through ninth edition, 1892—English
Poems
late Eighteenth-early Nineteenth centuries—English
- Émile Zola
Germinal
originally published serially Apr. 1884-Jan. 1885 in Gil Blas—French
- Simone Beauvoir
Le Deuxième Sexe
The Second Sex
published in part serially in Les Temps Modernes; in its entirety in two volumes, 1949—French
Labyrinths
English translations of stories mostly originally published in Ficciones and El Aleph—Spanish
- Albert Einstein
The Meaning of Relativity: Four Lectures Delivered at Princeton University
1921; expanded, 1945—English
T S Eliot
Twentieth Century—English
Twentieth Century—English
- Ralph Ellison
Invisible Man
1952—English
- William Faulkner
The Sound and the Fury
1929—English
- James George Frazer
The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion
originally entitled The Golden Bough: A Study in Comparative Religion, published in two volumes, 1890; expanded and retitled 1900, in three volumes; expanded 1906-15, in 12 volumes; supplemental volume added for 1937 edition; distinct abridged versions, 1922, 1959, and 1994; Good Reading specifies the 1959 abridged edition—English
- Sigmund Freud
Vorlesungen zur Einführung in die Psychoanalyse
Introductory Lectures on Psycho-Analysis
1917—German
Poems
Twentieth Century—English
- Gabriel García Márquez
Cien Anõs de Soledad
One Hundred Years of Solitude
1967—Spanish
- Ernest Hemingway
The Sun Also Rises
1926—English
- Henry James
The Ambassadors
originally published serially 1903 in the North American Review—English
- James Joyce
Ulysses
published in part serially Mar. 1918-Dec. 1920 in the Little Review; in its entirety, 1922—English
- D H Lawrence
Women in Love
1920—English
- Thomas Mann
Der Zauberberg
The Magic Mountain
1924—German
Plays
Twentieth Century—English
- Marcel Proust
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
Plays
late Nineteenth-early Twentieth centuries—English>
- Virginia Woolf
To the Lighthouse
1927 —English
Poems
late Nineteenth-early Twentieth centuries—English