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Frank N. Magill, Masterpieces of World Literature [1989]

281 entries: 251 monographical, 30 otherwise

Unranked—arranged alphabetically by work

Masterpieces of World Literature was both a revival and culmination of Magill's earlier Masterplots series, which seemed to have set the template for student-oriented plot summaries and brief analyses of literary works published in pamphlet form, a market later dominated by Cliff's Notes. Masterplots continues on in the form of a large multi-volume reference set, the third edition published in 1996, the fourth in 2010, as well as several smaller thematic volumes, such as Women's Literature, Christian Literature, British and Commonwealth Fiction, and Nonfiction Series, that presumbly overlap with the general set. In the Nineties came the dual multi-volume books, Magill's Survey of World Literature and Magill's Survey of American Literature. These two series do not meet the Greater Books criteria for inclusion. Not only do they present a larger, and thus less discerning, selection of books than found in Masterpieces, but they are organized by author, not literary work, with each author having two to four works analyzed; that is, more like a directory of authors; a reference work rather than a refined selection/ canon/ reading plan. In this sense, they are similar to several lists noted on the Excluded Lists page, such as Hutchinson's The World's Best Books, Homer to Hemingway and What to Read by English and Pope.

Five of the entries by "unknown" in this list ('Hercules and the Twelve Labors', 'Jason and the Golden Fleece', 'Orpheus and Eurydice', 'Reynard the Fox', and 'Robin Hood's Adventures) are not specific literary works. Rather, Magill and his collaborators describe the story, or fable, more broadly, not emphasizing a specific work. Versions of the stories, or works in which the stories play a role, are mentioned, such as Ovid's Metamorphoses and Euripides' Alcestis for Hercules and the Twelve Labors. For Jason and the Golden Fleece, it is noted that Apollonius Rhodius' Argonautica gave the myth its first "formal expanded treatment." "The first known compilation of prose and poetry of the Robin Hood legend came in 1490 with the publication of the Lytel Geste of Robin Hood, by Wynkyn de Worde, a noted British printer." And, "the longest and most familiar version of [Orpheus and Eurydice] is found in Ovid's Metamorphoses (c. A. D. 8), and Ovid may well have been inspired by Vergil's less florid account, carefully placed at the dramatic end of his Georgics (c. 37-29 B C)." Furthermore, "this myth became the subject of the first secular drama in vernacular, Orfeo (1480; Orpheus), composed in the era of the Medicis by Angelo Poliziano (Politian). In 1600, the first Italian opera, Euridice, was composed. Christoph Gluck's Orfeo ed Eurydice (1762) is considered the first "modern" opera for its balance of music and tragic drama." None of these works are included in the list here.

  1. William Faulkner

    2. Absalom, Absalom!
    1936—English

    Mark Twain
  2. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn>

    3. 1884—English

  3. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer

    4. 1876—English

  4. Virgil (Publius Vergilius Maro)

    5. Aeneid
    First Century B C—Latin

  5. Thomas Paine

    6. The Age of Reason; Being an Investigation of True and Fabulous Theology
    originally published in three volumes: 1794, 1795, and 1807—English

  6. Ben Jonson

    7. The Alchemist
    1610—English

  7. Lewis Carroll

    8. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
    1865—English

  8. William Shakespeare

    9. All's Well That Ends Well
    ca. 1606-08—English

  9. Henry James
    The Ambassadors
    originally published serially 1903 in the North American Review—English

    • Hans Christian Andersen

    10. Fables
    Nineteenth Century—Danish

  10. Leo Tolstoy

    11. Anna Karenina
    published in part serially 1873-7 in Rússkij Véstnik; in its entirety, 1877—Russian

  11. Sophocles

    12. Antigone
    ca. 441 B C—Greek

  12. William Shakespeare

    13. Antony and Cleopatra
    ca. 1606-08—English

    --
  13. Kitab alf Laylah Wa-Laylah

    14. The Thousand and One Nights; The Arabian Nights
    Ninth-Fifteenth centuries—Arabic

  14. John Milton

    15. Areopagitica; A Speech of Mr. John Milton for the Liberty of Unlicenc'd Printing, to the Parliament of England
    1644—English

  15. Horace (Quintus Horatius Flaccus)

    16. Ars Poetica
    ca. 10-8 B C—Latin

  16. William Faulkner

    17. As I Lay Dying
    1930—English

  17. William Shakespeare

    18. As You Like It
    1603—English

  18. Benjamin Franklin

    19. Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin
    French translation published 1791 as Mémoires de la Vie Privée de Benjamin Franklin; first-third parts of the original English published 1818 as volume one of Memoirs of the Life and Writings of Benjamin Franklin; original English published in its entirety, 1868—English

    William Butler Yeats
  19. Reveries Over Childhood and Youth

    20. 1915; included in The Autobiography of William Butler Yeats, Consisting of "Reveries Over Childhood and Youth," "The Trembling of the Veil," and "Dramatis Personae", 1938; and Autobiogarphies, 1955—EnglishB C

  20. The Trembling of the Veil

    21. 1922; included in The Autobiography of William Butler Yeats, Consisting of "Reveries Over Childhood and Youth," "The Trembling of the Veil," and "Dramatis Personae", 1938; and Autobiogarphies, 1955—EnglishB C

  21. The Bounty of Sweden: A Meditation, and a Lecture Delivered Before the Royal Swedish Academy, and Certain Notes

    22. 1925; included in Autobiogarphies, 1955—English

  22. Estrangement: Being Some Fifty Thoughts From a Diary Kept by William Butler Yeats in the Year Nineteen Hundred and Nine

    23. 1926; included in Autobiogarphies, 1955—English

  23. The Death of Synge and Other Passages From an Old Diary

    24. 1928; included in Autobiogarphies, 1955—English

  24. Dramatis Personae

    25. 1935; included in The Autobiography of William Butler Yeats, Consisting of "Reveries Over Childhood and Youth," "The Trembling of the Veil," and "Dramatis Personae", 1938; and Autobiogarphies, 1955—EnglishB C

  25. Sinclair Lewis

    26. Babbitt
    1922—English

  26. Euripides

    27. Bakchai
    The Bacchae
    405 B C—Greek

  27. Anthony Trollope
    Barchester Towers
    1857—English

    • Herman Melville

    28. 'Benito Cereno'
    originally published serially 1855 in Putnam's Monthly; revised for inclusion in The Piazza Tales, 1856—English

    --
  28. Beowulf

    29. ca. Eighth-Eleventh centuries—English

  29. Friedrich Nietzsche

    30. Jenseits von Gut und Böse: Vorspiel Einer Philosophie der Zukunft
    Beyond Good and Evil
    1886—German

  30. Herman Melville

    31. Billy Budd, Foretopman
    Billy Budd, Sailor (An Inside Narrative)
    1924—English

  31. Samuel Taylor Coleridge

    32. Biographia Literaria; or Biographical Sketches of My Literary Life and Opinions
    originally published in two volumes, 1817—English

  32. Aristophanes

    33. Ornithes
    The Birds
    414 B C—Greek

  33. Fyodor Dostoevsky

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

  34. Thomas Mann

    35. Buddenbrooks
    1901—German

  35. Voltaire

    36. Candide, ou L'Optimisme
    1759—French

  36. Geoffrey Chaucer

    37. Canterbury Tales
    1478—English

  37. Ezra Pound

    38. Cantos
    published in part in Poetry, Jun.-Aug. 1917; the Criterion, Jul. 1923; the Transatlantic Review, Jan. 1924; and in the following volumes: The Fourth Canto, 1919; A Draft of XVI Cantos, 1925; A Draft of Cantos 17-27, 1928; A Draft of XXX Cantos, 1930; Eleven New Cantos XXXI-XLI, 1934; The Fifth Decad of Cantos, 1937; Cantos LII-LXXI, 1940; The Pisan Cantos, 1948; Seventy Cantos, 1950; Section: Rock-Drill, 85-95 de los Cantares, 1955; Thrones: 96-109 de los Cantares, 1959; Drafts and Fragments of Cantos CX-CXVII, 1968; in its entirety, revised and expanded, 1987—English

  38. Alexander Pushkin

    39. Kapitanskaâ Dočka
    The Captain's Daughter
    originally published 1836 in Sovremennik—Russian

  39. Franz Kafka

    40. Das Schloss
    The Castle
    1926—German

  40. Pierre Corneille
    Le Cid
    1637—French

    • Dylan Thomas

    41. Collected Poems 1934-1952
    1952; includes 18 Poems [1934]; Twenty-five Poems [1936]; The Map of Love [1939]; Deaths and Entrances [1946] (excluding 'Paper and Stick', adding 'Once Below a Time'); In Country Sleep and Other Poems [1952]—English

  41. 18 Poems

    42. 1934—English

  42. Twenty-five Poems

    43. 1936—English

  43. The Map of Love

    44. 1939—English

  44. Deaths and Entrances

    45. 1946; published in part, 1943, as New Poems—English—English

  45. In Country Sleep and Other Poems

    46. 1952—English

  46. William Shakespeare

    47. The Comedy of Errors
    1594—English

  47. Augustine of Hippo

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

  48. Jean-Jacques Rousseau

    49. Les Confessions
    1782—French

  49. Alexandre Dumas

    50. Le Comte de Monte-Cristo
    originally published serially Aug. 1844-Jan. 1846 in Journal des Débats—French

  50. Fyodor Dostoevsky

    51. Prestuplénie i Nakazániye
    Crime and Punishment
    originally published serially Jan.-Dec. 1866 in Rússkij Véstnik—Russian

  51. Immanuel Kant

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

  52. Edmond Rostand

    53. Cyrano de Bergerac
    1897—French

  53. Longus

    54. Daphnis kai Chloē
    Daphnis and Chloe
    Second Century—Greek

  54. Charles Dickens

    55. 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

  55. Nikolai Gogol

    56. Mërtvyâ Duši
    Dead Souls
    1842—Russian

  56. Willa Cather

    57. Death Comes for the Archbishop
    1927—English

  57. Thomas Mann

    58. Der Tod in Venedig
    Death in Venice
    1911—German

  58. Giovanni Boccaccio

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

  59. Alexis de Tocqueville
    De la Démocratie en Amérique
    Democracy in America
    originally published in two volumes, 1835 and 1840—French

    • Plato

    60. Dialogues
    early Fourth Century B C—Greek

  60. Dante

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

  61. Christopher Marlowe

    62. The Tragical History of the Life and Death of Doctor Faustus
    1592—English

    Henrik Ibsen
  62. Et Dukkehjem

    63. A Doll's House
    1879—Norwegian

  63. Lord Byron (George Gordon, Lord Byron)

    64. Don Juan
    originally published in six volumes: Jul. 1819; Aug. 1821; Jul. 1823; Aug. 1823; Dec. 1823; Mar. 1824—English

  64. Miguel de Cervantes

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

  65. Bram Stoker
    Dracula
    1897—English

    • Robert Browning

    66. "Dramatic Monologues and Lyrics"
    Nineteenth Century—English

  66. Cáo Xuěqín (Mengruan) (Ts'ao Hsueh-ch'in)

    67. Hóng Lóu Mèng
    The Dream of the Red Chamber; The Story of the Stone
    1791—Chinese

  67. Rainer Maria Rilke

    68. Duineser Elegien
    The Duino Elegies
    1923—German

  68. John Steinbeck

    69. East of Eden
    1952—English

  69. Henry Adams

    70. The Education of Henry Adams
    1918—English

  70. Euripides

    71. Ēlektra
    Electra
    written ca. 413 B C—Greek

  71. Jane Austen

    72. Emma
    originally anonymously published 1815—English

  72. Henrik Ibsen

    73. En Folkefiende
    An Enemy of the People
    1882—Norwegian

  73. David Hume

    74. An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding
    1748—English

    --
  74. Sha Naqba Imuru

    75. The Epic of Gilgamesh; He Who Saw the Deep
    Eighteenth-Tenth centuries B C—Sumerian; Akkadian

  75. Michel de Montaigne

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

  76. John Locke

    77. An Essay Concerning Human Understanding
    1689—English

  77. Alexander Pope
    Essay on Man
    1734—English

    • Ralph Waldo Emerson

    Essays
    Nineteenth Century—English

    • Henry David Thoreau

    78. Essays
    Nineteenth Century—English

  78. Edith Wharton

    79. Ethan Frome
    1911—English

  79. Baruch Spinoza

    80. Ethica, Ordine Geometrico Demonstrata
    Ethics
    1677—Latin

  80. Alexander Pushkin

    81. Evgénij Onegin
    Eugene Onegin
    published in part serially 1825-32; in its entirety, 1833; revised 1837—Russian

  81. Honoré de Balzac
    Eugénie Grandet
    1833—French

    • John Keats

    82. 'The Eve of St. Agnes'
    originally published in Lamia, Isabella, The Eve of St. Agnes, and Other Poems, 1820—EnglishB C

    --
  82. The Somonyng of Everyman

    83. late Fifteenth Century—English

  83. William Faulkner

    84. A Fable
    1954—English

  84. Edmund Spenser
    The Faerie Queene
    originally published in two volumes, 1590 and 1596—English

    • Edgar Allan Poe

    85. 'The Fall of the House of Usher'
    originally published Sep. 1839 in Burton's Gentleman's Magazine; revised for inclusion in Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque, 1840—English

  85. Ernest Hemingway

    86. A Farewell to Arms
    1929—English

  86. August Strindberg

    87. Fadren
    written 1887—Swedish

  87. Ivan Turgenev

    88. Otcy i Deti
    Fathers and Children; Fathers and Sons
    originally published Feb. 1862 in Rússkij Véstnik—Russian

  88. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

    89. 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

  89. Charles Baudelaire

    90. Les Fleurs du Mal
    The Flowers of Evil
    1857—French

  90. Ernest Hemingway

    91. For Whom the Bell Tolls
    1940—English

  91. T S Eliot

    92. Four Quartets
    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

  92. Mary Shelley

    93. Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus
    originally anonymously published 1818—English

  93. François Rabelais

    94. 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

  94. Émile Zola

    95. Germinal
    originally published serially Apr. 1884-Jan. 1885 in Gil Blas—French

  95. Henry James

    96. The Golden Bowl
    1904—English

  96. Pearl Buck

    97. The Good Earth
    1931—English

  97. John Steinbeck

    98. The Grapes of Wrath
    1939—English

  98. Charles Dickens

    99. Great Expectations
    originally published serially Dec. 1860-Aug. 1861 in All the Year Round—English

  99. F Scott Fitzgerald

    100. The Great Gatsby
    1925—English

  100. Jonathan Swift

    101. 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

  101. William Shakespeare

    102. Hamlet
    1602—English

  102. Joseph Conrad

    103. Heart of Darkness
    originally published serially Feb.-Apr. 1899 in Blackwood's—English

  103. Henrik Ibsen

    104. Hedda Gabler
    1890—Norwegian

    William Shakespeare
  104. The First Part of Henry IV

    105. 1597—English

  105. The Second Part of Henry IV

    106. 1600—English

  106. Henry V
    1599—English

    --
    • "Hercules and His Twelve Labors"

    107. unspecified selection

  107. Herodotus

    108. Historiē
    History
    Fifth Century B C—Greek

  108. Edward Gibbon

    109. 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

  109. Thucydides

    110. History of the Peloponnesian War
    early Fifth Century B C—Greek

  110. Nathaniel Hawthorne

    111. The House of Seven Gables
    1851—English

  111. Victor Hugo

    112. Notre-Dame de Paris
    The Hunchback of Notre Dame
    1831—French

  112. Knut Hamsun

    113. Sult
    Hunger
    published in part, 1888, in Ny Jord; in its entirety, 1890—Norwegian

  113. Homer

    114. Iliad
    ca. Ninth-Eighth centuries B C—Greek

  114. Oscar Wilde

    115. The Importance of Being Earnest
    1895—English

  115. Alfred, Lord Tennyson

    116. In Memoriam A H H
    1849—English

  116. Sigmund Freud

    117. Die Traumdeutung
    The Interpretation of Dreams
    1899—German

  117. Walter Scott

    118. Ivanhoe
    originally anonymously published 1819—English

  118. Charlotte Brontë
    Jane Eyre: An Autobiography
    originally published under the pseudonym, Currer Bell, 1847—English

    --
    • "Jason and the Golden Fleece"

    119. unspecified selection

  119. Thomas Hardy

    120. Jude the Obscure
    originally published serially Dec. 1894-Nov. 1895 in Harper's New Monthly Magazine—English

  120. William Shakespeare

    121. Julius Caesar
    1599—English

  121. Karl Marx

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

  122. Robert Louis Stevenson

    123. Kidnapped
    originally published serially May-Jul. 1886 in Young Folks—English

  123. Rudyard Kipling

    124. Kim
    originally published serially Dec. 1900-Oct. 1901 in McClure's and Jan. 1901-Oct. 1901 in Cassell's—EnglishB C

  124. William Shakespeare

    125. King Lear
    1606—English

  125. James Fenimore Cooper

    126. The Last of the Mohicans: A Narrative of 1757
    1826—English

    --
  126. La Vida de Lazarillo de Tormes y de sus Fortunas y Adversidades

    127. 1554—Spanish

  127. Walt Whitman
    Leaves of Grass
    1855; expanded and revised through ninth edition, 1892—English

    • Washington Irving

    128. 'The Legend of Sleepy Hollow'
    part of The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent., published serially Jun. 1819-Jul. 1820, expanded 1848

  128. Thomas Hobbes

    129. Leviathan or, The Matter, Forme and Power of a Common Wealth Ecclesiasticall and Civil
    1651—English

  129. Pedro Calderón de la Barca

    130. La Vida es Sueño
    Life Is a Dream
    1635—Spanish

  130. James Boswell

    131. The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D.
    1791—English

  131. Mark Twain
    Life on the Mississippi
    1883—English

    • Edgar Allan Poe

    'Ligeia'
    originally published in the American Museum, 18 Sep. 1838; revised for inclusion in Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque, 1840; Phantasy Pieces, 1842; and Tales by Edgar Allan Poe, 1845, the New York World, Feb. 1845; and the Broadway Journal, Sep. 1845—English

    • Lord Byron

    "Lyric Poetry"
    early Nineteenth Century—English

    • John Milton

    132. "Lyric Poetry"
    Seventeenth Century—English

  132. Aristophanes

    133. Lysistrate
    Lysistrata
    411 B C—Greek

  133. William Shakespeare

    134. Macbeth
    ca. 1607—English

  134. Gustave Flaubert

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

  135. Thomas Mann

    136. Der Zauberberg
    The Magic Mountain
    1924—German

  136. Vyasa

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

  137. Sinclair Lewis

    138. Main Street: The Story of Carol Kennicott
    1920—English

  138. William Shakespeare

    139. Measure for Measure
    1604—English

  139. Euripides

    140. Mēdeia
    Medea
    431 B C—Greek

  140. Marcus Aurelius

    141. Ta Eis Heauton
    Meditations
    written 161-80—Greek

  141. William Shakespeare

    142. The Merchant of Venice
    ca. 1596-98—English

  142. Ovid

    143. Metamorphoseon
    Metamorphoses
    8—Latin

  143. George Eliot

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

  144. William Shakespeare

    145. A Midsummer Night's Dream
    ca. 1595-1600—English

  145. Molière

    146. Le Misanthrope ou l'Atrabilaire Amoureux
    The Misanthrope
    1666—French

  146. Victor Hugo

    147. Les Misérables
    1862—French

  147. August Strindberg

    148. Fröken Julie
    Miss Julie
    written 1888—Swedish

  148. Virginia Woolf

    149. Mrs. Dalloway
    published in part, Jul. 1923, as 'Mrs. Dalloway in Bond Street', in the Dial; in its entirety, 1925—English B C

  149. Herman Melville

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

  150. Thomas Malory

    151. Le Morte d'Arthur
    1485; revised through sixth edition, 1634—English

  151. Eugene O'Neill

    152. Mourning Becomes Electra
    1931—English

  152. William Shakespeare

    153. Much Ado About Nothing
    ca. 1598-99—English

  153. Willa Cather

    154. My Ántonia
    1918—English

  154. Jean-Paul Sartre

    155. La Nausée
    Nausea
    1938—French

  155. Francis Bacon

    156. Nova Atlantis
    1624—English

    --
  156. Nibelungenlied

    157. ca. Twelfth-Thirteenth centuries—German

  157. Charles Dickens

    158. The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby
    originally published serially Mar. 1838-Sep. 1839 under the pseudonym, Boz—English

  158. George Orwell

    159. Nineteen Eighty-Four
    1949—English

  159. Joseph Conrad
    Nostromo
    originally published serially 1904 in T P's Weekly—English

    • Sappho

    160. 'Hymn to Aphrodite'
    lone complete poem among the fragments of the author's work; late Seventh-early Sixth centuries B C—Greek

  160. Homer

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

    Sophocles
  161. Oidipous epi Kolōnō

    162. Oedipus at Colonus
    401 B C—Greek

  162. Oidipous Tyrannos

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

  163. Ernest Hemingway

    164. The Old Man and the Sea
    1952—English

  164. Arnold Bennett

    165. The Old Wives' Tale
    1908—English

  165. John Stuart Mill

    166. On Liberty
    1859—English

  166. Titus Lucretius Carus

    167. De Rerum Natura
    On the Nature of Things
    First Century B C—Latin

  167. 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

    • Marcus Tullius Cicero

    168. Speeches
    First Century B C—Latin

  168. Aeschylus

    169. Oresteia
    The House of Atreus
    458 B C—Greek

  169. Ludovico Ariosto
    Orlando Furioso
    published in part, 1516; revised 1521; published in its entirety, 1532—Italian

    --
    • "Orpheus and Eurydice"

    170. unspecified selectionB C

  170. William Shakespeare
    Othello
    ca. 1604—English

    • Nikolai Gogol

    171. 'Šinel''
    'The Overcoat'
    1842—Russian

  171. John Milton

    172. Paradise Lost
    1667; revised 1674—English

  172. Wolfram Von Eschenbach

    173. Parzival
    ca. early Thirteenth Century—German

  173. E M Forster

    174. A Passage to India
    1924—English

  174. Anatole France

    175. L'Île des Pingouins
    1908—French

  175. Blaise Pascal

    176. Pensées
    Thoughts
    1669—French

  176. Honoré de Balzac

    177. Le Père Goriot
    Father Goriot
    originally published serially Dec. 1834-Feb. 1835 in Revue de Paris—French

  177. Jean Racine

    178. Phèdre
    1677—French

  178. Charles Dickens

    179. The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club
    The Pickwick Papers
    originally published serially Apr. 1836-Nov. 1837 under the pseudonym, Boz—English

  179. John Bunyan

    180. The Pilgrim's Progress From This World to That Which Is to Come
    1678—English

  180. James Fenimore Cooper

    181. The Pioneers, or The Sources of the Susquehanna; A Descriptive Tale
    1823—English

  181. Albert Camus

    182. La Peste
    The Plague
    1947—French

    --
  182. El Cantar de Mio Cid

    183. written ca. 1195-1207—early Iberian Romance language

  183. Aristotle
    Peri Poiêtikês
    De Poetica; Poetics
    Fourth Century B C—Greek

    • Basho Matsuo

    Poems
    Seventeenth Century—Japanese

    • William Blake

    Poems
    late Eighteenth-early Nineteenth centuries—English

    • Emily Dickinson

    Poems
    Nineteenth Century—English

    • John Donne

    Poems
    early Seventeenth Century—English

    • Robert Frost

    Poems
    Twentieth Century—English

    • William Butler Yeats

    184. Poems
    late Nineteenth-early Twentieth centuries—English

  184. Henry James

    185. 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

  185. James Joyce

    186. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
    originally published serially Feb. 1914-Sep. 1915, in the Egoist—English

  186. Fyodor Dostoevsky

    187. Besy
    Demons; The Devils; The Possessed
    1872—Russian

  187. William James

    188. Pragmatism: A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking
    1907—English

  188. William Wordsworth

    189. The Prelude or, Growth of the Poet's Mind: An Autobiographical Poem
    1850; earlier versions written 1799 and 1805—English

  189. Jane Austen

    190. Pride and Prejudice
    originally anonymously published 1813—English

  190. Niccolò Machiavelli

    191. Il Principe
    The Prince
    1532—Italian

  191. Aeschylus

    192. Promētheus Desmōtēs
    Prometheus Bound
    disputed authorship; Fifth Century B C—Greek

  192. Percy Bysshe Shelley

    193. Prometheus Unbound
    1820—English

  193. Valmiki

    194. Ramayana
    ca. Fifth-Second centuries B C—Sanskrit

  194. Alexander Pope

    195. The Rape of the Lock
    originally anonymously published 1712 in Linot's Miscellany; expanded 1714 and 1717—English

  195. Stendhal

    196. Le Rouge et le Noir, Chronique du XIXe Siècle
    The Red and the Black
    1830—French

  196. Stephen Crane

    197. The Red Badge of Courage
    published in part serially Dec. 1894 in the Philadelphia Press; in its entirety, 1895—English


  197. Marcel Proust

    198. 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

  198. Plato

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

  199. Thomas Hardy
    The Return of the Native
    originally published serially Jan.-Dec. 1878 in Belgravia, the Magazine of Fashion and Amusement—English

    --
    • "Reynard the Fox"

    200. unspecified selection

    William Shakespeare
  200. Richard II

    201. 1597—English

  201. Richard III
    ca. 1592-7—English

    • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

    'The Rime of the Ancyent Marinere'
    originally published in Lyrical Ballads, With a Few Other Poems, 1798; revised for inclusion in Sibylline Leaves, 1817—English

    • Washington Irving

    'Rip Van Winkle'
    part of The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent., published serially Jun. 1819-Jul. 1820, expanded 1848

    --
    • "Robin Hood's Adventures"

    202. unspecified selectionB C

  202. Daniel Defoe

    203. The Life and Strange Surprizing Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, of York, Mariner
    originally anonymously published 1719—English

  203. William Shakespeare

    204. Romeo and Juliet
    ca. 1591-97—English

  204. Nathaniel Hawthorne

    205. The Scarlet Letter
    1850—English

  205. George Santayana

    206. Scepticism and Animal Faith
    1923—English

  206. Oliver Goldsmith

    207. She Stoops to Conquer
    1773—English

  207. Sǿren Kierkegaard

    208. Sygdommen til Dǿden
    The Sickness Unto Death
    originally published under the pseudonym, Anti-Climacus, 1849—Danish

  208. George Eliot

    209. Silas Marner: The Weaver of Raveloe
    1861—English

    --
  209. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

    210. probably the same author as Pearl (the "Gawain poet" or "Pearl poet"); late Fourteenth Century—English

    --
  210. La Chanson de Roland

    211. ca. Eleventh Century—French

  211. Elizabeth Barrett Browning

    212. Sonnets From the Portuguese
    1850—English

  212. D H Lawrence

    213. Sons and Lovers
    1913—English

  213. William Faulkner

    214. The Sound and the Fury
    1929—English

  214. Edgar Lee Masters

    215. Spoon River Anthology
    1915—English

  215. Robert Louis Stevenson

    216. Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
    1886—English

  216. Thomas Aquinas

    217. Summa Theologiae
    Summa Theologica
    written 1265-74—Latin

  217. Murasaki Shikibu

    218. Genji Monogatari
    The Tale of Genji
    ca. early Eleventh Century—Japanese

  218. William Shakespeare

    219. The Taming of the Shrew
    ca. 1592-94—English

  219. Molière

    220. Tartuffe, ou l'Imposteur
    1664—French

  220. William Shakespeare

    221. The Tempest
    1611—English

  221. Thomas Hardy

    222. Tess of the d'Urbervilles: A Pure Woman Faithfully Presented
    published in part serially Jul.-Dec. 1891 in the Graphic—English

  222. Anton Chekhov

    223. Tri Sestry
    Three Sisters
    1901—Russian

  223. Lewis Carroll

    224. Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There
    1871—English

  224. Friedrich Nietzsche

    225. Also Sprach Zarathustra: Ein Buch für Alle und Keinen
    Thus Spake Zarathustra
    originally published in four volumes, 1883-5—German

  225. Lucius Annaeus Seneca

    226. Thyestes
    First Century—Latin

  226. H G Wells

    227. The Time Machine
    1895—English

  227. Virginia Woolf

    228. To the Lighthouse
    1927 —English

  228. Henry Fielding

    229. The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling
    1749—English

  229. Robert Louis Stevenson

    230. Treasure Island
    originally entitled Treasure Island or, The Mutiny of the Hispaniola, published serially 1891-2 in Young Folks under the pseudonym, Captain George North—English

  230. Franz Kafka

    231. Der Prozess
    The Trial
    1925—German

  231. Gottfried Von Strassberg

    232. Tristan
    early Thirteenth Century—German

  232. Laurence Sterne

    233. The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman
    originally published in nine volumes, 1759-67—English

  233. Euripides

    234. Trōiades
    The Trojan Woman
    415 B C—Greek

  234. Henry James

    235. The Turn of the Screw
    originally published in The Two Magics, with a second novella, Covering End, 1898—English

  235. William Shakespeare

    236. Twelfth Night; or, What You Will
    1602—English

  236. Jules Verne

    237. Vingt Mille Lieues Sous les Mers: Tour du Monde Sous-Marin
    Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea
    1870—French

    Carl Jung
  237. Die Beziehungen Zwischen dem Ich und dem Unbewußten

    238. The Relations Between the Ego and the Unconscious
    1928; English translation included in Two Essays on Analytical Psychology, 1953—German

  238. Über die Psychologie des Unbewußten

    239. On the Psychology of the Unconscious
    1943; English translation included in Two Essays on Analytical Psychology, 1953—German

  239. William Shakespeare

    240. The Two Gentlemen of Verona
    ca. 1590-94—English

  240. James Joyce

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

  241. Thomas More

    242. Libellus Uere Aureus, nec Minus Salutaris Quam Festivus, de Optimo rei Publicae Statu Deque Nova Insula Utopia
    Utopia
    1516—Latin

  242. William Makepeace Thackeray

    243. Vanity Fair: A Novel Without a Hero
    originally published serially Jan. 1847-Jul. 1848—English

  243. Ben Jonson

    244. Volpone
    1606—English

  244. Samuel Beckett

    245. En Attendant Godot
    Waiting for Godot
    1953—French

  245. Henry David Thoreau

    246. Walden; or, Life in the Woods
    1854—English

  246. 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

    • T S Eliot

    247. 'The Waste Land'
    originally published Oct. 1922 in the Criterion—English

  247. Virginia Woolf

    248. The Waves
    1931—English

  248. Adam Smith

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

  249. William Shakespeare

    250. The Winter's Tale
    ca. 1611—English

  250. Hesiod

    251. Erga kai Hēmerai
    Works and Days
    ca. Eighth-Seventh centuries B C—Greek

  251. Emily Brontë

    252. Wuthering Heights
    originally published 1847 under the pseudonym, Ellis Bell; revised 1850—English