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Some time ago I decided I wanted to read the top 100 novels of all time. I wanted to read those classics that stood the test of time.  I’d just heard a definition of a classic novel as a book that one can learns from, not a book for pure entertainment.  So while these books may not necessarily be great read, they may contain within them lessons we can learn from the character.

Naturally opinions on what the top novels are differs from reader to reader, from year to year, and for region of the world.  But I decided to get a little more scientific about my process.

So this is how I compiled my list of the books I wanted to read. I gathered rankings from the following lists:

• Random House Reader
• Random House Board
• The Radcliffe List
• Time Magazine
• Guardian Unlimited
• BBC

I then ranked the books according to the number of times the book appeared on the above lists. First the books that were listed on all six lists were compared with the other books receiving six votes. We averaged the rankings and came up with the average placement on all six lists.

For example, at the time, The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald had received the following votes:

• Random House Readers – 13
• Random House Board – 2
• Radcliffe List – 1
• Time Magazine – 20
• Guardian Unlimited – 48
• BBC – 43

This resulted with an average score of 21.166 resulting in a first place. We continued to do that ranking the books which got six votes first, followed by those that got five etc. Every book got at least two votes on the list and the average score determined their rank.

I’m officially starting my quest to read the entire list. I’ve even going to read the ones I have read over again since it has been some time. How many of them have you read? I challenge you to read them as well.  I’ve even set-up a group at LibraryThing.com where you can connect with others who are doing the same thing.

Here is the list followed by the number of times it appeared in the above lists. How many have you read?

1. THE GREAT GATSBY by F. Scott Fitzgerald (6)
2. ULYSSES by James Joyce (6)
3. 1984 by George Orwell (6)
4. THE CATCHER IN THE RYE by J.D. Salinger (6)
5. ON THE ROAD by Jack Kerouac (6)
6. THE GRAPES OF WRATH by John Steinbeck (5)
7. CATCH-22 by Joseph Heller (5)
8. LOLITA by Vladimir Nabokov (5)
9. BRAVE NEW WORLD by Aldous Huxley (5)
10. BRIDESHEAD REVISITED by Evelyn Waugh (5)
11. THE SOUND AND THE FURY by William Faulkner (4)
12. TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD by Harper Lee (4)
13. THE LORD OF THE RINGS by J.R.R. Tolkien (4)
14. A PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST AS A YOUNG MAN by James Joyce (4)
15. ANIMAL FARM by George Orwell (4)
16. TO THE LIGHTHOUSE by Virginia Woolf (4)
17. INVISIBLE MAN by Ralph Ellison (4)
18. A CLOCKWORK ORANGE by Anthony Burgess (4)
19. GONE WITH THE WIND by Margaret Mitchell (4)
20. AS I LAY DYING by William Faulkner (4)
21. A FAREWELL TO ARMS by Ernest Hemingway (4)
22. A PASSAGE TO INDIA by E.M. Forster (4)
23. LORD OF THE FLIES by William Golding (4)
24. THE CALL OF THE WILD by Jack London (4)
25. DAVID COPPERFIELD by Charles Dickens (3)
26. EMMA by Jane Austen (3)
27. TESS Of The D’URBERVILLES, Thomas Hardy (3)
28. THE SCARLET LETTER by Nathaniel Hawthorne (3)
29. WUTHERING HEIGHTS by Emily Bronte (3)
30. THE HEART IS A LONELY HUNTER by Carson McCullers (3)
31. SLAUGHTERHOUSE FIVE by Kurt Vonnegut (3)
32. JANE EYRE by Charlotte Bronte (3)
33. BELOVED by Toni Morrison (3)
34. ANNA KAREINA by Leo Tolstoy (3)
35. THE SUN ALSO RISES by Ernest Hemingway (3)
36. NATIVE SON by Richard Wright (3)
37. ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF SOLITUDE by Gabriel Garcia Marquez (3)
38. NOSTROMO by Joseph Conrad (3)
39. HEART OF DARKNESS by Joseph Conrad (3)
40. UNDER THE VOLCANO by Malcolm Lowry (3)
41. THE GOOD SOLDIER by Ford Madox Ford (3)
42. HERZOG by Saul Bellow (3)
43. THE WIND IN THE WILLOWS by Kenneth Grahame (3)
44. U.S.A. (trilogy) by John Dos Passos (3)
45. FINNEGANS WAKE by James Joyce (3)
46. AN AMERICAN TRAGEDY by Theodore Dreiser (3)
47. WOMEN IN LOVE by D.H. Lawrence (3)
48. THE AGE OF INNOCENCE by Edith Wharton (3
49. THE WOMAN IN WHITE by Wilkie Collins (3)
50. THINGS FALL APART by Chinua Achebe (3)
51. TROPIC OF CANCER by Henry Miller (3)
52. MY ANTONIA by Willa Cather (3)
53. LIGHT IN AUGUST by William Faulkner (3)
54. THE MAGUS by John Fowles (3)
55. THE WORLD ACCORDING TO GARP by John Irving (2)
56. DON QUIXOTE by Miguel de Cervantes (2)
57. TOM JONES by Henry Fielding (2)
58. WAR AND PEACE by Leo Tolstoy (2)
59. MOBY-DICK by Herman Melville (2)
60. MADAME BOVARY by Gustave Flaubert (2)
61. WINNIE THE POOH by A(lan) A(lexander) Milne (2)
62. GREAT EXPECTATIONS by Charles Dickens (2)
63. THE BROTHERS KARAMAZOV by Feodor Dostoevsky (2)
64. TRISTAM SHANDY by Laurence Sterne (2)
65. LITTLE WOMEN by Louisa M. Alcott (2)
66. VANITY FAIR by William Makepeace Thackeray (2)
67. PRIDE AND PREJUDICE by Jane Austen (2)
68. IN SEARCH OF LOST TIME by Marcel Proust (2)
69. THE AMBASSADORS by Henry James (2)
70. THE FOUNTAINHEAD by Ayn Rand (2)
71. GRAVITY’S RAINBOW by Thomas Pynchon (2)
72. THE AWAKENING by Kate Chopin (1851-1904) (2)
73. DUNE by Frank Herbert (2)
74. A TOWN LIKE ALICE by Nevil Shute (2)
75. ALICE’S ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND by Lewis Carroll (2)
76. CLARISSA by Samuel Richardson (2)
77. THE HITCHHIKER’S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY by Douglas Adams (2)
78. A PRAYER FOR OWEN MEANY by John Irving (2)
79. THE COUNT OF MONTE CRISTO by Alexandre Dumas (2)
80. THE PORTRAIT OF A LADY by Henry James (2)
81. OF MICE AND MEN by John Steinbeck (2)
82. ALL THE KING’S MEN by Robert Penn Warren (2)
83. GO TELL IT ON THE MOUNTAIN by James Baldwin (2)
84. CHARLOTE’S WEB by E. B. White (2)
85. ROBINSON CRUSOE by Daniel Defoe (2)
86. CRIME AND PUNISHMENT by Feodor Dostoevsky (2)
87. THE STAND by Stephen King (2)
88. REBECCA by Daphne du Maurier (2)
89. I, CLAUDIUS by Robert Graves (2)
90. HOWARDS END by E.M. Forster (2)
91. TENDER IS THE NIGHT by F. Scott Fitzgerald (2)
92. THE RAINBOW by D.H. Lawrence (2)
93. BLEAK HOUSE by Charles Dickens (2)
94. ATLAS SHRUGGED by Ayn Rand (2)
95. ABSALOM, ABSALOM! by William Faulkner (2)
96. THE WINGS OF THE DOVE by Henry James (2)
97. AUSTERLITZ by W. G. Sebald (2)
98. THE TRIAL by Franz Kafka (2)
99. WISE BLOOD by Flannery O’Connor (2)
100. FRANKENSTEIN by Mary Shelley(2)

~ Compiled by Leisa L. Watkins
Successful Reads – Eat for Wisdom and Success, Read a Book

(Feel free to copy this listing and post it on your blog, but include the compiled by Leisa L. Watkins and link to this blog and give proper credit.)

And…

>>Vote for your favorites in the Readers Choice poll by clicking here.
>>Click here to tell us which books you would have liked to see on this list.

January 27, 2009:   An update since this was first posted on November 4th, 2007.

Since this list was compiled over a year ago I’ve learned a few things, thanks to my readers, and I’d like to share a few observations of the readers, and mine.

• First off, this list is naturally biased.  After all the list is complied of lists primarily geared toward time specific English literature.  As of January 27, 2009 I am working on compiling similar lists taking different factors into consideration.
• This list is a combination of popular voting with literary ranking.  Preciously I wanted to know which books ranked highest on both.
• I messed up on the title.  I admit it “100 Best Novels of All Time” isn’t the correct title, but I’m going to leave it that way anyway because that’s what it’s know for now.
• This is focused on novels.  That’s why the Bible isn’t on the list.
• This isn’t my personal list of the Top 100 Novels of All Time.  It’s a mathematically created listing developed out of pure curiosity.  It’s similar to wanting to see the latest movie that everyone is talking about.  If they are on several top lists I just may at least want to see it and decide for myself.
• The lists that these were compiled from can change from year to year.  So if may not match your list when you Google it.  Maybe I’ll repost the lists as I had them at the time.  I’ve lost a hard drive since then, but I think I have a back-up.  I hope so.  The one that gets the most questions is Frankenstein.  It had to been at one time of two of the lists to make my listing here.  I do know that it was listed number 10 in Guardian Unlimited and number 92 on the New York Times.  And no I didn’t try to match years up.