Best Books of All Time

10 Best Novels of All Time, From Quick Reads to Epics in 2026

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The short answer

Start with a short, much-listed novel such as The Great Gatsby or Pride and Prejudice. Work up to Anna Karenina, and save Don Quixote and War and Peace for last.

Last updated September 2026

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Our top 10 picks

  1. 1Best short first pickThe Great Gatsby (Scribner)The Great Gatsby (Scribner)View at Simon & SchusterRead our analysis
  2. 2Best for readers who like dialoguePride and Prejudice (Penguin Classics)Pride and Prejudice (Penguin Classics)View at Penguin Random HouseRead our analysis
  3. 3Best very short world novelThe Stranger by Albert Camus (Vintage International)The Stranger by Albert Camus (Vintage International)View at Penguin Random HouseRead our analysis
  4. 4Best political novel1984 by George Orwell (Signet Classics)1984 by George Orwell (Signet Classics)View at Penguin Random HouseRead our analysis
  5. 5Best short novel from outside EuropeThings Fall Apart by Chinua AchebeThings Fall Apart by Chinua AchebeView at Penguin Random HouseRead our analysis
  6. 6Best for readers who want a spellOne Hundred Years of Solitude (Harper Perennial Modern Classics)One Hundred Years of Solitude (Harper Perennial Modern Classics)View at HarperCollinsRead our analysis
  7. 7Best first long Russian novelAnna Karenina (Penguin Classics, Pevear and Volokhonsky)Anna Karenina (Penguin Classics, Pevear and Volokhonsky)View at Penguin Random HouseRead our analysis
  8. 8Best long English novelMiddlemarch (Penguin Classics)Middlemarch (Penguin Classics)View at Penguin Random HouseRead our analysis
  9. 9Best comic epicDon Quixote, translated by Edith GrossmanDon Quixote, translated by Edith GrossmanView at Penguin Random HouseRead our analysis
  10. 10Best for a season-long readWar and Peace (Vintage Classics)War and Peace (Vintage Classics)View at Penguin Random HouseRead our analysis

Lists of the best novels of all time disagree on almost everything except a small group of books. This page takes the novels that recur across the major lists and sorts them by how demanding they are to read, from a weekend to a season. Each pick names an edition or translation worth buying. It's part of our best books of all time hub, which explains how the famous lists work.

TL;DR: the best novels of all time that appear across critics' lists, writers' polls and public votes include Pride and Prejudice, The Great Gatsby, Anna Karenina, Don Quixote, Middlemarch and One Hundred Years of Solitude. Start short with Gatsby or The Stranger, and build toward Don Quixote and War and Peace.

We chose these from five well-known lists, described below, and favored novels that appear on more than one. We did not rank them by quality. They run from the quickest read to the longest.

#1. The Great Gatsby: Best short first pick

F. Scott Fitzgerald's novel from 1925 came second on the Modern Library board's list and is on TIME's list. It runs under 200 pages, with one narrator and a tight plot. If you have never finished a classic, this is the safest place to start.

#2. Pride and Prejudice: Best for readers who like dialogue

Jane Austen's novel from 1813 is on nearly every list that includes the 19th century, and it came second in the BBC's 2003 Big Read public vote. It is funny, quick and driven by dialogue. See our Pride and Prejudice guide for where it sits in a reading order.

#3. The Stranger: Best very short world novel

Albert Camus wrote this short novel in 1942, about a man who kills on a beach. Readers of Le Monde voted it the book of the century in 1999. Matthew Ward's translation is the common US edition.

#4. Nineteen Eighty-Four: Best political novel

George Orwell's 1949 novel is on the Modern Library and TIME lists, and it is still one of the most read novels in English. See our 1984 guide for the plot and key terms.

#5. Things Fall Apart: Best short novel from outside Europe

Chinua Achebe's novel from 1958 is on the Bokklubben list and TIME's list. It is a short, clear novel about an Igbo village as colonial rule arrives.

#6. One Hundred Years of Solitude: Best for readers who want a spell

Gabriel Garcia Marquez's 1967 novel follows seven generations of the Buendia family in the town of Macondo. It is on the Bokklubben list, and Gregory Rabassa's translation is the one most readers know.

#7. Anna Karenina: Best first long Russian novel

Leo Tolstoy's most focused novel appeared in book form in 1878 and is a fixture of world-literature lists. Read a modern translation such as Pevear and Volokhonsky's.

#8. Middlemarch: Best long English novel

George Eliot's novel came first in BBC Culture's 2015 poll of the greatest British novels. It covers a whole provincial town, with some of the wisest writing about marriage in fiction.

#9. Don Quixote: Best comic epic

Miguel de Cervantes published the two parts in 1605 and 1615. The Bokklubben poll of writers singled it out as the best work of fiction. Edith Grossman's translation makes it funnier than its age suggests.

#10. War and Peace: Best for a season-long read

Tolstoy's novel follows five families across the Napoleonic Wars. It is the longest book on this page and one of the most rewarding. The sentences are clear, so the challenge is scope, not style.

Factors to consider when choosing the best novels of all time to read

A few questions narrow the list fast.

  • How much time do you have? Gatsby, The Stranger and Things Fall Apart fit a weekend. Middlemarch, Don Quixote and War and Peace take weeks.
  • Is it a translation? For Don Quixote, Anna Karenina and One Hundred Years of Solitude, the translator's name matters as much as the author's. Budget reprints often use stiff, old versions.
  • Do you want notes? A critical edition with notes helps with long 19th-century novels. A plain paperback is fine for short modern ones.
  • Print or audio? Long novels with many characters are easier in print, where you can flip back.

The lists behind this page

Rather than follow one ranking, this page draws on five well-known lists.

The first three lists are limited to English, so the world-literature picks lean on the Bokklubben list.

More of the best novels of all time the lists agree on

Four more novels turn up on several lists and deserve a place on any reading plan.

  • The Old Man and the Sea (Ernest Hemingway, 1952). A short novel about an old Cuban fisherman and a giant marlin, and a common first Hemingway.
  • To Kill a Mockingbird (Harper Lee, 1960). On TIME's list and the winner of PBS's Great American Read vote in 2018.
  • Moby-Dick (Herman Melville, 1851). The whale hunt, with long chapters on whaling and philosophy. An annotated edition helps.
  • Ulysses (James Joyce, 1922). One day in Dublin, 16 June 1904, told in a different style in each chapter. First on the Modern Library board's list and famously hard going. Read it last, with a guide.

How length and difficulty differ

Page count is a weak guide to difficulty.

War and Peace is long because of its scope, but its sentences are clear. Ulysses is hard sentence by sentence, because Joyce changes style from chapter to chapter. Middlemarch is long and patient. The Stranger is short but unsettling. Knowing which kind of difficulty you face, scope or style, helps set expectations.

A reading order for this list

If you want to work through several of these, try this path: The Great Gatsby, then Pride and Prejudice, then Things Fall Apart, then Anna Karenina, then One Hundred Years of Solitude, then Middlemarch. After those six, you'll know whether Don Quixote, Moby-Dick, War and Peace or Ulysses should come next. For classics beyond the novel, see classic books everyone should read.

Common mistakes with best-novels lists

  • Starting at number one. The top of a critics' list is usually the most ambitious book, not the most welcoming. Ulysses is a famous first-page casualty.
  • Buying the cheapest translation. For the translated novels here, budget reprints often use stiff, old versions.
  • Reading only one kind of list. English-only lists skip Tolstoy and Cervantes entirely. Check a world-literature list alongside them.
  • Forcing a book that isn't working. Give a novel 50 pages. If it still isn't clicking, try another from the same difficulty band and come back later.

Why the lists disagree

Critics' boards weight ambition and influence. Public votes weight books people loved, often when young. Writers' polls, like Bokklubben, lean toward books that changed how fiction is written.

The Modern Library ran a board list and a reader poll in the same year, and their top tens barely overlapped. Neither was wrong. They were measuring different things, and the novels that appear on several kinds of list are the safest picks.

Compare a writer's other novels

A familiar title does not show every side of its author. Our Conrad reading guide contrasts the political pressure of Under Western Eyes with the shipboard crisis of Typhoon. Hawthorne's novel guide compares family history, public judgment and communal ideals without requiring you to read the books in a fixed sequence.

Verdict

The best novels of all time to start with are the short ones that appear on several lists: The Great Gatsby, Pride and Prejudice and The Stranger. Build up through Anna Karenina and One Hundred Years of Solitude, and keep Don Quixote and War and Peace for when a long, demanding novel is exactly what you want.

Questions people also ask

What is the best novel of all time?

It depends on the list. The Modern Library board put Ulysses first among 20th-century English-language novels. The 2002 Bokklubben poll of 100 writers singled out Don Quixote. A 2015 BBC Culture poll of critics named Middlemarch the greatest British novel. Each answer reflects what that list set out to measure.

Is a longer novel automatically a better one?

No. Length reflects ambition, not quality. The Great Gatsby and The Old Man and the Sea are short and appear on major lists alongside War and Peace.

Why do critics' lists and reader polls disagree so much?

Critics weight influence and formal ambition; readers weight enjoyment and personal impact. The Modern Library ran both kinds in 1998, and the two top tens barely overlapped. The reader poll was topped by Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged, with several L. Ron Hubbard novels high on it, a result many commentators attributed to organized voting.

Which of the best novels of all time are free to read?

Novels published in the US before 1931 are in the US public domain as of 2026, so Pride and Prejudice, Moby-Dick, Middlemarch, The Great Gatsby and Ulysses are free from Project Gutenberg and Standard Ebooks. Translated novels are free only in old translations, and later novels such as 1984 and One Hundred Years of Solitude are still under copyright.

Should I avoid abridged versions of long novels?

Yes, for a best-novels project. Abridged editions of War and Peace or Les Miserables cut whole subplots and much of what critics admire. If a novel feels too long, pick a shorter one from this list instead.

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