The Observer's The 100 Greatest Novels of All Time

Don Quixote (Penguin Classics)

Wed, 15 Oct 2008 14:31:02 GMT

The story of the gentle knight and his servant Sancho Panza has entranced readers for centuries.

The Pilgrim's Progress (Oxford World's Classics)

Wed, 15 Oct 2008 14:31:44 GMT

The one with the Slough of Despond and Vanity Fair.

Robinson Crusoe

Wed, 15 Oct 2008 14:32:15 GMT

The first English novel.

Gulliver's Travels (Penguin Popular Classics)

Wed, 15 Oct 2008 14:32:51 GMT

A wonderful satire that still works for all ages, despite the savagery of Swift's vision.

Tom Jones (Wordsworth Classics)

Sun, 21 Sep 2008 13:26:00 GMT

The adventures of a high-spirited orphan boy: an unbeatable plot and a lot of sex ending in a blissful marriage.

Clarissa, or the History of A Young Lady (Classics)

Sun, 21 Sep 2008 13:26:33 GMT

One of the longest novels in the English language, but unputdownable.

The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman: The Florida Edition (Penguin Classics)

Wed, 15 Oct 2008 14:34:00 GMT

One of the first bestsellers, dismissed by Dr Johnson as too fashionable for its own good.

Les Liaisons Dangereuses: Dangerous Liaisons (BBC Radio Collection)

Sun, 21 Sep 2008 13:27:30 GMT

An epistolary novel and a handbook for seducers: foppish, French, and ferocious.

Emma (Penguin Popular Classics)

Wed, 15 Oct 2008 14:35:28 GMT

Near impossible choice between this and Pride and Prejudice. But Emma never fails to fascinate and annoy.

Frankenstein: Or, the Modern Prometheus

Sun, 21 Sep 2008 13:28:20 GMT

Inspired by spending too much time with Shelley and Byron.

Nightmare Abbey & Crotchet Castle (Penguin English Library El 45)

Wed, 15 Oct 2008 14:36:23 GMT

A classic miniature: a brilliant satire on the Romantic novel.

The Black Sheep (Penguin Classics)

Sun, 21 Sep 2008 13:29:10 GMT

Two rivals fight for the love of a femme fatale. Wrongly overlooked.

The Charterhouse of Parma (Penguin Classics)

Sun, 21 Sep 2008 13:29:24 GMT

Penetrating and compelling chronicle of life in an Italian court in post-Napoleonic France.

The Count of Monte Cristo (Wordsworth Classics)

Sun, 21 Sep 2008 13:29:40 GMT

A revenge thriller also set in France after Bonaparte: a masterpiece of adventure writing.

Sybil: or The Two Nations

Sun, 21 Sep 2008 13:30:18 GMT

Apart from Churchill, no other British political figure shows literary genius.

David Copperfield (Wordsworth Classics)

Sun, 21 Sep 2008 13:31:15 GMT

This highly autobiographical novel is the one its author liked best.

Wuthering Heights (Penguin Classics)

Wed, 15 Oct 2008 17:36:28 GMT

Catherine Earnshaw and Heathcliff have passed into the language. Impossible to ignore.

Jane Eyre (Penguin Popular Classics)

Wed, 15 Oct 2008 17:36:52 GMT

Obsessive emotional grip and haunting narrative.

Vanity Fair (Penguin Classics)

Wed, 15 Oct 2008 17:37:23 GMT

The improving tale of Becky Sharp.

The Scarlet Letter (Bantam Classics)

Wed, 15 Oct 2008 17:37:43 GMT

A classic investigation of the American mind.

Moby-Dick or, The Whale

Wed, 15 Oct 2008 17:38:21 GMT

'Call me Ishmael' is one of the most famous opening sentences of any novel.

Madame Bovary (Penguin Classics)

Wed, 15 Oct 2008 17:38:44 GMT

You could summarise this as a story of adultery in provincial France, and miss the point entirely.

The Woman in White (Penguin Popular Classics)

Wed, 15 Oct 2008 17:39:09 GMT

Gripping mystery novel of concealed identity, abduction, fraud and mental cruelty.

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass

Sun, 21 Sep 2008 13:33:59 GMT

A story written for the nine-year-old daughter of an Oxford don that still baffles most kids.

Little Women (Penguin Popular Classics)

Wed, 15 Oct 2008 17:39:58 GMT

Victorian bestseller about a New England family of girls.

The Way We Live Now (Barnes & Noble Classics Series) (Barnes & Noble Classics)

Sun, 21 Sep 2008 13:50:06 GMT

A majestic assault on the corruption of late Victorian England.

Anna Karenina (Oprah's Book Club)

Sun, 21 Sep 2008 13:52:09 GMT

The supreme novel of the married woman's passion for a younger man.

Daniel Deronda (Wordsworth Classics)

Sun, 21 Sep 2008 13:52:26 GMT

A passion and an exotic grandeur that is strange and unsettling.

The Brothers Karamazov

Sun, 21 Sep 2008 13:52:40 GMT

Mystical tragedy by the author of Crime and Punishment.

The Portrait of a Lady (Oxford World's Classics)

Wed, 15 Oct 2008 17:42:49 GMT

The story of Isabel Archer shows James at his witty and polished best.

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

Sun, 21 Sep 2008 13:53:53 GMT

Twain was a humorist, but this picture of Mississippi life is profoundly moral and still incredibly influential.

The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde

Wed, 15 Oct 2008 17:44:05 GMT

A brilliantly suggestive, resonant study of human duality by a natural storyteller.

Three Men in a Boat: To Say Nothing of the Dog

Wed, 15 Oct 2008 17:44:34 GMT

One of the funniest English books ever written.

The Picture of Dorian Gray

Wed, 15 Oct 2008 17:45:03 GMT

A coded and epigrammatic melodrama inspired by his own tortured homosexuality.

Diary of a Nobody (Wordsworth Classics)

Wed, 15 Oct 2008 17:45:29 GMT

This classic of Victorian suburbia will always be renowned for the character of Mr Pooter.

Jude the Obscure (Oxford World's Classics)

Wed, 15 Oct 2008 17:46:08 GMT

Its savage bleakness makes it one of the first twentieth-century novels.

The Riddle of the Sands: A Record of Secret Service (Penguin Popular Classics)

Sun, 21 Sep 2008 13:58:38 GMT

A prewar invasion-scare spy thriller by a writer later shot for his part in the Irish republican rising.

The Call of the Wild (Puffin Classics)

Wed, 15 Oct 2008 17:46:45 GMT

The story of a dog who joins a pack of wolves after his master's death.

Nostromo (Twentieth Century Classics)

Wed, 15 Oct 2008 17:54:01 GMT

Conrad's masterpiece: a tale of money, love and revolutionary politics.

The Wind in the Willows

Wed, 15 Oct 2008 17:54:38 GMT

This children's classic was inspired by bedtime stories for Grahame's son.

In Search of Lost Time: 6 Volumes

Sun, 21 Sep 2008 14:06:45 GMT

An unforgettable portrait of Paris in the belle epoque. Probably the longest novel on this list.

The Rainbow (Oxford World's Classics)

Sun, 21 Sep 2008 14:13:05 GMT

Novels seized by the police, like this one, have a special afterlife.

The Good Soldier: A Tale of Passion (Oxford World's Classics)

Wed, 15 Oct 2008 18:23:52 GMT

This account of the adulterous lives of two Edwardian couples is a classic of unreliable narration.

The Thirty-Nine Steps (Wordsworth Classics)

Sun, 21 Sep 2008 14:14:04 GMT

A classic adventure story for boys, jammed with action, violence and suspense.

Ulysses

Wed, 15 Oct 2008 18:24:52 GMT

Also pursued by the British police, this is a novel more discussed than read.

Mrs. Dalloway

Sun, 21 Sep 2008 14:14:41 GMT

Secures Woolf's position as one of the great twentieth-century English novelists.

A Passage to India

Sun, 21 Sep 2008 14:14:58 GMT

The great novel of the British Raj, it remains a brilliant study of empire.

The Great Gatsby

Sun, 21 Sep 2008 14:15:22 GMT

The quintessential Jazz Age novel.

The Trial (Penguin Modern Classics)

Sun, 21 Sep 2008 14:15:46 GMT

The enigmatic story of Joseph K.

Men Without Women (Arrow Classic)

Sun, 21 Sep 2008 14:16:05 GMT

He is remembered for his novels, but it was the short stories that first attracted notice.