RADCLIFFE'S PUBLISHING COURSE TOP 100

The 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century, as drawn up by students of the Radcliffe Publishing Course. Titles followed by (J.F.)indicate that your teacher has read it. This, however, does not constitute an endorsement. A few titles on this list are inappropriate for use in the high school classroom. Be careful and, when in doubt, ask advice.

1. The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald (J.F.)
2. The Catcher in the Rye, J.D. Salinger (J.F.)
3. The Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck (J.F.)
4. To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee( J.F.)
5. The Color Purple, Alice Walker
6. Ulysses, James Joyce
7. Beloved, Toni Morrison
8. The Lord of the Flies, William Golding (J.F.)
9. 1984, George Orwell (J.F.)
10. The Sound and the Fury, William Faulkner (J.F.)
11. Lolita, Vladmir Nabokov (J.F.)
12. Of Mice and Men, John Steinbeck (J.F.)
13. Charlotte's Web, E.B. White
14. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, James Joyce (J.F.)
15. Catch-22, Joseph Heller (J.F.)
16. Brave New World, Aldous Huxley
17. Animal Farm, George Orwell (J.F.)
18. The Sun Also Rises, Ernest Hemingway (J.F.)
19. As I Lay Dying, William Faulkner
20. A Farewell to Arms, Ernest Hemingway (J.F.)
21. Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad (J.F.)
22. Winnie-the-Pooh, AA Milne
23. Their Eyes are Watching God, Zora Neale Hurston
24. Invisible Man, Ralph Ellison (J.F.)
25. Song of Solomon, Toni Morrison
26. Gone with the Wind, Margaret Mitchell
27. Native Son, Richard Wright (J.F.)
28. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Ken Kesey (J.F.)
29. Slaughterhouse Five, Kurt Vonnegut (J.F.)
30. For Whom the Bell Tolls, Ernest Hemingway (J.F.)
31. On the Road, Jack Kerouac
32. The Old Man and the Sea, Ernest Hemingway (J.F.)
33. The Call of the Wild, Jack London
34. To the Lighthouse, Virginia Woolf (J.F.)
35. Portrait of a Lady, Henry James
36. Go Tell it on the Mountain, James Baldwin
37. The World According to Garp, John Irving
38. All the King's Men, Robert Penn Warren (J.F.)
39. A Room with a View, E.M. Forster
40. The Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkien
41. Schindler's List, Thomas Keneally
42. The Age of Innocence, Edith Wharton
43. The Fountainhead, Ayn Rand
44. Finnegans Wake, James Joyce
45. The Jungle, Upton Sinclair
46. Mrs. Dalloway, Virginia Woolf
47. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, Frank L. Baum
48. Lady Chatterley's Lover, D.H. Lawrence
49. A Clockwork Orange, Anthony Burgess (J.F.)
50. The Awakening, Kate Chopin (J.F.)
51. My Antonia, Willa Cather
52. Howard's End, E.M. Forster
53. In Cold Blood, Truman Capote (J.F.)
54. Franny and Zooey, J.D. Salinger (J.F.)
55. Satanic Verses, Salman Rushdie
56. Jazz, Toni Morrison
57. Sophie's Choice, William Styron (J.F.)
58. Absalom, Absalom!, William Faulkner
59. Passage to India, EM Forster (J.F.)
60. Ethan Frome, Edith Wharton (J.F.)
61. A Good Man is Hard to Find, Flannery O'Connor (J.F.)
62. Tender is the Night, F. Scott Fitzgerald
63. Orlando, Virginia Woolf
64. Sons and Lovers, D.H. Lawrence (J.F.)
65. Bonfire of the Vanities, Thomas Wolfe (J.F.)
66. Cat's Cradle, Kurt Vonnegut
67. A Separate Peace, John Knowles (J.F.)
68. Light in August, William Faulkner
69. The Wings of the Dove, Henry James (J.F.)
70. Things Fall Apart, Chinua Achebe (J.F.)
71. Rebecca, Daphne du Maurier
72. A Hithchiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams
73. Naked Lunch, William S. Burroughs
74. Brideshead Revisited, Evelyn Waugh
75. Women in Love, D.H. Lawrence
76. Look Homeward, Angel, Thomas Wolfe
77. In Our Time, Ernest Hemingway
78. The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas, Gertrude Stein
79. The Maltese Falcon, Dashiell Hammett
80. The Naked and the Dead, Norman Mailer
81. The Wide Sargasso Sea, Jean Rhys
82. White Noise, Don DeLillo
83. O Pioneers! Willa Cather
84. Tropic of Cancer, Henry Miller
85. The War of the Worlds, H.G. Wells
86. Lord Jim, Joseph Conrad (J.F.)
87. The Bostonians, James Henry
88. An American Tragedy, Theodore Dreiser
89. Death Comes for the Archbishop, Willa Cather
90. The Wind in the Willows, Kenneth Grahame
91. This Side of Paradise, F. Scott Fitzgerald
92. Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand
93. The French Lieutenant's Woman, John Fowles (J.F.)
94. Babbitt, Sinclair Lewis
95. Kim, Rudyard Kipling
96. The Beautiful and the Damned, F. Scott Fitzgerald
97. Rabbit, Run, John Updike (J.F.)
98. Where Angels Fear to Tread, EM Forster
99. Main Street, Sinclair Lewis
100. Midnight's Children, Salman Rushdie

My reading experience on this list is very similar to the Modern Library's list where my reading is concentrated near the top. I've read 7 of the top 10, 23 out of the top 50 (again, nearly 1/2), and 37 out of the total list of 100.