101 Great Books – from 2100 BCE to 1871 CE

101 Great Books Series: Part 1 by Umair Mirxa

Travel through more than four thousand years of great literature with this series of ‘101 Great Books’ blog posts, and discover a lifetime’s worth of reading material written from 2100 BCE all the way to the present day.

The first 101 Great Books span more than 3,900 years, and areas as diverse as Ancient Sumer, Greece, Arabia, Scandinavia, Japan, China, Britain, France, and the United States. So without any further ado whatsoever or more words you are not going to read anyway, here is the first list:

Click here for the second part of this series: 101 Great Books – from 1872 to 1916

1. Epic of Gilgamesh – Anonymous – 2100 BCE
2. The Iliad – Homer – 750 BCE
3. The Odyssey – Homer – 720 BCE
4. Aesop’s Fables – Aesop – 560 BCE
5. Aeneid – Virgil – 20 BCE
6. Arabian Nights – Anonymous – 800
7. Beowulf – Anonymous – 975
8. The Tale of Genji – Lady Murasaki Shikibu – 1021
9. Romance of the Three Kingdoms – Luo Guanzhong – 1323
10. The Canterbury Tales – Geoffrey Chaucer – 1390
11. The Tale of Two Lovers – Aeneas Sylvius Piccolomini – 1467
12. Le Morte D’Arthur – Sir Thomas Malory – 1485
13. Beware the Cat – William Baldwin – 1561
14. Water Margin – Shi Nai’an – 1589
15. Journey to the West – Wu Cheng’en – 1592
16. Don Quixote de la Mancha – Miguel de Cervantes – 1615
17. Robinson Crusoe – Daniel Defoe – 1719
18. Moll Flanders – Daniel Defoe – 1722
19. Roxana – Daniel Defoe – 1724
20. Gulliver’s Travels – Jonathan Swift – 1726
21. The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling – Henry Fielding – 1749
22. Candide – Voltaire – 1759
23. The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman – Laurence Stern – 1767
24. Dream of the Red Chamber – Cao Xueqin – 1791
25. The Lady of the Lake – Sir Walter Scott – 1810

Click here for the third part of this series: 101 Great Books – from 1917 to 1952

26. Sense and Sensibility – Jane Austen – 1811
27. The Complete Grimm’s Fairy Tales – Brothers Grimm – 1812
28. The Swiss Family Robinson – Johann David Wyss – 1812
29. Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen – 1813
30. Mansfield Park – Jane Austen – 1814
31. Emma – Jane Austen – 1815
32. Northanger Abbey – Jane Austen – 1817
33. Persuasion – Jane Austen – 1817
34. Frankenstein – Mary Shelley – 1818
35. Ivanhoe – Sir Walter Scott – 1819
36. Rip Van Winkle – Washington Irving – 1819
37. The Legend of Sleepy Hollow – Washington Irving – 1820
38. The Talisman – Sir Walter Scott – 1825
39. The Last of the Mohicans – James Fenimore Cooper – 1826
40. The Red and the Black – Stendhal – 1830
41. The Hunchback of Notre Dame – Victor Hugo – 1831
42. Pére Goriot – Honoré de Balzac – 1834
43. The Complete Fairy Tales – Hans Christian Andersen – 1835
44. Lost Illusions – Honoré de Balzac – 1837
45. The Pickwick Papers – Charles Dickens – 1837
46. Oliver Twist – Charles Dickens – 1838
47. Nicholas Nickleby – Charles Dickens – 1839
48. The Charterhouse of Parma – Stendhal – 1839
49. The Old Curiosity Shop – Charles Dickens – 1840
50. Barnaby Rudge – Charles Dickens – 1841

Click here for the fourth part of this series: 101 Great Books – from 1953 to 1976

51. Dead Souls – Nikolai Gogol – 1842
52. A Christmas Carol – Charles Dickens – 1843
53. Martin Chuzzlewit – Charles Dickens – 1844
54. The Count of Monte Cristo – Alexandre Dumas – 1844
55. The Three Musketeers – Alexandre Dumas – 1844
56. Twenty Years After – Alexandre Dumas – 1845
57. Agnes Grey – Anne Brontë – 1847
58. Jane Eyre – Charlotte Brontë – 1847
59. Wuthering Heights – Emily Brontë – 1847
60. Vanity Fair – William Makepeace Thackeray – 1847
61. Dombey and Son – Charles Dickens – 1848
62. Mary Barton – Elizabeth Gaskell – 1848
63. The Tenant of Wildfell Hall – Anne Brontë – 1848
64. David Copperfield – Charles Dickens – 1849
65. Shirley – Charlotte Brontë – 1849
66. The Vicomte de Bragelonne – Alexandre Dumas – 1850
67. The Scarlet Letter – Nathaniel Hawthorne – 1851
68. Moby Dick – Herman Melville – 1851
69. The House of the Seven Gables – Nathaniel Hawthorne – 1851
70. Uncle Tom’s Cabin – Harriet Beecher Stowe – 1852
71. 12 Years a Slave – Solomon Northup – 1853
72. Bleak House – Charles Dickens – 1853
73. Cranford – Elizabeth Gaskell – 1853
74. Villette – Charlotte Brontë – 1853
75. Hard Times – Charles Dickens – 1854

Click here for the fifth part of this series: 101 Great Books – from 1977 to 1999

76. Walden – Henry David Thoreau – 1854
77. Little Dorritt – Charles Dickens – 1855
78. North and South – Elizabeth Gaskell – 1855
79. Madame Bovary – Gustave Flaubert – 1856
80. A Tale of Two Cities – Charles Dickens – 1859
81. The Woman in White – Wilkie Collins – 1859
82. Great Expectations – Charles Dickens – 1860
83. The Mill on the Floss – George Eliot – 1860
84. Silas Marner – George Eliot – 1861
85. Fathers and Sons – Ivan Turgenev – 1862
86. Les Misérables – Victor Hugo – 1862
87. Little Women – Louisa May Alcott – 1862
88. Journey to the Centre of the Earth – Jules Verne – 1864
89. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland – Lewis Carroll – 1865
90. Our Mutual Friend – Charles Dickens – 1865
91. Crime and Punishment – Fyodor Dostoyevsky – 1866
92. Wives and Daughters – Elizabeth Gaskell – 1866
93. Good Wives – Louisa May Alcott – 1868
94. The Idiot – Fyodor Dostoyevsky – 1868
95. The Moonstone – Wilkie Collins – 1868
96. War and Peace – Leo Tolstoy – 1868
97. The Man Who Laughs – Victor Hugo – 1869
98. Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea – Jules Verne – 1869
99. Little Men – Louisa May Alcott – 1871
100. Middlemarch – George Eliot – 1871
101. Through the Looking Glass – Lewis Carroll – 1871

Click here for the sixth part of this series: 101 Great Books – from 2000 to 2017

Honorable Mentions

Clarissa – Samuel Richardson – 1748

Fanny Hill – John Cleland – 1748

Amelia – Henry Fielding – 1751

Dangerous Liaisons – Pierre Choderlos de Laclos – 1782

What do you think? Did I miss books you would add to the list and/or are there books you feel do not belong in such exalted company? Let me know in the comments section below.