Literary Timeline

Dante Inferno

Chaucer The Canterbury Tales

Niccolo Machiavelli The Prince

William Shakespeare Henry VI Part I

Christopher Marlowe Doctor Faustus

William Shakespeare Henry V

William Shakespeare Hamlet

Miguel de Cervantes Don Quixote

William Shakespeare Macbeth

John Milton Paradise Lost

Aphra Behn The Forc'd Marriage

John Bunyan Pilgrim's Progress

Daniel Defoe Robinson Crusoe

Jane Austen Sense and Sensibility

Jane Austen Pride and Prejudice

Jane Austen Northanger Abbey

Mary Shelley Frankenstein

Walter Scott Ivanhoe

Goethe Faust

Stendhal The Red and the Black

Victor Hugo The Hunchback of Notre Dame

Alexander Pushkin Eugene Onegin

Honoré de Balzac Le Père Goriot

Honoré de Balzac Illusions perdues (Lost Illusions)

Charles Dickens Oliver Twist

Ralph Waldo Emerson "Self-Reliance"

Edgar Allen Poe "Murders in the Rue Morgue"

Nikolai Gogol The Overcoat

Edgar Allen Poe "The Tell-Tale Heart"

Alexander Dumas "The Count of Monte Cristo"

Alexander Dumas "The Three Musketeers"

Honoré de Balzac La Cousine Bette (Cousin Betty)

Charlotte Bronte Jane Eyre

Emily Bronte Wuthering Heights

William Makepeace Thackeray Vanity Fair

Charles Dickens David Copperfield

Herman Melville Moby Dick

Henry Murger Scenes of Bohemian Life

Harriet Beecher Stowe Uncle Tom's Cabin

Charles Dickens Bleak House

Henry David Thoreau Walden

Gustave Flaubert Madame Bovary

Anthony Trollope Barchester Towers

Wilkie Collins The Woman in White

Charles Dickens Great Expectations

Victor Hugo Les Miserables

Jules Verne Journey to the Center of the Earth

Jules Verne From the Earth to the Moon

Fyodor Dostoevsky Crime and Punishment

Louisa May Alcott Little Women

Leo Tolstoy War and Peace

Gustave Flaubert Sentimental Education

Jules Verne Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea

Jules Verne Around the World in Eighty Days

Thomas Hardy Far from the Madding Crowd

Jules Verne The Mysterious Island

Thomas Hardy Return of the Native

Henry James Daisy Miller

Leo Tolstoy Anna Karenina

Fyodor Dostoevsky The Brothers Karamazov

Henry James The Portrait of a Lady

Robert Louis Stevenson Treasure Island

Mark Twain The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

Robert Louis Stevenson Kidnapped

Thomas Hardy The Mayor of Casterbridge

Anton Chekhov "The Duel"

Thomas Hardy Tess of the d'Urbervilles

H. G. Wells The Time Machine

Thomas Hardy Jude the Obscure

Anton Chekhov The Seagull

Bram Stoker Dracula

H. G. Wells The Invisible Man

H. G. Wells The War of the Worlds

Henry James The Turn of the Screw

Anton Chekhov "Lady with the Dog"

Anton Chekhov Uncle Vanya

Joseph Conrad Heart of Darkness

Theodore Dreiser Sister Carrie

Anton Chekhov Three Sisters

Jack London The Call of the Wild

Upton Sinclair The Jungle

Thomas Mann Death in Venice

Willa Cather O Pioneers!

D. H. Lawrence Sons and Lovers

Marcel Proust, Swann's Way

George Bernard Shaw Pygmalion

James Joyce Dubliners

Franz Kafka The Metamorphosis

T. S. Eliot "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock"

D. H. Lawrence The Rainbow

Willa Cather My Ántonia

F. Scott Fitzgerald The Beautiful and Damned

F. Scott Fitzgerald This Side of Paradise

D. H. Lawrence Women in Love

Sinclair Lewis Main Street

T. S. Eliot The Waste Land

James Joyce Ulysses

Sinclair Lewis Babbitt

Thomas Mann The Magic Mountain

First issue of The New Yorker

F. Scott Fitzgerald The Great Gatsby

Theodore Dreiser An American Tragedy

Agatha Christie The Murder of Roger Ackroyd

Ernest Hemingway The Torrents of Spring (novella)

Ernest Hemingway The Sun Also Rises

Sinclair Lewis Elmer Gantry

Virginia Woolf To the Lighthouse

Bertolt Brecht The Threepenny Opera

William Faulkner The Sound and the Fury

Dashiell Hammett Red Harvest

Ernest Hemingway A Farewell To Arms

Sinclair Lewis Dodsworth

Thomas Wolfe Look Homeward, Angel

William Faulkner As I Lay Dying

Dashiell Hammett The Maltese Falcon

William Faulkner Sanctuary

William Faulkner Light in August

Aldous Huxley Brave New World

Vladimir Nabokov Laughter in the Dark (original Russian)

Agatha Christie Murder on the Orient Express

F. Scott Fitzgerald Tender is the Night

James M. Cain The Postman Always Rings Twice

William Faulkner Absalom Absalom!

Agatha Christie Death on the Nile

Ernest Hemingway To Have and Have Not

John Steinbeck Of Mice and Men

Raymond Chandler The Big Sleep

Agatha Christie Ten Little Indians / And Then There Were None

John Fante Ask the Dust

James Joyce Finnegan's Wake

John Steinbeck The Grapes of Wrath

Ernest Hemingway For Whom the Bell Tolls

Thomas Wolfe You Can't Go Home Again

Richard Wright Native Son

F. Scott Fitzgerald The Last Tycoon

James M. Cain The Postman Always Rings Twice

Tennessee Williams The Glass Menagerie

George Orwell Animal Farm

Tennessee Williams A Streetcar Named Desire

Shirley Jackson "The Lottery" (short story)

George Orwell 1984

Ray Bradbury The Martian Chronicles

Ernest Hemingway Across the River and Into the Trees

Patricia Highsmith Strangers on a Train

Isaac Asimov Foundation

J.D. Salinger Catcher in the Rye

Ralph Ellison Invisible Man

Ernest Hemingway The Old Man and the Sea

Bernard Malamud The Natural

Flannery O'Connor Wise Blood

John Steinbeck East of Eden

James Baldwin Go Tell It on the Mountain

Samuel Beckett Waiting for Godot

Saul Bellow The Adventures of Augie March

Ray Bradbury Fahrenheit 451

J.D. Salinger Nine Stories a.k.a. For Esme - With Love and Squalor and Other Stories

Patricia Highsmith The Talented Mr. Ripley

Vladimir Nabokov Lolita

John Osborne Look Back in Anger

Bernard Malamud The Assistant

Harold Pinter The Birthday Party

Harold Pinter The Room

Harold Pinter The Dumb Waiter

Edward Albee The Zoo Story

Bernard Malamud The Magic Barrel

Loraine Hansberry A Raisin in the Sun

Harold Pinter The Caretaker

Philip Roth Goodbye, Columbus

Harper Lee To Kill a Mockingbird

John Updike Rabbit, Run

Philip K. Dick The Man in the High Castle

Joseph Heller Catch-22

Walker Percy The Moviegoer

J.D. Salinger Franny and Zooey

Edward Albee Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

Philip Roth Letting Go

Kurt Vonnegut Cat's Cradle

J.D. Salinger Raise High the Roof Beam

Saul Bellow Herzog

Philip K. Dick Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

Bernard Malamud The Fixer

Tom Stoppard Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead

Tom Stoppard The Real Inspector Hound

Kurt Vonnegut Slaughterhouse Five

Philip Roth Portnoy's Complaint

Ernest Hemingway Islands in the Stream

Saul Bellow Humboldt's Gift

David Mamet American Buffalo

John Cheever The Stories of John Cheever

Philip Roth The Ghost Writer

Raymond Carver Cathedral

David Mamet Glengarry Glen Ross

Margaret Atwood A Handmaid's Tale

Don DeLillo White Noise

Richard Ford The Sportswriter

Ernest Hemingway The Garden of Eden

Philip Roth The Counterlife

Donna Tartt The Secret History

Philip Roth American Pastoral

Philip Roth The Human Stain

Philip Roth The Plot Against America

Donna Tartt The Goldfinch