Pre-WW1

These are the “traditional” classics.

Jane Austen

1. Sense and Sensibility – Jane Austen (1811)
2. Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen (1813)
3. Mansfield Park – Jane Austen (1814)
4. Emma – Jane Austen (1815)
5. Northanger Abbey – Jane Austen (1818)
6. Persuasion – Jane Austen (1818)

Brontë Sisters

7. Jane Eyre – Charlotte Brontë (1847)
8. Shirley – Charlotte Brontë  (1849)
9. Villette –  Charlotte Brontë  (1853)
10. The Professor –  Charlotte Brontë  (1857)
11. Agnes Grey – Anne Brontë  (1847)
12. The Tenant of Wildfell Hall – Anne Brontë  (1848)
13. Wuthering Heights – Emily Brontë  (1847)

Henry James

14. The American – Henry James (1877)
15. Daisy Miller – Henry James (1878)
16. The Portrait of a Lady – Henry James (1881)
17. The Bostonians (1886) – Henry James (1886)
18. Wings of the Dove – Henry James (1902)
19. The Ambassadors – Henry James (1903)
20. The Golden Bowl – Henry James (1904)

Charles Dickens

21. Oliver Twist – Charles Dickens (1838)
22. David Copperfield – Charles Dickens (1850)
23. A Tale of Two Cities – Charles Dickens (1859)
24. Great Expectations – Charles Dickens (1861)
25. Little Dorrit – Charles Dickens (1857)
26. Our Mutual Friend – Charles Dickens (1865)

Fyodor Dostoevsky

27. Crime and Punishment – Fyodor Dostoevsky (1866, Russian)
28.  Idiot – Fyodor Dostoevsky (1869, Russian)
29. The Brothers Karamazov- Fyodor Dostoevsky (1880, Russian)

Victor Hugo

30. Les Miserables – Victor Hugo (1862, French)
31. Toilers of the Sea – Victor Hugo (1866, French)
32. The Hunchback of Notre Dame – Victor Hugo (1831, French)
33. Ninety-Three – Victor Hugo (1874, French)

H.G Wells, Father of Science Fiction

34. The Time Machine – H.G. Wells (1895)
35. The War of the Worlds – H.G. Wells (1898)
36. The Island of Doctor Moreau – H.G. Wells (1896)
37. The Invisible Man – H.G. Wells (1897)
38. The First Men in the Moon – H.G. Wells (1901)

Jules Verne, Father of Science Fiction

39. A Journey to the Center of the Earth – Jules Verne (1864, French)
40. Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea – Jules Verne (1870, French)
41. Around the World in Eighty Days – Jules Verne (1873, French)
42. From the Earth to the Moon – Jules Verne (1865, French)

George Eliot, AKA Mary Anne Evans

43. The Mill on the Floss – George Eliot (1860)
44. Silas Marner – George Eliot (1861)
45. Middlemarch – George Eliot (1871)
46. Daniel Deronda – George Eliot (1876)
47. Adam Bede – George Eliot (1859)

George MacDonald – Fantasy Innovator

48. Lilith – George MacDonald (1895) fantasy
49. Phantastes – George MacDonald (1858)
50. The Princess and the Goblin – George MacDonald (1872)
51. At the Back of the North Wind – George MacDonald (1868)

Horror

52. Uncle Silas – J. Sheridan Le Fanu (1864)
53. Carmilla – J. Sheridan Le Fanu (1872)
54. Picture of Dorian Gray – Oscar Wilde (1890)
55. Dracula – Bram Stoker (1897)
56. Frankenstein – Mary Shelley (1818)
57. Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde – Robert Louis Stevenson (1886)

Children’s Classics

58. A Little Princess – Frances Hodgson Burnett (1905)
59. The Secret Garden – Frances Hodgson Burnett (1911)
60. Alice in Wonderland – Lewis Carroll (1865)
61. Through the Looking Glass – Lewis Carroll (1871)
62. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer – Mark Twain (1876)
63. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn – Mark Twain (1910)
64.  White Fang – Jack London (1906)
65. The Nutcracker and the Mouse King – T.A. Hoffmann (1816)
66. The Wind in the Willows – Kenneth Grahame (1908)
67. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz – L. Frank Baum (1900)
68. Peter & Wendy – J.M. Barrie (1911)
69. Treasure Island – Robert Louis Stevenson (1883)
70. Anne of Green Gables – Lucy Maud Montgomery (1908)
71.  Black Beauty – Anna Sewell (1877)

72. The Moonstone – Wilkie Collins (1868)
73.  Woman in White – Wilkie Collins (1860
74. The Iliad – Homer (8th Century BC, Ancient Greek)
75. The Odyssey – Homer (8th Century BC, Ancient Greek)
76. The Three Musketeers – Alexandre Dumas (1844, French)
77. The Count of Monte Cristo – Alexandre Dumas (1844, French)
78. War and Peace – Leo Tolstoy (1869, Russian)
79. Anna Karenina – Leo Tolstoy (1873, Russian)
80.  Ivanhoe – Sir Walter Scott (1820)

81. The Phantom of the Opera – Gaston Leroux (1911, French)
82. The Scarlet Letter – Nathaniel Hawthrone (1850)
83. Tess of the d’Urbervilles – Thomas Hardy (1891)
84. The War of the Worlds – H.G. Wells (1898)
85. Candide – Voltaire (1759, French)
86. Ivanhoe – Sir Walter Scott (1820)
87. Moby Dick – Herman Melville (1851)
88. The Canterbury Tales – Geoffrey Chaucer (late 14th Century)
89. Gulliver’s Travels – Jonathan Swift (1726)
90. The Blue Fairy Book (and its subsequent colours) – Andrew Lang (1889)

91. Grimm’s Fairy Tales (210 tales) –  Jacob & Wilhelm Grimm (1812, German)
92. The Complete Fairy Tales & Stories – Hans Christian Andersen (1830s, Danish)
93. Heart of Darkness – Joseph Conrad (1902)94.
94. Romance of the Three Kingdoms – Lo Kuan-chung (14th century, Chinese)
95. Monkey: A Journey to the West – Cheng’en Wu (1590s, Chinese)
96. Ralph 124C 41+ – Hugo Gernsback (1911)
97. Tale of Genji – Murasaki Shibiku (11th Century, Japanese)
98. Sons and Lovers – D.H. Lawrence (1913)
99. The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket – Edgar Allan Poe (1838)
100. Little Women – Louisa May Alcott (1868)