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List:  Modern Library Top 100 Novels of the 20th Century


Zuleika Dobson or An Oxford Love Story (1911) - Max Beerbohm (1872 -1956)  (Grade:A)

The Sheltering Sky (1949) - Paul Bowles (12/30/1910 -11/18/1999)  (Grade:D)

A Clockwork Orange (1962) - Anthony Burgess (2/25/1917 -11/22/1993)  (Grade:A)

Tobacco Road (1932) - Erskine Caldwell (1903-1987)  (Grade:C+)

Death Comes for the Archbishop (1927) - Willa Cather (12/07/1873 -4/24/1947)  (Grade:C)

Heart of Darkness (1902) - Joseph Conrad (12/03/1857 -8/03/1924)  (Grade:A)

Deliverance (1970) - James Dickey (2/02/1923 -1/19/1997)  (Grade:A+)

The Alexandria Quartet: Justine/Balthazar/Mountolive/Clea (1957-1960) - Lawrence Durrell (1912-1990)  (Grade:F)

Lord of the Flies (1954) - William Golding (9/19/1911 -6/19/1993)  (Grade:C)

The Maltese Falcon (1930) - Dashiell Hammett (5/27/1894 -1/10/1961)  (Grade:A+)

Catch-22 (1961) - Joseph Heller (05/01/1923 -12/12/1999)  (Grade:A)

The Wings of the Dove (1902) - Henry James (4/15/1843 -2/28/1916)  (Grade:D)

From Here to Eternity (1951) - James Jones (11/06/1921 -5/09/1977)  (Grade:A+)

Ulysses (1922) - James Joyce (2/02/1882 -1/13/1941)  (Grade:F)

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916) - James Joyce (2/02/1882 -1/13/1941)  (Grade:F)

Finnegan's Wake (1939) - James Joyce (2/02/1882 -1/13/1941)  (Grade:F)

Kim (1901) - Rudyard Kipling (12/30/1865 -1/18/1936)  (Grade:A)

Call of the Wild (1903) - Jack London (1876-1916)  (Grade:A)

Under the Volcano (1947) - Malcolm Lowry (7/28/1909 -6/26/1957)  (Grade:C-)

Lolita (1955) - Vladimir Nabokov (4/22/1899 -7/02/1977)  (Grade:A)

Animal Farm (1945) - George Orwell (06/25/1903 -1/21/1949)  (Grade:A+)

1984 (1949) - George Orwell (06/25/1903 -1/21/1949)  (Grade:A+)

A Dance to the Music of Time (1951-1975) - Anthony Powell (12/21/1905 -3/28/2000)  (Grade:B-)

The Catcher in the Rye (1951) - J. D. Salinger (1/01/1919 -1/27/2010)  (Grade:A+)

The Magnificent Ambersons (1918) - Newton Booth Tarkington (07/29/1869 -05/19/1946)  (Grade:A)

Slaughterhouse-Five (1969) - Kurt Vonnegut (11/111922 -4/11/2007)  (Grade:C)

All the King's Men (1946) - Robert Penn Warren (4/24/1905 -9/15/1989)  (Grade:A+)

The House of Mirth (1905) - Edith Wharton (1/24/1862 -8/11/1937)  (Grade:C+)

The Age of Innocence (1920) - Edith Wharton (1/24/1862 -8/11/1937)  (Grade:A)

2)   The Great Gatsby (1925) - F. Scott Fitzgerald (9/24/1896 -12/21/1940)  (Grade:B)

5)   Brave New World (1932) - Aldous Huxley (7/26/1894 -11/22/1963)  (Grade:A)

6)   The Sound and the Fury (1929) - William Faulkner (09/25/1897 -07/06/1962)  (Grade:F)

8)   Darkness at Noon (1941) - Arthur Koestler (9/05/1905 -3/01/1983)  (Grade:A+)

9)   Sons and Lovers (1913) - D.H. Lawrence (9/11/1885 -3/02/1930)  (Grade:D)

10)   The Grapes of Wrath (1939) - John Steinbeck (2/27/1902 -12/20/1968)  (Grade:A-)

12)   The Way of All Flesh (1903) - Samuel Butler (1835-1902)  (Grade:D)

14)   I, Claudius (1934) - Robert Graves (7/24/1895 -12/07/1985)  (Grade:A+)

15)   To the Lighthouse (1927) - Virginia Woolf (1/25/1882 -3/28/1941)  (Grade:F)

16)   An American Tragedy (1925) - Theodore Dreiser (1871-1945)  (Grade:F)

17)   The Heart is a Lonely Hunter (1940) - Carson McCullers (2/19/1917 -9/29/1967)  (Grade:D)

19)   Invisible Man (1952) - Ralph Ellison (3/01/1913 -4/16/1994)  (Grade:C)

20)   Native Son (1940) - Richard Wright (9/04/1908 -11/28/1960)  (Grade:C+)

21)   Henderson the Rain King (1959) - Saul Bellow (06/10/1915 -04/05/2005)  (Grade:D)

22)   Appointment in Samarra (1934) - John O'Hara (1/31/1905 -4/11/1970)  (Grade:A)

23)   The USA Trilogy: (The 42nd Parallel, 1930; Nineteen Nineteen, 1932; The Big Money, 1936) () - John Dos Passos (1/14/1896 -9/28/1970)  (Grade:C)

24)   Winesburg, Ohio (1919) - Sherwood Anderson (9/13/1876 -3/08/1941)  (Grade:C-)

25)   A Passage to India (1924) - E.M. Forster (1/01/1879 -6/07/1970)  (Grade:B)

27)   The Ambassadors (1903) - Henry James (4/15/1843 -2/28/1916)  (Grade:D)

28)   Tender is the Night (1934) - F. Scott Fitzgerald (9/24/1896 -12/21/1940)  (Grade:C-)

29)   Studs Lonigan [Young Lonigan (1932), The Young Manhood of Studs Lonigan (1934),and Judgement Day (1935)] () - James T. Farrell (1904-1979)  (Grade:D)

30)   The Good Soldier (1915) - Ford Maddox Ford (12/17/1873 -6/26/1939)  (Grade:B-)

32)   The Golden Bowl, or actually,The Turn of the Screw (in lieu of The Golden Bowl) () - Henry James (4/15/1843 -2/28/1916)  (Grade:B)

33)   Sister Carrie (1900) - Theodore Dreiser (1871-1945)  (Grade:F)

34)   A Handful of Dust (1934) - Evelyn Waugh (10/28/1903 -04/10/1966)  (Grade:B)

35)   As I Lay Dying (1930) - William Faulkner (09/25/1897 -07/06/1962)  (Grade:F)

37)   The Bridge of San Luis Rey (1927) - Thornton Wilder (4/17/1897 -12/07/1975)  (Grade:C)

38)   Howards End (1910) - E.M. Forster (1/01/1879 -6/07/1970)  (Grade:D)

39)   Go Tell it on the Mountain (1953) - James Baldwin (8/02/1924 -12/01/1987)  (Grade:B)

40)   The Heart of the Matter (1948) - Graham Greene (10/02/1904 -4/03/1991)  (Grade:A)

44)   Point Counter Point (1928) - Aldous Huxley (7/26/1894 -11/22/1963)  (Grade:D)

45)   The Sun Also Rises (1926) - Ernest Hemingway (7/21/1899 -7/02/1961)  (Grade:C-)

46)   The Secret Agent (1907) - Joseph Conrad (12/03/1857 -8/03/1924)  (Grade:B)

47)   Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard (1904) - Joseph Conrad (12/03/1857 -8/03/1924)  (Grade:D+)

48)   The Rainbow (1915) - D.H. Lawrence (9/11/1885 -3/02/1930)  (Grade:F)

49)   Women in Love (1920) - D.H. Lawrence (9/11/1885 -3/02/1930)  (Grade:F)

50)   Tropic of Cancer (1934) - Henry Miller (1891 -1980)  (Grade:F)

51)   The Naked and the Dead (1948) - Norman Mailer (01/31/1923 -11/10/2007)  (Grade:D)

52)   Portnoy's Complaint (1969) - Phillip Roth (3/19/1933 -5/22/2018)  (Grade:F)

53)   Pale Fire (1962) - Vladimir Nabokov (4/22/1899 -7/02/1977)  (Grade:B)

54)   Light in August (1932) - William Faulkner (09/25/1897 -07/06/1962)  (Grade:B-)

55)   On the Road (1957) - Jack Kerouac (3/12/1922 -10/21/1969)  (Grade:F)

57)   Parade's End [Some Do Not (1924), No More Parades (1925), A Man Could Stand Up (1926), and The Last Post (1928)] (1924-1928) - Ford Maddox Ford (12/17/1873 -6/26/1939)  (Grade:D+)

60)   The Moviegoer (1961) - Walker Percy (05/28/1916 -05/10/1990)  (Grade:C+)

63)   The Wapshot Chronicle (1957) - John Cheever (5/27/1912 -6/18/1982)  (Grade:D)

65)   Of Human Bondage (1915) - W. Somerset Maugham (1/25/1874 -12/16/1965)  (Grade:F)

68)   Main Street (1920) - Sinclair Lewis (2/07/1885 -1/10/1951)  (Grade:C)

71)   A High Wind in Jamaica: The Innocent Voyage (1929) - Richard Hughes (1900-1976)  (Grade:C)

72)   A House for Mr. Biswas (1961) - V.S. Naipaul (8/17/1932 -8/11/2018)  (Grade:B-)

73)   The Day of the Locust (1939) - Nathanael West (1902-1940)  (Grade:C-)

74)   A Farewell to Arms (1929) - Ernest Hemingway (7/21/1899 -7/02/1961)  (Grade:D)

75)   Scoop (1937) - Evelyn Waugh (10/28/1903 -04/10/1966)  (Grade:B+)

76)   The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1961) - Muriel Spark (2/01/1918 -4/12/2006)  (Grade:D)

79)   A Room with a View (1908) - E.M. Forster (1/01/1879 -6/07/1970)  (Grade:D)

80)   Brideshead Revisited (1945) - Evelyn Waugh (10/28/1903 -04/10/1966)  (Grade:C)

81)   The Adventures of Augie March (1953) - Saul Bellow (06/10/1915 -04/05/2005)  (Grade:F)

82)   Angle of Repose (1971) - Wallace Stegner (1909-1993)  (Grade:C)

83)   A Bend in the River (1979) - V.S. Naipaul (8/17/1932 -8/11/2018)  (Grade:C)

84)   The Death of the Heart (1938) - Elizabeth Bowen (6/07/1899 -2/22/1973)  (Grade:D)

85)   Lord Jim (1900) - Joseph Conrad (12/03/1857 -8/03/1924)  (Grade:B)

86)   Ragtime (1975) - E.L. Doctorow (1931-)  (Grade:A)

87)   The Old Wives' Tale (1908) - Arnold Bennett (5/27/1867 -3/27/1931)  (Grade:C)

89)   Loving (1945) - Henry Green (10/29/1905 -12/13/1973)  (Grade:D)

90)   Midnight's Children (1980) - Salman Rushdie (6/19/1947 -)  (Grade:C-)

92)   Ironweed (1983) - William Kennedy (01/16/1928-)  (Grade:A)

93)   The Magus (1965) - John Fowles (03/31/1926 -11/05/2005)  (Grade:C)

94)   Wide Sargasso Sea (1966) - Jean Rhys (8/24/1890 -5/14/1979)  (Grade:F-)

95)   Under the Net (1954) - Iris Murdoch (7/15/1919 -2/08/1999)  (Grade:D+)

96)   Sophie's Choice (1979) - William Styron (6/11/1925 -11/01/2006)  (Grade:C)

98)   The Postman Always Rings Twice (1934) - James M Cain (7/1/1892 -10/27/77)  (Grade:A)

99)   The Ginger Man (1955) - JP Donleavy (-)  (Grade:D)