1898 C.K. Shorter List of Best 100 Novels

In 1898, an editor named Clement K. Shorter made a list of the 100 best novels (with a limit of one book per author).
Updated September 19, 2022
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Jane Eyre
Brontë, Charlotte
Paper Book
'The masterwork of a great genius' William Makepeace Thackeray A novel of intense emotional power, heightened atmosphere and fierce intelligence, Jane Eyre dazzled and shocked readers with its passionate depiction of a woman's search for equality and freedom on her own...
Pride and prejudice
Austen, Jane
Paper Book
NATIONAL BESTSELLER * Jane Austen x Puffin in Bloom with a gorgeous illustrated cover by Anna Bond, the artist behind the renowned lifestyle brand Rifle Paper Co. Mr. and Mrs. Bennet live with their five daughters. Jane, the eldest daughter, falls in love with Charles Bingley, a...
The scarlet letter
Hawthorne, Nathaniel
Paper Book
A dramatic, moving depiction of social defiance and social deference A stark and allegorical tale of adultery, guilt, and social repression in Puritan New England, The Scarlet Letteris a foundational work of American literature. Nathaniel Hawthorne's exploration of the...
The woman in white
Collins, Wilkie
Paper Book
The Woman in White famously opens with Walter Hartright's eerie encounter on a moonlit London road. Engaged as a drawing master to the beautiful Laura Fairlie, Walter is drawn into the sinister intrigues of Sir Percival Glyde and his 'charming' friend Count Fosco, who has a taste for white mice,...
David Copperfield
Dickens, Charles
Paper Book
This is the novel Dickens regarded as his 'favourite child' and is considered his most autobiographical. As David recounts his experience from childhood to the discovery of his vocation as a successful novelist, Dickens draws openly and revealingly on his own life. Among the gloriously vivid cast of...
Uncle Tom's cabin
Stowe, Harriet Beecher
Paper Book
Editedand with an Introduction and Notes by Dr Keith Carabine. University of Kent at Canterbury. Uncle Tom's Cabin is the most popular, influential and controversial book written by an American. Stowe's rich, panoramic novel passionately dramatises why the whole of...
Les misérables
Hugo, Victor
Paper Book
Now a major musical film from Oscar-winning director Tom Hooper (The King's Speech), starring Hugh Jackman, Russell Crowe and Anne Hathaway, and also featuring Amanda Seyfreid, Helena Bonham-Carter and Sacha Baron-Cohen, Victor Hugo's Les Miserablesis one of the great works of western...
Candide, or, Optimism
Voltaire
Paper Book
"All is for the best in the best of all possible worlds"   It was the indifferent shrug and callous inertia that this "optimism" concealed which so angered Voltaire, who found the "all for the best" approach a patently inadequate response to suffering, to natural disasters,...
The three musketeers
Dumas, Alexandre
Paper Book
Dumas's tale of swashbuckling and heroism follows the fortunes of d'Artignan, a headstrong country boy who travels to Paris to join the Musketeers - the bodyguard of King Louis XIII. Here he falls in with Athos, Porthos and Aramis, and the four friends soon find themselves caught up in court...
The last of the Mohicans
Cooper, James Fenimore
Paper Book
Introduction and Notes by David Blair. University of Kent at Canterbury. It is 1757. Across north-eastern America the armies of Britain and France struggle for ascendancy. Their conflict, however, overlays older struggles between nations of native Americans for...

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