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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Pride and Prejudice
Jane Austen
Paper Book
When Elizabeth Bennet first meets eligible bachelor Fitzwilliam Darcy, she thinks him arrogant and conceited; he is indifferent to her good looks and lively mind. When she later discovers that Darcy has involved himself in the troubled relationship between his friend Bingley and her beloved sister...
Jane Eyre
Charlotte Brontë
Paper Book
Part of Penguin's beautiful hardback Clothbound Classics series, designed by the award-winning Coralie Bickford-Smith, these delectable and collectible editions are bound in high-quality colourful, tactile cloth with foil stamped into the design. Charlotte Bront 's first published novel, Jane Eyre...
The Scarlet Letter
Nathaniel Hawthorne
Paper Book
The canonical American masterpiece of sin, guilt, and revenge, in an authoritative new edition from Penguin Classics with a foreword by Tom Perrotta At once retrospective and radically new, The Scarlet Letter portrays seventeenth-century Puritan New England, a time period...
The Woman in White
Wilkie Collins
Paper Book
Wilkie Collins's classic thriller took the world by storm on its first appearance in 1859, with everything from dances to perfumes to dresses named in honor of the "woman in white."  The novel's continuing fascination stems in part from a distinctive blend of melodrama, comedy, and realism;...
David Copperfield
Charles Dickens
Paper Book
When David Copperfield escapes from the cruelty of his childhood home, he embarks on a journey to adulthood which will lead him through comedy and tragedy, love and heartbreak and friendship and betrayal. Over the course of his adventure, David meets an array of eccentric characters and learns...
Uncle Tom's Cabin
Harriet Beecher Stowe
Paper Book
Harriet Beecher Stowe's timeless and moving novel, an incendiary work that fanned the embers of the struggle between free and slave states into the fire of the Civil War. Uncle Tom's Cabin is the story of the slave Tom. Devout and loyal, he is sold and sent down south,...
Candide
Voltaire
Paper Book
Candide is the story of a gentle man who, though pummeled and slapped in every direction by fate, clings desperately to the belief that he lives in "the best of all possible worlds." On the surface a witty, bantering tale, this eighteenth-century classic is actually a savage, satiric thrust...
Les Misérables
Victor Hugo
Paper Book
Victor Hugo's towering novel of Jean Valjean, his unjust imprisonment, and his lifelong flight from a relentless police officer.
Vanity Fair
William Makepeace Thackeray
Paper Book
A panoramic satire of English society during the Napoleonic Wars, Vanity Fair is William Makepeace Thackeray's masterpiece. At its center is one of the most unforgettable characters in nineteenth-century literature: the enthralling Becky Sharp, a charmingly ruthless social climber who is...
Silas Marner
George Eliot
Paper Book
Enriched Classics offer readers accessible editions of great works of literature enhanced by helpful notes and commentary. Each book includes educational tools alongside the text, enabling students and readers alike to gain a deeper and more developed understanding of the writer and their...
The Three Musketeers
Alexandre Dumas
Paper Book
First published in 1844, Alexandre Dumas' adventure The Three Musketeers is one of the most popular novels ever written. Now this rollicking and witty story is available in a new translation by Richard Pevear, award-winning translator of Anna Karenina.
Tom Jones
Henry Fielding
Paper Book
Introduction and Notes by Doreen Roberts, Rutherford College, University of Kent at Canterbury. Tom Jones is widely regarded as one of the first and most influential English novels. It is certainly the funniest. Tom Jones, the hero of the book, is introduced to the...
The Last of the Mohicans
James Fenimore Cooper
Paper Book
The story is set in the British province of New York during the French and Indian War, and concerns--in part--a Huron massacre (with passive French acquiescence) of between 500 to 1,500 Anglo-American troops, who had honorably surrendered at Fort William Henry, plus some women and servants; the...
The Vicar of Wakefield
Oliver Goldsmith
Paper Book
When Dr Primrose loses his fortune in a disastrous investment, his idyllic life in the country is shattered and he is forced to move with his wife and six children to an impoverished living on the estate of Squire Thornhill. Taking to the road in pursuit of his daughter, who has been seduced by the...
The Betrothed
Alessandro Manzoni
Paper Book
Set in Lombardy during the Spanish occupation of the late 1620s, The Betrothed tells the story of two young lovers, Renzo and Lucia, prevented from marrying by the petty tyrant Don Rodrigo, who desires Lucia for himself. Forced to flee, they are then cruelly separated, and must face many dangers...
Tom Brown's School Days
Thomas Hughes
Ebook
HarperCollins is proud to present its incredible range of best-loved, essential classics. Thomas Hughes' novel about the mischievous but kind-hearted schoolboy Tom Brown inspired other school novels, including Frank Richards' Billy Bunter stories and J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter series....
Caleb Williams
William Godwin
Ebook
The Wide, Wide World
Susan Warner
Ebook
Headlong Hall
Thomas Love Peacock
Ebook
Headlong Hall, originally published in 1815, works less to tell a story than to present interesting characters satirically discussing the thoughts and movements of their time. The affable Squire Headlong conducts discussions among his intellectual friends--such as Mr. Foster, Mr....

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