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
Drag items up and down to your preferred order then select the "Save Order" button.
Pride and prejudice
Austen, Jane
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
Bront,︠ Charlotte
Paper Book
Orphaned Jane Eyre grows up in the home of her heartless aunt, where she endures loneliness and cruelty, and at a charity school with a harsh regime. This troubled childhood strengthens Jane's natural independence and spirit - which prove necessary when she finds a position as governess at...
The scarlet letter : a romance
Hawthorne, Nathaniel
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
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,...
Frankenstein : the 1818 text, contexts, nineteenth-century responses, modern criticism
Shelley, Mary Wollstonecraft
Paper Book
Contemporary perspectives of the text are provided in two sections: Contexts helps place the novel in relation to the mind of its creator through writings by Mary Shelley, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Lord Byron, and John William Polidori; Nineteenth-Century Responses collects six reactions to the book...
Crime and Punishment [Norton Critical Edition, 3rd ed.]
Fyodor Dostoevsky
Paper Book
New footnotes have been added, based on discoveries by the leading Soviet Dostoevsky scholar, Sergei Belov. "Backgrounds and Sources", highly praised in the Second Edition, remains unaltered. Included are a detailed map of nineteenth-century St. Petersburg, selections from Dostoevsky's notebooks...
David Copperfield
Dickens, Charles
Paper Book
Charles Dickens's most famous novel was also his own favorite, and the one that drew most on his own life story. David Copperfield is the classic account of a boy growing up in a world that is by turns magical, fearful, and grimly realistic. In a book that is part fairy tale and...
Uncle Tom's cabin, or, Life among the lowly
Stowe, Harriet Beecher
Paper Book
The novel that changed the course of American history Published in 1852, Harriet Beecher Stowe's novel was a powerful indictment of slavery in America. Describing the many trials and eventual escape to freedom of the long-suffering, good-hearted slave Uncle Tom, it aimed to show...
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,...
Les miserables
Hugo, Victor
Paper Book
It has been said that Victor Hugo has a street named after him in virtually every town in France. A major reason for the singular celebrity of this most popular and versatile of the great French writers is Les Misérables (1862). In this story of the trials of the peasant Jean Valjean--a...
Vanity fair : a novel without a hero
Thackeray, William Makepeace
Paper Book
No one is better equipped in the struggle for wealth and worldly success than the alluring and ruthless Becky Sharp, who defies her impoverished background to clamber up the class ladder. Her sentimental companion Amelia, however, longs only for caddish soldier George. As the two heroines make their...
Don Quijote de la Mancha
Cervantes, Miguel de
Ebook
Este texto, cima de la literatura en lengua castellana, se divide en dos partes que relatan las aventuras de un loco - cuerdo que trata de hacer revivir las mágicas historias de los libros de caballerías. En la primera parte don Alonso Quijano es un humilde hacendado que invierte todo su capital en...
Robinson Crusoe [Norton Critical Edition]
Daniel Defoe
Paper Book
Michael Shinagel has collated the reprint with all six authorized editions published by Taylor in 1719 to achieve a text that is faithful to Defoe's original edition.  Annotations assist the reader with obscure words and idioms, biblical references, and nautical terms.
Silas Marner : the weaver of Raveloe
Eliot, George
Paper Book
Wrongly accused of theft and exiled from a religious community many years before, the embittered weaver Silas Marner lives alone in Raveloe, living only for work and his precious hoard of money. But when his money is stolen and an orphaned child finds her way into his house, Silas is given the...
The three musketeers
Dumas, Alexandre
Paper Book
"We read The Three Musketeers to experience a sense of romance and for the sheer excitement of the story," reflected Clifton Fadiman. "In these violent pages all is action, intrigue, suspense, surprise--an almost endless chain of duels, murders, love affairs, unmaskings, ambushes, hairbreadth...
The history of Tom Jones, a foundling
Fielding, Henry
Paper Book
A foundling of mysterious parentage brought up by Mr Allworthy on his country estate, Tom Jones is deeply in love with the seemingly unattainable Sophia Western, the beautiful daughter of the neighbouring squire - though he sometimes succumbs to the charms of the local girls. But when his amorous...
The Last of the Mohicans
Cooper, James Fenimore
Paper Book
The wild rush of action in this classic frontier adventure story has made The Last of the Mohicans the most popular of James Fenimore Cooper’s Leatherstocking Tales. Deep in the forests of upper New York State, the brave woodsman Hawkeye (Natty Bumppo) and his loyal Mohican friends...
The Castle of Otranto
Horace Walpole
Paper Book
'Look, my lord! See heaven itself declares against your impious intentions!' The Castle of Otranto (1764) is the first supernatural English novel and one of the most influential works of Gothic fiction. It inaugurated a literary genre that will be forever associated with the effects that Walpole...
The mysteries of Udolpho
Radcliffe, Ann Ward
Paper Book
Trapped in a gloomy medieval fortress, an orphaned heroine battles the devious schemes of her guardians as well as her own pensive visions and melancholy fancies. Generations of readers have thrilled to this famous Gothic tale from 1794 and its hypnotic pre-Freudian exploration of the psyche.
Pere Goriot = Old Goriot
Balzac, Honor ̌de
Paper Book
Fathers and sons
Turgenev, Ivan Sergeevich
Paper Book
Turgenev's timeless tale of generational collision, in a sparkling new translation When Arkady Petrovich returns home from college, his father finds his eager, na ve son changed almost beyond recognition, for the impressionable Arkady has fallen under the powerful influence of the friend...
The vicar of Wakefield
Goldsmith, Oliver
Digital file
Oliver Goldsmith earned instant acclaim when he published The Vicar of Wakefield, a marvelous mixture of burlesque and satire. The simple village vicar, Mr. Primrose, is living with his wife and six children in complete tranquility until unexpected calamities force them to weather one hilarious...
Barchester Towers
Anthony Trollope
Paper Book
"I never saw anything like you clergymen ... you are always thinking of fighting each other"   After the death of old Dr Grantly, a bitter struggle begins over who will succeed him as Bishop of Barchester. And when the decision is finally made to appoint the evangelical Dr...
The betrothed : a seventeenth-century Milanese story discovered and rewritten
Manzoni, Alessandro
Paper Book
"Thefirst English translation in more than fifty years of Alessandro Manzoni's masterpiece,a work of foundational Italian literature on par with the Divine Comedy and the Decameron."-The Wall Street Journal "An exemplary historical novel" (The New Yorker) from...
Evelina
Frances Burney
Ebook
Evelina is the daughter of an English aristocrat, but is brought up in the country until her seventeenth birthday, because she is of dubious birth and unacknowledged. Once out in London and Bristol-Hotwells, Evelina learns through a series of humorous events how to navigate society, and a nobleman...
Clarissa, or, The history of a young lady
Richardson, Samuel
Paper Book
Pressured by her unscrupulous family to marry a wealthy man she detests, the young Clarissa Harlowe is tricked into fleeing with the witty and debonair Robert Lovelace and places herself under his protection. Lovelace, however, proves himself to be an untrustworthy rake whose vague promises of...
Ruth
Gaskell, Elizabeth Cleghorn
Ebook
A tragic affair blooms between a working-class orphan and a wealthy rake in this classic novel of Victorian England. Although Ruth Hilton is kind, life does not treat her kindly in return. An orphaned young seamstress, she works long hours at a sweatshop in a small English...
UNCLE SILAS : a tale of bartram-haugh
LE FANU, J. SHERIDAN.
Ebook
Family secrets and sinister plots abound in this beautifully atmospheric Victorian gothic thriller from a celebrated Irish author. For Maud Ruthyn, life is lonely in a mansion with no family besides her melancholic father. But when Madame de la Rougierre is hired to be her...
History of Rasselas : Prince of Abissinia
Johnson, Samuel.
Ebook
Simply written, funny, and compulsively readable, this fine little book has been heralded as one of the finest examples of English prose and offers a compelling glimpse of Samuel Johnson's moral views. Dashed out over the course of a single week to pay for his mother's funeral, Johnson's only...
Tom brown's schooldays
Hughes, Thomas.
Digital file
The master of Ballantrae
Stevenson, Robert Louis
Ebook
Westward ho!
Kingsley, Charles
Digital file
Salammb?
Flaubert, Gustave.
Digital file
Kenilworth : a romance
Scott, Walter
Paper Book
In the court of Elizabeth I, Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, is favoured above all the noblemen of England. It is rumoured that the Queen may chose him for her husband, but Leicester has secretly married the beautiful Amy Robsart. Fearing ruin if this were known, he keeps his lovely young wife a...
Vathek
Beckford, William
Paper Book
A chilling addition to the Haunted Library of Horror Classics. When you have all you could ever want-power, wealth, influence, status-what's left to wish for? First published in 1786, William Beckford's classic tale combines the lush setting of The Arabian Nights with a...
Wilhelm Meister's apprenticeship
Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von
Ebook
Wilhelm goes through deep self-realisation and decides to escape his empty life of a bourgeois businessman. After a failed romance with the theatre, Wilhelm commits himself to the mysterious Tower Society. A coming-of-age tale, a story of education and disillusionment, a novel of ideas ranging...
Bracebridge Hall
Irving, Washington
Ebook
Washington Irving (1783-1859) was an American author of the early nineteenth century. Best known for his short stories The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Rip van Winkle, he was also a prolific essayist, biographer and historian. He spoke fluent Spanish, which served him well in his writings on that...
Corinne ou l'Italie
Stal︠, Madame de
Ebook
Caleb Williams
William Godwin
Paper Book
The wandering Jew
Sue, Eugn̈e
Ebook
Written in 1845, just 3 years before revolutions swept Europe, The Wandering Jew is a classic French novel that became an international bestseller. Originally serialized in a French newspaper, the novel created an instant controversy with it
Salem Chapel
Oliphant, Mrs.
Ebook
Excerpt: "Towards the west end of Grove Street, in Carlingford, on the shabby side of the street, stood a red brick building, presenting a pinched gable terminated by a curious little belfry, not intended for any bell, and looking not unlike a handle to lift up the edifice by to the public...
News from Nowhere; or, An Epoch of Rest: Being Some Chapters from a Utopian Romance
William Morris
Ebook
William Morris is most famous for his textile design, but he was also a passionate and active socialist. News From Nowhere explores his socialist ideals in soft science-fiction. A man returns from a socialist meeting and falls into a sleep from which he wakes in a utopian, socialist future.
The Adventures of Gil Blas of Santillane
Lesage, Alain-Rene
Ebook
The Holy War : the losing and taking again of the town of Mansoul
Bunyan, John
Digital file
The Adventures of Roderick Random
Smollett, Tobias.
Digital file
The Scottish chiefs
Porter, Jane
Paper Book
For nearly a century, Scribner has exemplified the very best in publishing by pairing classic texts with the illustrative giants of the time, such as N. C. Wyeth and Maxfield Parrish. With the same commitment to the high standards established by the series' founders, Atheneum Books for Young Readers...
The absentee
Edgeworth, Maria
Ebook
Lord Colambre finds that his mother Lady Clonbrony's attempts to buy her way into the high society of London are only ridiculed, while his father, Lord Clonbrony, is in serious debt as a result of his wife's lifestyle. His mother wishes him to marry an heiress, Miss Broadhurst, who is a friend of...
Headlong Hall
Thomas Love Peacock
Ebook
Marriage
Ferrier, Susan
Paper Book
Susan Ferrier sold more copies of her novels than her contemporary, Jane Austen. Sir Walter Scott declared her his equal. Why, then has she been lost to history? On the 200th anniversary of this sharply observed, comic novel, it is time to rediscover her brilliance. 'Edinburgh is...
The Ayrshire Legatees
Galt, John
Ebook
Valerius
Lockhart, John Gibson
Ebook
The banished : a Swabian historical tale
Hauff, Wilhelm
Ebook
Excerpt: "The events which are recorded in the following pages, took place in that part of Southern Germany situated between the mountainous district of the Alb and the Black Forest. That portion of territory is bounded by the former on the north-west, by a long chain of hills of unequal height and...
Richelieu
James, G. P. R.
Ebook
Tom Cringle's Log
Michael Scott
Paper Book
Born and raised in Scotland, Michael Scott went into the family business as a merchant when he reached adulthood, a role that required frequent sea voyages to Jamaica. Based on his experiences at sea, Scott penned the tale Tom Cringle's Log, one of the earliest nautical-themed novels.
Mr Midshipman Easy
Frederick Marryat
Paper Book
As outspoken in his day as Richard Dawkins or Christopher Hitchens are today, American freethinker and author ROBERT GREEN INGERSOLL (1833-1899) was a notorious radical whose uncompromising views on religion and slavery (they were bad, in his opinion), women's suffrage (a good idea, he believed),...
Old Saint Paul's : a tale of the plague and the fire
Ainsworth, William Harrison
Ebook
A fantastic classic novel set during the events of the Great Plague and Great Fire of London in 1665-1666.
Sybil : or, the two nations
Disraeli, Benjamin
Ebook
'Two nations; between whom there is no intercourse and no sympathy' - thus Disraeli characterised the state of relations between England's rich and poor as Queen Victoria ascended the throne. in both town and country there was trouble as the new centres of industrial and commercial wealth grew but...
Mary Powell & Deborah's Diary
Manning, Anne
Ebook
Debit and credit : a novel
Freytag, Gustav
Ebook
After the death of his father, young Anton Wohlfart begins an apprenticeship in the office of the merchant T. O. Schröter in Breslau. Anton quickly succeeds through honest and diligent work, achieving a proper bourgeois existence. He has a variety of experiences with the Schröter family and also...
John Halifax : gentleman
Craik, Dinah Maria Mulock
Ebook
Napoleonic wars, bread riots, religious intolerance, industrial revolution....it's all here in the life of this most perfect of heroes. (Excerpt from Goodreads)
Elsie Venner : a romance of destiny
Holmes, Oliver Wendell
Ebook
In this classic of the supernatural, a physician puzzles over seventeen-year-old Elsie's neurosis and fiery temper--only diagnosing her when he learns that the girl's mother, while pregnant, was bitten by a poisonous snake. Exploring themes of original sin and redemption in the footsteps of...
The cloister and the hearth
Reade, Charles
Ebook
The Channings
Wood, Henry, Mrs.
Ebook
The Channings is an 1862 novel by the British writer Ellen Wood. A man takes responsibility for a theft he believes his brother has committed. His brother is really innocent of the crime, and the real culprit is later caught.(Excerpt from Wikipedia)

Library staff! You can create and contribute to lists. Contact your catalog administrator or log in here.