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 /
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_e, Charlotte,
Paper Book
Jane Eyre, a penniless orphan, is engaged as governess at Thornfield Hall by the mysterious Mr Rochester. Her integrity and independence are tested to the limit as their love for each other grows, and the secrets of Mr Rochester's past are revealed. Charlotte Brontë's novel about the...
Wuthering Heights :
Bronte, Emily,
Paper Book
For the Fourth Edition, the editor collated the 1847 text with the two modern texts (Norton's William J. Sale collation and the Clarendon), and found a great number of variants, including accidentals. This discovery led to changes in the body of the Norton Critical Edition text that are explained in...
The scarlet letter :
Hawthorne, Nathaniel,
Paper Book
Hester Prynne is a beautiful young woman. She is also an outcast. In the eyes of her neighbours she has committed an unforgivable sin. Everyone knows that her little daughter Pearl is the product of an illicit affair but no one knows the identity of Pearl's father. Hester's refusal to name him...
The woman in white /
Collins, Wilkie,
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 /
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
The book that some say helped start a war--now available in a new package! The story of a slave struggling to maintain his dignity during the pre-Civil War era, Uncle Tom's Cabin was published in 1852 to tremendous success. Since then, the book has received significant acclaim...
Candide /
Voltaire
Paper Book
Candide is a French satire first published in 1759 by Voltaire, a philosopher of the Age of Enlightenment. The novella has been widely translated, with English versions titled Candide: or, All for the Best (1759); Candide: or, The Optimist (1762); and Candide: or, Optimism (1947). It begins with a...
Les misOerables /
Hugo, Victor,
Paper Book
Few novels ever swept across the world with such overpowering impact as Les Misérables. Within 24 hours, the first Paris edition was sold out. In other great cities of the world it was devoured with equal relish. Sensational, dramatic, packed with rich excitement and...
Silas Marner :
Eliot, George,
Paper Book
When Silas Marner is wrongly accused of crime and expelled from his community, he vows to turn his back upon the world. He moves to the village of Raveloe, where he remains an outsider and an object of suspicion until an extraordinary sequence of events, including the theft of his gold and...
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 last of the Mohicans :
Cooper, James Fenimore,
Paper Book
Presented for the first time as an illustrated novel--with unabridged text--experience anew the war for control of the New World in this classic tale by James Fenimore Cooper. The wild rush of action in this classic frontier adventure novel has made The Last of the Mohicans the...
Fathers and sons /
Turgenev, Ivan Sergeevich,
Paper Book
With an introduction by Rosamund Bartlett and an afterword by Tatiana Tolstaya Turgenev's depiction of the conflict between generations and their ideals stunned readers when Fathers and Sons was first published in 1862. But many could also sympathize with Arkady...
The betrothed :
Manzoni, Alessandro,
Paper Book
Italy's greatest novel and a masterpiece of world literature, The Betrothed chronicles the unforgettable romance of Renzo and Lucia, who endure tyranny, war, famine, and plague to be together. Published in 1827 but set two centuries earlier, against the tumultuous backdrop of...
Tom Brown's schooldays
DVD
Stephen Fry, Jemma Redgrave, Joseph Beattie, and Alex Pettyfer star in director Dave Moore's adaptation of Thomas Hughes' timeless coming of age tale. The time is the mid-1800s, and Tom Brown is a timid student at Rugby Public School. Confronted with relentless bullying, the homesick schoolboy makes...
The master of Ballantrae :
Stevenson, Robert Louis,
Paper Book

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