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
Introduction by Anna Quindlen * Nominated as one of America's best-loved novels by PBS's The Great American Read "It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife." So begins Pride and...
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
Hawthorne, Nathaniel
Paper Book
The woman in white
Collins, Wilkie
Paper Book
&&LDIV&&R&&LDIV&&R&&LI&&RThe Woman in White&&L/I&&R, by &&LB&&RWilkie Collins&&L/B&&R, is part of the &&LI&&RBarnes & Noble Classics&&L/I&&R&&LI&&R &&L/I&&Rseries, which offers quality editions at...
The personal history of David Copperfield
Dickens, Charles
Paper Book
David Copperfield (1849-50) was Dickens's favorite novel: 'Of all my books', he wrote, 'I like it the best.' Strikingly autobiographical in its childhood scenes, it relates David's history from birth to young manhood, and the host of characters he meets on his journey of self-knowledge: Mr Micawber,...
Uncle Tom's cabin : or, Life among the lowly
Stowe, Harriet Beecher
Paper Book
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 misřables
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...
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 social ladder. Her sentimental companion Amelia, however, longs for caddish soldier George. As the two heroines make their way...
Silas Marner : the weaver of Raveloe
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 : a narrative of 1757
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 Chingachgook and...
Fathers and sons
Turgenev, Ivan Sergeevich
Paper Book
Arkady Kirsanov has just graduated from the University of Petersburg and returns with a friend, Bazarov, to his father's modest estate. His father, Nikolai, gladly receives the two young men at his estate, called Maryino, but Nikolai's brother, Pavel, soon becomes upset by the strange new...
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...
Ruth
Gaskell, Elizabeth Cleghorn
Paper Book
Ruth Hilton is an orphaned young seamstress who catches the eye of a gentleman, Henry Bellingham, who is captivated by her simplicity and beauty. When she loses her job and home, he offers her comfort and shelter, only to cruelly desert her soon after. Nearly dead with grief and shame, Ruth is...
Tom Brown's schooldays
Moore, David.
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 : a winter's tale
Stevenson, Robert Louis
Paper Book
The holy war
Bunyan, John
Paper Book
  A Masterful Spiritual Classic   Once upon a time, the residents of the town of Mansoul were tricked into defying their ruler, Shaddai. Their new ruler, Diabolus, brought them great harm. When Shaddai sends Prince Emmanuel, his son, to rescue them, a...
Mr. Midshipman Easy
Marryat, Frederick
Paper Book
A timelesss tale of a midshipman's rise in Nelson's navy. Widely regarded as Marryat's best work,Mr. Midshipman Easy is based on the author's adventures sailing with Lord Thomas Cochrane. This classic seafaring tale is a fascinating account of naval life and warfare,...

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