From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
The 100 Books of the Century is a grading of the books considered as the hundred best of the 20th century, drawn up in the spring of 1999 through a poll conducted by the French retailer Fnac and the Paris newspaper Le Monde.
Starting from a preliminary list of 200 titles created by bookshops and journalists, 17,000 French voted by responding to the question, "Which books have stayed in your memory?" (« Quels livres sont restés dans votre mémoire ? »).
The list of acclaimed titles mixes great novels with poetry and theatre, as well as the comic strip. The first fifty works on the list were the subject of an essay by Frédéric Beigbeder, The Last Inventory Before Liquidation, in which he notably drew attention to its French-centred character.
The 100 Books of the Century
#
| Title
| Author
| Year
| Language
| Country
|
1
| The Stranger (The Outsider)
| Albert Camus
| 1942
| French
| Algeria, France
|
2
| Remembrance of Things Past
| Marcel Proust
| 1913–1927
| French
| France
|
3
| The Trial
| Franz Kafka
| 1925
| German
| Austria-Hungary, Czechoslovakia
|
4
| The Little Prince
| Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
| 1943
| French
| France
|
5
| Man's Fate
| André Malraux
| 1933
| French
| France
|
6
| Journey to the End of the Night
| Louis-Ferdinand Céline
| 1932
| French
| France
|
7
| The Grapes of Wrath
| John Steinbeck
| 1939
| English
| USA
|
8
| For Whom the Bell Tolls
| Ernest Hemingway
| 1940
| English
| USA
|
9
| Le Grand Meaulnes
| Alain-Fournier
| 1913
| French
| France
|
10
| Froth on the Daydream
| Boris Vian
| 1947
| French
| France
|
11
| The Second Sex
| Simone de Beauvoir
| 1949
| French
| France
|
12
| Waiting for Godot
| Samuel Beckett
| 1952
| French, English
| Ireland, France
|
13
| Being and Nothingness
| Jean-Paul Sartre
| 1943
| French
| France
|
14
| The Name of the Rose
| Umberto Eco
| 1980
| Italian
| Italy
|
15
| The Gulag Archipelago
| Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
| 1973
| Russian
| Soviet Union
|
16
| Paroles
| Jacques Prévert
| 1946
| French
| France
|
17
| Alcools
| Guillaume Apollinaire
| 1913
| French
| France
|
18
| The Blue Lotus
| Hergé
| 1936
| French
| Belgium
|
19
| The Diary of a Young Girl
| Anne Frank
| 1947
| Dutch
| Germany, Netherlands
|
20
| Tristes Tropiques
| Claude Lévi-Strauss
| 1955
| French
| France
|
21
| Brave New World
| Aldous Huxley
| 1932
| English
| UK
|
22
| Nineteen Eighty-Four
| George Orwell
| 1949
| English
| UK
|
23
| Asterix the Gaul
| René Goscinny and Albert Uderzo
| 1959
| French
| France
|
24
| The Bald Soprano
| Eugène Ionesco
| 1952
| French, Romanian
| Romania, France
|
25
| Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality
| Sigmund Freud
| 1905
| German
| Austria
|
26
| The Abyss
| Marguerite Yourcenar
| 1968
| French
| France, Belgium
|
27
| Lolita
| Vladimir Nabokov
| 1955
| English, Russian
| Russia, USA
|
28
| Ulysses
| James Joyce
| 1922
| English
| Ireland
|
29
| The Tartar Steppe
| Dino Buzzati
| 1940
| Italian
| Italy
|
30
| The Counterfeiters
| André Gide
| 1925
| French
| France
|
31
| The Horseman on the Roof
| Jean Giono
| 1951
| French
| France
|
32
| Belle du Seigneur
| Albert Cohen
| 1968
| French
| Greece, Switzerland
|
33
| One Hundred Years of Solitude
| Gabriel García Márquez
| 1967
| Spanish
| Colombia
|
34
| The Sound and the Fury
| William Faulkner
| 1929
| English
| USA
|
35
| Thérèse Desqueyroux
| François Mauriac
| 1927
| French
| France
|
36
| Zazie in the Metro
| Raymond Queneau
| 1959
| French
| France
|
37
| Confusion of Feelings
| Stefan Zweig
| 1927
| German
| Austria
|
38
| Gone with the Wind
| Margaret Mitchell
| 1936
| English
| USA
|
39
| Lady Chatterley's Lover
| D. H. Lawrence
| 1928
| English
| UK
|
40
| The Magic Mountain
| Thomas Mann
| 1924
| German
| Germany
|
41
| Bonjour Tristesse
| Françoise Sagan
| 1954
| French
| France
|
42
| Le Silence de la mer
| Vercors
| 1942
| French
| France
|
43
| Life: A User's Manual
| Georges Perec
| 1978
| French
| France
|
44
| The Hound of the Baskervilles
| Arthur Conan Doyle
| 1901–1902
| English
| UK
|
45
| Under the Sun of Satan
| Georges Bernanos
| 1926
| French
| France
|
46
| The Great Gatsby
| F. Scott Fitzgerald
| 1925
| English
| USA
|
47
| The Joke
| Milan Kundera
| 1967
| Czech
| Czech Republic, France
|
48
| A Ghost at Noon (Contempt)
| Alberto Moravia
| 1954
| French
| France
|
49
| The Murder of Roger Ackroyd
| Agatha Christie
| 1926
| English
| UK
|
50
| Nadja
| André Breton
| 1928
| French
| France
|
51
| Aurélien
| Louis Aragon
| 1944
| French
| France
|
52
| The Satin Slipper
| Paul Claudel
| 1929
| French
| France
|
53
| Six Characters in Search of an Author
| Luigi Pirandello
| 1921
| Italian
| Italy
|
54
| The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui
| Bertolt Brecht
| 1959
| German
| Germany
|
55
| Vendredi ou les Limbes du Pacifique
| Michel Tournier
| 1967
| French
| France
|
56
| The War of the Worlds
| H. G. Wells
| 1898
| English
| UK
|
57
| Template:Flagicon If This Is a Man Template:Flagicon Survival in Auschwitz
| Primo Levi
| 1947
| Italian
| Italy
|
58
| The Lord of the Rings
| J. R. R. Tolkien
| 1954–1955
| English
| Orange Free State, UK
|
59
| Les Vrilles de la vigne
| Colette
| 1908
| French
| France
|
60
| Capitale de la douleur
| Paul Éluard
| 1926
| French
| France
|
61
| Martin Eden
| Jack London
| 1909
| English
| USA
|
62
| Ballad of the Salt Sea
| Hugo Pratt
| 1967
| Italian
| Italy
|
63
| Writing Degree Zero
| Roland Barthes
| 1953
| French
| France
|
64
| The Lost Honour of Katharina Blum
| Heinrich Böll
| 1974
| German
| Germany
|
65
| The Opposing Shore
| Julien Gracq
| 1951
| French
| France
|
66
| The Order of Things
| Michel Foucault
| 1966
| French
| France
|
67
| On the Road
| Jack Kerouac
| 1957
| English
| USA
|
68
| The Wonderful Adventures of Nils
| Selma Lagerlöf
| 1906–1907
| Swedish
| Sweden
|
69
| A Room of One's Own
| Virginia Woolf
| 1929
| English
| UK
|
70
| The Martian Chronicles
| Ray Bradbury
| 1950
| English
| USA
|
71
| The Ravishing of Lol Stein
| Marguerite Duras
| 1964
| French
| France
|
72
| The Interrogation
| J. M. G. Le Clézio
| 1963
| French
| France
|
73
| Tropisms
| Nathalie Sarraute
| 1939
| French
| Russia, France
|
74
| Journal, 1887–1910
| Jules Renard
| 1925
| French
| France
|
75
| Lord Jim
| Joseph Conrad
| 1900
| English
| Russian Empire, UK
|
76
| Écrits
| Jacques Lacan
| 1966
| French
| France
|
77
| The Theatre and its Double
| Antonin Artaud
| 1938
| French
| France
|
78
| Manhattan Transfer
| John Dos Passos
| 1925
| English
| USA
|
79
| Ficciones
| Jorge Luis Borges
| 1944
| Spanish
| Argentina
|
80
| Moravagine
| Blaise Cendrars
| 1926
| French
| France, Switzerland
|
81
| The General of the Dead Army
| Ismail Kadare
| 1963
| Albanian, French
| Albania
|
82
| Sophie's Choice
| William Styron
| 1979
| English
| USA
|
83
| Gypsy Ballads
| Federico García Lorca
| 1928
| Spanish
| Spain
|
84
| The Strange Case of Peter the Lett
| Georges Simenon
| 1931
| French
| Belgium
|
85
| Our Lady of the Flowers
| Jean Genet
| 1944
| French
| France
|
86
| The Man Without Qualities
| Robert Musil
| 1930–1932
| German
| Austria
|
87
| Fureur et mystère
| René Char
| 1948
| French
| France
|
88
| The Catcher in the Rye
| J. D. Salinger
| 1951
| English
| USA
|
89
| No Orchids For Miss Blandish
| James Hadley Chase
| 1939
| English
| UK
|
90
| Blake and Mortimer
| Edgar P. Jacobs
| 1950
| French
| Belgium
|
91
| The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge
| Rainer Maria Rilke
| 1910
| German
| Austria-Hungary, Switzerland
|
92
| Second Thoughts
| Michel Butor
| 1957
| French
| France
|
93
| Template:Flagicon The Burden of Our Time Template:Flagicon The Origins of Totalitarianism
| Hannah Arendt
| 1951
| English, German
| Germany, USA
|
94
| The Master and Margarita
| Mikhail Bulgakov
| 1967
| Russian
| Soviet Union
|
95
| The Rosy Crucifixion
| Henry Miller
| 1949–1960
| English
| USA
|
96
| The Big Sleep
| Raymond Chandler
| 1939
| English
| USA
|
97
| Amers
| Saint-John Perse
| 1957
| French
| France
|
98
| Gaston (Gomer Goof)
| André Franquin
| 1957
| French
| Belgium
|
99
| Under the Volcano
| Malcolm Lowry
| 1947
| English
| UK
|
100
| Midnight's Children
| Salman Rushdie
| 1981
| English
| India, UK
|
Note: Language and Country refer to the author's career generally, not to the book specifically.
See also