New York Public Library
Books of the Century

Created to mark the Library's 100th birthday in 1995, the final selection of more than 150 titles, loosely gathered into twelve categories, was culled from more than 1,000 recommendations from NYPL librarians.

The following is a complete list of the titles included in The New York Public Library's Books of the Century, published by Oxford University Press. A portion of each sale through BarnesandNoble.com when entered from NYPL's Online Bookstore contributes to the support of  The New York Public Library.

Landmarks of Modern Literature
Nature's Realm
Protest & Progress
Colonialism and Its Aftermath
Mind & Spirit
Popular Culture & Mass Entertainment
Women Rise
Economics & Technology
Utopias & Dystopias
War, Holocaust, Totalitarianism
Optimism, Joy, Gentility
Favorites of Childhood and Youth




Landmarks of Modern Literature:

Anton Chekhov. Tri sestry [The Three Sisters] (1901) - An urban, cultivated family struggles against provincial banality and vulgarity

Marcel Proust. A la recherche du temps perdu [Remembrance of Things Past] (3 vols., 1913-27) - The monumental exploration of time and memory, of the past recovered and made permanent.

Gertrude Stein. Tender Buttons: Objects Food Rooms (1914) - Stein's first collection of her characteristic prose-poems, in which she put words to work in new ways.

Franz Kafka. Die Verwandlung [The Metamorphosis] (1915) - A man awakens one morning to find himself transformed into an insect: a classic tale of nightmarish isolation and entrapment.

Edna St. Vincent Millay. Renascence and Other Poems (1917) - Poems by a writer of sensual beauty and modern wit.

William Butler Yeats. The Wild Swans at Coole (1917) - Metaphysics meets symbolism, regular poetic meter, and a colloquial idiom in mature poems by the great Irish writer.

Luigi Pirandello. Sei personaggi in cerca d'autore [Six Characters in Search of an Author] (1921) - A timeless exploration of truth and illusion.

T. S. Eliot. The Waste Land (1922) - The landmark poem that gave voice to a generation fresh from a world war.

James Joyce. Ulysses (1922) - The kaleidoscopic, stream-of- consciousness chronicle of a day in the life of Leopold Bloom.

Thomas Mann. Der Zauberberg [The Magic Mountain] (1924) - In a tuberculosis sanitarium high in the Swiss Alps, disorder, irrationality, and death pave the route to knowledge, health, and life.

F. Scott Fitzgerald. The Great Gatsby (1925) - Flappers, bootleggers, lawn parties -- Fitzgerald's perennial "Jazz Age" favorite.

Virginia Woolf. To the Lighthouse (1927) - A penetrating study of the relations between men and women, and about time and death.

Federico García Lorca. Primer romancero gitano [Gypsy Ballads] (1928) - The most popular and appealing works of the best-known Spanish poet of this century.

Richard Wright. Native Son (1940) - A young black man confronts his fate in a racist society.

William Faulkner. The Portable Faulkner (1946) - A cultural mosaic of Yoknapatawpha County assembled from 10 of the writer's earlier works that brought about a reevaluation of his achievement.

W. H. Auden. The Age of Anxiety: A Baroque Eclogue (1947) - A Pulitzer Prize-winning poem that gave a name to an era.

Samuel Beckett. En attendant Godot [Waiting for Godot; A Tragicomedy in Two Acts] (1952) - Two Chaplinesque tramps wait in a barren landscape for the elusive Godot: this work defined the Theater of the Absurd.

Ralph Ellison. Invisible Man (1952) - A search for identity in a hostile world, told from his underground cell by a nameless narrator .

Vladimir Nabokov. Lolita (1955) - Nabokov's masterpiece of sex and longing.

Jorge Luis Borges. Ficciones [Fictions] (1944; 2nd augmented edition, 1956) - Complex metaphysical tales by the great Argentinian writer.

Jack Kerouac. On the Road (1957) - A literary classic vividly portraying the Beat lifestyle.

Gabriel García Márquez. Cien años de soledad [One Hundred Years of Solitude] (1967) - In a world of "magic realism," characters and events display the full range of human experience.

Philip Roth. Portnoy's Complaint (1969) - A poignant, wildly funny novel, greeted with outrage and excitement in 1969.

Toni Morrison. Song of Solomon (1977) - A complex and resonant novel concerned with the primacy of language and naming.

Nature's Realm:

Maurice Maeterlinck. La vie des abeilles [The Life of the Bee] (1901) - Pioneering observations on animal behavior by a Nobel laureate better known for his mystical and philosophical musings.

Marie Sklodowska Curie. Traité de radioactivité [Treatise on Radioactivity] (1910) - The only person awarded Nobel Prizes in both chemistry and physics, Marie Curie altered basic concepts in physics, and brought about a new understanding of atomic structure.

Albert Einstein. The Meaning of Relativity (1922) - "Everybody knows that Einstein did something astonishing, but very few people know exactly what it was that he did," wrote Bertrand Russell. Here it is, in Einstein's own words.

Roger Tory Peterson. A Field Guide to the Birds (1934) - Peterson's bird identification system, which helped make birdwatching one of the most popular outdoor nature activities; other Field Guides cover other branches of natural history.

Aldo Leopold. A Sand County Almanac (1949) - Thoughts about and observations of the natural world, its wildlife, and human responsibilities, which have inspired generations of environmentalists.

Konrad Z. Lorenz. Er redete mit dem Vieh, den Vögeln und den Fischen: King Solomon's Ring [King Solomon's Ring: New Light on Animal Ways] (1949) - A popular account of the author's interactions with dogs, fish, Water-shrews, Greylag geese, and jackdaws, and an introduction to ethology, the science of the study of animal behavior.

Rachel Carson. Silent Spring (1962) - The impassioned call to arms that alerted the public to the danger from poisoning of the earth's soil, water, air, creatures, and plants.

Smoking and Health (known as The Surgeon General's Report) (1964) - The exhaustive report on the effects of tobacco smoking on health that continues to influence medical thought, national and local legislation, and social behavior.

James Watson. The Double Helix: A Personal Account of the Discovery of the Structure of DNA (1968) - The story of the discovery of DNA, the fundamental genetic material, by one of the scientists responsible for the breakthrough.

Edward O. Wilson. The Diversity of Life (1992) - A biologist's exploration of the threats to the diversity of life of earth, with a focus on the tropical rain forests.

Protest & Progress:

Jacob Riis. The Battle with the Slum (1902) - The brutal conditions of American's slums, documented by a noted photojournalist and reformer.

W. E. B. Du Bois. The Souls of Black Folk (1903) - A call to action, confronting slavery and its lingering horrors, by the leader and rebel who co-founded the NAACP.

Upton Sinclair. The Jungle (1906) - The expose of the Chicago meat-packing industry that galvanized public consciousness and prompted protective legislation.

Jane Addams. Twenty Years at Hull-House (1910) - An autobiography and blueprint for social action by a woman dedicated to the needs of the poor and dispossessed.

Lillian Wald. The House on Henry Street (1915) - The story of the Henry Street Settlement, a center of social outreach and community involvement that introduced generations of new immigrants to American life.

Lincoln Steffens. The Autobiography of Lincoln Steffens (1931) - The life of the famed muckraker, who exposed political corruption and graft in American cities, as well as abuses of the economic system.

John Dos Passos. U.S.A. (1937) - A sweeping portrayal of industrial America from the turn of the century to the beginning of the Great Depression, utilizing experimental literary techniques.

John Steinbeck. The Grapes of Wrath (1939) - The odyssey of the Joad family from the Oklahoma Dust Bowl to the failed promised land of California.

James Agee and Walker Evans. Let Us Now Praise Famous Men (1941) - An unsparing photographic record of the harsh existence of three Alabama families, and a poetic meditation on the terrible beauty of their lives.

Lillian Smith. Strange Fruit (1944) - A controversial novel of miscegenation, suppressed in the South for its message of tolerance, and in the North for alleged obscenity.

Paul Goodman. Growing Up Absurd (1960) - A call for radical change from the godfather of the 1960s counterculture.

James Baldwin. The Fire Next Time (1963) - Scathing essays predicting rioting, assassinations, and chaos -- all of which occurred soon after the book was published.

Malcolm X. The Autobiography of Malcolm X (1965) - A story of self-creation and redemption, revealing the long spiritual and intellectual journey of a complicated, compelling man.

Randy Shilts. And the Band Played On (1987) - A meticulously researched saga of the first five years of the AIDS epidemic.

Alex Kotlowitz. There Are No Children Here (1991) - The true story of two young boys growing up in a Chicago housing project.

Colonialism & Its Aftermath:

Joseph Conrad. Lord Jim (1900) - Haunted by a dishonorable act, a ship's officer insinuates himself as a leader among a people unaware of his past.

Rudyard Kipling. Kim (1901) - A portrait of India seen through the wonderstruck eyes of an English orphan.

Mohandas K. Gandhi. Satyagraha [Non-Violent Resistance] (1921-40) - The great Indian philosopher and statesman's philosophy of nonviolent political resistance.

E. M. Forster. A Passage to India (1924) - Irreconcilable psychological and cultural conflicts among individuals, and racial and religious groups, in 20th-century colonial India.

Albert Camus. L'étranger [The Stranger] (1942) - A classic novel of alienation and existentialism.

United Nations Charter (1945) - The document that set forth the principles of the new organization.

Alan Paton. Cry, the Beloved Country (1948) - An elderly Zulu minister journeys from his drought- stricken rural parish to Johannesburg, South Africa, in a novel published only months before the Afrikaner nationalists took control of South Africa.

Edward Steichen. The Family of Man: The Photographic Exhibition Created by Edward Steichen for the Museum of Modern Art (1955) - The catalogue of what has been described as the greatest photographic exhibition ever mounted.

Chinua Achebe. Things Fall Apart (1958) - In this story of pre-independence Nigeria, a prideful and hardworking Igbo farmer is destroyed by his adherence to tribal customs.

Frantz Fanon. Les damnés de la terre [The Wretched of the Earth] (1961) - A theory of revolutionary nationalism, expounded by an activist and psychiatrist.

Jean Rhys. Wide Sargasso Sea (1966) - A re- imagination of Jane Eyre from the margins, focusing on the early life on the island of Jamaica of the woman who would become Brontë's madwoman in the attic.

Tayeb el-Salih. Mawsim al-Hijra ila al-Shamal [Season of Migration to the North] (1969) - A novelistic blend of Western psychology, oral storytelling, and rejected romanticism, giving new directions to contemporary Arab literature.

V. S. Naipaul. Guerrillas (1975) - A dark, complex novel of exile and marginality, set on a nameless Caribbean island.

Buchi Emecheta. The Bride Price (1976) - A stunning novel exploring the fate of West African women, doubly colonized and treated as property by the men of their society.

Ryszard Kapuscinski. Cesarz [The Emperor] (1978) - The last days of the court of Haile Selassie of Ethiopia, and a masterful study of the corruptive nature of power.

Rigoberta Menchú. Me llamo Rigoberta Menchú y así me nació conciencia [I, Rigoberta Menchú] (1983) - A testimonial by the Nobel Prize-winning peasant organizer among the Quiche and other Indians in Guatemala.

Marguerite Duras. L'amant [The Lover] (1984) - In Saigon, the affair between a wealthy Chinese man and the young daughter of impoverished French colonists leads to madness.

Mind & Spirit:

Emile Durkheim. Le suicide: étude de sociologie [Suicide: A Study in Sociology] (1897) - Suicide as the result of social causes, rather than an aberration of the individual: a founding classic of sociology.

Sigmund Freud. Die Traumdeutung [The Interpretation of Dreams] (1900) - Freud's most important work, surveying dream interpretation, the Oedipus Complex, repression, and wish fulfillment.

Havelock Ellis. Studies in the Psychology of Sex (1901- 28) - A work by the first modern sexual theorist, a forerunner of Kinsey and Masters and Johnson.

William James. The Varieties of Religious Experience: A Study in Human Nature (1902) - An affirmation of values beyond rational inquiry: if we experience something, it must be real.

Kahlil Gibran. The Prophet (1923) - Prose poems infused with a mystical and spiritual outlook encompassing love, freedom, good and evil, religion, and death.

Bertrand Russell. Why I Am Not a Christian (1927) - An eloquent articulation of the secularist viewpoint, locating the basis of religion in fear.

Margaret Mead. Coming of Age in Samoa (1928) - A study, based on nine months of field work in Samoa, concluding that culture, not genetics, is the crucial factor in determining human behavior and personality.

Jean- Paul Sartre. L'être et le néant [Being and Nothingness] (1943) - Arguably the most influential philosophical treatise written in this century, a synthesis of Sartre's basic themes.

Dr. Benjamin Spock. The Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care (1946) - The "bible" of child-rearing, emphasizing parental judgment and common sense, first published at the beginning of the baby boom.

The Holy Bible. Revised Standard Version (1952) - A mid- century revision of the Bible, incorporating contemporary scholarship while remaining sensitive to the rhythms and style of the King James Version.

Paul Tillich. The Courage to Be (1952) - The great Protestant theologian's exploration of courage, "the fundamental virtue upon which all others depend."

Ken Kesey. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1962) - The rebellion of the iconoclastic Randall Patrick McMurphy against the controlling forces of society, embodied by Nurse Ratched.

Timothy Leary. The Politics of Ecstasy (1968) - Essays by the countercultural leader promoting the use of psychedelic drugs and championing individualism.

Elisabeth Kübler-Ross. On Death and Dying (1969) - A challenge to many 20th-century taboos and attitudes associated with death, and a call for a more dignified and humane approach to the end of life.

Bruno Bettelheim. The Uses of Enchantment (1976) - Fairy tales as a means to foster the moral and psychological development of children.

Popular Culture & Mass Entertainment:

Bram Stoker. Dracula (1897) - The ultimate vampire novel, never out of print.

Henry James. The Turn of the Screw (1898)
A ghost tale focusing on a governess and her two young charges at a lonely and sinister country estate.

Arthur Conan Doyle. The Hound of the Baskervilles (1902) - Sherlock Holmes at his deductive best, on the Dartmouth moors.

Edgar Rice Burroughs. Tarzan of the Apes (1912) - An orphaned English nobleman raised by African apes discovers his human heritage: the beginning of the legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Jungle.

Zane Grey. Riders of the Purple Sage (1912) - The first Western ever to hit the best- seller lists, and an enduring favorite.

Agatha Christie. The Mysterious Affair at Styles (1920) - The debut of Christie's sleuthing protagonist Hercule Poirot.

Dale Carnegie. How to Win Friends and Influence People (1936) - A perennial best-seller, and a trailblazer in the self-help psychology publishing movement.

Margaret Mitchell. Gone with the Wind (1936) - Scarlett, Rhett, Tara: the best-selling American novel ever, and a Pulitzer Prize winner.

Raymond Chandler. The Big Sleep (1939) - Chandler's first novel, introducing Philip Marlowe, private eye.

Nathanael West. The Day of the Locust (1939) - An apocalyptic vision of disillusionment, cynicism, and violence in Hollywood.

Grace Metalious. Peyton Place (1956) - The classic literary soap opera, set in a small New England town.

Dr. Seuss. The Cat in the Hat (1957) - The classic, for children of all ages.

Robert A. Heinlein. Stranger in a Strange Land (1961) - An influential cult classic, and the first science fiction novel to make the best-seller lists.

Joseph Heller. Catch-22 (1961) - The classic novel of war's absurdity of war: the title has entered the language.

Truman Capote. In Cold Blood: A True Account of a Multiple Murder and Its Consequences (1965) - Capote's controversial "nonfiction novel," introducing techniques of true crime reporting that endure today.

Jim Bouton. Ball Four: My Life and Hard Times Throwing the Knuckleball in the Big Leagues (1970) - An insider's account of the 1969 baseball season: one of the first "tell-all" books.

Stephen King. Carrie (1974) - The ultimate novel of teenage revenge.

Tom Wolfe. The Bonfire of the Vanities (1987) - The downfall of Sherman McCoy, a self-declared "Master of the Universe."