Literary critics, historians, avid readers, and even ordinary readers will have different opinions about which novel is truly “the greatest book of all time.” Is it a novel in a beautiful and captivating figurative language? Or are you a realist person? Which novel had a huge social impact? Or is it more subtly affecting the world? Here is a list of 12 novels that, for a variety of reasons, are considered one of the greatest works of literature ever written.
Fans of stories related to exciting topics like adultery, gambling, marriage conspiracies, and Russian feudalism will immediately put Anna Karenina at the top of the list of ‘the greatest novels’. And that’s the ranking that publications like Time Magazine have given this novel since it was published in its entirety in 1878. The towering eight-part novel by Russian novelist Leo Tolstoy struggles in faith and philosophy with two main characters: a tragic, lost housewife, runaway Anna with a young lover, and a fallen landowner Konstantin Levin. Tolstoy shapes thoughtful discussions of love, suffering, and family in Russian society, with a sizable number of characters regarded as realistically human. In particular, this novel was revolutionary in its treatment of women, portraying the prejudices and social difficulties of the time with vivid emotions.
Regarded as one of the most influential writers in existence, Harper Lee is famous for publishing only one novel (until the controversial sequel was published in 2015, shortly before her death). Lee’s ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ was published in 1960 and became an immediate literary classic. The novel examines racism in the American South through the innocent, broad eyes of a clever girl named Jean Louise (“The Scout”) Finch. Its iconic characters, especially Atticus Finch, a compassionate and just lawyer and father, became role models and changed perspectives in America during times of heightened racial tensions. To Kill a Mockingbird, a 1961 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel and 1962 Academy Award-winning film, added to the story and its characters a life-changing impact and impact on American society as a whole.
F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby is famous for one of the finest texts in introducing students to the art of critically reading literature (which they may have read in school). The novel takes place from the perspective of a young man named Nick Carraway, who recently moved to New York, and befriends Jay Gatsby, an eccentric Nouveau rich neighbor with mysterious origins. The Great Gatsby critiques the idea of the “American dream” while providing an insider look at the jazz era of the 1920s in American history. Perhaps the most famous aspect of the novel is the cover art. The piercing face and the lights of the cityscape projected onto the dark blue night sky – this image is also found as a key in the text itself in a slightly different composition. symbol.
The late Colombian writer Gabriel García Márquez published his most famous work, One Hundred Years of Solitude, in 1967. The novel tells the story of the seven generations of the Buendía family, tracing their village, Macondo, founded and destroyed along with the last city. of the descendants of the family. The fantasy-type novel explores the genre of magical realism by emphasizing the extraordinary nature of the ordinary while the mystical is commonly seen. Marquez emphasizes the dissemination and power of myths and folktales that relate history to Latin American culture. This novel contributed to the 1982 Nobel Prize in Literature for Marquez’s entire work, which gave him many awards.
