100 Best Fictional Characters Since 1900 (Part I)
Explore the 100 best fictional characters since 1900 (Part I) in this curated list of iconic book heroes, villains, and legends. Discover timeless literary figures that shaped storytelling.
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The Great Gatsby
by Francis Scott Fitzgerald
Tells the tragic love story of Gatsby and Daisy Buchanan.
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The Catcher in the Rye
by J.D. Salinger
Anyone who has read J. D. Salinger's New Yorker stories - particularly A Perfect Day for Bananafish, Uncle Wiggily in Connecticut, The Laughing Man, and …
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Lolita
by Vladimir Nabokov
The most famous and controversial novel from one of the greatest writers of the twentieth century tells the story of Humbert Humbert’s obsessive, devouring, and …
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Ulysses
by James Joyce
This revised volume of the acclaimed novel follows the complete unabridged text as corrected in 1961. Set entirely on one day, 16 June 1904, Ulysses …
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Rabbit, Run
by John Updike
“A lacerating story of loss and of seeking, written in prose that is charged with emotion but is always held under impeccable control.”—Kansas City Star …
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The Hound of the Baskervilles
by Arthur Conan Doyle
When Sir Charles Baskerville is found mysteriously dead, Sherlock Holmes looks into the case.
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To Kill a Mockingbird 40th
by Harper Lee
The explosion of racial hate and violence in a small Alabama town is viewed by a little girl whose father defends a Black man accused …
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Modern Classics Ulysses
by James Joyce
'Everybody knows now that Ulysses is the greatest novel of the century' Anthony Burgess, Observer Following the events of one single day in Dublin, the …
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A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
by James Joyce
James Joyce's coming-of-age story, a tour de force of style and technique The first, shortest, and most approachable of James Joyce’s novels, A Portrait of …
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The House of Mirth
by Edith Wharton
A portrait of American manners and morals at the turn of the century offers the saga of Lily Bart, a beautiful heroine who lacks one …
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Breakfast at Tiffany's
by Truman Capote
Holly Golightly knows that nothing bad can ever happen to you at Tiffany's. In this seductive, wistful masterpiece, Capote created a woman whose name has …
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The Metamorphosis
by Franz Kafka
“When Gregor Samsa woke up one morning from unsettling dreams, he found himself changed in his bed into a monstrous vermin.” With this startling, bizarre, …
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Invisible Man
by Ralph Ellison
NATIONAL BOOK AWARD WINNER • NATIONAL BESTSELLER • In this deeply compelling novel and epic milestone of American literature, a nameless narrator tells his story …
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Lolita
by Vladimir Nabokov
Poet and pervert, Humbert Humbert becomes obsessed by twelve-year-old Lolita and seeks to possess her, first carnally and then artistically, out of love, 'to fix …
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One Hundred Years of Solitude
by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
The rise and fall, birth and death, of the mythical town of Macondo through the history of the Buendía family.
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Mrs. Dalloway
by Virginia Woolf
Presents a poignant portrayal of the thoughts and events that comprise one day in a woman's life as Clarissa Dalloway makes preparations for a party …
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A Confederacy of Dunces
by John Kennedy Toole
Set in New Orleans, the protagonist is nearly arrested for being a suspicious character and encounters many unfortunate events.
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Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy
by John le Carre
George Smiley is assigned to uncover the identity of the double agent operating in the highest levels of British Intelligence.
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To the Lighthouse
by Virginia Woolf
An English family's complex lives are followed and picked up again after a 10 year hiatus in order to explore the effects of time.
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Native Son
by Richard A. Wright
Right from the start, Bigger Thomas had been headed for jail. It could have been for assault or petty larceny; by chance, it was for …
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In Our Time
by Ernest Hemingway
THIS COLLECTION OF SHORT STORIES AND VIGNETTES MARKED ERNEST HEMINGWAY'S AMERICAN DEBUT AND MADE HIM FAMOUS When In Our Time was published in 1925, it …
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Catch-22
by Joseph Heller
Catch-22 is like no other novel. It is one of the funniest books ever written, a keystone work in American literature, and even added a …
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To Kill a Mockingbird
by Harper Lee
The unforgettable novel of a childhood in a sleepy Southern town and the crisis of conscience that rocked it, To Kill A Mockingbird became both …
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The Big Sleep
by Raymond Chandler
The renowned novel from the crime fiction master, with the "quintessential urban private eye" (Los Angeles Times), Philip Marlowe. • Featuring the iconic character that …