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Minimal Canon

Pruning down the Western Canon to the most essential reads for influence on other works.

#1

The Odyssey

-800 • 2,062 Readers • 541 pages • 3.8

#2

Cover 1

1963 • 506 pages

#3

The Greek Plays: 33 Plays by Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides

2017 • 5 Readers • 866 pages • 4.5

#4

Aeneid

-19 • 3 Readers • 532 pages • 5

#5

Metamorphoses

8 • 25 Readers • 500 pages • 4.3

#6

King James Bible

2010 • 1 Reader • 1,520 pages

#7

Dante's Divine comedy, The Inferno

1889 • 416 pages

#8

The Canterbury Tales

1400 • 46 Readers • 672 pages • 3.4

#9

The RSC Shakespeare: The Complete Works

2022 • 3 Readers • 2,532 pages

#10

Don Quixote

1605 • 1 Reader • 3

#11

The Works of Moliere

2016 • 380 pages

#12

Paradise Lost

1 Medieval & Renaissance Literary Studies

1667 • 687 Readers • 512 pages • 3.7

#13

Gulliver's Travels

198 • 642 Readers • 462 pages • 3.4

#14

Pride and Prejudice

6 Cozy Classics

1811 • 3,539 Readers • 342 pages • 4.2

#15

Frankenstein

2 Barron's Graphic Classics

-800 • 3,336 Readers • 353 pages • 3.9

#16

Faust

#1 of 2 in Goethes Faust

19 • 450 Readers • 526 pages • 3.8

#17

Dead Souls

1842 • 317 Readers • 520 pages • 3.8

#18

Wuthering Heights

Continuum Contemporaries

1847 • 2,190 Readers • 376 pages • 3.6

#19

Moby Dick

2 Will Eisner Classics

1851 • 1,519 Readers • 731 pages • 3.6

#20

Madame Bovary

19 • 759 Readers • 256 pages • 3.6

#21

Les Misérables

#1 of 3 in Los Miserables

7 • 1,175 Readers • 1,711 pages • 4.2

#22

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

#1 of 3 in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

1864 • 1,164 Readers • 132 pages • 3.9

#23

Crime and Punishment

1857 • 2,613 Readers • 602 pages • 4.2

#24

War and Peace

190 • 1,315 Readers • 838 pages • 4.1

#25

Great Expectations

3 Graffex

1860 • 1,175 Readers • 548 pages • 3.5

#26

Anna Karenina

1877 • 1,721 Readers • 1,480 pages • 4

#27

The Brothers Karamazov

1878 • 1,632 Readers • 908 pages • 4.4

#28

In Search of Lost Time

1927 • 24 Readers • 728 pages • 5

#29

Ulysses

1920 • 861 Readers • 939 pages • 3.8

#30

The Magic Mountain

#1 of 2 in Der Zauberberg

1924 • 317 Readers • 920 pages • 3.9

#31

The Trial

1925 • 1,197 Readers • 255 pages • 3.9

#32

The Sun Also Rises

1926 • 915 Readers • 264 pages • 3.6

#33

To the Lighthouse

1925 • 787 Readers • 326 pages • 3.7

#34

The Sound and the Fury

1929 • 584 Readers • 274 pages • 3.8

#35

A Farewell To Arms

199 • 774 Readers • 352 pages • 3.7

#36

As I Lay Dying

1930 • 573 Readers • 231 pages • 3.6

#37

Waiting for Godot

1952 • 523 Readers • 136 pages • 3.8

#38

Molloy

#1 of 3 in The Trilogy

1958 • 64 Readers • 512 pages • 4.3

#39

Gravity's Rainbow

1973 • 604 Readers • 760 pages • 4.2

#40

Blood Meridian

1985 • 1,363 Readers • 368 pages • 4.1

#1

The Great Gatsby

1920 • 4,390 Readers • 180 pages • 3.7

#1

Dracula

24 • 2,758 Readers • 440 pages • 3.9

#1

Jane Eyre

1846 • 2,451 Readers • 580 pages • 4

#1

Cover 7

1951 • 2 Readers

#1

The Picture of Dorian Grey

1890 • 3,140 Readers • 186 pages • 4.1

#1

The Decameron

1349 • 162 Readers • 418 pages • 3.5

#1

Gargantua and Pantagruel

#1-5 of 2 in Gargantua and Pantagruel

1564 • 73 Readers • 1,041 pages • 3.1

#1

Bleak House

1852 • 314 Readers • 682 pages • 4

#1

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

#2 of 4 in Adventures of Tom and Huck

-550 • 1,602 Readers • 327 pages • 3.6

#1

Emma

13 Manga Classics

6 • 1,330 Readers • 474 pages • 4

#1

Eugene Onegin: A Novel in Verse by Alexander Pushkin

1825 • 196 Readers • 233 pages • 4

#1

The Charterhouse of Parma

1839 • 61 Readers • 560 pages • 3.4

#1

The Red and the Black

1830 • 5 Readers • 576 pages

#1

The Human Comedy, Vol. I

#1

Middlemarch

#2 of 2 in Middlemarch (2 volumes)

1831 • 673 Readers • 840 pages • 4.2