The Really Long List of Great Literature
If you find The Greatest Literature of All Time—with its 999 titles—too restrictive, how about a list that's nearly three times as long?
Why such a longer list? To give you more great reading choices. To present more diversity in literary form, culture and genre. To encourage you to stray from the established canon. To offer more amazing works you might otherwise never have come across.
Hundreds of millions of books have been published in one form or another since the invention of literature. Of those, a mere twelve thousand have been selected as contenders for the Greatest Literature and our other Greatest lists.
So far about 2,500 of those titles from that database have been put together in this Really Long List of Great Literature. More are being added. Eventually we expect it to reach 2,999 entries.
Each major creative literary work is on this list because a significant number of readers, writers, critics or scholars count it among the greats.
Latest update: November 20, 2024
Ancient • Medieval & Renaissance • 18th & 19th century • 20th century • 21st century
Ancient Literature (BCE)
c.2100–2000 BCE
Descent of Inanna into the Underworld
Anonymous, Sumer
Epic poem, also known as Descent of Ishtar into the Underworld or Angalta
c.2100–1200
Gilgamesh
Epic poem, also known as
The Epic of Gilgamesh or
He Who Saw the Deep
It's maybe not the oldest story in the world, as The Epic of Gilgamesh is sometimes called. There had been other stories floating around the ancient world before the various versions of Gilgamesh, and who knows.... Critique • Quotes • Translations • Buy
c.2030
"A Love Song of Shu-Suen"
Anonymous, Sumer
Poem, also known as "Bridegroom" or "Spend the Night in Our House Till Dawn"
c.1990
"The Shipwrecked Sailor"
Story, also known as "The Tale of the Shipwrecked Sailor", "The Sailor and the Serpent", or "The Island of Enchantment"
Here's a story so old it was "written" before our alphabet was invented. It was first "published" on papyrus. It's also so short you can read a modern translation of it in only a slightly longer time than it takes.... Critique • Quotes • Text • Buy
c.1800
Enuma Elish
Anonymous, Babylon
Poem
c.1875
"The Tale of Sinuhe"
Story, also known as "The Story of Sinuhe"
We know only a handful of ancient Egyptian stories—as opposed to ancient laments, instructions, prayers and the like—and even fewer of those have come down to us in complete form. "The Tale of Sinuhe" though.... Critique • Quotes • Text • Buy
"The Eloquent Peasant"
Story, also known as "The Tale of the Eloquent Peasant", "The Plea of the Eloquent Peasant" or "The Tale of the Peasant and the Workman"
The three fictional works from ancient Egypt remaining in nearly full condition are all very different. "The Shipwrecked Sailor" is an adventure. "The Tale of Sinuhe" is a patriotic epic. And "The Eloquent Peasant" is something else.... Critique • Quotes • Buy
c.1200
"Tale of Two Brothers"
Anonymous, Egypt
Story
c.1100
"Story of Wenamun"
Anonymous, Egypt
Story, also known as "Wenamun"
c.1200–100
The Hebrew Bible (The Old Testament)
by various authors, Israel
Prose and poetry anthology includes books "Genesis", "Exodus", "Leviticus", "Numbers", "Deuteronomy", "Job", "Psalms", "Song of Songs", and others.
What wrecks the Bible as literature is too much God. On the surface this may sound like an odd comment, prompting the response, "Well, what did you expect? It's a religious text and isn't religion all about gods?" But.... Critique • Quotes • Text • Buy
c.1000
Dialogue of Pessimism
Anonymous, Assyria
Dialogue
c.1000–600
Classic of Poetry
by various authors, China
Poetry anthology, also known as Book of Songs or Book of Odes
c.750 BCE
Iliad
Epic poem
Many notable literary figures have acclaimed the Iliad as a transporting work of art. I don't entirely get it. Even after having read several different translations of the epic poem. I suspect any.... Critique • Quotes • Text • Translations • Buy
The Odyssey
Epic poem
This one has it all. The Odyssey is not only a great romantic, adventure epic, but it's terribly realistic in its depiction of human nature and a brilliantly crafted narrative. Authors today could learn from.... Critique • Quotes • Translations • Buy
c.700 BCE
Theogony
Poem
The greatest thing about Hesiod's Theogony is that it's short. It was important to the ancient world for other reasons as well, but this does not translate into a particularly rich experience for modern readers. Unless they're.... Critique • Quotes • Buy
Works and Days
Poem
Works and Days is so different from Theogony that many scholars think it couldn't have been composed by the same author. Which sounds like welcome news for anyone who yawned through Theogony and now faces the.... Critique • Quotes • Buy
c.600–200
Ramayana
by Valmiki, India
Poem
c.610–580
Sappho's Poems
by Sappho, Greece
Poetry collection
c.600–500
Aesop's Fables
by Aesop, Greece
Story collection, also known as Fables, includes "The Fox and the Grapes", "The Goose That Laid the Golden Eggs", "The Tortoise and the Hare", and others.
c.520–440
Epinician Odes
by Pindar, Greece
Poetry collection
c.500
The Art of War
by Sun Tzu, China
Nonfiction
Hero and Leander
by Musaeus Grammaticus, Greece
Poem
475
Olympian
by Pindar, Greece
Play
472
The Persians
by Aeschylus, Greece
Play
467
Seven Against Thebes
by Aeschylus, Greece
Play
c.462
The Suppliant Maidens
by Aeschylus, Greece
Play, also known as The Suppliants
458
The Oresteia
by Aeschylus, Greece
Play trilogy includes Agamemnon, The Eumenides, and The Libation Bearers.
c.450–425
Prometheus Bound
by Aeschylus, Greece
Play
The Women of Trachis
by Sophocles, Greece
Play
442–441
Ajax
by Sophocles, Greece
Play
Antigone
by Sophocles, Greece
Play
It's the concluding instalment of Sophocles's so-called Theban trilogy about the tragedy of Oedipus and its ramifications. But Antigone was actually the first written and produced—more than a decade before the supposed.... Critique • Quotes • Text • Buy
438
Alcestis
by Euripides, Greece
Play
431
Medea
by Euripides, Greece
Play
431–404
Histories
by Herodotus, History
Play
c.430
Children of Heracles
by Euripides, Greece
Play
429
Oedipus Rex
by Sophocles, Greece
Play, also known as
Oedipus,
Oedipus Tyrannus, or
Oedipus the King
For a modern reader, the ancient drama of Oedipus Rex can be startlingly accessible. There is little of the struggle through the language that one experiences with even more recent plays, such as Shakespeare's.... Critique • Quotes • Text • Buy
428
Hippolytus
by Euripides, Greece
Play
Andromache
by Euripides, Greece
Play
c.427
Hecuba
by Euripides, Greece
Play
425
The Acharnians
by Aristophanes, Greece
Play
424
The Knights
by Aristophanes, Greece
Play
423
The Clouds
by Aristophanes, Greece
Play
The Suppliants
by Euripides, Greece
Play, also known as The Suppliant Women
422
The Wasps
by Aristophanes, Greece
Play
c.420–410
Electra
by Sophocles, Greece
Play
418
Electra
by Euripides, Greece
Play
c.416
Herakles
by Euripides, Greece
Play, also known as Heracles Mad
415
The Trojan Women
by Euripides, Greece
Play
414
The Birds
by Aristophanes, Greece
Play
414–412
Ion
by Euripides, Greece
Play
411
Women at the Thesmophoria
by Aristophanes, Greece
Play
412
Helen
by Euripides, Greece
Play
c.412
Iphigenia Tauris
by Euripides, Greece
Play
411
Lysistrata
by Aristophanes, Greece
Play
409
Philoctetes
by Sophocles, Greece
Play
406
The Bacchae
by Euripides, Greece
Play
c.405
Cyclops
by Euripides, Greece
Play
405
The Frogs
by Aristophanes, Greece
Play
401
Oedipus at Colonus
by Sophocles, Greece
Play
c.400
Tao Te Ching
by Lao Tzu, China
Nonfiction
c.400–400CE
Mahābhārata
Anonymous, India
Poem
c.385–370
The Symposium
by Plato, Greece
Dialogue
c.380
The Republic
by Plato, Greece
Dialogue, also known as
Plato's Republic
It is hard to know how to classify the philosophical classic The Republic, or any writing by Plato, as literature. Or to know even whether it is a literary work. It's published writing, so it is literature in the broadest sense. But.... Critique • Quotes •
Text • Buy
History of the Peloponnesian War
by Thucydides, Greece
History
c.380
Meno
by Plato, Greece
Dialogue
c.370
Phaedrus
by Plato, Greece
Dialogue
Anabasis
by Xenophon, Greece
History, also known as The March of the Ten Thousand
Cryopedia
by Xenophon, Greece
Biography
317–316
Dyskolos
by Menander, Greece
Play
c.300
Zhuangzi
by Zhuang Zhou, China
Story collection
c.270
Epigrams
by Asclepiades of Samos, Greece
Poetry collection
Idylls
by Theocritus, Greece
Poetry collection
c.270–240
Aetia
by Callimachus, Greece
Poem
c.250
Voyage of the Argonauts
by Appollonius of Rhodes, Greece
Epic poem
c.200–300
Panchatantra (Five Treatises)
Anonymous, India
Story collection
c.200
The Analects
by Confucious, China
Sayings collection, , also known as Sayings of Confucius
The Twin Brothers
by Plautus, Rome
Play, also known as The Brothers Menaechmus
Miles Gloriosus
by Plautus, Rome
Play, also known as The Braggart Soldier
191
Pseudolus
by Plautus, Rome
Play
166
Andria
by Terence, Rome
Play, also known as The Girl from Andros
163
The Self-Tormenter
by Terence, Rome
Play
161
Eunuchus
by Terence, Rome
Play
c.50
On the Nature of Things
by Lucretius, Rome
Epic poem
c.46
Commentaries on the Civil War
by Julius Caesar, Rome
History
c.41–37
Eclogues
by Virgil, Rome
Poetry collection, also known as Bucolics
c.35–30
Satires
by Horace, Rome
Poetry collection
30–26
Marathus cycle
by Tibullus, Rome
Poetry cycle
29
Georgics
by Virgil, Rome
Poem
c.29–16
Elegies
by Sextus Propertius, Rome
Poetry collection
c.29–19
Aeneid
by Virgil, Rome
Epic poem
23–13
Odes
by Horace, Rome
Poetry collection
c.19
The Art of Poetry
by Horace, Rome
Poem
c.10
The Art of Love
Poem
Ancient Literature (1 to 400 CE)
c.8
Metamorphoses
Poem
My first reaction to Ovid's Metamorphoses was mystification. This was one of the great books of Western culture. Ovid was said to be wickedly delightful to read compared to other ancients. And I was reading.... Critique • Quotes • Translations • Buy
The Book of Days
Poem in six books, also known as On the Roman Calendar
c.48–110
The New Testament
anthology, Middle East and Greece
Prose and poetry collection
It's often called "the greatest story ever told". But is the New Testament—or more precisely the gospel story within the New Testament—even one of our best stories? Of course, when they make that "greatest" claim.... Critique • Quotes • Text • Buy
c.50
Callirhoe
by Chariton, Greece
Novel
Medea
by Lucius Annaeus Seneca, Rome
Play
Hercules Furens
by Lucius Annaeus Seneca, Rome
Play
c.54
Phaedra
by Lucius Annaeus Seneca, Rome
Play
c.55
Thyestes
by Lucius Annaeus Seneca, Rome
Play
c.60-70
Satyricon
by Gaius Petronius Arbiter, Rome
Novel
61–65
Pharsalia
by Lucan, Rome
Epic poem, also known as On the Civil War
c.79
Argonautica
by Valerius Flaccus, Rome
Epic poem
c.86–103
Epigrams
by Martial, Rome
Poetry collection
c.92
Thebaid
by Statius, Rome
Epic poem
c.93–96
Silvae
by Statius, Rome
Poetry collection
c.100
Parallel Lives
by Plutarch, Greece
Biography collection, also known as Plutarch's Lives or The Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans
c.100–127
Satires
by Juvenal, Rome
Poetry collection
121
The Twelve Caesars
by Suetonis, Rome
Biography, also known as Lives of the Caesars
c.150
Daphnis and Chloe
by Longus, Greece
Novel
The Golden Ass
by Lucius Apuleius, Numidia
Novel, also known as The Metamorphoses of Apuleius
c.160
A True Story
by Lucian, Syria
Novel
c.290
Records of Diverse Matters
by Zhang Hua, China
Story collection
c.300
The Vision of Vasavadatta
by Bhāsa, India
Play, originally Swapnavasavadatta
397–400
Confessions
by Augustine of Hippo, Numidia
Memoir
c.400
The Recognition of Sakuntala
by Kalidasa, India
Play
Ancient • Medieval & Renaissance • 18th & 19th century • 20th century • 21st century
