The 111 Greatest Novellas
The Greatest Novellas of All Time list is based on the continuing research carried out for The Greatest Literature of All Time, although it includes much more than the novellas listed there.
No consensus exists as to what constitutes a novella, except for it being shorter than the usual novel and longer than the usual story. For this list we are defining the novella as a prose narrative of 17,500 to 40,000 words.
This list encompasses novellas ranging across all genres, cultures and periods. As with all our lists, it is regularly updated.
Last update: May 23, 2024
1516
Utopia
by Thomas More, England
Novella
1554
Lazarillo de Tormes
by Anonymous, Spain
Novella
1678
La Princesse de Clèves
by Madame de La Fayette, France
Novella
1759
Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia
by Samuel Johnson, England
Novella
Candide
by Voltaire, France
Novella
1811
Michael Kohlhaas
by Heinrich von Kleist, Germany
Novella
1818
Nightmare Abbey
by Thomas Love Peacock, England
Novel
1842
The Jews' Beech Tree
by Annette von Droste-Hülshoff, Germany
Novella
1845
Carmen
by Prosper Mérimée, France
Novella
1855
Benito Cereno
by Herman Melville, United States
Novella
1860
First Love
by Ivan Turgenev, Russia
Novella
1864
Notes From Underground
by Fyodor Dostoevsky, Russia
Novella
1865
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
by Lewis Carroll, England
Novella
1866
The Gambler
by Fyodor Dosyoyevsky, Russia
Novella
1870
King Lear of the Steppes
by Ivan Turgenev, Russia
Novella
Venus in Furs
by Leopold von Sacher-Masoch, Germany
Novella
1871
Through the Looking-Glass
by Lewis Carroll, England
Novella
1873
The Enchanted Wanderer
by Nikolai Leskov, Russia
Novella
1879
Daisy Miller
by Henry James, England
Novella
1886
The Death of Ivan Ilyich
by Leo Tolstoy, Russia
Novella
1889
The Kreutzer Sonata
by Leo Tolstoy, Russia
Novella
1891
The Duel
by Anton Chekhov, Russia
Novel
1895
The Time Machine
by H.G. Wells, England
Novella
1898
The Turn of the Screw
by Henry James, United States
Novella
1900
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
by L. Frank Baum, United States
Novella
The Tale of Peter Rabbit
by Beatrix Potteer, England
Novella
The Imooralist
by André Gide, France
Novella
1903
The Beast in the Jungle
by Henry James, United States
Novella
The Call of the Wild
by Jack London, United States
Novella
1908
Tendrils of the Vine
by Colette, France
Novella
The Seven Who Were Hanged
by Leonid Andreyev, Russia
Novella
1911
Ethan Frome
by Edith Wharton, United States
Novella
1916
The Metamorphosis
by Franz Kafka, Bohemia
Novella
1922
Siddhartha
by Herman Hesse, Switzerland
Novella
1924
Heart of a Dog
by Mikhail Bulgakov, Russia
Novella
1925
The Shopgirl
by Steve Martin, United States
Novella
The Bridge of San Luis Rey
by Thornton Wilder, United States
Novella
1928
The Machine Stops
by E.M. Forster, England
Novella
Story of the Eye
by Georges Bataille, France
Novella
1929
Passing
by Nella Larsen, United States
Novella
1933
A Day Off
by Storm Jameson, England
Novella
Miss Lonelyhearts
by Nathanael West, United States
Novella
1936
The Shadow Over Innsmouth
by H.P. Lovecraft, United States
Novella
1938
Who Goes There?
by John W. Campbell, United States
Novella
Anthem
by Ayn Rand, United States
Novella
1941
The Royal Game
by StefanZweig, Austria
Novella
The Wife of Martin Guerre
by Janet Lewisa, United States
Novella
1942
The Outsider
by Albert Camus, Algeria
Novella
Pippi Longstocking
by Astrid Lindgren, Sweden
Novella
1949
The Third Man
by Graham Greene, England
Novella
1950
The Abbot C
by Georges Bataille, France
Novella
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
by C.S. Lewis, England
Novella
1951
The Ballad of the Sad Café
by Carson McCullers, United States
Novella
Baby Is Three
by Theodore Sturgeon, United States
Novella
1954
Bonjour Tristesse
by Francoise Sagan, France
Novella
I Am Legend
by Richard Matheson, United States
Novella
With Folded Hands
by JackWilliamson, United States
Novella
1955
Pedro Paramo
by Juan Rulfo, Mexico
Novella
1956
The Fall
by Albert Camus, Algeria
Novella
Seize the Day
by Saul Bellow, United States
Novella
1957
The Blue of Noon
by Georges Bataille, France
Novella
1958
Breakfast at Tiffany's
by Truman Capote, United States
Novella
1959
Goodbye, Columbus
by Philip Roth, United States
Novella
1961
No One Writes to the Colonel
by Gabriel García Márquez, Colombia
Novella
Cat and Mouse
by Günter Grass, Germany
Novella
1962
One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich
by Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Russia
Novella
1966
The Crying of Lot 49
by Thomas Pynchon, United States
Novella
1970
Jonathan Livingston Seagull
by Richard Bach, United States
Novella
1972
The Summer Book
by Tove Jansson, Finland
Novella
Invisible Cities
by Italo Calvino, Italy
Novella
1974
The Lost Honour of Katharina Blum
by Heinrich Böll, Germany
Novella
1976
A River Runs Through It
by Norman Maclean, United States
Novella
1978
The Bookshop
by Penelope Fitzgerald, England
Novella
The Persistence of Vision
by John Varley, United States
Novella
1979
Lust, Caution
by Eileen Chang, China
Novella
1981
Chronicle of a Death Foretold
by Gabriel García Márquez, Colombia
Novella
1982
The Body
by Stephen King, United States
Novella
Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption
by Stephen King, United States
Novella
1984
The Lover
by Marguerite Duras, France
Novella
The House on Mango Street
by Sandra Cisneros, United States
Novella
1987
The Pigeon
by Patrick Süskind, Germany
Novella
1993
The Invention of Curried Sausage
by Uwe Timm, Germany
Novella
1997
Closely Watched Trains
by Bohumil Hrabal, Czechia
Novella
2000
The Shopgirl
by Steve Martin, United States
Novella
2002
Coraline
by Neil Gaiman, England
Novella
2006
The Inheritance of Loss
by Kiran Desai, India
Novella
2007
The Uncommon Reader
by Alan Bennett, England
Novella
2011
The Sense of an Ending
by Julian Barnes, England
Novella
2015
Ghachar Ghocahr
by Vivek Shanbhag, India
Novella
Binti
by Nnedi Okorafor, India
Novella
2017
All Systems Red
by Martha Wells, United States
Novella
