This site is the complete 1916 book One Hundred Best Books, page by page as originally printed — period spelling, remedies and opinions included. About this edition →

The Hundred Books

Powys's list, in his order, with his commentary on each.

• 1Introduction

  ONE HUNDRED BEST BOOKS WITH COMMENTARY AND AN ESSAY ON BOOKS AND…

• 2Introduction: Hundred

  Our "One Hundred Best Books" need not be yours, nor yours ours; the…

• 3Anatole France

  L'Orme de Mail. L'Abbe Jerome Coignard. Le Livre de mon Ami. Either…

• 4Artzibasheff

  Artzibasheff is an extremist. The suicidal " motif " in the…

• 5Arnold Bennett

  Clayhanger. “ Clayhanger" with its sequels, "Hilda Lessways " and…

• 6Balzac

  Lost Illusions. Cousin Bette. Pére Goriot. Human Comedy, in any…

• 7Catullus

  Any Latin edition and the prose translation published by Macmillan…

• 8Candide

  Any French edition or English translation. Voltaire was a true man of…

• 9Cervantes

  Don Quixote. In any translation except those vulgarized by eighteenth…

• 10Charles Lamb

  Charles Lamb remains, of all English prose-writers, the one whose…

• 11Charles Dickens

  The compiler has placed in this list only one of Dickens' books for a…

• 12Charles L. Dodgson

  Alice in Wonderland. The edition with the original illustrations. It…

• 13Dante's Divine Comedy

  Best edition the "Temple Classics," in three small volumes, with the…

• 14Dostoievsky

  The Brothers Karamazov. The Insulted and Injured. The Possessed…

• 15Emerson

  Routledge's complete works of Emerson, or any other edition…

• 16Edgar Lee Masters

  Spoon River Anthology, published by Macmillan. After Whitman and Poe…

• 17Goethe

  Faust, translated in English Poetry by Bayard Taylor. Wilhelm…

• 18Guy de Maupassant

  Le Maison Tellier. Madame Tellier's Establishment. Any translation…

• 19Gabriele D'Annunzio

  The Flame of Life. The Translated by Arthur Horn Triumph of Death…

• 20George Meredith

  Harry Richmond. “ Harry Richmond" is at once the least Meredithian…

• 21George Bernard Shaw

  Mr. Shaw has found his rôle and his occupation very happily cut out…

• 22Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Mr. Chesterton may congratulate himself upon being the only man of…

• 23Gilbert Cannan

  Round the Corner. "Round the Corner" is perhaps Mr. Cannan's best…

• 24Homer

  The Odyssey. Butcher and Lang's Prose Translation. The Odyssey must…

• 25Horace

  Any selection in Latin of The Odes of Horace and complete prose…

• 26Hauptmann

  The Fool in Christ, translation published by Huebsch, New York…

• 27Henry James

  The Ambassadors. The Tragic Muse. The Soft Side. The Better Sort. The…

• 28Ibsen

  Any edition of Ibsen containing the Wild Duck. Ibsen is still the…

• 29Jonathan Swift

  Swift's mysterious and saturnine character, his outbursts of terrible…

• 30Jane Austen

  Pride and Prejudice. what Jane Austen's delicate and ironic art will…

• 31Joseph Conrad

  Youth. Almayer's Folly. Published by Doubleday Page & Co. with a…

• 32John Galsworthy

  The Country House. The Man of Property. Fraternity. John Galsworthy…

• 33Milton

  No epicurean lover of the subtler delicacies in poetic rhythm or of…

• 34Nietzsche

  Zarathustra, The Joyful Wisdom, and Ecce Homo are all translated in…

• 35Oscar Wilde

  Intentions. The Importance of Being Earnest. De Profundis…

• 36Oliver Onions

  The Story of Louie. "The Story of Louie" is the last and finest…

• 37Paul Bourget

  Le Disciple. "Le Disciple" is perhaps the best work of this…

• 38Rabelais

  The English translation with the Doré illustrations. Rabelais is the…

• 39Remy de Gourmont

  Translated with a preface by Arthur Ransome, published by Luce…

• 40Romain Rolland

  Jean Christophe. Translated by Gilbert Cannan. Rolland's "Christophe"…

• 41Rudyard Kipling

  Whatever one may feel about Mr. Kipling's other work, about his…

• 42Shakespeare

  It is time Shakespeare was read for the beauty of his poetry, and…

• 43Sir Thomas Browne

  Religio Medici and Urn Burial. In the "Scott Library” Series. The…

• 44Sudermann

  Song of Songs. Translation into English published by Huebsch of New…

• 45Strindberg

  Strindberg has obtained, because of his own neurotic and almost…

• 46Sir Walter Scott

  Guy Mannering. Bride of Lam- Heart of Midlothian. mermoooг. The…

• 47The Bacchanals

  Euripides, the favourite poet of John Milton and Goethe, is the most…

• 48Theodore Dreiser

  Of all modern novelists Theodore Dreiser most entirely catches the…

• 49Turgeniev

  Translated by Constance Garnett. And "Lisa" in Everyman's Library…

• 50Thackeray

  Thackeray is a writer who occupies a curious and very interesting…

• 51Thomas Hardy

  Tess of the D'Urbevilles. The Return of the Native. The Mayor of…

• 52Victor Hugo

  The Toilers of the Sea. In any translation. Victor Hugo is the…

• 53Vincent O'Sullivan

  The Good Girl. Published by Dutton & Co. This admirable work of art…

• 54Walt Whitman

  The complete unexpurgated edition of all his poems, with his prose…

• 55Walter Pater

  Marius the Epicurean. Studies in the Renaissance. Imaginary…

• 56W. Somerset Maugham

  In this remarkable book Mr. W. Somerset Maugham surpasses by a long…

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