The Guardian’s 100 Best Novels of All Time

[Robin Whittleton]

Not sure if this replaces the original 2015 Guardian collection we have, but it looks like they’ve got a wide voting panel (20-1 not yet revealed). https://www.theguardian.com/books/ng-interactive/2026/may/12/the-100-best-novels-of-all-time

-Robin

[Alex Cabal]

I think it can stand as its own collection, we'd just tag it with a year
like the previous one. I haven't looked but I assume many of the entries
will be the same. Let's wait until it it's complete and then we can add
them.

> the-100-best-novels-of-all-time <https://www.theguardian.com/books/ng-
> interactive/2026/may/12/the-100-best-novels-of-all-time?
> CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other>
>
> -Robin
>
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[Robin Whittleton]

Final list is:

1. Middlemarch
2. Beloved
3. Ulysses
4. To the Lighthouse
5. In Search of Lost Time
6. Anna Karenina
7. War and Peace
8. Jane Eyre
9. Pride and Prejudice
10. Madame Bovary
11. The Great Gatsby
12. Bleak House
13. Emma
14. Mrs Dalloway
15. Moby-Dick
16. Nineteen Eighty-Four
17. One Hundred Years of Solitude
18. Persuasion
19. The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman
20. Wuthering Heights
21. The Portrait of a Lady
22. Things Fall Apart
23. Midnight's Children
24. The Remains of the Day
25. Lolita
26. Don Quixote
27. The Trial
28. The Brothers Karamazov
29. Pale Fire
30. Frankenstein
31. The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie
32. The God of Small Things
33. David Copperfield
34. Wolf Hall
35. Great Expectations
36. The Handmaid's Tale
37. Invisible Man
38. The Age of Innocence
39. Their Eyes Were Watching God
40. Song of Solomon
41. Heart of Darkness
42. The Magic Mountain
43. Housekeeping
44. Giovanni's Room
45. The Golden Notebook
46. The Leopard
47. Vanity Fair
48. The Metamorphosis
49. A Fine Balance
50. Wide Sargasso Sea
51. My Brilliant Friend
52. The Golden Bowl
53. The Transit of Venus
54. Orlando
55. The Waves
56. Mansfield Park
57. The Sound and the Fury
58. Disgrace
59. Never Let Me Go
60. Howards End
61. The Rings of Saturn
62. Half of a Yellow Sun
63. White Teeth
64. The Good Soldier
65. The Color Purple
66. The Master and Margarita
67. The Man Without Qualities
68. Blood Meridian
69. Crime and Punishment
70. Jude the Obscure
71. Kindred
72. Our Mutual Friend
73. Austerlitz
74. Nervous Conditions
75. The Bluest Eye
76. Dracula
77. The Rainbow
78. A House for Mr Biswas
79. Go Tell It on the Mountain
80. Rebecca
81. Buddenbrooks
82. The End of the Affair
83. A Farewell to Arms
84. The Talented Mr Ripley
85. The Vegetarian
86. The Turn of the Screw
87. The Line of Beauty
88. Ragtime
89. The Left Hand of Darkness
90. Jacob's Room
91. Life and Fate
92. Sentimental Education
93. Invisible Cities
94. The Known World
95. The Return of the Native
96. Pedro Páramo
97. Catch-22
98. The Road
99. The Go-Between
100. My Ántonia

Want me to start adding collection metadata to the ones we have?

-Robin

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[Alex Cabal]

Sure, you can go ahead and add those to existing books. Same naming
convention as the previous best-of list. Then we also need the
placeholders added for the books we don't have yet.

I've given your account powers to do that. Go to
https://standardebooks.org/ebook-placeholders/new for the form. Should
be pretty self explanatory. If an ebook placeholder already exists, you
can go to that placeholder's page and click 'edit' to add the collection
without having to re-input the entire ebook data again.

On 5/16/26 3:37 AM, Robin Whittleton wrote:
> Final list <https://www.theguardian.com/books/ng-interactive/2026/
> may/12/the-100-best-novels-of-all-time> is:
>
> 1. Middlemarch
> 2. Beloved
> 3. Ulysses
> 4. To the Lighthouse
> 5. In Search of Lost Time
> 6. Anna Karenina
> 7. War and Peace
> 8. Jane Eyre
> 9. Pride and Prejudice
> 10. Madame Bovary
> 11. The Great Gatsby
> 12. Bleak House
> 13. Emma
> 14. Mrs Dalloway
> 15. Moby-Dick
> 16. Nineteen Eighty-Four
> 17. One Hundred Years of Solitude
> 18. Persuasion
> 19. The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman
> 20. Wuthering Heights
> 21. The Portrait of a Lady
> 22. Things Fall Apart
> 23. Midnight's Children
> 24. The Remains of the Day
> 25. Lolita
> 26. Don Quixote
> 27. The Trial
> 28. The Brothers Karamazov
> 29. Pale Fire
> 30. Frankenstein
> 31. The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie
> 32. The God of Small Things
> 33. David Copperfield
> 34. Wolf Hall
> 35. Great Expectations
> 36. The Handmaid's Tale
> 37. Invisible Man
> 38. The Age of Innocence
> 39. Their Eyes Were Watching God
> 40. Song of Solomon
> 41. Heart of Darkness
> 42. The Magic Mountain
> 43. Housekeeping
> 44. Giovanni's Room
> 45. The Golden Notebook
> 46. The Leopard
> 47. Vanity Fair
> 48. The Metamorphosis
> 49. A Fine Balance
> 50. Wide Sargasso Sea
> 51. My Brilliant Friend
> 52. The Golden Bowl
> 53. The Transit of Venus
> 54. Orlando
> 55. The Waves
> 56. Mansfield Park
> 57. The Sound and the Fury
> 58. Disgrace
> 59. Never Let Me Go
> 60. Howards End
> 61. The Rings of Saturn
> 62. Half of a Yellow Sun
> 63. White Teeth
> 64. The Good Soldier
> 65. The Color Purple
> 66. The Master and Margarita
> 67. The Man Without Qualities
> 68. Blood Meridian
> 69. Crime and Punishment
> 70. Jude the Obscure
> 71. Kindred
> 72. Our Mutual Friend
> 73. Austerlitz
> 74. Nervous Conditions
> 75. The Bluest Eye
> 76. Dracula
> 77. The Rainbow
> 78. A House for Mr Biswas
> 79. Go Tell It on the Mountain
> 80. Rebecca
> 81. Buddenbrooks
> 82. The End of the Affair
> 83. A Farewell to Arms
> 84. The Talented Mr Ripley
> 85. The Vegetarian
> 86. The Turn of the Screw
> 87. The Line of Beauty
> 88. Ragtime
> 89. The Left Hand of Darkness
> 90. Jacob's Room
> 91. Life and Fate
> 92. Sentimental Education
> 93. Invisible Cities
> 94. The Known World
> 95. The Return of the Native
> 96. Pedro Páramo
> 97. Catch-22
> 98. The Road
> 99. The Go-Between
> 100. My Ántonia

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> AF4D-418AE2BB3343%40reala.net?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer>.

[Robin Whittleton]

Before I go ahead and start committing, when you say the same naming convention, do you mean “The Guardian’s Best 100 Novels in English (2026)”, or following their article naming of “The Guardian’s 100 Best Novels of All Time (2026)”?

-Robin

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[Alex Cabal]

Yes, put the year, because they already did this in 2003:
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2003/oct/12/features.fiction

I suppose we should also get the 2003 version in there too, though do
they differ very much?

On 5/17/26 3:58 PM, Robin Whittleton wrote:
> Before I go ahead and start committing, when you say the same naming
> convention, do you mean “The Guardian’s Best 100 Novels in English
> (2026)”, or following their article naming of “The Guardian’s 100 Best
> Novels of All Time (2026)”?
>
> -Robin
>
>> On 16 May 2026, at 18:08, 'Alex Cabal' via Standard Ebooks
>> <standar...@googlegroups.com> wrote:
>>
>> Sure, you can go ahead and add those to existing books. Same naming
>> convention as the previous best-of list. Then we also need the
>> placeholders added for the books we don't have yet.
>>
>> I've given your account powers to do that. Go tohttps://

>> standardebooks.org/ebook-placeholders/new <https://standardebooks.org/
>> ebook-placeholders/new>for the form. Should be pretty self

>> explanatory. If an ebook placeholder already exists, you can go to
>> that placeholder's page and click 'edit' to add the collection without
>> having to re-input the entire ebook data again.
>>
>> On 5/16/26 3:37 AM, Robin Whittleton wrote:
>>> Final list <https://www.theguardian.com/books/ng-interactive/2026/

>>> may/12/the-100-best-novels-of-all-time <https://www.theguardian.com/
>>> books/ng-interactive/2026/%20may/12/the-100-best-novels-of-all-time>> is:

>>> send an email tostandardeboo...@googlegroups.com
>>> <mailto:standardebook...@googlegroups.com><mailto:standardebook...@googlegroups.com <mailto:standardebook...@googlegroups.com>>.

>>> To view this discussion visithttps://groups.google.com/d/msgid/

>>> <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/>standardebooks/63844A27-
>>> F3E3-4768-AF4D-418AE2BB3343%40reala.net <http://40reala.net/
>>> ><https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/standardebooks/63844A27-
>>> F3E3-4768- AF4D-418AE2BB3343%40reala.net?
>>> utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer <https://groups.google.com/d/
>>> msgid/standardebooks/63844A27-F3E3-4768-
>>> %20AF4D-418AE2BB3343%40reala.net?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer>>.

>>
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[Robin Whittleton]

Yep. Middlemarch doesn’t appear in the 2003 one, and Pilgrim’s Progress isn’t in the 2026 one. But I can add them both.

-Robin

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