The Novel 100: A Ranking of the Greatest Novels of All Time

79. Candide by Voltaire

In a castle of Westphalia, belonging to the Baron of Thunder-ten-Tronckh, lived a youth, whom nature had endowed with the most gentle manners. 
Verdict: Pass (barely) (2.5 stars)

80. Native Son by Richard Wright

Brrrrrrriiiiiiiiiiinng!
Verdict: Fail (2 stars)

81. Under the Volcano by Malcolm Lowry

Two mountain chains traverse the republic roughly from north to south, forming between them a number of valleys and plateaux. 
Verdict: Fail (2 stars)

82. Oblomov by Ivan Goncharov

One morning, in a flat in one of the great buildings in Gorokhovaia Street, the population of which was sufficient to constitute that of a provincial town, there was lying in bed a gentleman named Ilya Ilyitch Oblomov.
Verdict: Pass (barely) (2.5 stars)

83.Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston

Ships at a distance have every man’s wish on board.
Verdict: Pass (3 stars)

84. Waverley by Sir Walter Scott

The title of this work has not been chosen without the grave and solid deliberation which matters of importance demand from the prudent. 
Verdict: Fail (2 stars)

85. Snow Country by Kawabata Yasunari

The train came out of the long tunnel into the snow country.
Verdict: Fail (2 stars)

86. 1984 by George Orwell

It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen. 
Verdict: Pass (3 stars)

87. The Betrothed by Alessandro Manzoni

That branch of the Lake of Como, which turns toward the south between two unbroken chains of mountains, presenting to the eye a succession of bays and gulfs, formed by their jutting and retiring ridges, suddenly contracts itself between a headland to the right and an extended sloping bank on the left, and assumes the flow and appearance of a river. 
Verdict: Fail (2 stars)

88. The Last of the Mohicans by James Fenimore Cooper

It was a feature peculiar to the colonial wars of North America, that the toils and dangers of the wilderness were to be encountered before the adverse hosts could meet. 
Verdict: Fail (2 stars)

89. Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe

Late in the afternoon of a chilly day in February, two gentlemen were sitting alone over their wine, in a well-furnished dining parlor, in the town of P——, in Kentucky.
Verdict: Fail (2 stars)

90. Les Miserables by Victor Hugo

In 1815, M. Charles-Francois-Bienvenu Myriel was Bishop of D—— He was an old man of about seventy-five years of age; he had occupied the see of D—— since 1806.
Verdict: Fail (2 stars)

91. On the Road by Jack Kerouac

I first met Dean not long after my wife and I split up.
Verdict: Pass (3 stars)

92. Frankenstein by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

You will rejoice to hear that no disaster has accompanied the commencement of an enterprise which you have regarded with such evil forebodings. 
Verdict: Fail (2 stars)

93. The Leopard by Giuseppe di Lampedusa

NUNC et in hora mortis nostrae. Amen.
Verdict: Fail (2 stars)

94. The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger

If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you'll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don't feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth.
Verdict: Pass (3 stars)

95. The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins

This is the story of what a Woman's patience can endure, and what a Man's resolution can achieve.
Verdict: Fail (2 stars)

96. The Good Soldier Svejk by Jaroslav Hašek

"And so they've killed our Ferdinand," said the charwoman to Mr. Svejk, who had left military service years before, after having been finally certified by an army medical board as an imbecile, and now lived by selling dogs - ugly, mongrel monstrosities whose pedigrees he forged. 
Verdict: Pure Genius (5 stars)

97. Dracula by Bram Stoker

3 May. Bistritz. __Left Munich at 8:35 P. M, on 1st May, arriving at Vienna early next morning; should have arrived at 6:46, but train was an hour late.
Verdict:  Fail (2 stars)

98. The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas

On the first Monday of the month of April, 1625, the market town of Meung, in which the author of ROMANCE OF THE ROSE was born, appeared to be in as perfect a state of revolution as if the Huguenots had just made a second La Rochelle of it.
Verdict: Pass (barely) (2.5 stars)

99. The Hound of the Baskervilles by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Mr. Sherlock Holmes, who was usually very late in the mornings, save upon those not infrequent occasions when he was up all night, was seated at the breakfast table.
Verdict: Fail (2 stars)

100. Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell

Scarlett O'Hara was not beautiful, but men seldom realized it when caught by her charm as the Tarleton twins were.
Verdict: Pass (3 stars)