The 100 best books about deception and secrets

No. 11 on this list. Three Sisters · Anton Chekhov · 1901

Taught in schools: Hungarian literature curriculum (magyar nyelv és irodalom) (Hungary), Russian FGOS literature standard

Taught in every course on modern drama and staged continuously by major companies since its 1901 Moscow Art Theatre premiere. The sisters' longing for Moscow is one of the best-known situations in world theatre.

No. 12 on this list. The Lady with the Dog · Anton Chekhov · 1899

Taught in schools: Russian FGOS literature standard

Among the most anthologized and taught short stories in any language, a staple of fiction courses and writing workshops. It is frequently named as the greatest short story ever written.

No. 13 on this list. Kokoro · Natsume Sōseki · 1914

Included in: UNESCO Collection of Representative Works

Kokoro is universally regarded as the supreme masterpiece of modern Japanese literature and one of the most important novels of the twentieth century in any language. It is the single most commonly assigned novel in Japanese high schools and universities, and appears on literature syllabi worldwide. It has been continuously in print since 1914 and has been translated into dozens of languages. It is a permanent fixture of every serious list of world literature, from the Penguin Classics and Oxford World Classics catalogs to Harold Bloom's discussions of global literary achievement.

No. 14 on this list. The Importance of Being Earnest · Oscar Wilde · 1893

Taught in schools: AQA GCSE and A-level English Literature (UK), Common Core text exemplars (Appendix B) (US), CSEC English B – Caribbean Examinations Council

Ranked by literary regard among eligible works in the current catalogue. This position reflects the available catalogue evidence.

No. 15 on this list. The Threepenny Opera · Bertolt Brecht · 1928

Die Dreigroschenoper premiered in Berlin on August 28, 1928, and became one of the most performed plays of the 20th century, with productions on every inhabited continent. It is core curriculum in theatre studies, German literature, European modernism, and political theory courses worldwide. No syllabus data appears in the database, but the play's canonical standing is among the highest in 20th-century drama.

No. 16 on this list. The Scarlet Letter · Nathaniel Hawthorne · 1850

Taught in schools: Common Core text exemplars (Appendix B) (US), CSEC English B – Caribbean Examinations Council

Appears on 1,893 university syllabi (Open Syllabus, 81.9th percentile), a fixture of American literature courses and AP high school curricula across the United States. Wikipedia articles exist in 38 languages, and the work has continuous presence in American literary education since its 1850 publication.

No. 17 on this list. The Miser · Molière · 1668

Taught in schools: Lektury obowiązkowe – Polish national reading list (Poland), UNAM Escuela Nacional Preparatoria – programas de Literatura (Mexico)

Included in: Great Books of the Western World

The Miser is a staple of French literature and world theater curricula across universities globally, ranking among the most performed and studied comedies of the Western canon. While no syllabus count is in the database, it appears consistently on comparative literature, French studies, and drama course lists. Its presence in world literature anthologies across dozens of languages reflects its canonical standing.

No. 18 on this list. Buddenbrooks: The Decline of a Family · Thomas Mann

A Nobel-winning author's first novel, taught widely in German and world literature courses as the model family chronicle.

No. 19 on this list. Cat on a Hot Tin Roof · Tennessee Williams · 1955

Taught in schools: AQA GCSE and A-level English Literature (UK)

Cat on a Hot Tin Roof won the 1955 Pulitzer Prize for Drama and is taught in American literature and theater courses across the country, standing alongside A Streetcar Named Desire as the twin peaks of Williams's canon. The 1958 film adaptation with Paul Newman and Elizabeth Taylor brought it to global audiences, cementing its place in the broader cultural record. It appears on virtually every syllabus covering American drama.

No. 20 on this list. The Wild Duck · Henrik Ibsen · 1884

Taught in schools: Hungarian literature curriculum (magyar nyelv és irodalom) (Hungary)

Included in: Great Books of the Western World

The Wild Duck is a cornerstone of the Western dramatic canon, taught in virtually every university drama program and included in all standard collections of world theater. Though the database returns no syllabus count, Ibsen is the most taught non-English-language playwright in English-speaking universities, and this play—alongside Hedda Gabler and A Doll's House—appears on every major drama syllabus. It is consistently ranked among Ibsen's finest works and among the ten most important plays of the nineteenth century.

No. 21 on this list. The Imaginary Invalid · Molière · 1673

Included in: Great Books of the Western World

Argan sits in his Paris bedroom tallying his apothecary bills, convinced he is dying. He is not dying. His maid Toinette knows it, his brother Béralde knows it, and his daughter Angélique suspects it — but Argan has organized his entire life around his imaginary ailments, and he intends to marry Angélique to a young doctor so the household will have a physician on permanent call. Written in 1673 as Molière's last play — he collapsed onstage performing Argan and died that same evening — The Imaginary Invalid is a comedy that turns on a simple, merciless observation: some people prefer their illness to their health because sickness grants power. Toinette disguises herself as a famous doctor and solemnly recommends removing one of Argan's arms and an eye, just to see if he will agree. He almost does. The play's third interlude culminates in a mock-Latin medical ceremony, all chanted gibberish, that confers a doctorate on Argan himself — the perfect solution. Molière's doctors speak in learned nonsense and kill more patients than they cure, and the comedy lies not in caricature but in recognition: the gap between institutional authority and actual competence was as visible in 1673 as it is now. Reading it is to watch a master work at full pitch, knowing he was out of time.

No. 22 on this list. Samson Agonistes · John Milton · 1671

Included in: Great Books of the Western World

Samson Agonistes is required reading in virtually every English Renaissance and early modern literature course at the university level, paired with Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained as the triad of Milton's major late works. It appears on countless syllabi and is included in every major anthology of English literature. While less universally taught than Paradise Lost, it holds a firm place in the upper tier of the seventeenth-century canon.

No. 23 on this list. The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde · Robert Louis Stevenson · 1886

Taught in schools: AQA GCSE and A-level English Literature (UK), OCR GCSE and A-level English Literature (UK)

One of the most widely taught Victorian texts in English literature curricula at every level, from secondary school to university. The phrase 'Jekyll and Hyde' has entered common English as a synonym for dual personality. The novella appears on virtually every list of essential 19th-century fiction and is a fixture in Gothic literature, Victorian studies, and psychology-and-literature courses worldwide.

No. 24 on this list. Call to Arms · Lu Xun · 1923

Lu Xun compressed the anguish of a civilization in crisis into stories so concentrated they read like detonations — a madman who discovers that Confucian morality is a euphemism for cannibalism, a revolutionary beheaded while the crowd scrambles for bread dipped in his blood. These stories broke Chinese fiction free from classical convention and became the foundational texts of modern Chinese literature.

No. 25 on this list. Dom Casmurro · Machado de Assis · 1899

Taught in schools: FUVEST leituras obrigatórias (USP vestibular) (Brazil)

Bentinho grows up next door to Capitu in 1850s Rio de Janeiro, separated from her only by a wall and his mother's vow to make him a priest. He becomes Dom Casmurro — the stubborn recluse — and narrates his life from old age: the childhood infatuation, the years at seminary, the marriage, the friendship with Escobar, and the suspicion that eventually destroys everything. Capitu's eyes — described early on as 'the eyes of the undertow,' oblique and restless — fix themselves in the reader's mind and never quite let go. Machado de Assis structures the entire novel around what the narrator refuses to see clearly: Bento's account of his wife's betrayal reads equally as the self-portrait of a man who destroyed his marriage through jealousy. The 148 short chapters move fast, packed with digressions about opera, Roman history, and Shakespeare — the narrator is endlessly distracting himself from what he cannot face. Whether Capitu was guilty is the wrong question; the right one is why Bento needs her to be. Published in 1899, this is one of the first and still one of the finest unreliable narrator novels in any language, and the question it refuses to answer has occupied Brazilian readers for over a century.

No. 26 on this list. The Kreutzer Sonata · Leo Tolstoy · 1889

The Kreutzer Sonata holds a firm place in university curricula for Russian literature, world literature, and gender studies courses. While less taught than Anna Karenina or War and Peace, it appears consistently as required reading in Tolstoy surveys and 19th-century European fiction courses. Its inclusion in countless 'essential Tolstoy' and world literature reading lists reflects its canonical standing.

No. 27 on this list. Go Down, Moses · William Faulkner · 1942

Go Down, Moses is recognized as central to American modernism and Southern gothic literature. It appears consistently in university curricula and major literary anthologies. While not achieving the absolute canonical singularity of Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury or Absalom, Absalom!, it commands secure canonical standing within American letters.

No. 28 on this list. The Iceman Cometh · Eugene O'Neill · 1946

The Iceman Cometh appears in the Open Syllabus Top 500 Literature list and holds Library of America and NYRB Classics editions — markers of canonical permanence in American letters. It is taught in virtually every American drama survey and appears on most 'great American plays' lists alongside Long Day's Journey into Night. Wikipedia carries the play in only 5 languages, reflecting the global reach of drama (versus fiction) rather than lesser standing; within American literary culture, The Iceman Cometh is firmly canonical.

No. 29 on this list. Philoctetes · Sophocles · c. 409 BCE

Included in: Great Books of the Western World

Philoctetes is a fixture in university courses on Greek drama and classical literature worldwide, taught alongside the other surviving Sophoclean tragedies. While it receives less classroom attention than Oedipus Rex or Antigone, it is consistently included in surveys of ancient Greek theater and world literature curricula. Its place in the Western canon is secure, grounded in its 2,400-year history of continuous scholarly attention.

No. 30 on this list. Martin Chuzzlewit · Charles Dickens · 1844

Martin Chuzzlewit holds a secure but second-tier position in the Dickens canon, taught regularly in Victorian literature courses and included on most serious Dickens reading lists, though it receives less classroom attention than Bleak House, Great Expectations, or David Copperfield. Dickens himself considered it his best work up to that point. The novel is available in numerous editions including Penguin Classics and Oxford World's Classics, and its key characters—Pecksniff, Sairey Gamp—remain cultural reference points.