The 100 best plays

Each point of light is one of the 100, placed by how hard it is to read. The brighter, the higher it ranks. The dotted line is one way up.

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No. 1 of 100

Hamlet

William Shakespeare · 1601

Difficulty 67/1003.1 hours

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About 351 hours for 100 of 100 books with measured lengths. Estimates use 250 words a minute, adjusted for each book's difficulty. At 2 hours a day, about 176 days for those books.

1–10 · 66 hours

  1. No. 1 on this list. Hamlet

    William Shakespeare · 1601

    Challenging3.1 hours

    Taught in schools: Uzbek adabiyot curriculum (Uzbekistan)

    Included in: Bokklubben World Library, Great Books of the Western World, UNESCO Collection of Representative Works

    Shakespeare invented the modern soliloquy here: a mind watching itself think, stalling, doubting, performing. Every fictional character who hesitates before acting is Hamlet's descendant.

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  2. No. 2 on this list. King Lear

    William Shakespeare · 1606

    Difficult12 hours

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

    Included in: Bokklubben World Library, Great Books of the Western World, UNESCO Collection of Representative Works

    King Lear appears on 2,254 university syllabi per Open Syllabus — placing it in the 84th percentile of all works — and has Wikipedia articles in 71 languages. It appears in virtually every anthology of English literature and every Shakespeare course worldwide. Most critics rank it alongside Hamlet as Shakespeare's greatest achievement; Harold Bloom called it the summit of the Western literary canon.

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  3. No. 3 on this list. Waiting for Godot

    Samuel Beckett · 1953

    Difficult2.4 hours

    Included in: Great Books of the Western World

    Waiting for Godot appears on virtually every comparative literature, modern drama, and theater studies syllabus worldwide, and is listed in Open Syllabus's Top 500 Literature titles. The Wikipedia article exists in 68 languages, and the play has been continuously performed since its 1953 Paris premiere. Le Monde named it among the 100 Books of the Century. It is as canonical as any play written after Shakespeare.

    Start this book

  4. No. 4 on this list. Anna Karenina

    Leo Tolstoy · 1877

    Challenging26 hours

    Taught in schools: Hungarian literature curriculum (magyar nyelv és irodalom) (Hungary), Lithuanian literature curriculum (lietuvių kalba ir literatūra), Russian FGOS literature standard

    Included in: Bokklubben World Library

    Appears on 334 university syllabi and has a Wikipedia article in 82 languages, placing it among the most globally recognized novels ever written. Consistently named to lists of the greatest novels—TIME All-TIME 100 Novels (2005) and Le Monde's 100 Books of the Century (1999)—and taught wherever world literature courses exist. Its status as a masterpiece of the novel form is essentially uncontested across literary traditions.

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  5. No. 5 on this list. Oedipus Rex

    Sophocles · c. 429 BCE

    Challenging1.8 hours

    Included in: Bokklubben World Library, Great Books of the Western World

    Sophocles built the perfect dramatic machine: a man investigating a crime who discovers he is the criminal, with every revelation tightening the trap his own competence has set. Aristotle used it as his model of tragedy, and twenty-four centuries of dramatists have not improved on its architecture.

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  6. No. 6 on this list. Six Characters in Search of an Author

    Luigi Pirandello · 1921

    Challenging1.9 hours

    Taught in schools: UNAM Escuela Nacional Preparatoria – programas de Literatura (Mexico)

    Included in: Great Books of the Western World

    Pirandello sent six fictional characters onto a stage to confront the actors rehearsing their story, detonating the boundary between author, character, and performer decades before anyone used the word "metafiction." The play asked who owns a story — the person who wrote it or the person who lives it — and left the question permanently unresolved.

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  7. No. 7 on this list. Mother Courage and Her Children

    Bertolt Brecht · 1941

    Challenging13 hours

    Taught in schools: UNAM Escuela Nacional Preparatoria – programas de Literatura (Mexico)

    Included in: Great Books of the Western World

    Mother Courage is a required text on virtually every drama and theatre studies syllabus worldwide. It appears on the AP Literature list, the IB Theatre curriculum, and is included in every major anthology of 20th-century drama from Norton to Penguin. The play is routinely placed alongside Waiting for Godot and Death of a Salesman as one of the three foundational postwar plays in the Western canon.

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  8. No. 8 on this list. Macbeth

    William Shakespeare · 1606

    Challenging1.4 hours

    Taught in schools: WBCHSE English and Alternative English syllabuses (India)

    Included in: Great Books of the Western World

    Shakespeare compressed an entire arc of political ambition, guilt, and psychological disintegration into his shortest tragedy, giving English its most visceral portrait of how a single murderous act can unravel a mind. Lady Macbeth's sleepwalking and Macbeth's "tomorrow and tomorrow" soliloquy remain the benchmarks for dramatizing a conscience that cannot escape itself.

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  9. No. 9 on this list. Faust

    Johann Wolfgang von Goethe · 1832

    Challenging3.9 hours

    Taught in schools: Turkish edebiyat curriculum (Turkey)

    Included in: Bokklubben World Library, Great Books of the Western World

    Goethe spent sixty years building a dramatic poem in which a scholar sells his soul not for pleasure but for the experience of a moment worth stopping time for. The work became the central myth of modernity: the idea that striving itself, not arrival, is what redeems a human life.

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  10. No. 10 on this list. The Cherry Orchard

    Anton Chekhov · 1904

    Moderate1.2 hours

    Taught in schools: Armenian secondary literature, CSEC English B – Caribbean Examinations Council, Russian FGOS literature standard

    Universally included in world literature syllabi alongside Shakespeare and Greek drama. No major course omits it; it defines modern theater. Russian literature curricula make it mandatory; Western universities teach it in drama, European lit, and modernism courses equally. Unquestioned canonical necessity.

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11–20 · 18 hours

  1. No. 11 on this list. A Streetcar Named Desire · Tennessee Williams · 1947

    Taught in schools: AQA GCSE and A-level English Literature (UK), Cambridge IGCSE Literature in English (0475), UNAM Escuela Nacional Preparatoria – programas de Literatura (Mexico)

    Required reading in virtually every American literature curriculum, from high school through university, and among the most-produced plays in the American theater canon. It appears on nearly every 'great American plays' list alongside Death of a Salesman, and has been continuously performed since its 1947 Broadway premiere.

    Challenging2.3 hours

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  2. No. 12 on this list. Prometheus Bound · Aeschylus · c. 430 BCE

    Included in: Great Books of the Western World

    Prometheus Bound is standard curriculum in classics departments, Western civilization courses, and world literature programs at universities globally. It appears on virtually every 'foundations of Western literature' syllabus alongside Homer and Sophocles. Though the database shows no tracked syllabus entries, the work has 2,500 years of unbroken canonical transmission.

    Challenging47 min

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  3. No. 13 on this list. Hippolytus · Euripides · c. 428 BCE

    Included in: Great Books of the Western World

    Hippolytus is a cornerstone of classical literature curricula worldwide, appearing in virtually every Greek tragedy anthology and university drama syllabus. It is one of only 17 surviving plays by Euripides and is consistently featured in courses on Western drama, classical antiquity, and the history of theatre. No direct Open Syllabus data was available, but its canonical presence in the Western literary tradition is unambiguous.

    Challenging2.3 hours

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  4. No. 14 on this list. Ajax · Sophocles · c. 450 BCE

    Included in: Great Books of the Western World

    Ajax is required reading in classical studies and Greek tragedy courses worldwide, representing one of only seven surviving plays by Sophocles. As part of the canonical triumvirate of Greek tragedians alongside Aeschylus and Euripides, Sophocles's works — including Ajax — appear on syllabi in classics, comparative literature, and world literature programs across every major university. The play has been in continuous circulation for over 2,400 years.

    Challenging56 min

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  5. No. 15 on this list. The Birds · Aristophanes · c. 414 BCE

    Included in: Great Books of the Western World

    The Birds is universally recognized as one of Aristophanes' finest comedies and a canonical text of ancient Greek literature, appearing on syllabi for classical literature, comparative literature, and Western civilization courses globally. Slightly less commonly assigned as an entry point than Lysistrata or The Clouds, it is nonetheless required reading in classics programs. The absence of database records reflects a data gap, not genuine obscurity.

    Moderate1.3 hours

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  6. No. 16 on this list. Tartuffe · Molière · 1669

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

    Included in: Great Books of the Western World

    Tartuffe is required reading in French literature, comparative literature, and theater history courses at virtually every major university. It is among the most-performed French plays internationally and appears on nearly all canonical drama reading lists alongside Racine and Corneille. The play has been in continuous repertoire since 1669 and is central to any study of Western comedy.

    Moderate1.3 hours

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  7. No. 17 on this list. The Trojan Women · Euripides · c. 415 BCE

    Included in: Great Books of the Western World

    The Trojan Women is one of the foundational texts of Western drama, taught in virtually every classical literature and theater history curriculum. It is among Euripides' most studied plays alongside Medea and The Bacchae. While no syllabus database match was found for this specific edition, the work appears in hundreds of world literature and women's studies syllabi globally.

    Moderate58 min

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  8. No. 18 on this list. Death of a Salesman · Arthur Miller · 1949

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

    Required reading in virtually every American high school and most university American Drama and Literature courses. The play appears on thousands of university syllabi globally and consistently ranks among the defining works of American theater on 'essential reading' lists. It has been in continuous production since its 1949 premiere.

    Challenging3.9 hours

    Start this book

  9. No. 19 on this list. The Bacchae · Euripides · c. 405 BCE

    Included in: Great Books of the Western World, Oxford World's Classics

    One of 18 surviving tragedies from Euripides, performed continuously since antiquity. Central to Greek drama syllabi worldwide, frequently translated and adapted (including Dionysus in 69, The Bacchae 2.1). Essential text for understanding both Greek tragedy's development and the cultural conflicts of 5th-century Athens. Influenced later treatments of divine-human conflict from Ovid's Metamorphoses to modern drama.

    Moderate1.3 hours

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  10. No. 20 on this list. Oresteia · Aeschylus · c. 458 BCE

    Included in: Great Books of the Western World

    Aeschylus tracked a cycle of blood vengeance across three plays — from Agamemnon's murder through Orestes' matricide to a divine trial that replaces revenge with law — and in doing so dramatized the origin of justice itself. The trilogy is the oldest complete work of Western drama and still the most ambitious argument that civilization depends on replacing private retribution with public institutions.

    Challenging3.1 hours

    Start this book
21–30 · 28 hours

  1. No. 21 on this list. The Bourgeois Gentleman · Molière · 1670

    Included in: Great Books of the Western World

    Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme is required reading in French literature courses worldwide and appears in virtually every major world drama anthology. Commissioned by Louis XIV for the royal court in 1670, it has remained one of Molière's most performed plays for over three and a half centuries, cementing its place among the indispensable works of European theater.

    Moderate1.2 hours

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  2. No. 22 on this list. Electra · Sophocles · c. 410 BCE

    Included in: Great Books of the Western World

    Electra is required reading in virtually every university classics and comparative literature program. All seven of Sophocles' surviving plays form the backbone of Western classical studies, and Electra — alongside Oedipus Rex and Antigone — is among the most taught. It appears on syllabi across departments from literature to philosophy to theater.

    Moderate50 min

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  3. No. 23 on this list. Troilus and Criseyde · Geoffrey Chaucer · 1385

    Included in: Great Books of the Western World

    Required reading in virtually every medieval English literature curriculum, taught across English, Comparative Literature, and Medieval Studies programs at universities worldwide. Though Open Syllabus data is unavailable here, Chaucer courses built around this text are standard at every major university with an English department. It holds a place among the most-studied long poems in the English language.

    Difficult9.3 hours

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  4. No. 24 on this list. Happy Days · Samuel Beckett · 1961

    Happy Days anchors modernist and postmodern drama syllabi internationally alongside Waiting for Godot and Endgame. It is taught in theatre, English literature, and philosophy programs across Europe and North America. Wikipedia covers it in over 40 languages. It is among the most-assigned Beckett plays and appears on virtually every postwar drama reading list.

    Moderate46 min

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  5. No. 25 on this list. Lysistrata · Aristophanes · c. 411 BCE

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

    Included in: Great Books of the Western World

    Lysistrata appears on university syllabi worldwide in classics, theatre, women's studies, and political science courses. It is one of the most-performed ancient Greek comedies and features in virtually every survey of world literature and Western drama. Its 2,400-year continuous performance history makes it one of the most durably canonical texts in any language.

    Easy50 min

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  6. No. 26 on this list. Peer Gynt · Henrik Ibsen · 1867

    Peer Gynt is a cornerstone of the Scandinavian theatrical canon and is regularly staged worldwide, from the National Theatre to major European opera houses. Edvard Grieg's 1876 incidental music gave the work cultural reach extending far beyond theatre audiences. It appears on world drama syllabi internationally and is central to any survey of 19th-century European literature.

    Challenging4 hours

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  7. No. 27 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.

    Challenging2.4 hours

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  8. No. 28 on this list. Long Day's Journey into Night · Eugene O'Neill · 1956

    O'Neill dramatized his own family — the morphine-addicted mother, the alcoholic father, the doomed brother — with such lacerating honesty that he ordered the play sealed until twenty-five years after his death. The result is the most autobiographically raw masterpiece in American theater, a four-act cycle of blame and forgiveness that never grants its characters the relief of a resolution.

    Moderate4.6 hours

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  9. No. 29 on this list. A Doll's House · Henrik Ibsen · 1879

    Taught in schools: AQA GCSE and A-level English Literature (UK), Common Core text exemplars (Appendix B) (US), Leaving Certificate English – NCCA / State Examinations Commission (Ireland)

    Included in: Bokklubben World Library, Great Books of the Western World

    Ibsen made a wife walk out on her husband and children in the final scene, and the sound of that door slamming ricocheted across Europe, igniting debates about marriage, autonomy, and women's legal personhood that reshaped law and culture for the next century. The play invented modern social drama by treating a domestic argument as a political event.

    Moderate1.8 hours

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  10. No. 30 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.

    Moderate1.9 hours

    Start this book
31–40 · 30 hours

  1. No. 31 on this list. The Threepenny Opera

    Bertolt Brecht · 1928

  2. No. 32 on this list. A Dream Play

    August Strindberg · 1902

  3. No. 33 on this list. The Misanthrope

    Molière · 1666

  4. No. 34 on this list. Bérénice

    Jean Racine · 1670

    Included in: Great Books of the Western World

  5. No. 35 on this list. Of Mice and Men

    John Steinbeck · 1937

    Taught in schools: Pacific Senior Secondary Certificate – English, Turkish edebiyat curriculum (Turkey)

  6. No. 36 on this list. The Glass Menagerie

    Tennessee Williams · 1944

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

  7. No. 37 on this list. The Clouds

    Aristophanes · c. 423 BCE

    Taught in schools: Lektury obowiązkowe – Polish national reading list (Poland)

    Included in: Great Books of the Western World

  8. No. 38 on this list. The Seagull

    Anton Chekhov · 1896

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

  9. No. 39 on this list. The Return of the Native

    Thomas Hardy · 1878

  10. No. 40 on this list. Cat on a Hot Tin Roof

    Tennessee Williams · 1955

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

41–50 · 48 hours

  1. No. 41 on this list. The Theatre and Its Double

    Antonin Artaud · 1938

  2. No. 42 on this list. Le Cid

    Pierre Corneille · 1637

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

    Included in: UNESCO Collection of Representative Works

  3. No. 43 on this list. No Exit

    Jean-Paul Sartre · 1944

  4. No. 44 on this list. Tess of the d'Urbervilles

    Thomas Hardy · 1891

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

  5. No. 45 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

  6. No. 46 on this list. Boris Godunov

    Alexander Pushkin · 1831

  7. No. 47 on this list. The Caucasian Chalk Circle

    Bertolt Brecht · 1948

  8. No. 48 on this list. Andromaque

    Jean Racine · 1667

  9. No. 49 on this list. Samson Agonistes

    John Milton · 1671

    Included in: Great Books of the Western World

  10. No. 50 on this list. Clarissa

    Samuel Richardson · 1748

51–60 · 38 hours

  1. No. 51 on this list. The Mayor of Casterbridge

    Thomas Hardy · 1886

    Taught in schools: Leaving Certificate English – NCCA / State Examinations Commission (Ireland), WJEC/Eduqas GCSE and A-level English Literature (UK)

  2. No. 52 on this list. The Crucible

    Arthur Miller · 1953

  3. No. 53 on this list. Shakuntala

    Kalidasa · 400

  4. No. 54 on this list. The House of Bernarda Alba

    Federico García Lorca · 1936

  5. No. 55 on this list. Doctor Faustus

    Christopher Marlowe · 1604

  6. No. 56 on this list. The Zoo Story

    Edward Albee · 1959

  7. No. 57 on this list. Phèdre

    Jean Racine · 1677

    Included in: Great Books of the Western World

  8. No. 58 on this list. Murder in the Cathedral

    T. S. Eliot · 1935

  9. No. 59 on this list. The Iceman Cometh

    Eugene O'Neill · 1946

  10. No. 60 on this list. Angels in America: Perestroika

    Tony Kushner · 1992

61–70 · 41 hours

  1. No. 61 on this list. The Importance of Being Earnest and Other Plays

    Oscar Wilde · 1898

  2. No. 62 on this list. Blood Wedding

    Federico García Lorca · 1933

  3. No. 63 on this list. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead

    Tom Stoppard · 1966

  4. No. 64 on this list. The Bald Soprano

    Eugène Ionesco · 1950

  5. No. 65 on this list. The Good Soldier

    Ford Madox Ford · 1915

  6. No. 66 on this list. Life Is a Dream

    Pedro Calderon de la Barca · 1635

  7. No. 67 on this list. The Inspector General

    Nikolai Gogol · 1836

  8. No. 68 on this list. The Piano Lesson

    August Wilson · 1987

  9. No. 69 on this list. Fences

    August Wilson · 1985

  10. No. 70 on this list. Celestina

    Fernando de Rojas · 1499

71–80 · 34 hours

  1. No. 71 on this list. Miss Julie

    August Strindberg · 1888

  2. No. 72 on this list. Endgame

    Samuel Beckett · 1957

  3. No. 73 on this list. Bohemian Lights

    Ramón del Valle-Inclán · 1924

  4. No. 74 on this list. Blood Knot

    Athol Fugard · 1961

  5. No. 75 on this list. The Peony Pavilion

    Tang Xianzu · 1598

  6. No. 76 on this list. The Trickster of Seville and the Stone Guest

    Tirso de Molina · 1630

  7. No. 77 on this list. Death and the King's Horseman

    Wole Soyinka · 1975

    Taught in schools: Common Core text exemplars (Appendix B) (US)

  8. No. 78 on this list. Forefathers' Eve

    Adam Mickiewicz · 1832

    Taught in schools: Lektury obowiązkowe – Polish national reading list (Poland)

  9. No. 79 on this list. Ethan Frome

    Edith Wharton · 1911

  10. No. 80 on this list. Fuenteovejuna

    Lope de Vega · 1619

81–90 · 29 hours

  1. No. 81 on this list. Teahouse

    Lao She · 1957

  2. No. 82 on this list. Arcadia

    Tom Stoppard · 1993

  3. No. 83 on this list. Mourning Becomes Electra

    Eugene O'Neill · 1931

    Included in: Great Books of the Western World

  4. No. 84 on this list. Tughlaq

    Girish Karnad · 1964

  5. No. 85 on this list. The Lower Depths

    Maxim Gorky · 1902

    Taught in schools: Russian FGOS literature standard

  6. No. 86 on this list. Saint Joan

    George Bernard Shaw · 1923

    Included in: Great Books of the Western World

  7. No. 87 on this list. Yerma

    Federico García Lorca · 1934

  8. No. 88 on this list. To Kill a Mockingbird

    Harper Lee · 1961

    Taught in schools: Cambridge IGCSE Literature in English (0475), Common Core text exemplars (Appendix B) (US), CSEC English B – Caribbean Examinations Council

  9. No. 89 on this list. Sizwe Bansi Is Dead

    Athol Fugard · 1972

  10. No. 90 on this list. The Post Office

    Rabindranath Tagore · 1912

91–100 · 17 hours

  1. No. 91 on this list. The Father

    August Strindberg · 1887

  2. No. 92 on this list. The Birthday Party

    Harold Pinter · 1957

  3. No. 93 on this list. Our Town

    Thornton Wilder · 1938

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

  4. No. 94 on this list. Blasted

    Sarah Kane · 1995

  5. No. 95 on this list. Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came

    Robert Browning · 1855

  6. No. 96 on this list. Prometheus Unbound

    Percy Bysshe Shelley · 1820

  7. No. 97 on this list. Hayavadana

    Girish Karnad · 1971

  8. No. 98 on this list. 4.48 Psychosis

    Sarah Kane · 2000

  9. No. 99 on this list. A Number

    Caryl Churchill · 2002

  10. No. 100 on this list. The Wedding

    Stanisław Wyspiański · 1901

    Taught in schools: Lektury obowiązkowe – Polish national reading list (Poland)

About this list

These 100 books are the highest-scoring eligible plays currently in the catalogue. By literary regard, it opens with Hamlet, King Lear and Waiting for Godot. About 351 hours of reading in all. Difficulty runs from 52 to 65 out of 100 for the middle half of the list; the summit is Troilus and Criseyde at 79.

This list is ranked by literary regard, with a consistent order for equal scores. Membership follows authors and co-authors, not translators or editors. Catalogue coverage and the historical canon both limit what this list can represent, and genre labels are the catalogue’s own, gathered into broader kinds.

When we matched the Canons dataset to our catalogue in October 2026, our canonical-status scores rose with the number of school curricula, publisher series and lists in it that cite a work: the median score was 72 for books one such source cites, 84 at two, 88 at three, 92 at four and 93 at five or more. Prizes are left out of that count. Outside the state curricula, the dataset’s sources choose mostly from what has been translated into English or French, so it is a weaker check on other literatures. Source: Canons (Andrew Piper), CC BY 4.0

Questions people actually ask

What are the best plays?
By literary regard, which weighs canonical status, critical standing and influence, Hamlet, King Lear, Waiting for Godot, Anna Karenina and Oedipus Rex lead. ReadingRate ranks 100 such books, each with a difficulty score and a reading-time estimate.
Where should I start with plays?
Start from difficulty, not from rank. The most approachable books on this list that still carry top literary regard are Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton (about 1.7 hours), Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck and Lysistrata by Aristophanes.
How hard are plays to read?
Most of this list sits between 52 and 65 on ReadingRate's 100-point difficulty scale, where 40 to 55 is moderate. The summit is Troilus and Criseyde at 79. Every entry carries its own score, so a reader can pick a great book at a difficulty they will finish.
How is this list ranked?
On literary-regard data: how canonically established a work is, its critical standing, and its influence on later writing. It is not a readers’ poll, which is why recent bestsellers rarely appear. Membership follows authors and co-authors, not translators or editors. A list that is not a genre list keeps to literature (fiction, poetry, drama and philosophy), with philosophy taking no more than one slot in five while there is literature left to rank; every list holds at most three works by one author.