The 100 best books about identity and the self

No. 11 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.

No. 12 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.

No. 13 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.

No. 14 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. 15 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. 16 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.

No. 17 on this list. Orlando · Virginia Woolf · 1928

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

Orlando appears on university syllabi worldwide in modernist literature, gender studies, feminist theory, and LGBTQ+ studies courses — one of the few novels to anchor multiple disciplines simultaneously. It features on Modern Library's 100 Best Novels list and is discussed in virtually every survey of 20th-century British fiction. Woolf's stature guarantees its place in the canon regardless of pedagogical fashion.

No. 18 on this list. Song of Solomon · Toni Morrison · 1977

Morrison sent a young Black man on a mythic quest through four generations of his family's buried history, fusing African-American folklore, biblical allusion, and the cadences of blues and gospel into a narrative structure no American novel had attempted before. The novel proved that flight — literal and metaphorical — could carry the full weight of Black American experience from slavery to self-knowledge.

No. 19 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. 20 on this list. The Adventures of Augie March · Saul Bellow · 1954

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

Bellow opened the floodgates of American prose with a first sentence — "I am an American, Chicago born" — that declared the immigrant son's right to the whole language, high and low, lyrical and street-smart, in a single breath. The novel proved that the American picaresque could carry philosophical weight without sacrificing velocity, and it liberated a generation of novelists from Hemingway's tight-lipped restraint.

No. 21 on this list. A House for Mr. Biswas · V.S. Naipaul · 1961

Taught in schools: CSEC English B – Caribbean Examinations Council

Naipaul tracked one man's forty-year struggle to own a house of his own in colonial Trinidad, and by treating that modest ambition with the gravity of epic, wrote the definitive novel about the immigrant's war between dignity and dispossession. Mr. Biswas's defeats are so granular and so cumulative that the house, when it finally comes, means more than any literary symbol has a right to.

No. 22 on this list. The Unnamable · Samuel Beckett · 1953

Included in: Bokklubben World Library

The Unnamable is taught in advanced modernism, postmodernism, and philosophy-of-language courses at universities worldwide, though less universally than Waiting for Godot. It anchors the Beckett Trilogy, which is among the canonical texts of twentieth-century literature in English and French. The Wikipedia and syllabus data signals appear underreported for this work.

No. 23 on this list. House Made of Dawn · N. Scott Momaday · 1969

House Made of Dawn appears on virtually every Native American literature syllabus and most American literature surveys covering the post-1960 period. It is the foundational text of the Native American literary renaissance and required reading in courses on multicultural American literature, modernism, and postwar fiction.

No. 24 on this list. Collected Stories · William Faulkner · 1951

Collected Stories won the National Book Award in 1951 and remains central to American short fiction canon. These stories appear regularly in anthologies and academic syllabi. While perhaps overshadowed by Faulkner's novels, the collection represents an essential component of his Yoknapatawpha saga and demonstrates his mastery across forms.

No. 25 on this list. The Prelude · William Wordsworth · 1850

A fixture of every survey of English Romanticism and nearly every anthology of British poetry, though as a single long poem it draws less raw syllabus volume than assigned novels—closer to Beloved's discipline-specific canonicity than a mass-market fixture like Gatsby.

No. 26 on this list. The New York Trilogy · Paul Auster · 1987

The New York Trilogy stands as the defining work of American postmodern noir and one of the most influential experimental novels of the 1980s. It appears consistently on syllabi for postmodern fiction, metafiction, and American literature courses, and is cited as a foundational text in discussions of the detective genre's literary transformation. Published in the US by Penguin Books (1987 combined edition), it has remained continuously in print for four decades. It appears on numerous "greatest novels" lists and is central to critical discourse on identity, authorship, and the limitations of language in contemporary fiction.

No. 27 on this list. Jane Eyre · Charlotte Brontë · 1847

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

Appears on 6,194 university syllabi according to Open Syllabus — placing it at the 94.8th percentile — and its Wikipedia article spans 59 languages with dedicated Reception and Adaptations sections. Jane Eyre is a fixture of Victorian literature courses worldwide and features on both the Open Syllabus Top 500 Literature list and the BBC Big Read Top 100.

No. 28 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. 29 on this list. Invisible Man · Ralph Ellison · 1953

Included in: Bokklubben World Library

Appears on 2,200 university syllabi (83rd percentile among all tracked works), making it one of the most-taught American novels in higher education. Included on the Modern Library 100 Best Novels, TIME's All-TIME 100 Novels, and 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die. Its Wikipedia article spans 17 languages, reflecting steady global reach.

No. 30 on this list. Odyssey · Homer · c. 725 BCE

Homer invented the homecoming plot: the cunning survivor who lies, adapts, and improvises his way back to the life he left behind. Three thousand years later, every story about the long way home — from Huckleberry Finn to Star Trek — runs on the engine the Odyssey built.