The 100 best fantasy novels from the United States

No. 11 on this list. The Mysterious Stranger · Mark Twain · 1916

In 1590, in the drowsy Austrian village of Eseldorf, three boys meet a charming young stranger who lights a pipe with his breath and conjures fruit from their pockets. He tells them his name is Philip Traum. He tells them he is an angel — specifically, Satan's nephew, untouched by the Fall and therefore without any Moral Sense. He is delightful company. The stranger makes miniature humans out of clay, watches them develop a civilization, then casually crushes them. He manipulates fate so that Nikolaus, Theodor's closest friend, drowns saving a girl rather than live sixty-two years as a paralyzed invalid. He considers this kindness. Theodor, narrating from old age, agrees with him throughout — and the reader must decide whether to follow. Mark Twain wrote The Mysterious Stranger between 1898 and 1908 without finishing it. Editors completed the manuscript after his death, location of the seam undisclosed. The novella is the culmination of Twain's late period: God is indicted directly in Satan's closing monologue ('mouths mercy and invented hell'), and the final revelation — that the universe, history, and the narrator himself are a dream inside a vagrant thought — is delivered without apology. The Moral Sense, which separates humans from animals, is the cruelest gift ever given: it allows suffering to be recognized, then does nothing to prevent it. This is Twain at his furthest from Hannibal.

No. 12 on this list. Circe · Madeline Miller · 2019

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

No. 13 on this list. The Eye of the World · Robert Jordan · 1990

The Eye of the World launched one of fantasy's most influential series. While not considered literary fiction, it holds canonical status within the epic fantasy genre, frequently cited alongside Tolkien's work as foundational to modern fantasy.

No. 14 on this list. Where the Wild Things Are · Maurice Sendak · 1963

Max puts on his wolf suit and makes mischief of one kind and another until his mother calls him "WILD THING" and sends him to bed without his supper. His room grows into a forest, an ocean tumbles by, and Max sails to the place where the wild things are—huge, yellow-eyed, horn-headed monsters who roar their terrible roars and gnash their terrible teeth. Max tames them with a magic trick of staring into their eyes without blinking, and they make him king of all wild things. The wild rumpus follows: a wordless bacchanal across three double-page spreads of pure, joyous destruction. Then Max smells good things to eat and wants to be where someone loves him best of all. He sails home and finds his supper waiting, still hot. Sendak compressed into 338 words and ten sentences the entire emotional arc of childhood anger: the rage, the fantasy of power, the satiation of wildness, and the return to love. The illustrations expand as Max's fantasy grows—from small vignettes to borderless full pages—and contract as he returns, a visual rhythm that mirrors the emotional one. The book was controversial upon publication for its refusal to punish Max's anger and has since become the most influential picture book of the 20th century.

No. 15 on this list. The Broken Sword · Poul Anderson · 1954

A classic of Norse-inspired fantasy. Published alongside Tolkien but representing the road not taken.

No. 16 on this list. The Natural · Bernard Malamud · 1952

Roy Hobbs arrives in New York at thirty-four, carrying a homemade bat called Wonderboy in a bassoon case and sixteen years of bad luck on his back. He was supposed to be the greatest there ever was — until a deranged woman shot him in a hotel room at nineteen. Now he joins the last-place Knights under Pop Fisher, a parched and broken manager with athlete's foot on his hands, trying to win the pennant before he dies. Roy can knock the cover off the ball, literally. He can catch a canary in his glove. The fans go wild. Pop's grass turns green again. Malamud built his first novel over the bones of Arthurian legend, and every piece doubles: Wonderboy is Excalibur, fashioned from a lightning-split tree. Pop Fisher is the wounded Fisher King whose land dries up without a true knight. Roy's choice between Memo Paris — a redheaded siren who draws him toward corruption — and Iris Lemon, who loves him and carries his child, is the choice between destruction and grace. Roy chooses wrong. The prose is vernacular, gritty, and comic — full of locker-room squabbles, hot dogs, and a dwarf heckler named Otto Zipp — and then suddenly mythic, sentences opening into darkness like a ballpark after the lights come on. The tragedy is that Roy knows what he should do and cannot make himself do it. He had it in him to be a king. The boy who thrusts a newspaper at him in the final pages already knows what the headline says.

No. 17 on this list. The Witches of Eastwick · John Updike · 1984

The Witches of Eastwick is taught in American fiction and feminist literary theory courses but does not appear on core syllabi with the frequency of Updike's Rabbit, Run. It features on several 'best American novels of the 20th century' lists and has maintained continuous reader attention partly through the 1987 film adaptation. Not a curriculum fixture, but solidly established in the Updike canon.

No. 18 on this list. American Born Chinese · Gene Luen Yang · 2006

Printz Award winner, first graphic novel nominated for a National Book Award. A foundational text in Asian American graphic literature.

No. 19 on this list. The Einstein Intersection · Samuel R. Delany · 1967

The Einstein Intersection is taught regularly in university courses on science fiction literature and New Wave SF, and appears on syllabi for courses in African American literature and postmodern fiction. It does not appear on mainstream literary canons the way Beloved or Invisible Man do, but occupies a firm place in the SF academic tradition and is considered essential reading within that field.

No. 20 on this list. Lincoln in the Bardo · George Saunders · 2017

February 1862. The Civil War is less than one year old. The fighting has begun in earnest, and the nation has begun to realize it is in for a long, bloody struggle. Meanwhile, President Lincoln's beloved eleven-year-old son, Willie, lies upstairs in the White House, gravely ill. In a matter of days, despite predictions of a recovery, Willie dies and is laid to rest in a Georgetown cemetery. "My poor boy, he was too good for this earth," the president says at the time. "God has called him home." Newspapers report that a grief-stricken Lincoln returns, alone, to the crypt several times to hold his boy's body. From that seed of historical truth, George Saunders spins a story of familial love and loss that breaks free of its historical framework into a supernatural realm both hilarious and terrifying. Willie Lincoln finds himself in a strange purgatory where ghosts mingle, gripe, commiserate, quarrel, and enact bizarre acts of penance. Within this transitional state -- called, in the Tibetan tradition, the bardo -- a monumental struggle erupts over young Willie's soul.

No. 21 on this list. A Wrinkle in Time · Madeleine L'Engle · 1962

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

A standard text in American elementary and middle school curricula for decades, consistently appearing on required reading lists and library recommendation lists nationwide. Won the Newbery Medal in 1963, the most prestigious prize in American children's literature. Its place in the canon of children's science fantasy is secure, though it sits below the level of high school or university syllabi staples.

No. 22 on this list. Stuart Little · E.B. White · 1945

It is a long-standing fixture of American children's literature, read in classrooms and read aloud at home, though less often on university syllabi than the great novels. It sits well above commercial fiction and below the core adult canon.

No. 23 on this list. The City We Became · N.K. Jemisin · 2020

Hugo nominee. One of the most prominent urban fantasies of the 2020s. Jemisin's reputation carries weight.

No. 24 on this list. The Dying Earth · Jack Vance · 1950

The Dying Earth holds no major presence on university syllabi and lacks recorded Wikipedia coverage in the database, but within speculative fiction it is universally acknowledged as a foundational text. Genre surveys such as the Locus All-Century Poll consistently place it among the most important fantasy works of the twentieth century, though this recognition has not translated into mainstream academic curricula.

No. 25 on this list. The Riddle-Master of Hed · Patricia A. McKillip · 1976

World Fantasy Award winner. A beloved classic among fantasy readers who value prose craft.

No. 26 on this list. Chimera · John Barth · 1973

Chimera appears in postmodern and metafiction syllabi but has not achieved the broad cross-curriculum presence of Barth's Lost in the Funhouse. Its Wikipedia article exists in 20 languages — modest global footprint for a National Book Award winner. More widely discussed in American postmodernism courses than read outside academic contexts.

No. 27 on this list. The Stand · Stephen King · 1978

Widely taught in American high schools and present in genre studies syllabi, but not firmly in the literary-critical canon. Appears on many best-novel lists; its status is strong within popular fiction but contested at the literary level.

No. 28 on this list. Her Body and Other Parties · Carmen Maria Machado · 2017

Appears on 235 university syllabi according to Open Syllabus, placing it in the 59th percentile—strong for a 2017 debut collection. Taught primarily in contemporary fiction, queer literature, and creative writing courses. Wikipedia article exists with a dedicated Reception section. Too recent to have achieved canonical status, but its syllabi trajectory suggests staying power in the short story and gender studies curricula.

No. 29 on this list. The Phantom Tollbooth · Norton Juster · 1961

The Phantom Tollbooth is a standard text on US elementary and middle school reading lists and appears on the Modern Library's 100 Best Young Adult Novels. It has been continuously in print since 1961, a span of 65 years, and is regarded as one of the defining works of American children's literature. It does not appear on university literature syllabi in the way that adult canonical texts do, which constrains its institutional footprint.

No. 30 on this list. The City of Brass · S.A. Chakraborty · 2017

Part of the wave of non-European-inspired fantasy. Widely read and critically praised.