[In Maryland]

My List (and I am a lit. teacher) 1. The Bible (no other work is so often alluded to) 2. The Iliad/Odyssey 3. MacBeth 4. Sound and the Fury (narrative experimentation) 5. Hamlet 6. Scarlet Letter 7. Huck Finn 8. Nichomachean Ethics 9. Mere Christianity 10. Walden/Civil Disobedience

Well, in all fairness, they were asked for the greatest works of fiction. I don't consider the Bible a work of fiction (though I suspect portions of it are), likewise the Illiad and Odyssey. Certainly the Nichomachan Ethics, Mere Christianity and Walden are not works of fiction. My list for works of fiction would be:

1. Aesop's Fables (influential beyond our recognition)

2. King Lear (Shakespeare)

3. Paradise Lost (Milton)

4. Faust (Goethe)

5. Grimm's Fairy Tales

6. The Arabian Nights

7. Hamlet (Shakespeare)

8. The Grapes of Wrath (Steinbeck)

9. Inferno (Dante)

10. A Tale of Two Cities (Dickens)

Obviously, my list veers more to the works of fiction I feel have been most influential on Western Civilization, rather than pure literary quality.

[struggle]

>>Well, in all fairness, they were asked for the greatest works of fiction. I don’t consider the Bible a work of fiction (though I suspect portions of it are), likewise the Illiad and Odyssey. Certainly the Nichomachan Ethics, Mere Christianity and Walden are not works of fiction. My list for works of fiction would be:

The qualification given was “The Greatest Books of All Time, as Voted by 125 Famous Authors.” This determined my selection.