Posted on 06/03/2026 10:34:42 AM PDT by Diana in Wisconsin
We updated this list as part of the the Best of the Best Books Reading Challenge! Join the challenge now!
Very short novels have a special magic—not least because, not to be morbid, you can simply read more of them before the inevitable heat death of the planet (or similar). I previously wrote about great contemporary novels under 200 pages, but now it is time to turn my attention to my favorite short classics—which represent the quickest and cheapest way, I can tell you in my salesman voice, to become “well-read.”
A few notes: Because the “contemporary” list surveyed novels published since 1970 (inclusive), this list will define “classic” as being originally published before 1970. Yes, these distinctions are somewhat arbitrary, but one has to draw the line somewhere (though I let myself slide on certain translation dates). I did not differentiate between novels and novellas (as Steven Millhauser would tell you, the novella is not a form at all, but merely a length), but let’s be honest with ourselves: “The Dead” is a short story, and so is “The Metamorphosis.” Sorry! I limited myself to one book by each author, valiantly, I should say, because I was tempted to cheat (looking at you Jean Rhys).
Most importantly for our purposes here: lengths vary with editions, sometimes wildly. I did not include a book below unless I could find that it had been published at least once in fewer than 200 pages—which means that some excellent novels, despite coming tantalizingly close to the magic number, had to be left off for want of proof (see Mrs. Dalloway, Black No More, Slaughterhouse-Five, etc. etc. etc.). However, your personal edition might not exactly match the number I have listed here. Don’t worry: it’ll still be short.
Finally, as always: “best” lists are subjective, no ranking is definitive, and I’ve certainly forgotten, or never read, or run out of space for plenty of books and writers here. Therefore, please add on at will in the comments.
And the reader comments at the end give you an even longer reading list to choose from! :)
Mark 4 later
I’ll still need the Cliff Notes.
Thanks, I copied the list for consideration.
Same here. I've read a few of these (some I enjoyed and some I tried to read, but tossed aside as hopelessly convoluted), and am familiar with the authors and titles of others, but on the whole they seem to be kinda artsy-fartsy selections with obscure language and abstract themes that mostly appeal to women.
Call me a culturally backwards philistine if you must, but--not my cup of tea.
Here are the 50 novels from Literary Hub’s list, in the order shown on the page.
The Invention of Morel — Adolfo Bioy Casares
Of Mice and Men — John Steinbeck
Animal Farm — George Orwell
The Hound of the Baskervilles — Arthur Conan Doyle
The Postman Always Rings Twice — James M. Cain
Passing — Nella Larsen
The Stranger — Albert Camus
Pedro Páramo — Juan Rulfo
The Cloven Viscount — Italo Calvino
The Awakening — Kate Chopin
The Death of Ivan Ilyich — Leo Tolstoy
In Watermelon Sugar — Richard Brautigan
The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man — James Weldon Johnson
Death in Venice — Thomas Mann
We Have Always Lived in the Castle — Shirley Jackson
A Single Man — Christopher Isherwood
Notes from Underground — Fyodor Dostoevsky
Ice — Anna Kavan
Cane — Jean Toomer
The Drowned World — J.G. Ballard
Hunger — Knut Hamsun
Giovanni’s Room — James Baldwin
O Pioneers! — Willa Cather
Bonjour Tristesse — Françoise Sagan
Billy Budd, Sailor — Herman Melville
The Crying of Lot 49 — Thomas Pynchon
The Trial — Franz Kafka
A Personal Matter — Kenzaburo Oe
Nightwood — Djuna Barnes
Snow Country — Yasunari Kawabata
Wide Sargasso Sea — Jean Rhys
Silas Marner — George Eliot
The Girls of Slender Means — Muriel Spark
Jakob von Gunten — Robert Walser
Breakfast at Tiffany’s — Truman Capote
Things Fall Apart — Chinua Achebe
Fat City — Leonard Gardner
House Made of Dawn — N. Scott Momaday
If He Hollers Let Him Go — Chester Himes
The Great Gatsby — F. Scott Fitzgerald
Pnin — Vladimir Nabokov
Norwood — Charles Portis
Ubik — Philip K. Dick
Near to the Wild Heart — Clarice Lispector
A Clockwork Orange — Anthony Burgess
Who Was Changed and Who Was Dead — Barbara Comyns
Their Eyes Were Watching God — Zora Neale Hurston
Ethan Frome — Edith Wharton
Picnic at Hanging Rock — Joan Lindsay
The Magic Toyshop — Angela Carter
.I am still trying to put in my garden and you do THIS???
Modern authors pad their word count without adding much substance to the story. I have read many books of around 700 pages that would have been much more memorable and enjoyable at less than 300 pages.
Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad needs to be on that list
many of them are not short novels, they are novellas. But whatever, there’s some great stuff on the list.
Classics Ilustrated ran about 30-40 pages
Don’t laugh
Gave me an overview few of my peers had of classic lit
Sadly, I started keeping a spread sheet of books I'm reading about 25 years ago - now I can't stop. History, classics, religion, science, it's all in there. I'm addicted, and hard-core (books on-dead-tree only).
I'm sure to start working off of this list, too. Thank you.
I really liked Ethan Frome. Depressing, though.
I was hoping “How Much Land Does A Man Need” by Tolstoy was in the list. We read it in junior high school and it made an impression.
I would love to see that spreadsheet!
Same here it was good “gateway drug” to Moby Dick and The Three Musketeers.
Steinbeck’s The Pearl also a shorty but goody.
As for me, large print.
CLASSICS ILLUSTRATED! Got me interested in great literature.
Mark for reference. Thanks
How about The Old Man and the Sea by Hemingway?
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