100 great american novels

100 great american novels - Albert H. Morehead

A couple of years ago, one of my brightest, most driven students asked me a simple question for which I had no ready answer: “Do you know where I could find a list of the 100 or so most important works of American fiction from the 20th Century?” I didn’t. I knew of more general lists (The Modern Library‘s 100 Best Novels) and Time‘s 100 Best All Time Novels). I also had several major anthologies of American literature, but I had no link, article, book, or other resource to offer, nothing really that might guide his curiosity. I was frustrated; this is my field after all, and I like to be able to answer questions like this. But I also knew exactly what he was feeling: the 20th Century in American letters is so diverse, weird, confusing, fragmented, and fascinating that it’s difficult to know where to start. College survey courses try to give students an overview of some of the trends and major works, but they are pieced together and incomplete by necessity. So I decided to draw up a list–a list of major works that would serve as a starting point and overview of 20th Century American fiction. And then the trouble began. As you might imagine, there are all sorts of problems with any such list: what does important mean? are only American authors included? Are 1900 and 2000 meaningful start and end dates? Do you list multiple works from authors? Single short stories? How do you judge the later works, which haven’t had enough time to simmer in history? Unlike other top 100 novel lists, this one was to be about coverage rather than judgment or ranking.