As usual, I’ve crunched the Goodreads / LibraryThing numbers on the books published 50, 100 and 150 years ago. It’s surprising what has stayed within the popular Zeitgeist and what has not. I’m looking at the top 20 books from 1975, the top 15 from 1925 and the top 10 from 1875.
I’m not doing the 25-year points, 2000, 1950 and 1900, in such great detail, partly because this post is already quite long enough, and also because 2000 is still too recent. Since you asked, however, the top book from 2000 on GR and LT is Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, by J. K. Rowling; the top book from 1950 is The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, by C. S. Lewis; and the top book from 1900 is The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, by L. Frank Baum. There’s a blog post waiting to be written about that synchonicity. (For 1850, it’s The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne.)
1975
LT | GR | ||
1 | ’Salem’s Lot, by Stephen King | 610,770 | 17,066 |
2 | Tuck Everlasting, by Natalie Babbitt | 282,720 | 16,040 |
3 | Shōgun, by James Clavell | 196,270 | 8,355 |
4 | Ramona the Brave, by Beverly Cleary | 57,466 | 8,217 |
5 | Crocodile on the Sandbank, by Elizabeth Peters | 76,338 | 4,698 |
6 | Ragtime, by E.L. Doctorow | 44,818 | 6,405 |
7 | Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison, by Michel Foucault | 34,389 | 6,949 |
8 | The Grey King, by Susan Cooper | 39,532 | 6,024 |
9 | Factotum, by Charles Bukowski | 72,351 | 3,291 |
10 | Forever…, by Judy Blume | 64,293 | 3,416 |
11 | Curtain (Poirot’s Last Case), by Agatha Christie | 46,542 | 4,645 |
12 | Where Are the Children?, by Mary Higgins Clark | 58,247 | 2,123 |
13 | A Color of His Own, by Leo Lionni | 21,919 | 5,594 |
14 | The Eagle Has Landed, by Jack Higgins | 57,766 | 2,005 |
15 | The Autumn of the Patriarch, by Gabriel García Márquez | 24,899 | 4,058 |
16 | High-Rise, by J.G. Ballard | 34,989 | 2,623 |
17 | The Monkey Wrench Gang, by Edward Abbey | 27,480 | 3,045 |
18 | The Periodic Table, by Primo Levi | 17,945 | 4,151 |
19 | Iceberg, by Clive Cussler | 24,830 | 2,651 |
20 | The Philosophy of Andy Warhol | 47,171 | 1,274 |
The best-selling book of 1975 in 1975 was Ragtime, by E.L. Doctorow. I am surprised by how few of these I have read. I don’t think I had even heard of Tuck Everlasting, which seems to be a very popular American kids’ fantasy novel. Apart from the two where I have linked reviews above, I have read only Curtain and The Eagle Has Landed of the books on the list.
The 1976 Hugo and 1975 Nebula for Best Novel both went to The Forever War, which however was published in 1974. The other Hugo finalists that I have read from that year are Doorways in the Sand, by Roger Zelazny, published in Analog in 1975, and The Computer Connection by Alfred Bester and The Stochastic Man by Robert Silverberg. The very long Nebula shortlist included all of those, and also Dhalgren, by Samuel R. Delany, Missing Man, by Katherine MacLean, The Female Man, by Joanna Russ, and a bunch of others which I either haven’t read or which weren’t published in 1975, including Doctorow’s Ragtime.
Other 1975 books that I have definitely read: The History Man, by Malcolm Bradbury; World of Wonders, the third novel in the Deptford Trilogy by Robertson Davies; The Compleat Enchanter, by L. Sprague de Camp and Fletcher Pratt (though this was an omnibus of previously published stories); Danny the Champion of the World, by Roald Dahl; Turtle Diary, by Russell Hoban; The Great Ghost Rescue, by Eva Ibbotson; The Wind’s Twelve Quarters, by Ursula K. Le Guin; Changing Places, by the late David Lodge; Terms of Endearment, by Larry McMurtry; Harry’s Game, by Gerald Seymour; The Illuminatus! Trilogy, by Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson; The Great Railway Bazaar, by Paul Theroux; and last but not least, Sign of the Unicorn, by Roger Zelazny.
I have a lot of affection for several of those, and I think my favourite is The Wind’s Twelve Quarters.
Note that although ’Salem’s Lot is only just at the top of the LibraryThing numbers, it’s way ahead on Goodreads, a distinction similarly enjoyed by The Philosophy of Andy Warhol and to an extent by The Eagle has Landed and Where are the Children?. On the other hand, children’s book A Color of His Own, along with The Periodic Table and Discipline and Punishment score relatively much higher on LibraryThing.
1925
LT | GR | ||
1 | The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald | 5,485,330 | 74,942 |
2 | The Trial, by Franz Kafka | 353,223 | 20,632 |
3 | Mrs. Dalloway, by Virginia Woolf | 323,864 | 21,560 |
4 | Heart of a Dog, by Mikhail Bulgakov | 64,177 | 3,315 |
5 | Mein Kampf, by Adolf Hitler | 42,513 | 4,324 |
6 | The Painted Veil, by W. Somerset Maugham | 48,329 | 3,538 |
7 | An American Tragedy, by Theodore Dreiser | 37,661 | 4,093 |
8 | The Secret of Chimneys, by Agatha Christie | 30,059 | 3,195 |
9 | Carry On, Jeeves, by P.G. Wodehouse | 25,977 | 3,622 |
10 | The Everlasting Man, by G.K. Chesterton | 9,993 | 3,075 |
11 | 24 Hours in the Life of a Woman,by Stefan Zweig | 35,450 | 863 |
12 | The Professor’s House, by Willa Cather | 9,583 | 2,005 |
13 | Arrowsmith, by Sinclair Lewis | 8,227 | 2,168 |
14 | Manhattan Transfer, by John Dos Passos | 6,786 | 2,227 |
15 | The Counterfeiters, by André Gide | 9,811 | 1,450 |
I’ve done a bit better here, and indeed Gatsby knocks all other contenders in this post out of the park. I think I have probably also read Carry on, Jeeves, and possibly also The Secret of Chimneys though it doesn’t feature either Poirot or Miss Marple.
Of the above, only Arrowsmith was also popular in 1925, according to the Publishers Weekly list. The best-selling book of 1925 in 1925 was Soundings, by A. Hamilton Gibbs, reviewed here, which has sunk without a trace (10 raters on Goodreads, 9 owners on LibraryThing).
The other 1925 books that I am sure I have read are The Flight of the Heron, by D.K. Broster and The Fugitive aka The Sweet Cheat Gone, by Marcel Proust. I may have also read Doctor Dolittle’s Zoo, by Hugh Lofting.
I’m with the consensus here: The Great Gatsby is my favourite of those I have read. (Turns out that Fitzgerald was a distant cousin of mine.) It is far in the lead on LibraryThing and stratospherically so on Goodreads. The only other book with anything like such a strong Goodreads lean is 24 Hours in the Life of a Woman. On the other hand, Manhattan Transfer, The Everlasting Man and Arrowsmith are relatively strong on LibraryThing.
I haven’t read The School at the Chalet, the first of the Chalet School series of books by Elinor Brent-Dyer; to my surprise, both it and Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, by Anita Loos, fail to make the cut.
1875
1 | Eight Cousins, by Louisa May Alcott | 38,544 | 4,817 | |
2 | The Way We Live Now, by Anthony Trollope | 13,646 | 2,959 | |
3 | The Adolescent, by Fyodor Dostoevsky | 9,755 | 1,793 | |
4 | The Crime of Father Amaro, by Eça de Queirós | 7,159 | 814 | |
5 | Senhora, by Jose de Alencar | 6,211 | 462 | |
6 | The Law and the Lady, by Wilkie Collins | 3,251 | 778 | |
7 | Memoirs, by William Tecumseh Sherman | 2,145 | 1,048 | |
8 | The Sin of Father Mouret, by Emile Zola | 2,108 | 514 | |
9 | Science and Health: with Key to the Scriptures, by Mary Baker Eddy | 712 | 1,277 | |
10 | The Wise Woman aka The Lost Princess, by George MacDonald | 1,480 | 494 |
This required a fair bit of digging, possibly more than the exercise was really worth. I have read at least one book published in every year from 1876 to 2024 inclusive, but I don’t seem to have read anything at all published in 1875. Anna Karenina started publication in that year, but did not finish until three years later, and most people would count it for 1878. Eight Cousins is a less well known story in the Little Women universe, but still better known than any of the other 1875 books.
Senhora, the novel by Brazilian writer José de Alenca, is relatively stronger on Goodreads, which has pockets of enthusiasm in certain languages and literatures. Science and Health: with Key to the Scriptures is very unusual in having more owners on LibraryThing than raters on Goodreads.
1825
Going further back, 1825 is also pretty slim. Among a dim bunch, William Hazlitt’s Spirit of the Age seems to do best. I’ll just also note Charles Maturin’s last published story, Leixlip Castle, which is set a century earlier at a time when the castle was owned by my Whyte ancestors, though Maturin doesn’t seem to have known that.
I think I’ll give ’Salem’s Lot and Eight Cousins a go. I’m glad that the 770-page The Way We Live Now didn’t win my 1875 table. (Also I see that I also counted it last year, as publication began in 1874.)
Given new TV show, would be interesting to see if Shogun’s numbers have changed.
Suspect I have read that Elizabeth Peters, but not 100% sure.
I suspect you won’t like “The Eagle Has Landed” and the “Periodic Table” is on my to-read list.
I like The Secret of Chimneys despite occasional awful it-was-written-in the 1920s-ness.
I presume the Crimes of Father Amaro is what the film is based upon.
I greatly enjoyed The Eagle Has Landed when I was a teenager. I doubt that it would hold up now.
For some reason, the only Elizabeth Peters I have read is the fifth, The Deeds of the Disturber. I’m sure the others are all the same!
Shōgun was always popular – I remember a TV series from the 1980s as well.