100 of the Greatest Novels That Have Withstood the Test of Time: (1-20)

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Widely regarded as the world's first modern novel, "Don Quixote" chronicles the famous picaresque adventures of the noble knight-errant Don Quixote de La Mancha and his faithful squire, Sancho Panza, as they travel through sixteenth-century Spain.

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"Alice's Adventures in Wonderful" details the story of a young girl named Alice who falls through a rabbit hole into a fantasy world of anthropomorphic creatures; its narrative, structure, characters and imagery have had a widespread influence on popular culture and literature, especially in the fantasy genre.

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Set in a Southern antebellum society that had ceased to exist over 20 years before the work was published, "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" is an often scathing satire on entrenched attitudes, particularly racism and freedom.

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In the novel, Tom Sawyer has several adventures, often with his friend Huckleberry Finn and is considered by many to be a masterpiece of American Literature

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From young Jim Hawkins’s first encounter with the sinister beggar Pew to the climactic battle with the most memorable villain in literature, Long John Silver, this novel has fired readers’ imaginations for generations.

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A novel of manners, "Pride and Prejudice" follows the character development of Elizabeth Bennet, the protagonist of the book, who learns about the repercussions of hasty judgments and comes to appreciate the difference between superficial goodness and actual goodness.

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"Wuthering Heights" concerns two families of the landed gentry living on the West Yorkshire moors, the Earnshaws and the Lintons, and their turbulent relationships with the Earnshaws' foster son, Heathcliff.

Orphaned into the household of her Aunt Reed at Gateshead, subject to the cruel regime at Lowood charity school, Jane Eyre nonetheless emerges unbroken in spirit and integrity. How she takes up the post of governess at Thornfield Hall, meets and loves Mr Rochester and discovers the impediment to their lawful marriage are elements in a story that transcends melodrama to portray a woman's passionate search for a wider and richer life than that traditionally accorded to her sex in Victorian society.

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"Moby Dick" is the sailor Ishmael's narrative of the maniacal quest of Ahab, captain of the whaling ship Pequod, for vengeance against Moby Dick, the giant white sperm whale that bit off his leg on the ship's previous voyage.

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Set in the Puritan Massachusetts Bay Colony during the years 1642 to 1649, "The Scarlet Letter" tells the story of Hester Prynne, who conceives a daughter with a man to whom she is not married and then struggles to create a new life of repentance and dignity.

"Gulliver's Travels" is a 1726 prose satire by the Anglo-Irish writer and clergyman Jonathan Swift, satirising both human nature and the "travellers' tales" literary subgenre.

In John Bunyan's timeless allegory, Christian sets off on a journey to find salvation. His path is not easy, and he is beset by trials, including the destructive Apollyon and the Giant Despair, as he pursues his pilgrimage through the Slough of Despond, the Delectable Mountains and Vanity Fair towards the Celestial City.

"A Christmas Carol" tells the story of Ebenezer Scrooge, an old miser who is visited by the ghost of his former business partner Jacob Marley and the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Yet to Come. After their visits Scrooge is transformed into a kinder, gentler man.

"David Copperfield" is the story of a young man's adventures on his journey from an unhappy and impoverished childhood to the discovery of his vocation as a successful novelist.

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"A Tale of Two Cities" tells the story of the French Doctor Manette, his 18-year-long imprisonment in the Bastille in Paris and his release to live in London with his daughter Lucie, whom he had never met.

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The charming story of four 'little women' - Meg, Jo, Amy and Beth - and their wise and patient mother Marmee, was an instant success when first published in 1868.

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"Great Expectations" is set in Kent and London in the early to mid-19th century and contains some of Dickens's most celebrated scenes, starting in a graveyard, where the young Pip is accosted by the escaped convict Abel Magwitch.

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"The Hobbit" is set in Middle-earth and follows home-loving Bilbo Baggins, the hobbit of the title, who joins the wizard Gandalf and the thirteen dwarves of Thorin's Company, on a quest to reclaim the dwarves' home and treasure from the dragon Smaug.

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"Frankenstein" tells the story of Victor Frankenstein, a young scientist who creates a sapient creature in an unorthodox scientific experiment.

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"Oliver Twist" follows the titular orphan, who, after being raised in a workhouse, escapes to London, where he meets a gang of juvenile pickpockets led by the elderly criminal Fagin, discovers the secrets of his parentage, and reconnects with his remaining family.