Timeless Classics
An old Chinese proverb says, "A book is like a garden in the
pocket." Many of us who have valued reading in our early years derive
enjoyment from reading to our children, and now, as I do, to our
grandchildren. Books are voyages of discovery and transforming
instruments to all of us.
A few years ago, the National Endowment for the Humanities asked
schools around the country to send reading lists of their favorite
books. Noticing how often books that other generations have enjoyed
appear on these lists, we decided to make this compilation of tried-and-
true titles. The works herein, published in 1960 or earlier, have
delighted generations of readers.
Some have asked, "Is the book dead?" as we move into new computer
technologies. Not at all. Print text will co-exist with these new
mediums.
As concerned parents, educators, and counselors, we must continue to
emphasize the importance of access to good reading in order to shape our
students' learning process, enhance their understanding of American
heritage, and open up a new world of self-fulfillment. As Aldous Huxley
said, "The proper study of mankind is books."
There are some excellent older books that are missing from the list,
because they appeared too infrequently in the school selections: Kate
Douglas Wiggin's Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm, for example; Dylan Thomas's
A Child's Christmas in Wales; Frederick Douglass's Narrative of the Life
of Frederick Douglass. Despite the absences, we hope this compilation
will nevertheless bring hours of pleasure and enlightenment.
The titles presented for suggested extracurricular reading provide a
solid foundation and hours of enjoyment for students and scholars of all
ages.
We at NEH hope that the "Timeless Classics" booklist will continue
to be a rich source of material for everyone.
Sheldon Hackney
Chairman
"Books are humanity in print" ...Barbara Tuchman
"Literature is an investment of genius which pays
dividends to all subsequent times." ...John Burroughs
"All that mankind has done, thought, gained, or been: it is
lying as in magic preservation in the pages of books." ...Thomas Carlyle
### Kindergarten through Grade 6 ###
Adamson, Joy
Born Free
Aesop
Fables*
Alcott, Louisa May
Little Women
Andersen, Hans Christian
Fairy tales
Atwater, Richard and Florence
Mr. Popper's Penguins*
Bailey, Carolyn Sherwin
Miss Hickory
* Recommended for K-3, either for reading
by children or for reading to them.
Barrie, J.M.
Peter Pan
Baum, L. Frank
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
Bemelmans, Ludwig
Madeline series*
Bond, Michael
A Bear Called Paddington
Boston, L.M.
The Children of Green Knowe
Brink, Carol Ryrie
Caddie Woodlawn
Brown, Margaret Wise
Goodnight, Moon*
Brunhoff, Jean de
The Story of Babar*
Burnett, Frances Hodgson
The Secret Garden
Burton, Virginia Lee
Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel*
Butterworth, Oliver
The Enormous Egg
Clark, Ann Nolan
Secret of the Andes
Cleary, Beverly
Henry Huggins series
Coatsworth, Elizabeth
The Cat Who Went to Heaven
Dalgliesh, Alice
The Bears on Hemlock Mountain*
The Courage of Sarah Noble*
De Angeli, Marguerite
The Door in the Wall
De Jong, Meindert
The House of Sixty Fathers
The Wheel on the School
Dodge, Mary Mapes
Hans Brinker, or the Silver Skates
Du Bois, William Pene
The Twenty-One Balloons
Edmonds, Walter D.
The Matchlock Gun
Estes, Eleanor
Ginger Pye
Moffats series
Farley, Walter
The Black Stallion
Field, Rachel
Hitty, Her First Hundred Years
Fritz, Jean
The Cabin Faced West
Gilbreth, Frank B. and
Ernestine G. Carey
Cheaper By the Dozen
Gipson, Fred
Old Yeller
Godden, Rumer
The Mousewife*
Grahame, Kenneth
The Reluctant Dragon*
The Wind in the Willows f
Gray, Elizabeth Janet
Adam of the Road
Grimm, Jacob and Wilhelm
Grimm's Fairy Tales
Hawes, Charles
The Dark Frigate
Haywood, Carolyn
Betsy series*
Henry, Marguerite
King of the Wind
Misty of Chincoteague
Keith, Harold
Rifles for Watie
Kelly, Eric
The Trumpeter of Krakow
Kipling, Rudyard
Captains Courageous
Just So Stories for
Little Children*
The Jungle Books
Kjelgaard, Jim
Big Red
Knight, Eric
Lassie Come Home
Krumgold, Joseph
...and Now Miguel
Onion John
LaFarge, Oliver
Laughing Boy
Lamb, Charles and Mary
Tales from Shakespear
Latham, Jean Lee
Carry on, Mr. Bowditch
Lawson, Robert
Ben & Me
Rabbit Hill
Leaf, Munro
The Story of Ferdinand*
Lear, Edward
Book of Nonsense*
Lenski, Lois
Strawberry Girl
Lewis, C.S.
Chronicles of Narnia series
Lindgren, Astrid
Pippi Longstocking series
Lofting, Hugh
Doctor Doolittle series
London, Jack
The Call of the Wild
White Fang
MacDonald, Betty
Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle*
MacGregor, Ellen
Miss Pickerell series
McCloskey, Robert
Blueberries for Sal*
Homer Price
Make Way for Ducklings*
McSwigan, Marie
Snow Treasure
Meigs, Cornelia
Invincible Louisa
Milne, A.A.
The House at Pooh Corner*
Now We Are Six*
When We Were Very Young*
Winnie-the-Pooh*
Minarik, Else Holmelund
Little Bear
Montgomery, L.M.
Anne of Green Gables
Mukerji, Dhan Ghopal
Gay-Neck, the Story of a Pigeon
Norton, Mary
The Borrowers series
O'Hara, Mary
My Friend Flicka
Pearce, Philippa
Tom's Midnight Garden
Perrault, Charles
Cinderella*
Potter, Beatrix
The Tale of Peter Rabbit*
Pyle, Howard
The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood
Rey, H.A.
Curious George series*
Richter, Conrad
The Light in the Forest
Selden, George
The Cricket in Times Square*
Seuss, Dr.
The Cat in the Hat*
Sewell, Anna
Black Beauty
Sorenson, Virginia
Miracles on Maple Hill
Speare, Elizabeth George
The Witch of Blackbird Pond
Sperry, Armstrong
Call It Courage
Spyri, Johanna
Heidi
Steinbeck, John
The Red Pony
Stevenson, Robert Louis
A Child's Garden of Verses*
Kidnapped
Treasure Island
Travers, Pamela L.
Mary Poppins series
Van Loon, Hendrik
The Story of Mankind
White, E.B.
Charlotte's Web
Stuart Little
Wilder, Laura Ingalls
Little House series
Williams, Margery
The Velveteen Rabbit*
Wyss, Johann
Swiss Family Robinson
Zion, Gene
Harry the Dirty Dog*
### Grades 7 and 8 ###
Alcott, Louisa May
Little Men
Bagnold, Enid
National Velvet
Blackmore, Richard D.
Lorna Doone
Boulle, Pierre
The Bridge over the River Kwai
Bradbury, Ray
Dandelion Wine
Fahrenheit 451
The Illustrated Man
Martian Chronicles
Buchan, John
The Thirty-Nine Steps
Bunyan, John
The Pilgrim's Progress
Carroll, Lewis
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
Through the Looking Glass
Clark, Walter
The Ox-Bow Incident
Cooper, James Fenimore
The Deerslayer
The Last of the Mohicans
Curie, Eve
Madame Curie: A Biography
Dana, Richard Henry
Two Years before the Mast
Day, Clarence
Life with Father
Defoe, Daniel
Robinson Crusoe
Dickens, Charles
A Christmas Carol
Douglas, Lloyd C.
The Robe
Doyle, Arthur Conan
Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
Dumas, Alexander
The Count of Monte Christo
The Three Musketeers
Du Maurier, Daphne
Rebecca
Edmonds, Walter D.
Drums along the Mohawk
Ferber, Edna
Cimarron
Forbes, Esther
Johnny Tremain
Forester, C.S.
The African Queen
The Hornblower series
Frank, Anne
Diary of a Young Girl
Frost, Robert
Poems
Gallico, Paul
The Snow Goose
Gunther, John
Death Be Not Proud
Guthrie, A.B.
The Big Sky
Haggard, H. Rider
King Solomon's Mines
Hansberry, Lorraine
Raisin in the Sun
Hemingway, Ernest
The Old Man and the Sea
Hersey, John
A Bell for Adano
Hiroshima
The Wall
Heyerdahl, Thor
Kon-Tiki
Hilton, James
Goodbye, Mr. Chips
Lost Horizon
Hudson, W.H.
Green Mansions
Hughes, Richard
A High Wind in Jamaica
Hugo, Victor
The Hunchback of Notre Dame
Irving, Washington
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow
Keller, Helen
Story of My Life
Kennedy, John F.
Profiles in Courage
Kipling, Rudyard
Kim
Knowles, John
A Separate Peace
Lee, Harper
To Kill a Mockingbird
London, Jack
The Sea Wolf
Lord, Walter
A Night to Remember
Malory, Sir Thomas
Le Morte d'Arthur
Maxwell, Gavin
Ring of Bright Water
McCullers, Carson
Member of the Wedding
Michener, James
The Bridges at Toko-Ri
Mitchell, Margaret
Gone with the Wind
Nordhoff, Charles and J.N. Hall
Mutiny on the Bounty
O'Dell, Scott
Island of the Blue Dolphins
Orczy, Baroness Emma
The Scarlet Pimpernel
Paton, Alan
Cry, the Beloved Country
Pyle, Howard
Men of Iron
Rawlings, Marjorie Kinnan
The Yearling
Renault, Mary
The King Must Die
Roberts, Kenneth
Northwest Passage
Saint-Exupery, Antoine de
The Little Prince
Wind, Sand and Stars
Saki
Stories
Schaefer, Jack
Shane
Scott, Sir Walter
Ivanhoe
Shelley, Mary
Frankenstein
Smith, Betty
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
Steinbeck, John
The Pearl
Tortilla Flat
Stevenson, Robert Louis
The Black Arrow
The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll
and Mr. Hyde
Stoker, Bram
Dracula
Thurber, James
The Thurber Carnival
Tolkien, J.R.R.
The Hobbit
The Lord of the Rings
Twain, Mark
The Adventures of
Huckleberry Finn
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
A Connecticut Yankee in
King Arthur's Court
Innocents Abroad
Life on the Mississippi
The Prince and the Pauper
Verne, Jules
Around the World in Eighty Days
Journey to the Center of the Earth
Mysterious Island
20,000 Leagues under the Sea
Wallace, Lewis
Ben-Hur
Washington, Booker T.
Up from Slavery
Wells, H.G.
The Time Machine
War of the Worlds
Wharton, Edith
Ethan Frome
Wilder, Thornton
The Bridge of San Luis Rey
Wister, Owen
The Virginian
Yates, Elizabeth
Amos Fortune, Free Man
### Grades 9 through 12 ###
Agee, James
A Death in the Family
Anderson, Sherwood
Winesburg, Ohio
Austen, Jane
Emma
Northanger Abbey
Pride and Prejudice
Sense and Sensibility
Baldwin, James
Go Tell It on the Mountain
Balzac, Honore de
Pere Goriot
Beckett, Samuel
Waiting for Godot
The Bible
Old Testament
New Testament
Bolt, Robert
A Man for All Seasons
Bronte, Charlotte
Jane Eyre
Bronte, Emily
Wuthering Heights
Browning, Robert
Poems
Buck, Pearl
The Good Earth
Butler, Samuel
The Way of All Flesh
Camus, Albert
The Plague
The Stranger
Cather, Willa
Death Comes for the Archbishop
My Antonia
Cervantes, Miguel
Don Quixote
Chaucer, Geoffrey
The Canterbury Tales
Chekhov, Anton
The Cherry Orchard
Chopin, Kate
The Awakening
Collins, Wilkie
The Moonstone
Conrad, Joseph
Heart of Darkness
Lord Jim
The Secret Sharer
Victory
Crane, Stephen
The Red Badge of Courage
Dante
The Divine Comedy
Defoe, Daniel
Moll Flanders
Dickens, Charles
Bleak House
David Copperfield
Great Expectations
Hard Times
Oliver Twist
A Tale of Two Cities
Dickinson, Emily
Poems
Dinesen, Isak
Out of Africa
Dostoevski, Fyodor
Brothers Karamazov
Crime and Punishment
Dreiser, Theodore
An American Tragedy
Sister Carrie
Eliot, George
Adam Bede
Middlemarch
Mill on the Floss
Silas Marner
Eliot, T.S.
Murder in the Cathedral
Ellison, Ralph
Invisible Man
Emerson, Ralph Waldo
Essays
Faulkner, William
Absalom, Absalom!
As I Lay Dying
Intruder in the Dust
Light in August
The Sound and the Fury
Fielding, Henry
Joseph Andrews
Tom Jones
Fitzgerald, F. Scott
The Great Gatsby
Tender Is the Night
Flaubert, Gustave
Madame Bovary
Forster, E.M.
A Passage to India
A Room with a View
Franklin, Benjamin
The Autobiography of
Benjamin Franklin
Galsworthy, John
The Forsyte Saga
Golding, William
Lord of the Flies
Goldsmith, Oliver
She Stoops to Conquer
Graves, Robert
I, Claudius
Greene, Graham
The Heart of the Matter
The Power and the Glory
Hamilton, Edith
Mythology
Hardy, Thomas
Far From the Madding Crowd
Jude the Obscure
The Mayor of Casterbridge
The Return of the Native
Tess of the D'Urbervilles
Hawthorne, Nathaniel
The House of the Seven Gables
The Scarlet Letter
Hemingway, Ernest
A Farewell to Arms
For Whom the Bell Tolls
The Sun Also Rises
Henry, O.
Stories
Hersey, John
A Single Pebble
Hesse, Hermann
Demian
Siddhartha
Steppenwolf
Homer
The Iliad
The Odyssey
Hughes, Langston
Poems
Hugo, Victor
Les Miserables
Huxley, Aldous
Brave New World
Ibsen, Henrik
A Doll's House
An Enemy of the People
Ghosts
Hedda Gabler
The Master Builder
The Wild Duck
James, Henry
The American
Daisy Miller
Portrait of a Lady
The Turn of the Screw
Joyce, James
Portrait of the Artist
As a Young Man
Dubliners
Kafka, Franz
The Castle
Metamorphosis
The Trial
Keats, John
Poems
Kerouac, Jack
On the Road
Koestler, Arthur
Darkness at Noon
Lawrence, D.H.
Sons and Lovers
Lawrence, Jerome and Robert E. Lee
Inherit the Wind
Lewis, Sinclair
Arrowsmith
Babbitt
Main Street
Llewellyn, Richard
How Green Was My Valley
Machiavelli
The Prince
MacLeish, Archibald
J.B.
Mann, Thomas
Buddenbrooks
The Magic Mountain
Marlowe, Christopher
Dr. Faustus
Maugham, Somerset
Of Human Bondage
McCullers, Carson
The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter
Melville, Herman
Billy Budd
Moby-Dick
Typee
Miller, Arthur
The Crucible
Death of a Salesman
Monsarrat, Nicholas
The Cruel Sea
O'Neill, Eugene
The Emperor Jones
A Long Day's Journey into Night
Mourning Becomes Electra
Orwell, George
Animal Farm
1984
Pasternak, Boris
Doctor Zhivago
Poe, Edgar Allan
Short stories
Remarque, Erich
All Quiet on the Western Front
Rolvaag, O.E.
Giants in the Earth
Rostand, Edmond
Cyrano de Bergerac
Salinger, J.D.
The Catcher in the Rye
Sandburg, Carl
Abraham Lincoln:
The Prairie Years
Abraham Lincoln:
The War Years
Saroyan, William
The Human Comedy
Sayers, Dorothy
The Nine Tailors
Shakespeare, William
Plays and sonnets
Shaw, George Bernard
Arms and the Man
Major Barbara
Pygmalion
Saint Joan
Sheridan, Richard B.
The School for Scandal
Shute, Nevil
On the Beach
Sinclair, Upton
The Jungle
Sophocles
Antigone
Oedipus Rex
Steinbeck, John
East of Eden
The Grapes of Wrath
Of Mice and Men
Stowe, Harriet Beecher
Uncle Tom's Cabin
Swift, Jonathan
Gulliver's Travels
Thackeray, William M.
Vanity Fair
Thoreau, Henry David
Walden
Tolstoy, Leo
Anna Karenina
War and Peace
Trollope, Anthony
Barchester Towers
Turgenev, Ivan
Fathers and Sons
Twain, Mark
Pudd'nhead Wilson
Updike, John
Rabbit Run
Vergil
The Aeneid
Voltaire
Candide
Warren, Robert Penn
All the King's Men
Waugh, Evelyn
Brideshead Revisited
A Handful of Dust
Wharton, Edith
Age of Innocence
White, T.H.
The Once and Future King
The Sword in the Stone
Wilde, Oscar
The Importance of Being Earnest
The Picture of Dorian Gray
Wilder, Thornton
Our Town
Williams, Tennessee
The Glass Menagerie
A Streetcar Named Desire
Wolfe, Thomas
Look Homeward, Angel
Woolf, Virginia
Mrs. Dalloway
To the Lighthouse
Wouk, Herman
The Caine Mutiny
Wright, Richard
Black Boy
Native Son
.
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