Timeless Classics: A list of books published before 1960
Compiled by NEH with suggestions from schools across the nation in 1994

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 (selected)

• Austen, Jane -
• Emma
• Northanger Abbey
• Pride and Prejudice
• Sense and Sensibility
• Baldwin, James - Go Tell It on the Mountain
• 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
• Cather, Willa -
• Death Comes for the Archbishop
• My Antonia
• Cervantes, Miguel - Don Quixote
• Chaucer, Geoffrey - The Canterbury Tales
• Chekhov, Anton - The Cherry Orchard
• Conrad, Joseph -
• Heart of Darkness
• Lord Jim
• The Secret Sharer
• Victory
• Crane, Stephen - The Red Badge of Courage
• Dickens, Charles -
• Bleak House
• David Copperfield
• Great Expectations
• Hard Times
• Oliver Twist
• A Tale of Two Cities
• Dickinson, Emily - Poems
• Dostoevski, Fyodor -
• Brothers Karamazov
• Crime and Punishment
• Ellison, Ralph - Invisible Man
• Fitzgerald, F. Scott -
• The Great Gatsby
• Tender Is the Night
• Golding, William - Lord of the Flies
• Graves, Robert - I, Claudius
• Hamilton, Edith - Mythology
• 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
• 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
• Keats, John - Poems
• Lawrence, Jerome and Robert E. Lee - Inherit the Wind
• Llewellyn, Richard - How Green Was My Valley
• Melville, Herman -
• Billy Budd
• Moby-Dick
• Typee
• Miller, Arthur -
• The Crucible
• Death of a Salesman
• O'Neill, Eugene -
• The Emperor Jones
• A Long Day's Journey into Night
• Mourning Becomes Electra
• Orwell, George -
• Animal Farm
• 1984
• Poe, Edgar Allan - Short stories
• Remarque, Erich - All Quiet on the Western Front
• Rostand, Edmond - Cyrano de Bergerac
• Salinger, J.D. - The Catcher in the Rye
• Shakespeare, William - Plays and sonnets
• Shaw, George Bernard -
• Arms and the Man
• Major Barbara
• Pygmalion
• Saint Joan
• 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
• Updike, John - Rabbit Run
• Vergil - The Aeneid
• Voltaire - Candide
• Warren, Robert Penn - All the King's Men
• 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
• Wright, Richard -
• Black Boy
• Native Son