Have You Read These Great American Novels?

In “The Good Earth,” published in 1931, Pearl S. Buck tells a compassionate story of a Chinese farmer and his wife, as they struggle to survive off the land. For many American readers, Buck’s novel was their first encounter with an empathetic portrayal of Asian culture and Asian women. Buck would later win the 1938 Nobel Prize in literature in part for her depictions of peasant life in China.

The fictional Yoknapatawpha County in Mississippi is the setting for some of William Faulkner’s greatest novels, including “Light in August,” “The Sound and the Fury,” and “Absalom, Absalom!” Faulkner used the county to place the stories in a specific history and create an episodic mythology for his characters, who live and love, struggle and die in the same world across these novels.

Ralph Ellison published “Invisible Man,” his first and only novel, in 1952. The nameless narrator symbolizes the way Black men are seen — or more to the point, not seen — in America. In the book, the narrator says people “see only my surroundings, themselves, or figments of their imagination.” In this way, the nameless Black man is invisible. The novel is considered one of the greatest works of African American literature.

Ray Bradbury’s 1953 dystopian novel “Fahrenheit 451” depicts a future in which firemen actually start fires, routinely burning down entire homes where books are found. The totalitarian government convinced its people that books were dangerous, and told them to watch TV instead. The government was then able to control what information people received about the world, keeping them in ignorance.

In her 1852 novel “Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” Harriet Beecher Stowe portrayed the evils of enslavement in America to enlist new allies to the abolitionist cause. Stowe successfully brought abolition to the attention of mainstream America, and many people became invested in stopping slavery and supporting Abraham Lincoln for President — two factors that laid the groundwork for the Civil War.

John Steinbeck’s 1939 novel “The Grapes of Wrath” illustrates the destruction and desolation of the Dust Bowl. During the 1930s, the Great Plains region of the U.S. was devastated by a prolonged series of dust storms, drought, and erosion brought on by over-farming. The journey of the Joad family from Oklahoma to California shows the human suffering wrought by the disaster.

In his 1906 novel “The Jungle,” Upton Sinclair tells the story Jurgis Rudkus, a Lithuanian immigrant working in Chicago’s meatpacking district. Rudkus’ story revealed the horrific ways immigrant workers were treated, and exposed the public health dangers of processing and selling rotten meat. The book prompted the Meat Inspection Act of 1906 to regulate the meatpacking industry.

“Gentlemen Prefer Blondes” was Anita Loos’ first novel, originally serialized in “Harper’s Bazaar” in 1926. Loos adapted the story for the stage that same year, and 20 years later, turned it into a musical. The movie, starring Marilyn Monroe as the main character of Lorelei Lee, came out in 1953. The book and all its adaptations were a hit — as was Loos’ 1928 sequel, “But Gentlemen Marry Brunettes.”

“The Call of the Wild” was first published as a serial in “The Saturday Evening Post” in 1903. The story follows the story of Buck as he is captured from his home in California and shipped to Canada to serve as a sled dog during a gold rush. Throughout the story, Buck transitions from a domesticated pet to the leader of a wolf pack in the wilderness.

“The Great Gatsby” by F. Scott Fitzgerald unfolds through the first-person narration of Nick Carraway. Nick lives next door to the wealthy Jay Gatsby, who enlists Nick to reunite him with his long-lost love, Daisy Buchanan, who is Nick’s cousin. Through Nick’s eyes, readers witness Gatsby and Daisy’s love story as well as the moral corruption of excessive wealth during the American Jazz Age.

The 1960 novel “To Kill a Mockingbird” by Harper Lee is filled with nicknames. Boo Radley’s real name is Arthur, while the character Jem’s real name is Jeremy. Our narrator, who is nicknamed Scout, has the given name of Jean Louise.

In 1960, John Steinbeck drove across the United States with his French poodle, and when he wrote a book about it, he named it after his dog: ”Travels with Charley: In Search of America.” The pair took the trip while Steinbeck was in precarious health, years after publishing his acclaimed novels such as 1939's "Grapes of Wrath" and 1952's "East of Eden."

The title of David Foster Wallace’s 1996 novel “Infinite Jest” was inspired by William Shakespeare’s “Hamlet.” The name comes from a specific line in the play: In Act V, Scene 1, the eponymous Hamlet is holding the skull of the king’s jester, Yorick, and says he was “a fellow of infinite jest.”

The four sisters in the timeless and beloved young adult novel “Little Women” were named Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy. The book, written by Louisa May Alcott and published in 1868, tells the story of the girls growing up together in 19th-century New England. While their father is away fighting in the Civil War, they must care for the home, and discover who they are and what kind of life they want to lead.

Jack Kerouac’s novel “On the Road” popularized the Beat Generation, a counterculture literary movement of the 1950s. Stemming from the word “beatific,” the name refers to a group of creative intellectuals and writers, including Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, and William S. Burroughs, that felt alienated from mainstream society, and used that alienation as a form of transcendence.

Sethe is the main character in Toni Morrison’s best-known work, “Beloved” (1987), and she is a runaway slave who is haunted by the ghost of her daughter in post-Civil War Reconstruction. The story was inspired by the real life of an enslaved woman named Margaret Garner.

The eponymous whale in Herman Melville's 1851 classic “Moby Dick” was a white sperm whale. In the book, the whale is responsible for causing havoc and even severing a boat captain’s leg. In reality, though, white sperm whales are rarely aggressive.

F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel “The Great Gatsby” was set in 1920s New York, showcasing the glitz and glamour of the upper crust during the “Jazz Age.” It was a reflection of current times when the book was written in 1925. When it was first published, the book was a flop, but now it’s now considered a literary classic.

Mark Twain is the pen name of Samuel Clemens, who adopted the nom de plume in 1863, based on a memory from his time working on steamboats. When the water depth was 12 feet, a crewman would shout “mark twain!” to note the shallows. Today, the name is associated with some of the greatest works in American literature, such as "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer" and "Adventures of Huckleberry Finn."

“To Kill a Mockingbird” was the first novel published by author Harper Lee, winning her a Pulitzer Prize in 1961. A classic of American literature, the book focuses on racial inequality in the fictional town of Maycomb, Alabama, in the 1930s. The protagonist of the story is a young girl named Jean Louise “Scout” Finch, the daughter of a renowned lawyer named Atticus Finch.

Sixteen-year-old Holden Caulfield is the main character in J.D. Salinger’s “The Catcher in the Rye” (1951), and serves as our sensitive and angsty narrator throughout the novel. The book itself covers only two days in Caulfield’s life, after he’s been expelled from school. Caulfield relays the story as he grapples with the tensions of coming of age, and the phoniness he observes in adult society.