Here are the Biggest Fiction Bestsellers of the Last 100 Years
(And What Everyone Read Instead)
The best-selling fiction of the year:
1. Richard Llewellyn, How Green Was My Valley
2. Christopher Morley, Kitty Foyle
3. Jan Struther, Mrs. Miniver
4. Ernest Hemingway, For Whom the Bell Tolls
5. Sholem Asch, The Nazarene
6. F. van Wyck Mason, Stars on the Sea
7. Kenneth Roberts, Oliver Wiswell
8. John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath
9. Louis Bromfield, Night in Bombay
10. Nina Fedorova, The Family
Also published that year:
Arthur Koestler, Darkness at Noon
Carson McCullers, The Heart is a Lonely Hunter
Christina Stead, The Man Who Loved Children
Richard Wright, Native Son
The best-selling fiction of the year:
1. A. J. Cronin, The Keys of the Kingdom
2. James Hilton, Random Harvest
3. Eric Knight, This Above All
4. Marguerite Steen, The Sun Is My Undoing
5. Ernest Hemingway, For Whom the Bell Tolls
6. Kenneth Roberts, Oliver Wiswell
7. John P. Marquand, H. M. Pulham, Esquire
8. Isabel Scott Rorick, Mr. and Mrs. Cugat
9. Edna Ferber, Saratoga Trunk
10. Mary Ellen Chase, Windswept
Also published that year:
James M. Cain, Mildred Pierce
Vladimir Nabokov, The Real Life of Sebastian Knight
The best-selling fiction of the year:
1. Franz Werfel, The Song of Bernadette
2. John Steinbeck, The Moon Is Down
3. Pearl S. Buck, Dragon Seed
4. Rachel Field, And Now Tomorrow
5. Elizabeth Pickett, Drivin’ Woman
6. Mary Ellen Chase, Windswept
7. Lloyd C. Douglas, The Robe
8. Marguerite Steen, The Sun Is My Undoing
9. Henry Bellamann, Kings Row
10. A. J. Cronin, The Keys of the Kingdom
Also published that year:
William Faulkner, Go Down, Moses
C. S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters
Mary McCarthy, The Company She Keeps
The best-selling fiction of the year:
1. Lloyd C. Douglas, The Robe
2. Marcia Davenport, The Valley of Decision
3. John P. Marquand, So Little Time
4. Betty Smith, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
5. William Saroyan, The Human Comedy
6. Louis Bromfield, Mrs. Parkington
7. Sholem Asch, The Apostle
8. Daphne du Maurier, Hungry Hill
9. Hervey Allen, The Forest and the Fort
10. Franz Werfel, The Song of Bernadette
Also published that year:
Ayn Rand, The Fountainhead
The best-selling fiction of the year:
1. Lillian Smith, Strange Fruit
2. Lloyd C. Douglas, The Robe
3. Betty Smith, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
4. Kathleen Winsor, Forever Amber
5. W. Somerset Maugham, The Razor’s Edge
6. A. J. Cronin, The Green Years
7. Ben Ames Williams, Leave Her to Heaven
8. Elizabeth Goudge, Green Dolphin Street
9. John Hersey, A Bell for Adano
10. Sholem Asch, The Apostle
Also published that year:
Saul Bellow, Dangling Man
The best-selling fiction of the year:
1. Kathleen Winsor, Forever Amber
2. Lloyd C. Douglas, The Robe
3. Thomas B. Costain, The Black Rose
4. James Ramsey Ullman, The White Tower
5. Sinclair Lewis, Cass Timberlane
6. Adria Locke Langley, A Lion Is in the Streets
7. James Hilton, So Well Remembered
8. Samuel Shellabarger, Captain from Castile
9. Adria Locke Langley, Earth and High Heaven
10. Irving Stone, Immortal Wife
Also published that year:
Henry Green, Loving
Chester Himes, If He Hollers Let Him Go
Christopher Isherwood, The Berlin Stories
Nancy Mitford, The Pursuit of Love
George Orwell, Animal Farm
Evelyn Waugh, Brideshead Revisited
Richard Wright, Black Boy
The best-selling fiction of the year:
1. Daphne du Maurier, The King’s General
2. Taylor Caldwell, This Side of Innocence
3. Frances Parkinson Keyes, The River Road
4. Russell Janney, The Miracle of the Bells
5. Frederic Wakeman, The Hucksters
6. Frank Yerby, The Foxes of Harrow
7. Erich Maria Remarque, Arch of Triumph
8. Thomas B. Costain, The Black Rose
9. John P. Marquand, B. F.’s Daughter
10. Mary Jane Ward, The Snake Pit
Also published that year:
Albert Camus, The Stranger (English translation)
John Hersey, Hiroshima
Arthur Koestler, Thieves in the Night
Mervyn Peake, Titus Groan
Robert Penn Warren, All the King’s Men
The best-selling fiction of the year:
1. Russell Janney, The Miracle of the Bells
2. Thomas B. Costain, The Moneyman
3. Laura Z. Hobson, Gentleman’s Agreement
4. Kenneth Roberts, Lydia Bailey
5. Frank Yerby, The Vixens
6. John Steinbeck, The Wayward Bus
7. Ben Ames Williams, House Divided
8. Sinclair Lewis, Kingsblood Royal
9. Marcia Davenport, East Side, West Side
10. Samuel Shellabarger, Prince of Foxes
Also published that year:
Dorothy B. Hughes, In a Lonely Place
Malcolm Lowry, Under the Volcano
James A. Michener, Tales of the South Pacific
The best-selling fiction of the year:
1. Lloyd C. Douglas, The Big Fisherman
2. Norman Mailer, The Naked and the Dead
3. Frances Parkinson Keyes, Dinner at Antoine’s
4. Agnes Sligh Turnbull, The Bishop’s Mantle
5. Betty Smith, Tomorrow Will Be Better
6. Frank Yerby, The Golden Hawk
7. Ross Lockridge Jr., Raintree County
8. A. J. Cronin, Shannon’s Way
9. Elizabeth Goudge, Pilgrim’s Inn
10. Irwin Shaw, The Young Lions
Also published that year:
Albert Camus, The Plague (English translation)
Graham Greene, The Heart of the Matter
The best-selling fiction of the year:
1. Mika Waltari, The Egyptian
2. Lloyd C. Douglas, The Big Fisherman
3. Sholem Asch, Mary
4. John O’Hara, A Rage to Live
5. John P. Marquand, Point of No Return
6. Frances Parkinson Keyes, Dinner at Antoine’s
7. Thomas B. Costain, High Towers
8. Van Wyck Mason, Cutlass Empire
9. Frank Yerby, Pride’s Castle
10. Edward Streeter, Father of the Bride
Also published that year:
Paul Bowles, The Sheltering Sky
L. Ron Hubbard, Dianetics
Shirley Jackson, The Lottery and Other Stories
George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four
Jean-Paul Sartre, Nausea (English translation)]
