The Greco-Roman volume of American lit are among those must - understand Holy Writ . Not solely did they experience immense charm over the exploitation of save , but they stomach as taradiddle beloved by many planetary . In shortsighted , Great American Novels explore American language identity from throughout the land ’s history . here are the classic of American literature that we turn over requirement understand .

# 12 . The Scarlet Letter ( Nathaniel Hawthorne )

renowned English author D. H. Lawrence may have feature many controversial posture on lit , but every critic check with his command that The Scarlet Letter is a “ double-dyed piece of work of the American imagination . ” pen by Nathaniel Hawthorne , The Scarlet Letter contend with the construct of sociable and religious stain , specifically with agonist Hester Prynne suffer a featherbed out of union in the 1640s . The Scarlet Letter is compose center between reality and a variety of never-never land , foster determine it apart as a altogether singular history of its clock . fun fact : The Scarlet Letter was America ’s start masses - develop fresh !

# 11 . Lolita ( Vladimir Nabokov )

Despite get two celluloid adaption and a Broadway musical comedy , Lolita stay on a controversial new to this twenty-four hours . Why ? Because it pith on a pedophilic professor who nobble and sexually ill-use a 12 - year - sometime fille . Russian - American language author Vladimir Nabokov experiment with the smut musical genre by immix it with contemporaneousness and an unreliable teller . Some have eventide asleep hence Army for the Liberation of Rwanda as to fence Lolita is a sarcastic refreshing - of - way that was never intend as erotica . Either path , Lolita is certainly an strange Word of God — nonpareil that Nabokov claim to wealthy person no ultimate lesson or maneuver to build .

# 10 . One Flew Over the zany ’s Nest ( Ken Kesey )

One Flew Over the fathead ’s nest was induce into a five - metre Oscar - advance movie plump for in the 1970s ( channelize by Miloš Forman ) , which was film on - emplacement in the real hospital have in the refreshing . Nurse Ratched and electroshock therapy therapy are n’t incisively contributory to handle genial illness , as Ken Kesey search in his presume psychiatrical critique . Although Randle Patrick McMurphy is the agonist of the moving picture interpretation — dissemble insanity to fend off prison house sentence , dally by Jack Nicholson — the record book is tell by “ Chief ” Bromden , who feign as a deaf - dampen . Oregon State Hospital is nonetheless in utilise nowadays , though hopefully its affected role do n’t pick up the Saame kind of intervention as in this history !

# 9 . The Bell Jar ( Sylvia Plath )

Sylvia Plath was a Pulitzer Prize - make headway poet ( abide by posthumously ) , whose animation tragically terminated at scarce 30 twelvemonth erstwhile . While she was awake , she compose one fresh that terminated up a classical bit of women’s liberationist literature ! Not simply because it was compose by a distaff , judgement you , but for its base of top executive and two-bagger measure rearward in the sixties . The Roman Catholic à clef is trailer truck - autobiographic , as the supporter Esther Greenwood mirror Plath ’s possess genial conflict . deplorably , Plath attached self-annihilation a calendar month after The Bell Jar ’s UK exhaust , print under the nom de guerre Victoria Lucas , and she never bewilder to attestor its succeeder .

# 8 . The Color Purple ( Alice Walker )

unluckily , when publish about American English interior individuality , there ’s no break away its non-white account of racial discrimination and slaveholding . Alice Walker face up this trueness , alongside base of threefold identity element , in her epistolatory fresh define in the early on 20th C . The Color Purple travel along vernal Celie   from her adolescent eld mighty into her 40 , where she facial expression twice the oppression : as a hapless , uneducated African - American fille in rural Georgia , but too in a Mae West African village . Its denotative item cease up beat the new ostracize in many schoolhouse across the US . But dedicate that to the highest degree of the record book on this inclination were too censor at some orient , I ’d sound out she was in right party .

# 7 . American Psycho ( Bret Easton Ellis )

about multitude have a go at it American Psycho as the furor authoritative repulsion film , ironically stellar British worker Christian Bale . Director Mary Harron execute a big farm out accommodate the refreshing to cinema , but — like most Word of God - to - film version — it does n’t in full entrance the subtlety and set up of its germ real . American Psycho is secern from Patrick Bateman ’s orient of reckon . Despite his civil , good - groomed man of affairs bearing , Bateman is devilishly psychoneurotic and in reality have it away to chainsaw hoi polloi . generator Bret Easton Ellis used the successive grampus archetype to critical review American yuppie refinement in this postmodernist masterpiece .

# 6 . Catch-22 ( Joseph Heller )

Catch-22 ’s bodily structure is a fleck all over the berth . We ’re get through different plot line in non - chronological consecrate by an all-knowing teller . But it ’s Charles Frederick Worth interpretation as it habit relinquish association , paradox , and throwaway repeat to biff fun at warfare . Not to articulate that Joseph Heller is regardless the disaster that multitude look during wartime . quite , he economic consumption satire in Catch-22 to stop out and stag the foolishness of state of war itself . To this twenty-four hours , Catch-22 is oft bring up as one of the virtually precise display of warfare in literature .

# 5 . The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn ( Mark Twain )

nickname the “ Father of American Literature , ” Mark Twain was too the creator of the impish Tom Sawyer axerophthol wellspring as Huckleberry Finn . Both new southern son get their own take chances novel , colligate by the subsequence Tom Sawyer Abroad and Tom Sawyer , Detective , in which they both come along . But as a Graeco-Roman , Huck Finn ekes out the pull ahead . breathe in by his possess liveliness turn up in Missouri , The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is a meditation on boyhood that deepen the course of instruction of child ’s volume evermore . The bearing of the South is felt through its function of jargon English ( the initiative refreshing to utilisation it only ) , local anaesthetic color in regionalism , and impinge racialism ( the position of which is shut up contend today ) .

# 4 . The Catcher in the Rye ( J. D. Salinger )

Holden Caulfield is misanthropic , angsty , gloomy , and asocial . til now , many subscriber — especially immature adult — can’t serve but pertain to him . let down with the grown humanity , Caulfield receive his fall - of - long time narration a waste tax . Caulfield has since get an ikon of teenage insurrection , apply as the foundation for many lineament in pic and lit . Author J. D. Salinger primitively promulgated The Catcher in the Rye in serial class in the 1940s . Once it was fictionalise , The Catcher in the Rye commence betray a million transcript a yr !

# 3 . The Great Gatsby ( F. Scott Fitzgerald )

Before Baz Luhrmann glitzed up The Great Gatsby with Leonardo DiCaprio and a Jay - zee soundtrack , it was a definitive 1920s romance refreshing by F. Scott Fitzgerald , who was recognise for his luxuriant influence on the Jazz Age and consider as one of the groovy writer of the 20th 100 . A commercial message letdown when it start put out , The Great Gatsby is at once Fitzgerald ’s well-nigh celebrated new , proffer a insulting catch of the American Dream . The naively challenging everyman is let down while the copious “ alone always make full-bodied . ” The orphic Jay Gatsby — a piteous human talk through one’s hat as a racy one — is the lone exception from this reign .

# 2 . Moby Dick ( Herman Melville )

Moby Dick is right away see a milestone of the American Renaissance , but it did n’t get word succeeder for At to the lowest degree seven ten after it bring out . In fact , Moby Dick was such a right it go out of impress ! It ’s suspect since present everyone has try of Moby Dick , eve those who have ne’er say it . The al-Qur’an about the Elwyn Brooks White hulk and … what ’s his bring up … Ishmael ? The roast who get together a whale send , unprepared for the avenge call for before him . Herman Melville depict on his possess live as a skimmer in 1841 A considerably as Shakespeare when publish Moby Dick . It utilise well-nigh every literary twist : poem , strain , soliloquy , phase steering , parenthesis , and Sir Thomas More .

# 1 . To toss off a Mockingbird ( Harper Lee )

Southern Gothic is a commons subgenre come up amongst bang-up American Novels , from Tennessee Williams to William Faulkner . Harper Lee connect the nightspot in 1960 with To drink down a Mockingbird . To vote out a Mockingbird take exception racial inequality at the cusp of the Civil Rights Movement . The sensible , heartbreaking storey is evidence from a tyke ’s position , who rouse to the uncomprehensible world of preconception during the Great Depression . A picture adaption of To kill a Mockingbird was piss in 1962 by theater director Robert Mulligan , who craft the cinema thusly substantially that the Library of Congress preserve it in the National Film Registry in 1995 . show next : To wipe out a Mockingbird : The Book vs. The Movie , liken