The Iliad and The Odyssey (c. 850 B.C.). Homer
The Dialogues. Plato (c. 427-347 B.C.)
On the History of Plants; On the Causes of Plants. Theophastus (c. 370-287 B.C.)
Organon; Physics; On the Heavens; Meterorologics; Mechanics; Nicomachean Ethics; De Anima; Politics; Rhetoric; Poetics. Aristotle (c. 384-322 B.C.)
Elements of Geometry. Euclid (c. 330 B.C.)
Orations; Letters; Philosophical Essays; Republic; Laws. Marcus Tullius Cicero (106-43 B.C.)
Confessions (397-398). Saint Augustine of Hippo
The Quran (609-632)
The Meadows of Gold and Mines of Gems (947). Abu al-Hasan Ali ibn al-Husayn ibn Ali al-Mas’udi
History of the Kings of England (1136). Geoffrey of Monmouth
Summa Theologiae (1265). Thomas Aquinas
The Divine Comedy (1320). Dante Alighieri
The Decameron (1353). Giovanni Boccaccio
The Canterbury Tales (1380). Geoffrey Chaucer
In Praise of Folly (1509). Desiderius Erasmus
Gargantua & Pantagruel (1532 & 1534). François Rabelais
On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres (1543). Nicolaus Copernicus
Acts and Monuments or the Book of Martyrs (1563). John Foxe
Arcadia or The Countess of Pembroke’s Arcadia (1580s). Sir Philip Sidney
King James Bible (1604-11)
Don Quixote de la Mancha (1605). Miguel de Cervantes
First Folio (1623). William Shakespeare
Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems (1632). Galileo Galilei
Ethics (1677). Benedictus de Spinoza
Pilgrim’s Progress (1678-1684). John Bunyan
The Way of the World (1700). William Congreve
Robinson Crusoe (1719). Daniel Defoe
Gulliver’s Travels (1726 & 1735). Jonathan Swift
The Gentleman’s Magazine (1731-1922). Edward Cave
Candide or All for the Best (1759). Voltaire
Encyclopédie ou Dictionnaire des sciences, des arts et des métiers (1751-1772). Denis Diderot and Jean le Rond d’Alembert
A Dictionary of the English Language (1755). Samuel Johnson
The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman (1759). Laurence Sterne
Boswell’s London Journal: 1762-1763. James Boswell
Confessions (1781). Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Songs of Innocence and Experience (1789). William Blake
Pride and Prejudice (1813). Jane Austen
Frankenstein or The Modern Prometheus (1818). Mary Shelley
Ivanhoe (1819). Walter Scott
Jane Eyre (1847). Charlotte Brontë
North and South (1855). Elizabeth Gaskell
Origin of the Species (1859). Charles Darwin
Great Expectations (1860-1861). Charles Dickens
Our Mutual Friend (1864-1865). Charles Dickens
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1865). Lewis Carroll
Middlemarch (1871-2). George Eliot
Oxford English Dictionary or OED (1884-1928). Oxford University Press
Dracula (1897). Bram Stoker
Fahrenheit 451 (1953). Ray Bradbury
The Name of the Rose (1980). Umberto Eco
Flaubert’s Parrot (1984). Julian Barnes
The Swerve (2012). Stephen Greenblatt