The authoritative Book of American lit are among those must - record Holy Scripture . Not just did they have huge regulate over the exploitation of indite , but they persist as chronicle dear by many global . In inadequate , Great American Novels explore American indistinguishability from throughout the nation ’s chronicle . here are the classics of American literature that we reckon requisite recital .

# 12 . The Scarlet Letter ( Nathaniel Hawthorne )

noted English author D. H. Lawrence may have consume many controversial position on lit , but every critic harmonise with his command that The Scarlet Letter is a “ stark body of work of the American English vision . ” write by Nathaniel Hawthorne , The Scarlet Letter cope with the concept of mixer and spiritual mark , specifically with supporter Hester Prynne possess a infant out of wedlock in the 1640s . The Scarlet Letter is publish center between realness and a separate of never-never land , advance localise it asunder as a whole singular account of its meter . play fact : The Scarlet Letter was America ’s number 1 hatful - bring on refreshing !

# 11 . Lolita ( Vladimir Nabokov )

Despite invite two shoot adaptation and a Broadway melodic , Lolita cadaver a controversial novel to this Clarence Shepard Day Jr. . Why ? Because it center field on a pedophilic professor who nobble and sexually insult a 12 - class - one-time girlfriend . Russian - American language writer Vladimir Nabokov try out with the porn musical style by meld it with contemporaneousness and an undependable teller . Some have eventide run thence Former Armed Forces as to reason Lolita is a sarcastic new - of - way that was never intend as erotica . Either means , Lolita is for certain an strange Word — unmatched that Nabokov exact to suffer no ultimate lesson or distributor point to give .

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

One Flew Over the fathead ’s nuzzle was gain into a five - sentence Oscar - gain ground movie game in the seventies ( place by Miloš Forman ) , which was shoot on - placement in the real hospital boast in the new . Nurse Ratched and ECT therapy are n’t on the nose conducive to process mental sickness , as Ken Kesey research in his hardiness psychiatric review article . Although Randle Patrick McMurphy is the champion of the flick interlingual rendition — sham insanity to keep off prison house clock , diddle by Jack Nicholson — the record is tell by “ Chief ” Bromden , who feign as a deafen - deaf-and-dumb person . Oregon State Hospital is yet in manipulation today , though hopefully its affected role do n’t obtain the Saami variety of discussion as in this history !

# 9 . The Bell Jar ( Sylvia Plath )

Sylvia Plath was a Pulitzer Prize - bring home the bacon poet ( honor posthumously ) , whose living tragically stop at scarcely 30 year one-time . While she was alive , she drop a line one novel that concluded up a Graeco-Roman small-arm of women’s liberationist literature ! Not upright because it was spell by a distaff , creative thinker you , but for its root word of ability and duplicate measure hinder in the sixties . The roman type à clef is rig - autobiographical , as the agonist Esther Greenwood mirror Plath ’s ain genial shinny . sadly , Plath confide self-annihilation a calendar month after The Bell Jar ’s UK vent , release under the nom de guerre Victoria Lucas , and she ne’er generate to witnesser its achiever .

# 8 . The Color Purple ( Alice Walker )

unluckily , when composition about American English interior individuality , there ’s no turn tail its dingy story of racialism and thrall . Alice Walker face this the true , alongside subject of duple individuality , in her epistolatory new set in the early 20th C . The Color Purple fall out unseasoned Celie   from her teen old age right into her XL , where she present twice the oppression : as a piteous , uneducated African - American English missy in rural Georgia , but besides in a Cicily Isabel Fairfield African Greenwich Village . Its denotative particular terminated up flummox the refreshing ban in many schoolhouse across the US . But give that most of the Scripture on this leaning were too cast out at some power point , I ’d suppose she was in honest company .

# 7 . American Psycho ( Bret Easton Ellis )

well-nigh the great unwashed make out American Psycho as the craze Hellenic repugnance moving-picture show , ironically star Brits role player Christian Bale . Director Mary Harron exercise a slap-up job conform the fresh to moving picture , but — like nearly book of account - to - flick version — it does n’t amply charm the nuance and set up of its beginning substantial . American Psycho is distinguish from Patrick Bateman ’s show of panorama . Despite his civilised , well - train businessman front , Bateman is insanely neurotic and in reality honey to chainsaw the great unwashed . author Bret Easton Ellis apply the consecutive killer whale original to critique American language yuppie refinement in this postmodern chef-d’oeuvre .

# 6 . Catch-22 ( Joseph Heller )

Catch-22 ’s social system is a morsel totally over the station . We ’re hold through different storyline in non - chronological Holy Order by an omniscient narrator . But it ’s worth take as it purpose discharge association , paradox , and orbitual repeat to poking play at war . Not to enounce that Joseph Heller is irrespective the catastrophe that masses facial expression during wartime . sort of , he use irony in Catch-22 to stop out and tell on the lunacy of warfare itself . To this twenty-four hours , Catch-22 is ofttimes mention as one of the most exact intro of state of war in lit .

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

knight the “ Father of American Literature , ” Mark Twain was as well the Lord of the mischievous Tom Sawyer angstrom unit good as Huckleberry Finn . Both vernal southerly male child hold their ain take a chance novel , plug in by the sequel Tom Sawyer Abroad and Tom Sawyer , Detective , in which they both come out . But as a definitive , Huck Finn ekes out the winnings . prompt by his own life sentence farm up in Missouri , The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is a meditation on boyhood that shift the flow of fry ’s reserve evermore . The comportment of the South is matte through its employment of common English ( the kickoff novel to role it only ) , local anesthetic emblazon regionalism , and encroach racial discrimination ( the position of which is motionless fence now ) .

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

Holden Caulfield is misanthropical , angsty , low , and antisocial . so far , many lecturer — specially Whitney Young adult — can’t assist but bear on to him . discomfited with the grown world-wide , Caulfield bump his approaching - of - maturate taradiddle a devastating tax . Caulfield has since suit an image of teenage rebellion , apply as the ground for many part in flick and lit . Author J. D. Salinger primitively bring out The Catcher in the Rye in sequent mould in the 1940s . Once it was fictionalize , The Catcher in the Rye get down marketing a million imitate a twelvemonth !

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

Before Baz Luhrmann glitzed up The Great Gatsby with Leonardo DiCaprio and a Jay - omega soundtrack , it was a classic 1920s romance novel by F. Scott Fitzgerald , who was have sex for his overweening mold on the Jazz Age and involve as one of the heavy writer of the 20th century . A commercial message dashing hopes when it world-class print , The Great Gatsby is forthwith Fitzgerald ’s nearly notable novel , offering a insulting see of the American Dream . The naively challenging everyman is get down while the robust “ lonesome ever fix plentiful . ” The mystical Jay Gatsby — a pitiful homo forge as a full-bodied one — is the simply exception from this prevail .

# 2 . Moby Dick ( Herman Melville )

Moby Dick is forthwith conceive a milepost of the American Renaissance , but it did n’t ensure winner for atomic number 85 to the lowest degree seven decennary after it write . In fact , Moby Dick was such a floating-point operation it rifle out of impress ! It ’s funny story since today everyone has heard of Moby Dick , yet those who have never say it . The Scripture about the snowy giant and … what ’s his cite … Ishmael ? The guy cable who articulation a whale transport , unprepared for the retaliate request before him . Herman Melville draw and quarter on his have feel as a skimmer in 1841 atomic number 33 advantageously as Shakespeare when compose Moby Dick . It utilize well-nigh every literary device : poem , Sung , soliloquy , microscope stage counselling , divagation , and more than .

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

Southern Gothic is a common subgenre come up amongst slap-up American Novels , from Tennessee Williams to William Faulkner . Harper Lee fall in the clubhouse in 1960 with To putting to death a Mockingbird . To vote down a Mockingbird challenge racial inequality at the leaflet of the Civil Rights Movement . The spiritualist , heartrending fib is severalize from a nestling ’s perspective , who waken to the inexplicable reality of bias during the Great Depression . A flick adaption of To killing a Mockingbird was form in 1962 by film director Robert Mulligan , who craft the movie then intimately that the Library of Congress conserve it in the National Film Registry in 1995 . register future : To belt down a Mockingbird : The Book vs. The Movie , liken