Sometime ago, I made a spreadsheet of the most rated books on Goodreads. I then did a composite rank based on high average rating, high number of ratings, and age (older books scoring higher).
I thought I'd post my list of pre-1776 works that ranked highest - I chose that date because otherwise it would feature a lot of works relating to the foundation of the United States. That means Thomas Paine's Common Sense and Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations miss out.
I included one work per author - although if an author appeared more than once, I tended to put "The Complete Works" instead. I tried to limit the number of religious works on the list to just core texts as well as a few that are somewhat philosophical in a general sense (The Imitation of Christ, for example, although may be an arbitrary judgment). I chose not to include John of the Cross's Dark Night of the Soul and Samuel Taylor Coleridge's The Rime of the Ancient Mariner because they're basically poems that aren't especially lengthy.
I included the date the works were published or written in brackets - sometimes this is an estimate. There are some cases such as Zhuangzi's The Way and Confucius' Analects that I dated a considerable time after the death of the author - cases where it seemed that the latest significant edit to the work happened a considerable time after the life of the author.
The list in date order:
The Epic of Gilgamesh (-1800) Homer: The Iliad/The Odyssey (-760) The Homeric Hymns (-625) Sappho: The Complete Poems (-570) Aesop's Fables (-560) Heraclitus: Fragments (-501) The Upanishads (-500) I Ching (-479) Aeschylus: The Complete Works (-458) Sophocles: The Oedipus Cycle (Oedipus Rex/Oedipus at Colonus/Antigone (-450) Herodotus: The Histories (-440) Euripides: The Complete Works (-406) Aristophanes: The Complete Works (-405) Thucydides: History of the Peloponnesian War (-400) Confucius: The Analects (-379) Xenophon: Anabasis (-370) Plato: The Complete Works (-350) Aristotle: The Complete Works (-323) Euclid: Elements (-300) Tao Te Ching (-300) The Dhammapada (-250) The Art of War (-221) Polybius: The Histories (-146) Ramayana (-100) Lucretius: On the Nature of Things (-55) Catullus: The Carmina (-54) Julius Caesar: Caesar's Commentaries (-44) Virgil: The Aeneid (-19) Livy: The History of Rome (-9) Ovid: The Complete Works (8) Seneca:The Complete Works (65) Josephus: The Complete Works of Josephus (99) Epictetus: The Discourses (108) Tacitus: The Complete Histories (116) Plutarch: Parallel Lives (119) Suetonius: The Twelve Caesars (121) Arrian: The Campaigns of Alexander (160) Apuleius: The Golden Ass (180) Marcus Aurelius: Meditations (180) The Bible (200) Panchatantra (300) Zhuangzi: The Way of Zhuangzi (312) Augustine of Hippo: Confessions (398) Bhagavad Gita (400) Mahabharata (400) The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali (400) Boethius: The Consolation of Philosophy (524) The Qur'an (656) Beowulf (1000) Sei Shōnagon: The Pillow Book (1002) Ferdowsi: Shahnameh (The Persian Book of Kings) (1010) Omar Khayyam: The Rubaiyat (1131) Farid ud-Din Attar: The Conference of the Birds (1177) Chrétien de Troyes: Arthurian Romances (1181) The Mabinogion (1200) The Poetic Edda (1200) The Sagas of Icelanders (1200) Snorri Sturluson: The Complete Works (1230) Egil's Saga (1240) Saadi: The Complete Works (1258) Rumi: The Complete Works (1273) The Arabian Nights (1300) The Story of the Volsungs (1300) Dante Alighieri: The Divine Comedy (1304) Giovanni Boccaccio: The Decameron (1353) Luo Guanzhong: Romance of the Three Kingdoms (1360) Shi Nai'an: Water Margin (1372) Ibn Khaldun: The Muqaddimah (1377) Hafez: The Divan (1390) Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (1390) Geoffrey Chaucer: The Canterbury Tales (1400) Thomas à Kempis: The Imitation of Christ (1427) Thomas Malory: Le Morte d'Arthur (1471) Erasmus: Praise of Folly (1511) Leonardo da Vinci: Leonardo's Notebooks (1519) Niccolò Machiavelli: The Complete Works (1527) Bernal Díaz del Castillo: The Conquest of New Spain (1568) Luís de Camões: The Lusiads (1572) Wu Cheng'en: Monkey: The Journey to the West (1580) Christopher Marlowe: Dr. Faustus (1592) Michel de Montaigne: The Complete Essays (1592) William Shakespeare: The Complete Works (1613) Miguel de Cervantes: Don Quixote (1615) Robert Burton: The Anatomy of Melancholy (1621) John Donne: The Complete Poems (1631) Pedro Calderón de la Barca: Life Is a Dream (1635) Baltasar Gracián: The Art of Worldly Wisdom (1653) Blaise Pascal: Pensées (1662) John Milton: Paradise Lost (1667) Baruch Spinoza: The Complete Works (1677) John Bunyan: The Pilgrim's Progress (1684) Isaac Newton: Principia (1687) Jean de La Fontaine: Fables (1694) Matsuo Bashō: The Narrow Road to the Deep North (1694) Charles Perrault: Fairy Tales (1697) Shota Rustaveli: The Knight in the Panther's Skin (1712) Yamamoto Tsunetomo: Hagakure: The Book of the Samurai (1716) Daniel Defoe: Robinson Crusoe (1719) Adam Smith: The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759) Voltaire: Candide (1759) Cao Xueqin: The Dream of the Red Chamber (1764) David Hume: The Complete Works (1776)
Sometime ago, I made a spreadsheet of the most rated books on Goodreads. I then did a composite rank based on high average rating, high number of ratings, and age (older books scoring higher).
I thought I'd post my list of pre-1776 works that ranked highest - I chose that date because otherwise it would feature a lot of works relating to the foundation of the United States. That means Thomas Paine's Common Sense and Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations miss out.
I included one work per author - although if an author appeared more than once, I tended to put "The Complete Works" instead. I tried to limit the number of religious works on the list to just core texts as well as a few that are somewhat philosophical in a general sense (The Imitation of Christ, for example, although may be an arbitrary judgment). I chose not to include John of the Cross's Dark Night of the Soul and Samuel Taylor Coleridge's The Rime of the Ancient Mariner because they're basically poems that aren't especially lengthy.
I included the date the works were published or written in brackets - sometimes this is an estimate. There are some cases such as Zhuangzi's The Way and Confucius' Analects that I dated a considerable time after the death of the author - cases where it seemed that the latest significant edit to the work happened a considerable time after the life of the author.
The list in date order:
The Epic of Gilgamesh (-1800)
Homer: The Iliad/The Odyssey (-760)
The Homeric Hymns (-625)
Sappho: The Complete Poems (-570)
Aesop's Fables (-560)
Heraclitus: Fragments (-501)
The Upanishads (-500)
I Ching (-479)
Aeschylus: The Complete Works (-458)
Sophocles: The Oedipus Cycle (Oedipus Rex/Oedipus at Colonus/Antigone (-450)
Herodotus: The Histories (-440)
Euripides: The Complete Works (-406)
Aristophanes: The Complete Works (-405)
Thucydides: History of the Peloponnesian War (-400)
Confucius: The Analects (-379)
Xenophon: Anabasis (-370)
Plato: The Complete Works (-350)
Aristotle: The Complete Works (-323)
Euclid: Elements (-300)
Tao Te Ching (-300)
The Dhammapada (-250)
The Art of War (-221)
Polybius: The Histories (-146)
Ramayana (-100)
Lucretius: On the Nature of Things (-55)
Catullus: The Carmina (-54)
Julius Caesar: Caesar's Commentaries (-44)
Virgil: The Aeneid (-19)
Livy: The History of Rome (-9)
Ovid: The Complete Works (8)
Seneca:The Complete Works (65)
Josephus: The Complete Works of Josephus (99)
Epictetus: The Discourses (108)
Tacitus: The Complete Histories (116)
Plutarch: Parallel Lives (119)
Suetonius: The Twelve Caesars (121)
Arrian: The Campaigns of Alexander (160)
Apuleius: The Golden Ass (180)
Marcus Aurelius: Meditations (180)
The Bible (200)
Panchatantra (300)
Zhuangzi: The Way of Zhuangzi (312)
Augustine of Hippo: Confessions (398)
Bhagavad Gita (400)
Mahabharata (400)
The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali (400)
Boethius: The Consolation of Philosophy (524)
The Qur'an (656)
Beowulf (1000)
Sei Shōnagon: The Pillow Book (1002)
Ferdowsi: Shahnameh (The Persian Book of Kings) (1010)
Omar Khayyam: The Rubaiyat (1131)
Farid ud-Din Attar: The Conference of the Birds (1177)
Chrétien de Troyes: Arthurian Romances (1181)
The Mabinogion (1200)
The Poetic Edda (1200)
The Sagas of Icelanders (1200)
Snorri Sturluson: The Complete Works (1230)
Egil's Saga (1240)
Saadi: The Complete Works (1258)
Rumi: The Complete Works (1273)
The Arabian Nights (1300)
The Story of the Volsungs (1300)
Dante Alighieri: The Divine Comedy (1304)
Giovanni Boccaccio: The Decameron (1353)
Luo Guanzhong: Romance of the Three Kingdoms (1360)
Shi Nai'an: Water Margin (1372)
Ibn Khaldun: The Muqaddimah (1377)
Hafez: The Divan (1390)
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (1390)
Geoffrey Chaucer: The Canterbury Tales (1400)
Thomas à Kempis: The Imitation of Christ (1427)
Thomas Malory: Le Morte d'Arthur (1471)
Erasmus: Praise of Folly (1511)
Leonardo da Vinci: Leonardo's Notebooks (1519)
Niccolò Machiavelli: The Complete Works (1527)
Bernal Díaz del Castillo: The Conquest of New Spain (1568)
Luís de Camões: The Lusiads (1572)
Wu Cheng'en: Monkey: The Journey to the West (1580)
Christopher Marlowe: Dr. Faustus (1592)
Michel de Montaigne: The Complete Essays (1592)
William Shakespeare: The Complete Works (1613)
Miguel de Cervantes: Don Quixote (1615)
Robert Burton: The Anatomy of Melancholy (1621)
John Donne: The Complete Poems (1631)
Pedro Calderón de la Barca: Life Is a Dream (1635)
Baltasar Gracián: The Art of Worldly Wisdom (1653)
Blaise Pascal: Pensées (1662)
John Milton: Paradise Lost (1667)
Baruch Spinoza: The Complete Works (1677)
John Bunyan: The Pilgrim's Progress (1684)
Isaac Newton: Principia (1687)
Jean de La Fontaine: Fables (1694)
Matsuo Bashō: The Narrow Road to the Deep North (1694)
Charles Perrault: Fairy Tales (1697)
Shota Rustaveli: The Knight in the Panther's Skin (1712)
Yamamoto Tsunetomo: Hagakure: The Book of the Samurai (1716)
Daniel Defoe: Robinson Crusoe (1719)
Adam Smith: The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759)
Voltaire: Candide (1759)
Cao Xueqin: The Dream of the Red Chamber (1764)
David Hume: The Complete Works (1776)