The Best Southern Novels of All Time
In 2009, the Oxford American polled 134 scholars and writers for the ten best Southern novels books of all time.
- 1
Absalom, Absalom!
William Faulkner · 1936 · 16 lists
- 2
All the King's Men
Robert Penn Warren · 1946 · 10 lists
- 3
The Sound and the Fury
William Faulkner · 1929 · 26 lists
- 4
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Mark Twain · 1885 · 25 lists
- 5
To Kill a Mockingbird
Harper Lee · 1960 · 33 lists
- 6
The Moviegoer
Walker Percy · 1961 · 8 lists
- 7
As I Lay Dying
William Faulkner · 1915 · 18 lists
- 8
Invisible Man
Ralph Ellison · 1952 · 29 lists
- 9
Wise Blood
Flannery O'Connor · 1952 · 5 lists
- 10
Their Eyes Were Watching God
Zora Neale Hurston · 1937 · 22 lists
- 11
The Heart is a Lonely Hunter
Carson McCullers · 1940 · 11 lists
- 12
A Confederacy of Dunces
John Kennedy Toole · 1980 · 13 lists
- 13
Light in August
William Faulkner · 1931 · 9 lists
- 14
A Death in the Family
James Agee · 1957 · 5 lists
- 15
Look Homeward, Angel
Thomas Wolfe · 1929 · 8 lists
- 16
Beloved
Toni Morrison · 1987 · 31 lists
- 17
The Awakening
Kate Chopin · 1899 · 6 lists
- 18
The Color Purple
Alice Walker · 1982 · 20 lists
- 19
Native Son
Richard Wright · 1940 · 18 lists
- 20
The Optimist's Daughter
Eudora Welty · 1972 · 3 lists
- 21
Suttree
Cormac McCarthy · 1979 · 3 lists
- 22
Go Down, Moses
William Faulkner · 1940 · 2 lists
- 23
Gone With the Wind
Margaret Mitchell · 1936 · 22 lists
- 24
The Golden Apples
Eudora Welty · 1949 · 1 list
- 25
Cane
Jean Toomer · 1923 · 5 lists
- 26
The Known World
Edward P. Jones · 2003 · 11 lists
- 27
Blood Meridian
Cormac McCarthy · 1985 · 14 lists
- 28
Deliverance
James Dickey · 1970 · 4 lists
- 29
The Last Gentleman
Walker Percy · 1966 · 1 list
- 30
A Lesson Before Dying
Ernest J. Gaines · 1993 · 3 lists
- 31
Bastard Out of Carolina
Dorothy Allison · 1992 · 6 lists
- 32
The Confessions of Nat Turner
William Styron · 1920 · 4 lists