List of novellas

This is a list of novellas that have been recognised as the best examples of the genre. A novella is a fiction work longer than a short story but shorter than a novel.^[1] It is generally thought to be between around 20,000 and 40,000 words in length.^[2]

List of novellas

This list contains novellas that have been recognized as the best examples of the genre. The first table contains those books that are widely considered to be the best, through their appearance on multiple best-of lists.^{[3][4][5][6][7]} The second table contains other notable novellas, that have appeared on only one best-of list.

Novellas that appear on multiple best-of lists

Title	Author	Published	References
Animal Farm	Orwell, GeorgeGeorge Orwell	1945	[3][4][6][7]
Billy Budd	Melville, HermanHerman Melville	1924	[4][7]
Breakfast at Tiffany's	Capote, TrumanTruman Capote	1958	[3][4]
A Christmas Carol	Dickens, CharlesCharles Dickens	1843	[3][4][6]
A Clockwork Orange	Burgess, AnthonyAnthony Burgess	1962	[3][5]
Ethan Frome	Wharton, EdithEdith Wharton	1911	[4][5]
Goodbye, Columbus	Roth, PhilipPhilip Roth	1959	[5][7]
Heart of Darkness	Conrad, JosephJoseph Conrad	1899	[4][5][6][7]
I Am Legend	Matheson, RichardRichard Matheson	1954	[5][6]
The Metamorphosis	Kafka, FranzFranz Kafka	1915	[3][4][6][7]
Of Mice and Men	Steinbeck, JohnJohn Steinbeck	1937	[3][6]
The Old Man and the Sea	Hemingway, ErnestErnest Hemingway	1952	[3][5][6][7]
Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde	Stevenson, Robert LouisRobert Louis Stevenson	1886	[3][4]
The Stranger	Camus, AlbertAlbert Camus	1942	[3][4][5]
The War of the Worlds	Wells, H. G.H. G. Wells	1898	[4][7]

Other notable novellas

Title	Author	Published	Reference
The Sense of an Ending	Barnes, JulianJulian Barnes	2011	[5]
Seize the Day	Bellow, SaulSaul Bellow	1956	[7]
O Pioneers!	Cather, WillaWilla Cather	1913	[8]
The Awakening	Chopin, KateKate Chopin	1899	[8]
The Alchemist	Coelho, PauloPaulo Coelho	1988	[5]
I, Tituba: Black Witch of Salem	Conde, MaryseMaryse Conde	1992	[8]
Pafko at the Wall	DeLillo, DonDon DeLillo	2001	[5]
The Gambler	Dostoyevsky, FyodorFyodor Dostoyevsky	1867	[7]
Silas Marner	Eliot, GeorgeGeorge Eliot	1956	[7]
Heartburn	Ephron, NoraNora Ephron	1986	[8]
The Bookshop	Fitzgerald, PenelopePenelope Fitzgerald	1978	[8]
Chronicle of a Death Foretold	García Márquez, GabrielGabriel García Márquez	1981	[7]
No One Writes to the Colonel	García Márquez, GabrielGabriel García Márquez	1961	[7]
The Tenth Man	Greene, GrahamGraham Greene	1985	[5]
Phaniyamma	Indira, M. K.M. K. Indira	1977	[8]
The Aspern Papers	James, HenryHenry James	1888	[7]
Daisy Miller	James, HenryHenry James	1879	[7]
The Turn of the Screw	James, HenryHenry James	1898	[7]
The Country of the Pointed Firs	Jewett, Sarah OrneSarah Orne Jewett	1896	[8]
The Dead	Joyce, JamesJames Joyce	1914	[7]
Flowers for Algernon	Keyes, DanielDaniel Keyes	1959	[3]
Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption	King, StephenStephen King	1982	[6]
The Sojourn	Krivak, AndrewAndrew Krivak	2011	[5]
Passing[9]	Larsen, NellaNella Larsen	1929	[4]
Quicksand (Larsen novel)	Larsen, NellaNella Larsen	1928	[8]
The Fifth Child	Lessing, DorisDoris Lessing	1988	[8]
The Wife of Martin Guerre	Lewis, JanetJanet Lewis	1941	[8]
The Photograph	Lively, PenelopePenelope Lively	2003	[5]
The Shadow Over Innsmouth	Lovecraft, H.P.H.P. Lovecraft	1931	[5]
Fly Away Peter	Malouf, DavidDavid Malouf	1982	[5]
Death in Venice	Mann, ThomasThomas Mann	1912	[7]
Shopgirl	Martin, SteveSteve Martin	2000	[5]
Property (novel)	Martin, ValerieValerie Martin	2003	[8]
The Member of the Wedding	McCullers, CarsonCarson McCullers	1946	[8]
Bartleby, the Scrivener	Melville, HermanHerman Melville	1853	[7]
Something Special	Murdoch, IrisIris Murdoch	1957	[5]
Black Water	Oates, Joyce CarolJoyce Carol Oates	1992	[5]
The Housekeeper and the Professor	Ogawa, YokoYoko Ogawa	2009	[8]
Last Night at the Lobster	O'Nan, StewartStewart O'Nan	2007	[5]
True Grit	Portis, CharlesCharles Portis	1968	[10]
Brokeback Mountain	Proulx, AnnieAnnie Proulx	1997	[5]
The Crying of Lot 49	Pynchon, ThomasThomas Pynchon	1965	[5]
Wide Sargasso Sea	Rhys, JeanJean Rhys	1966	[8]
Bonjour, Tristesse	Sagan, FrancoiseFrancoise Sagan	1954	[8]
One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich	Solzhenitsyn, AleksandrAleksandr Solzhenitsyn	1962	[7]
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie	Spark, MurielMuriel Spark	1960	[8]
The Pearl[11]	Steinbeck, JohnJohn Steinbeck	1947	[4]
The Death of Ivan Ilyich	Tolstoy, LeoLeo Tolstoy	1886	[7]
We the Animals	Torres, JustinJustin Torres	2011	[5]
Candide	Voltaire	1759	[5]
Two Old Women	Wallis, VelmaVelma Wallis	1993	[8]
The Time Machine	Wells, H. G.H. G. Wells	1895	[5]
The Bunner Sisters	Wharton, EdithEdith Wharton	1916	[8]
Madame de Treymes	Wharton, EdithEdith Wharton	1907	[8]
To the Lighthouse	Woolf, VirginiaVirginia Woolf	1927	[8]
Kitchen (novel)	Yoshimoto, BananaBanana Yoshimoto	1988	[5]

References

1. "Novella". Merriam Webster Dictionary. Retrieved 20 May 2016. a short novel: a story that is longer than a short story but shorter than a novel
2. Guest, Katy (19 July 2015). "Novella Award organisers have defined a novel as being a piece of fiction between 20,000 and 40,000 words". The Independent. Retrieved 18 May 2016.
3. "Top 10 Novellas". The Novella Award. Retrieved 18 May 2016.
4. "These Amazing Classic Books Are So Short You Have No Excuse Not To Read Them". The Huffington Post. 6 December 2013. Retrieved 22 May 2016.
5. Carswell, Beth (2012). "The Best Novellas: Literature's Middle Child". AbeBooks. Retrieved 18 May 2016.
6. Thorsson, Johann (18 June 2012). "The World's Best Novellas". On Books & Writing. Retrieved 18 May 2016.
7. Haber, Gordon (29 June 2015). "The 20 Best Novellas Ever Published In The History Of Humankind". Thought Catalog. Retrieved 18 May 2016.
8. "Novellas by women, about women". Retrieved 5 November 2016.
9. Rottenberg, Catherine (2003). "Passing : Race, Identification, and Desire". Criticism. 45 (4): 435–52. doi:10.1353/crt.2004.0025.
10. Soumya Jimmy Ghosh, Quora, Book Recommendations: Which are some of the best crime, thriller, mystery, suspense, noir novellas of all time?, Retrieved June 3, 2016
11. Benson, Jackson J. (1990). The Short Novels of John Steinbeck: Critical Essays With a Checklist to Steinbeck Criticism. Duke University Press. pp. 143–. ISBN 9780822309949. Retrieved 30 January 2013.