In
Esquire magazine, in September of 1994,
Harold Bloom, compiler of the
Western Canon, came up with "278 Books You Should Have Read By Now".
- Abish, Walter -- Alphabetical Africa
- Abish, Walter -- Eclipse Fever
- Abish, Walter -- How German Is It
- Abish, Walter -- I Am the Dust Under Your Feet
- Adams, Leonie -- Poems: A Selection
- Agee, James -- Let Us Now Praise Famous Men
- Agee, James -- Permit Me Voyage
- Aiken, Conrad -- Collected Poems
- Ammons, A.R. -- Collected Poems
- Ammons, A.R. -- Selected Longer Poems
- Ammons, A.R. -- Sphere: The Form of a Motion
- Anderson, Sherwood -- Death in the Woods and Other Stories
- Anderson, Sherwood -- Winesburg, Ohio
- Applewhite, James -- River Writing: An Eno Journal
- Ashbery, John -- And the Stars Were Shining
- Ashbery, John -- Flow Chart
- Ashbery, John -- Hotel Lautreamont
- Ashbery, John -- Houseboat Days
- Ashbery, John -- Selected Poems
- Ashbery, John -- The Double Dream of Spring
- Baldwin, James -- The Price of the Ticket
- Barth, John -- The End of the Road
- Barth, John -- The Floating Opera
- Barth, John -- The Sot-Weed Factor
- Barthelme, Donald -- Forty Stories
- Barthelme, Donald -- The Dead Father
- Bellow, Saul -- Herzog
- Bellow, Saul -- Seize the Day
- Bellow, Saul -- The Adventures of Augie March
- Berryman, John -- Collected Poems
- Bishop, Elizabeth -- Collected Poems
- Bogan, Louise -- The Blue Estuaries: Selected Poems
- Bowers, Edgar -- Living Together: New and Selected Poems
- Bowles, Paul -- The Sheltering Sky
- Boyle, Kay -- Three Short Novels
- Brodkey, Harold -- Stories in an Almost Classical Mode
- Burke, Kenneth -- A Rhetoric of Motives
- Burke, Kenneth -- Counter-statement
- Cahan, Abraham -- The Rise of David Levinsky
- Capote, Truman -- In Cold Blood
- Carver, Raymond -- Where I'm Calling From
- Cather, Willa -- A Lost Lady
- Cather, Willa -- My Antonia
- Cather, Willa -- The Professor's House
- Cheever, John -- Bullet Park
- Cheever, John -- The Stories of ...
- Clampitt, Amy -- Westward
- Delillo, Don -- Libra
- Delillo, Don -- Mao II
- Delillo, Don -- White Noise
- Doctrow, E.L. -- The Book of Daniel
- Doctrow, E.L. -- World's Fair
- Dove, Rita -- Selected Poems
- Duncan, Robert -- Bending the Bow
- Eberhart, Richard -- Collected Poems
- Eliot, T.S. -- The Complete Poems and Plays
- Eliot, T.S. -- Selected Essays
- Elkin, Stanley -- The Living End
- Ellison, Ralph -- Invisible Man
- Faulkner, William -- Absalon, Absalom!
- Faulkner, William -- As I Lay Dying
- Faulkner, William -- Light in August
- Faulkner, William -- Sanctuary
- Faulkner, William -- The Collected Stories
- Faulkner, William -- The Hamlet
- Faulkner, William -- The Sound and the Fury
- Faulkner, William -- The Wild Palms
- Feinman, Alvin -- Poems
- Feldman, Irving -- Selected Poems
- Fitzgerald, F. Scott -- Babylon Revisited and Other Stories
- Fitzgerald, F. Scott -- Tender Is the Night
- Fitzgerald, F. Scott -- The Great Gatsby
- Fitzgerald, Robert -- Spring Shade: Poems
- Frost, Robert -- The Poetry
- Gaddis, William -- The Recognitions
- Galsgow, Ellen -- Barren Ground
- Galsgow, Ellen -- Vein of Iron
- Garrigue, Jean -- Selected Poems
- Gass, William H. -- In the Heart of the Country (and Other Stories)
- Gass, William H. -- Omensetter's Luck
- Grossman, Allen -- The Ether Dome and Other Poems: New and Selected
- Hall, Donald -- Old and New Poems
- Hall, Donald -- The One Day
- Hawkes, John -- Second Skin
- Hawkes, John -- The Cannibal
- Hayden, Robert -- Collected Poems
- Hecht, Anthony -- Collected Earlier Poems
- Hemingway, Ernest -- A Farewell to Arms
- Hemingway, Ernest -- Complete Short Stories
- Hemingway, Ernest -- The Garden of Eden
- Hemingway, Ernest -- The Sun Also Rises
- Hirsch, Edward -- Earthly Measures
- Hoban, Russell -- Riddley Walker
- Hollander, John -- Reflections on Espionage
- Hollander, John -- Selected Poetry
- Hollander, John -- Tesserae
- Howard, Richard -- Findings
- Howard, Richard -- Untitled Subjects
- Hughes, Langston -- I Wonder As I Wander
- Hughes, Langston -- Selected Poems
- Hughes, Langston -- The Big Sea
- Hurston, Zora Neale -- Their Eyes Were Watching God
- Jarrell, Randall -- Complete Poems
- Jeffers, Robinson -- Selected Poems
- Johnson, Denis -- Angels
- Johnson, Denis -- Fiskadoro
- Johnson, Denis -- Jesus' Son
- Justice, Donald -- Selected Poems
- Kees, Weldon -- Collected Poems
- Kennedy, William -- Ironweed
- Kennedy, William -- The Albany Cycle
- Kinnell, Galway -- Selected Poems
- Koch, Kenneth -- Seasons On Earth
- Kushner, Tony -- Angels In America
- LeGuin, Ursula K. -- The Left Hand of Darkness
- Levine, Philip -- Selected Poems
- Lewis, Sinclair -- Babbitt
- Lewis, Sinclair -- It Can't Happen Here
- Lindsay, Vachel -- Collected Poems
- Lowell, Robert -- Collected Poems
- Mailer, Norman -- Advertisements For Myself
- Mailer, Norman -- Ancient Evenings
- Mailer, Norman -- The Executioner's Song
- Malamud, Bernard -- The Fixer
- Malamud, Bernard -- The Stories of ...
- Mamet, David -- American Buffalo
- Mamet, David -- Speed the Plow
- Marquand, John P. -- H.M. Pulham, Esquire
- Masters, Edgar Lee -- Spoon River Anthology
- Mayer, Edwin Justice -- Children of Darkness
- McCarthy, Cormac -- Blood Meridian
- McCarthy, Cormac -- Child of God
- McCarthy, Cormac -- Suttree
- McClatchy, J.D. -- The Rest of the Way
- McCourt, James -- Time Remaining
- McCullers, Carson -- The Ballad of the Sad Cafe
- McCullers, Carson -- The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter
- Merrill, James -- From the First Nine
- Merrill, John -- The Changing Light at Sandover
- Merwin, W.S. -- Selected Poems
- Miller, Arthur -- Death of a Salesman
- Mitchell, Joseph -- Up In the Old Hotel
- Moore, Marianne -- Complete Poems
- Morris, Wright -- Ceremony in Lone Tree
- Morrison, Toni -- Song of Solomon
- Moss, Howard -- New Selected Poems
- Moss, Thylias -- Small Congregations: New and Selected Poems
- Nabokov, Vladimir -- Lolita
- Nabokov, Vladimir -- Pale Fire
- Naylor, Gloria -- The Women of Brewster Place
- O'Connor, Flannery -- The Violent Bear It Away
- O'Connor, Flannery -- Complete Stories
- O'Connor, Flannery -- Wise Blood
- O'Hara, Frank -- Selected Poems
- O'Hara, John -- Appointment in Samarra
- O'Hara, John -- Collected Stories
- O'Neill, Eugene -- Lazarus Laughed
- O'Neill, Eugene -- Long Day's Journey into Night
- O'Neill, Eugene -- The Iceman Cometh
- Oates, Joyce Carol -- Then
- Olson, Charles -- Collected Poems
- Olson, Charles -- The Maximus Poems
- Ozick, Cynthia -- Envy, or Yiddish in America
- Ozick, Cynthia -- The Messiah of Stockholm
- Paley, Grace -- The Little Disturbances of Man
- Percy, Walker -- The Moviegoer
- Porter, Katherine Anne -- Collected Stories
- Pound, Ezra -- Literary Essays
- Pound, Ezra -- Personae
- Pound, Ezra -- The Cantos
- Pynchon, Thomas -- Gravity's Rainbow
- Pynchon, Thomas -- The Crying of Lot 49
- Pynchon, Thomas -- V
- Rabe, David -- Streamers
- Ransom, John Crowe -- Selected Poems
- Reed, Ishmael -- Mumbo Jumbo
- Robinson, Edwin Arlington -- Selected Poems
- Roethke, Theodore -- Collected Poems
- Roethke, Theodore -- Straw for the Fire
- Roth, Henry -- Call It Sleep
- Roth, Philip -- My Life As a Man
- Roth, Philip -- Operation Shylock
- Roth, Philip -- Patrimony
- Roth, Philip -- Portnoy's Complaint
- Roth, Philip -- The CounterLife
- Roth, Philip -- Zuckerman Bound
- Salinger, J.D. -- Nine Stories
- Salinger, J.D. -- The Catcher in the Rye
- Salter, James -- Light Years
- Salter, James -- Solo Faces
- Schuyler, James -- Collected Poems
- Schwartz, Delmore -- Selected Poems
- Schwartz, Delmore -- Summer Knowledge
- Shepard, Sam -- Seven Plays
- Simic, Charles -- Selected Poems
- Snyder, Gary -- No Nature: New and Selected Poems
- Stein, Gertrude -- Tender Buttons
- Stein, Gertrude -- The Geographical History of America
- Stein, Gertrude -- The Making of Americans
- Stein, Gertrude -- Three Lives
- Steinbeck, John -- The Grapes of Wrath
- Stevens, Wallace -- Collected Poems
- Stevens, Wallace -- Opus Posthumous
- Stevens, Wallace -- The Necessary Angels
- Stevens, Wallace -- The Palm at the End of the Mind
- Stone, Robert -- A Flag for Sunrise
- Stone, Robert -- Dog Soldiers
- Strand, Mark -- Dark Harbor
- Strand, Mark -- Selected Poems
- Strand, Mark -- The Continuous Life
- Styron, William -- The Long March
- Swenson, Mary -- In Other Words
- Swenson, Mary -- New & Selected Things Taking Place
- Tate, Allen -- Collected Poems
- Theroux, Paul -- The Mosquito Coast
- Tolson, M.B. -- Harlem Gallery
- Tommer, Jean -- Cane
- Updike, John -- The Witches of Eastwick
- Vidal, Gore -- Lincoln
- Vidal, Gore -- Myra Breckinridge
- Vonnegut Jr., Kurt -- Cat's Cradle
- Warren, Robert Penn -- All the King's Men
- Warren, Robert Penn -- Selected Poems
- Warren, Robert Penn -- Worlds Enough and Time
- Welty, Eudora -- Collected Stories
- Welty, Eudora -- Delta Wedding
- Welty, Eudora -- The Poner Heart
- Welty, Eudora -- The Robber Bridegroom
- West, Nathaniel -- A Cool Million
- West, Nathaniel -- Miss Lonelyhearts
- West, Nathaniel -- The Day of the Locust
- Wharton, Edith -- Ethan Frome
- Wharton, Edith -- The Age of Innocence
- Wharton, Edith -- The Collected Short Stories
- Wharton, Edith -- The Custon of the Country
- Wharton, Edith -- The House of Mirth
- Wheelwright, John B. -- Collected Poems
- White, Edmund -- Forgetting Elena
- White, Edmund -- Nocturnes for the King of Naples
- Wilbur, Richard -- New and Collected Poems
- Wilcox, James -- Modern Baptists
- Wilder, Thornton -- Three Plays
- Williams, Tennessee -- A Streetcar Named Desire
- Williams, Tennessee -- Summer and Smoke
- Williams, Tennessee -- The Glass Menagerie
- Williams, Will. Carlos -- Collected Poems
- Williams, Will. Carlos -- Paterson
- Williams, Will. Carlos -- Spring and All
- Wilson, August -- Fences
- Wilson, August -- Joe Turner's Come and Gone
- Wilson, Edmund -- Patriotic Gore
- Wilson, Edmund -- The Shores of Light
- Wright, Charles -- The World of the Ten Thousand Things
- Wright, James -- Above the River: The Complete Poems
- Wright, Jay -- Boleros
- Wright, Jay -- Dimensions of History
- Wright, Jay -- Elaine's Book
- Wright, Jay -- Selected Poems
- Wright, Jay -- The Double Invention of Komo
- Wright, Richard -- Black Boy
- Wright, Richard -- Native Son
- Wylie, Elinor -- Last Poems
I suspect, having browsed through this, that Bloom did Vidal and Vonnegut and then realized that he was remarkably underquota. Does he actually expect us to believe that those five Jay Wright novels are better than Slaughterhouse-Five, Ulysses, Bleak House, or Steinbeck's East Of Eden? In my humble opinion, he got to W, recognized that he was far, far away from his magic number of 278, and, not wanting to go back, tossed in as many authors whose last names begin with that letter as he could.
I am working on pipe-linking the authors' names; I've completed through K....
This list is taken from http://www.io.com/~beckerdo/books/sqrlst.txt