Class Ranks Top 100 Novels of 20th Century

Two days after Random House Modern Library released a controversial list of its picks for the top 100 books of the twentieth century, students at the Radcliffe Publishing Course released their own version of the list Tuesday, which includes more women authors and a more diverse selection of works.

While the Modern Library's list--which hopes to raise awareness of great books and begin a discussion on the canon of twentieth century English literature--drew criticism from many for including only 10 books by women, about a third of the writers on the Radcliffe list are women. Both the Modern Library's and Radcliffe's lists were meant to be released today at Radcliffe, but both were given to the press early.

"Our list reflects a young, more feminist crowd," said Lindy Hess, director of the publishing course. "[It] shows a difference of age and taste." The six-week class, which is open to men and women, is comprised mostly of recent college graduates and newcomers to the publishing industry.

The Modern Library's list was compiled by an advisory committee of scholars and publishers, including historian Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. '38, author William Styron, Modern Library board chair Christopher B. Cerf '63 and historian Gore Vidal.

James Joyce's Ulysses topped the Modern Library's list, while The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald, took Radcliffe's top spot. Two other books--Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck and The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner--won spots in the top 10 of both lists.

But both lists also had books in their top 10 that didn't even make the other's list. Radcliffe's fifth choice, The Color Purple by Alice Walker, wasn't on the Modern Library list, and Arthur Koestler Darkness at Noon, Modern Library's eighth choice, didn't make Radcliffe's top hundred.

Radcliffe's list also included a few more unconvential works, including several children's books and A Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams.

Hess warned the lists should not be compared against each other. Echoing the Modern Library, she said the lists are meant to start a discussion on this century's literary canon. "The importance of this exercise is to get word-of-mouth out on old books," she said.

Hess said the Modern Library asked the publishing course to compile their own list in conjunction with the advisory panel's.

Students chose their top 100 from the same initial list of 400 the Modern Library panel started with.

"They were very curious to see what a group like ours thought," she said.

Cerf--whose father lead the fight to lift the ban against Ulysses in the United State--will speak tonight at 7:30 at the Cronkhite Graduate Center to discuss the book lists with students.

Drawing from 400-plus titles provided by the Modern Library, students of the Radcliffe Publishing Course selected these novels:

1.The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald

2.The Catcher in the Rye, J. D. Salinger

3.The Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck

4.To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee

5.The Color Purple, Alice Walker

6.Ulysses, James Joyce

7.Beloved, Toni Morrison

8.The Lord of the Flies, William Golding

9.1984, George Orwell

10.The Sound and the Fury, William Faulkner

11.Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov

12.Of Mice and Men, John Steinbeck

13.Charlotte's Web, E. B. White

14.A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, James Joyce

15.Catch-22, Joseph Heller

16.Brave New World, Aldous Huxley

17.Animal Farm, George Orwell

18.The Sun Also Rises, Ernest Hemingway

19.As I Lay Dying, William Faulkner

20.A Farewell to Arms, Ernest Hemingway

21.Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad

22.Winnie-the-Pooh, A. A. Milne

23.Their Eyes Are Watching God, Zora Neale Hurston

24.Invisible Man, Ralph Ellison

25.Song of Solomon, Toni Morrison

26.Gone With the Wind, Margaret Mitchell

27.Native Son, Richard Wright

28.One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Ken Kesey

29.Slaughterhouse Five, Kurt Vonnegut

30.For Whom the Bell Tolls, Ernest Hemingway

31.On the Road, Jack Kerouac

32.The Old Man and the Sea, Ernest Hemingway

33.The Call of the Wild, Jack London

34.To the Lighthouse, Virginia Woolf

35. Portrait of a Lady, Henry James,class of 1863

36. Go Tell It on the Mountain, JamesBaldwin

37. The World According to Garp, JohnIrving

38. All the King's Men, Robert PennWarren

39. A Room with a View, E. M. Forster

40. The Lord of the Rings, J. R. RTolkien

41. Schindler's List, Thomas Keneally

42. The Age of Innocence, Edith Wharton

43. The Fountainhead, Ayn Rand

44. Finnegans Wake, James Joyce

45. The Jungle, Upton Sinclair

46. Mrs. Dalloway, Virginia Woolf

47. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, L. FrankBaum

48. Lady Chatterley's Lover, D. H.Lawrence

49. A Clockwork Orange, Anthony Burgess

50. The Awakening, Kate Chopin

51. My Antonia, Willa Cather

52. Howards End, E. M. Forster

53. In Cold Blood, Truman Capote

54. Franny and Zooey, J. D. Salinger

55. Satanic Verses, Salman Rushdie

56. Jazz, Toni Morrison

57. Sophie's Choice, William Styron

58. Absalom, Absalom! William Faulkner

59. Passage to India, E. M. Forster

60. Ethan Frome, Edith Wharton

61. A Good Man Is Hard to Find, FlanneryO'Connor

62. Tender Is the Night, F. ScottFitzgerald

63. Orlando, Virginia Woolf

64. Sons and Lovers, D. H. Lawrence

65. Bonfire of the Vanities, ThomasWolfe

66. Cat's Cradle, Kurt Vonnegut

67. A Separate Peace, John Knowles

68. Light in August, William Faulkner

69. The Wings of the Dove, Henry James,class of 1863

70. Things Fall Apart, Chinua Achebe

71. Rebecca, Daphne du Maurier

72. A Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy,Douglas Adams

73. Naked Lunch, William S. Burroughs'36

74. Brideshead Revisited, Evelyn Waugh

75. Women in Love, D. H. Lawrence

76. Look Homeward, Angel, Thomas Wolfe

77. In Our Time, Ernest Hemingway

78. The Autobiography of Alice B.Toklas, Gertrude Stein, class of 1898

79. The Maltese Falcon, Dashiell Hammett

80. The Naked and the Dead, NormanMailer '43

81. The Wide Sargasso Sea, Jean Rhys

82. White Noise, Don DeLillo

83. O Pioneers! Willa Cather

84. Tropic of Cancer, Henry Miller

85. The War of the Worlds, H. G. Wells

86. Lord Jim, Joseph Conrad

87. The Bostonians, Henry James, classof 1863

88. An American Tragedy, TheodoreDreiser

89. Death Comes for the Archbishop,Willa Cather

90. The Wind in the Willows, KennethGrahame

91. This Side of Paradise, F. ScottFitzgerald

92. Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand

93. The French Lieutenant's Woman, JohnFowles

94. Babbitt, Sinclair Lewis

95. Kim, Rudyard Kipling

96. The Beautiful and the Damned, F.Scott Fitzgerald

97. Rabbit, Run, John Updike '54

98. Where Angels Fear to Tread, E. M.Forster

99. Main Street, Sinclair Lewis

100. Midnight's Children, Salman Rushdi