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Home > Bibliographies > Minibibliographies > Best of American Fiction, 1900-1945
Content last modified March 1995
This minibibliography, second in a series of three minibibliographies listing the best of American fiction, covers the period from 1900 to 1945.
Theodore Dreiser, author of Sister Carrie, was the first voice to be heard as American literature entered the twentieth century. His reportorial vision and his message that outside forces direct human affairs were a continuation of the trend toward realism and naturalism first presented in the works of William Dean Howells, Henry James, Stephen Crane, and Frank Norris (see The Best of American Fiction: Early Period, minibibliography no. NSS 87-7). Dreiser also set the stage for other realistic and naturalistic American writers such as Erskine Caldwell, Jack London, and Sherwood Anderson.
Other writers of the period from 1900 to 1945 focused their critical vision on particular regions or geographical locations. William Faulkner, Thomas Wolfe, and Ellen Glasgow captured the character and conflicts of the South while Willa Cather and O.E. Rolvaag chose the desolate American prairie as a setting to communicate timeless visions of humanity and its struggles.
During the 1920s, two of the best known American literary figures, Ernest Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald, reflected the shattered idealism and morality of the Jazz Age in The Sun Also Rises (Hemingway) and The Great Gatsby (Fitzgerald).
The shattered dreams, social unrest, and economic depression of the prewar period of the 1930s and early 1940s found expression in the works of John Dos Passos, John Steinbeck, and James Farrell. Contemporary writers would echo and expand these themes in the aftermath of World War II.
Books chosen for this minibibliography are based upon the recommendations offered in Good Reading, edited by J. Sherwood Weber; The Reader's Advisor, 12th edition, volume 1; "Darien's First 'Classics' Collection," from Library Journal, November 15, 1981; and American Novel, Crane to Faulkner edited by Frank N. Magill.
Books in this list are arranged in alphabetical order by author and then, within author, by title. The dates following the annotations are the original dates of publication. All books are available from NLS network library collections.
Winesburg, Ohio: A Group of Tales of Ohio Small-Town Life
The revolt in the 1920s against the mediocrity of small-town life and in favor of realism was inaugurated by these sketches of a Midwestern community. 1919
RC 18118
BR 1634
The Good Earth
Follows the cycles of birth, marriage, and death in the Chinese peasant family of Wang Lung. After a life of hardship, Wang Lung finally finds himself a wealthy man, but his grown sons for whom he has worked so hard do not share their father's love for his hard- earned land. Pulitzer Prize. 1931
RC 37294
RD 7093
BR 9400
Jurgen: A Comedy of Justice
An allegory about a middle-aged pawnbroker-poet in a semi-medieval country who is allowed to regain his youth for a year of amorous adventures. Filled with a variety of strange beasts, alien gods, fabulous lands, beautiful women, and an aura of the supernatural. 1919
RC 14431
BRJ 773
The Postman Always Rings Twice
When a young hobo comes to a sandwich stand run by a Greek and his American wife, he falls in love with the woman and starts work at the stand. A novel of a clandestine affair, a murder, and an accidental death. 1934
RC 17817
BRA 4013
God's Little Acre
A Georgia mountaineer, who has been digging for gold for fifteen years on his farm, keeps the proceeds from one acre for his church. Several family tragedies occur but nothing stops him from his search. Strong language and explicit descriptions of sex. 1933
RC 23881
BR 6926
Tobacco Road
The story of a degraded, poor, white Georgia family living in a tumbledown shack on worn-out land that had once been the family's prosperous tobacco plantation. The story carries the family some steps further in their progressive degeneration. 1932
RD 7958
BRJ 1293
My Antonia
A lawyer recalls his Nebraska boyhood and the girl who was a strong influence on his life in this novel about pioneering conditions and the assimilation of immigrants. 1918
RC 13491
BRA 11964
The Ox-Bow Incident
A psychological novel about a lynching in Nevada's cattle country. Outraged at the murder of a man by cattle rustlers, a group of citizens hastily forms a posse, although some join reluctantly. When the supposed murderers are caught, some members of the posse have serious doubts about the murderers' guilt and are profoundly disturbed by the idea of a lynching. 1940
RC 17941
BRA 7677
U.S.A.
A trilogy that portrays a whole American generation, satirizing life in the United States from 1900 until the 1930s. Includes The 42nd Parallel, 1930; 1919, 1932; and The Big Money, 1936.
RD 7389
BRA 8261
Sister Carrie
The story of a naive young girl who seeks her fortune in Chicago. She stays with her sister and brother-in-law but seeks an escape from the drabness of their existence. The author portrays her helplessness against the forces that shape her future. 1900
RC 25296
BRA 10307
Young Lonigan: A Boyhood in Chicago Streets
Set in the turbulent south side of Chicago, a psychological novel that traces the life of a tough Irish youth from his graduation from grade school to his entrance into high school. 1932
RC 12902
BRA 9702
The Young Manhood of Studs Lonigan
Covers the years from 1917, when Studs Lonigan is still in high school, to 1929 when he is trapped into marriage by a woman he grows to hate. Strong language and some explicit descriptions of sex. 1934
RC 12607
Judgment Day
Nearly thirty, Studs Lonigan reflects the values fostered by the movies, cheap daily newspapers, and his streetwise companions: he still wants to be a tough guy. His life ends in disillusionment and despair after being beaten down by the Great Depression. 1935
RC 33611
BRA 659
Absalom, Absalom!
The rise and fall of a nineteenth-century Southern family are reconstructed by several narrators with differing views. A Southern gentleman attempts to found a dynasty but fails; he cannot see that human values are superior to social. 1936
RC 27313
BR 7218
As I Lay Dying
A poor white family treks across the Mississippi countryside struggling with its own incompetence, flooding rivers, and buzzards to deliver its dead mother's body for burial in her hometown. 1930
RC 11553
BRA 7900
Light in August
Joe Christmas, an orphan of mixed blood, travels to the South seeking a place and people with whom he can belong. Soon he becomes hardened by black and white bigotry. 1932
RC 20001
BRA 2174
The Sound and the Fury
A Southern family is portrayed in various states of decay through the voices and thoughts of four of its members, including Benjy, the mentally retarded son. 1929
RC 9506
RC 11340
BR 1590
The Great Gatsby
The glitter and recklessness of the Jazz Age form the backdrop for this novel about Jay Gatsby's desperate attempt to recapture the past and, along with it, the love of Daisy Buchanan. Amid extravagant parties at Gatsby's palatial estate, his neighbor narrates the story of Gatsby's obsession with the American dream. 1925
RC 16147
BR 89
Tender Is the Night
An American psychiatrist studying in Europe in the 1920s falls in love with a beautiful, wealthy patient in this novel about wealthy American expatriates. In their marriage, he reacts against her great dependence on him as both husband and doctor before he realizes his dependence on her. 1934
RC 18133
BRA 5324
Barren Ground
Betrayed by her fiancée just before she is to marry him, Dorinda Oakley devotes her life to the soil. She turns her father's barren land into a thriving farm and learns compassion through adversity. 1925
RC 12813
BR 5031
In This Our Life
Sixty-year-old Asa Timberlake narrates the story of a decayed Southern family. He tells how two marriages are wrecked and injustice is done to a black boy. He also relates the problems of his family, a hypochondriac wife and two daughters. 1941
BRA 11256
Vein of Iron
The scene is the Great Valley of Virginia, 1900-1932. The chief characters are members of the Fincastle family, descendants of the original pioneers. Ada Fincastle fights her battles, which are no less difficult than those of her ancestors, and where others are defeated, she conquers. 1935
Mi-BPH (MSL-3285) RM
A Farewell to Arms
An American lieutenant serving in the ambulance service in Italy falls in love with an English nurse during World War I. Their love story is told in poetic language and with austere realism to present a powerful argument against war. 1929
RC 10857
BR 1599
For Whom the Bell Tolls
A young American fights voluntarily against Franco's fascist forces during the Spanish Civil War of the 1930s. He falls in love with Maria, a young girl who has been held captive by the fascists, was brutalized, and dies with the guerrillas in the mountains of Spain. 1940
RC 12222
BR 484
The Sun Also Rises
A wealthy group of English and American expatriates in post- World War I Europe move from the boulevards of Paris to the bullfights of Spain, bathing, eating, and drinking. The disillusioned characters are a reflection of the war-weary generation of the 1920s. Some strong language. 1926
RC 13421
BR 3615
Laughing Boy
A story of the conflict between a consuming love that brings a new non-Indian way of life to a naive Indian man and the resulting loss of family, friends, and mores of the familiar, traditional Navajo lifestyle during the early part of the twentieth century.
RC 33829
Main Street
An educated young woman with a liking for "high-brow" drama and a knack for town planning, marries a small-town doctor and tries to uplift the residents of Gopher Prairie, Minnesota. 1920
RC 9754
BR 63
The Call of the Wild
The story of Buck, who is stolen and taken to Alaska to be trained as a sled dog. In his new environment, he must learn the elements of survival from cunning and ruthlessness to courage and loyalty. 1903
RC 27843
BRA 16350
The Late George Apley
A satire on the well-to-do class of proper Bostonians who once considered themselves the appointed guardians of America's social and intellectual destiny. Pulitzer Prize. 1937
BRA 1780
RC 12087
Tropic of Cancer
An autobiographical novel about the American author's stay in Paris during the early 1930s. It tells of his poverty, reading, relationships, and growth during this time. Explicit descriptions of sex. 1931
RC 17191
BR 1025
Gone with the Wind
A romantic Civil War epic in which Scarlet O'Hara, a forceful and ruthless heroine, and Rhett Butler, a war profiteer, play out their tempestuous love affair against the background of the war-torn South. Pulitzer Prize. 1936
RC 33082
RD 7069
BR 1609
BR 8519
Appointment in Samarra
A married couple who lead a fashionable society life in a Pennsylvania town get involved with organized crime. The husband's penchant for drink and other women adds to their problems. 1934
RC 11656
BRA 653
Giants in the Earth: A Saga of the Prairie
A saga of American pioneer life. Per Hansa, a Norwegian, becomes the founder of a settlement in the bleak Dakota territory. The struggle to tame the prairie means life and freedom to him, but for his beloved wife, their isolated existence is a nightmare of loneliness, terror, and despair. 1924-1925
RC 22285
BR 6205
The Human Comedy
The story of a mother and her four children who live in a California town during World War II. 1943
RC 10137
The Jungle
This novel depicts factory life in the meat-packing industry as seen through the eyes of a young immigrant. At the time of its publication, it aroused the indignation of the American public and forced a government investigation that led to passage of the pure food laws. Violence. 1906
RC 9498
BR 650
The Grapes of Wrath
The story of the depression farmers and their families driven from the dust bowl of their Oklahoma farms to the promised land of California to find work. Instead they face organized opposition to their struggle to survive. Strong language. 1939
RC 21574
BR 1621
Of Mice and Men
Lennie, strong but mentally deficient, and George, his responsible friend, are two itinerant laborers during the depression who dream of owning their own farm. Their hopes are shattered when Lennie accidentally kills the boss's daughter-in-law. 1937
RC 12212
BR 5106
BR 8851
Alice Adams
The story of a small-town girl of the Midwest who has charm and ambition but lacks imagination, money, and background. Her social-climbing mother and unsophisticated father complicate her attempts to find an appropriate career. Pulitzer Prize. 1921
TB 2598
BRA 13799
The Grandmothers: A Family Portrait
In the old home in southern Wisconsin, young Alwyn Tower learns of his American family from pioneer days to the 1920s through family albums and the stories of his elders. 1927
TX-BPH (CBT 1143)RC
BRA 4456
BRA 5389
The Day of the Locust
A man arrives in Hollywood hoping for success as a scene designer, but he becomes only another nondescript, unsuccessful character on the fringes of Hollywood studios. 1939
RC 12925
BRA 3293
Miss Lonelyhearts
Novella about a newspaperman who takes on the lovelorn column as a joke, but becomes hopelessly involved in the problems of the people who write to him. 1933
RC 12538
BRJ 1212
The Age of Innocence
A novel of manners set in New York society in the 1870s, an age of convention, propriety, and tribal solidarity. Newland Archer is torn between his attraction to a woman separated from her husband and his security in a bland, but proper, marriage. Pulitzer Prize. 1920
RC 28162
BRA 7781
Ethan Frome
A tale of retribution about a discouraged New England farmer and his hypochondriac wife. Their empty lives are suddenly changed when her cousin, a young girl who still finds joy in life, comes to visit them. 1911
RC 17455
BR 9404
The House of Mirth
The orphaned daughter of a New York merchant is endowed with beauty and charm and is hopelessly addicted to the pleasures of luxury and wealth. Though she wants to marry someone with money, she is attracted to a lawyer of modest means. 1905
RC 35369
RD 11196
BR 9091
The Bridge of San Luis Rey
Surveys the lives of five Peruvian travelers, victims of the collapse of a famous Incan bridge, and weaves a story of why these people were linked together at such a significant point in their lives. 1927
Tx-BPH (CBT 1206) RC
BR 3167
The Virginian: A Horseman of the Plains
Known as the Virginian, the handsome, rough Wyoming cowboy finally convinces Molly, the New England schoolteacher, that violence is sometimes necessary to bring law and order to the frontier community. A classic novel of the American West. 1902
RD 7464
BR 1625
You Can't Go Home Again
Bitter and nostalgic, Wolfe's fourth autobiographical novel continues the story of George Weber, now a successful novelist but unsuccessful lover. He returns home to old Catawba, only to be sadly disillusioned by the discovery that everything he once loved there no longer exists. 1940
RC 14651
BRJ 1971
Native Son
Showing the plight of victimized African Americans fighting against the political and social conditions of Chicago in the 1930s, this novel centers on a frustrated and resentful man driven to violence and murder. 1940
RC 25087
Compiled by Ellie Friedman
Revised by Joyce Y. Carter
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Posted on 2006-02-24