French classics everyone should read
The great French novels, from Dumas and Hugo to Camus and Duras.
30 books
- 1Madame Bovary
Madame Bovary
Gustave FlaubertFlaubert's 1857 study of a provincial woman's romantic illusions and ruin is a cornerstone of realist fiction and a must for any French classics list.
- 2The Stranger
The Stranger
Albert CamusCamus's 1942 novel of alienation and an unmotivated killing on the Algerian coast is the best-known French novel of the twentieth century.
- 3Les Misérables
Les Misérables
Victor HugoHugo's 1862 epic of justice, poverty and redemption in post-Napoleonic France is one of the most influential novels ever written in French.
- 4Candide
- 5The Red and the Black
The Red and the Black
StendhalStendhal's 1830 portrait of an ambitious young man in post-Napoleonic France is a foundational work of the European realist novel.
- 6The Count of Monte Cristo
The Count of Monte Cristo
Alexandre DumasDumas's 1844 tale of imprisonment, revenge and reinvention is one of the most widely read adventure novels in French literature.
- 7The Princess of Clèves
The Princess of Clèves
Madame de La FayettePublished in 1678, this psychological novel of forbidden desire at the court of Henri II is often called the first modern novel in French.
- 8Little Prince
Little Prince
Antoine de Saint-ExupéryOriginally written in French, this beloved fable is among the most widely read French books of the twentieth century.
- 9The Plague
The Plague
Albert CamusCamus's allegory of plague-stricken Oran is a key existentialist novel, extending the moral vision of The Stranger.
- 10Nausea
Nausea
Jean-Paul SartreSartre's diary-style novel is a defining work of 20th-century French existentialist thought.
- 11Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea
Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea
Jules VerneVerne's undersea voyage aboard the Nautilus is a landmark of French adventure fiction that has never gone out of print.
- 12The Lover
The Lover
Marguerite DurasDuras's spare, elliptical 1984 memoir-novel of a teenage affair in colonial Indochina is a landmark of modern French fiction.
- 13Memoirs of Hadrian
Memoirs of Hadrian
Marguerite YourcenarYourcenar's 1951 novel, written as the Roman emperor's letter to his successor, is a masterpiece of historical fiction in French.
- 14Bel-Ami
Bel-Ami
Guy de MaupassantMaupassant's 1885 satire follows a cynical social climber through Parisian journalism and high society, a key French novel of ambition.
- 15The Charterhouse of Parma
The Charterhouse of Parma
StendhalStendhal's second essential novel, a sharp and vivid portrait of court intrigue and passion in Italy, complements The Red and the Black.
- 16Thérèse Desqueyroux
Thérèse Desqueyroux
François MauriacMauriac's concise psychological novel of a woman trapped in a loveless provincial marriage is a masterpiece of 20th-century French fiction.
- 17The Mandarins.
The Mandarins.
Simone de BeauvoirBeauvoir's sweeping postwar novel of intellectual and political life in Paris is a major work of 20th-century French literature.
- 18Eugénie Grandet
Eugénie Grandet
Honoré de BalzacA sharp study of money, family and provincial ambition, and one of Balzac's most admired novels of French society.
- 19Therese Raquin
Therese Raquin
Émile ZolaZola's early psychological novel of guilt and obsession is a key work of naturalism and a gripping read.
- 20The Fall
The Fall
Albert CamusCamus's monologue of a self-accusing Parisian barrister is a major late work of existential fiction.
- 21Carmen
Carmen
Prosper MériméeThis tight, vivid novella inspired Bizet's opera and remains a classic of 19th-century French storytelling.
Books like it → - 22Le grand Meaulnes
Le grand Meaulnes
Alain-FournierIts dreamlike story of youth, longing and a lost estate has made it a beloved French novel of the early 20th century.
- 23Tartuffe
- 24Lost Illusions
Lost Illusions
Honoré de BalzacBalzac's sweeping study of ambition, journalism and literary life in Paris is a major pillar of the Human Comedy and the French realist tradition.
- 25Nana
Nana
Émile ZolaThe most vivid of Zola's Rougon-Macquart novels, portraying Second Empire Paris through the rise of a courtesan, and a core text of French naturalism.
- 26Around the World in Eighty Days
Around the World in Eighty Days
Jules VerneVerne's adventure classic, written in French, is among the most beloved travel novels and pairs well with his earlier Twenty Thousand Leagues.
- 27The Marriage of Figaro
The Marriage of Figaro
Pierre Augustin Caron de BeaumarchaisBeaumarchais's witty 18th-century comedy of class and intrigue is a foundational French play that inspired Mozart's opera.
- 28The Game Of Love And Chance
The Game Of Love And Chance
Pierre Carlet De Chamblain De MarivauxMarivaux's elegant comedy of disguise and romance is a defining work of 18th-century French theatre and a staple of the national repertoire.
- 29Julie, or, The New Heloise
Julie, or, The New Heloise
Jean-Jacques RousseauRousseau's enormously influential epistolary novel of passion and virtue, written in French, shaped European sentimental fiction and Romantic sensibility.
- 30Gigi
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