Stuff to Read: The Best Authors and Novels of the 1700s

By Andreas Ramos. Updated June, 2026.

By the end of the 1700s, various lists were compiled of what were considered the best novels by the readers at that time.

Literary tastes have changed; some very famous 18th century novels are scarcely known today, many of the authors are completely unknown.

Each novel states why people at the time thought it was important. I also include why we should read the novel today.

See lists of the top novels for the 1700s, the 1800s, and the 1900s.

• A Modest Proposal by Jonathan Swift. Eighteenth-century audiences consumed this as a weaponized irony against political brutality. Modern readers study the text for its absolute mastery of the sustained satirical persona and deadpan rhetorical precision.
• A Sentimental Journey by Laurence Sterne. Sterne capitalized on the era's emerging emotionalism to provide a highly subjective sensory experience. Contemporary literature enthusiasts revere the book for pioneering stream-of-consciousness techniques and fragmented narrative structures.
• Amelia by Henry Fielding. Readers of the period engaged with Fielding's pivot from grand epic comedy to grim domestic realism. The narrative stands today as a crucial transitional text in the evolution of gritty urban naturalism.
• Caleb Williams by William Godwin. Godwin dramatized radical anarchist philosophy through a relentless, thrilling pursuit narrative. Modern critics analyze the novel as the brilliant invention of the psychological thriller and the modern detective story.
• Camilla by Fanny Burney. Burney mapped the devastating social risks facing women with meticulous attention to behavioral detail. The work offers a flawless aesthetic execution of the comedy of manners and intricate character psychology.
• Candide by Voltaire. Voltaire aggressively dismantled naive Enlightenment optimism using rapid, episodic absurdity. Readers today value the stripped-down, kinetic pacing and the razor-sharp efficiency of its philosophical comedy.
• Cecilia by Fanny Burney. The novel critiqued patriarchal inheritance systems through a vast, highly populated social canvas. Literary scholars study its complex multi-plot architecture and its profound influence on the nineteenth-century social novel.
• Charlotte Temple by Susanna Rowson. Early American women relied on this text as a highly emotional moral tragedy. The book provides a foundational blueprint for the aesthetics of the American sentimental novel.
• Clarissa, or the History of a Young Lady by Samuel Richardson. Richardson weaponized epistolary intimacy to draw readers into a real-time psychological descent. It remains the absolute zenith of tragic pacing and claustrophobic interiority in English literature.
• Confessions by Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Rousseau established the radical paradigm of extreme autobiographical vulnerability for European intellectuals. Modern writers recognize this work as the definitive birth of the modern subjective voice.
• Edgar Huntly or, Memoirs of a Sleep-Walker by Charles Brockden Brown. Brown processed early American frontier violence through severe psychological fragmentation. The narrative is studied for its surreal, dream-logic manipulation of narrative perspective.
• Emile, Or On Education by Jean-Jacques Rousseau. This naturalistic philosophy radically disrupted rigid European educational systems through a fictionalized framework. Readers appreciate the lyrical synthesis of narrative fiction and pedagogical theory.
• Evelina by Fanny Burney. Audiences used Burney's work to map the brutal social economy of London through the eyes of a naive narrator. The text is celebrated for its flawless epistolary structure and sharp satirical observation.
• Fanny Hill, or Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure by John Cleland. Cleland challenged strict moral censorship by offering a highly stylized, unapologetic narrative of erotic desire. Modern critics note the structural elegance and the inventive, euphemistic prose style.
• Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift. Swift ruthlessly satirized toxic European ambition through layered allegorical fantasy. The book is dissected today for its complex, unreliable narrator and its brilliant misanthropic tone.
• Jacques the Fatalist by Denis Diderot. Diderot subverted linear narrative to debate strict philosophical determinism playfully. Contemporary audiences celebrate its metafictional brilliance and entirely postmodern narrative architecture.
• Joseph Andrews/Shamela by Henry Fielding. Fielding aggressively satirized hypocritical performative virtue by inventing the comic epic in prose. Literature students analyze the rigorous symmetrical plotting and joyous humanism.
• Julie, or the New Heloise by Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Rousseau fueled a massive cultural obsession with extreme romantic authenticity. The text forged the exact emotional vocabulary that would define the entire Romantic movement.
• Justine by Marquis de Sade. Sade weaponized extreme transgressive violence to push Enlightenment rationality to its absolute breaking point. The narrative is examined to understand the rigid, extreme limits of the philosophical novel of ideas.
• Les Liaisons Dangereuses by Pierre Choderlos de Laclos. French aristocrats were fascinated by Laclos exposing their own ruthless psychosexual warfare. The novel operates as a masterclass in epistolary dramatic irony and chilling character orchestration.
• Love in Excess by Eliza Haywood. Haywood commodified female erotic desire within the rapidly expanding early literary marketplace. The strategy directly anticipates the narrative mechanics of the amatory fiction genre.
• Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe. Defoe mapped ruthless survival within brutal social structures for an increasingly mercantile readership. Modern literary historians dissect the plain, journalistic prose style that defined early realism.
• Ormond by Charles Brockden Brown. Post-revolutionary audiences processed their anxieties through the novel's tense atmosphere of ideological contagion. The book is an essential study in the paranoid aesthetics of the early American gothic.
• Pamela, Or, Virtue Rewarded by Samuel Richardson. Richardson modeled moral elevation through highly disciplined epistolary compliance. The text introduced the revolutionary structural innovation of writing directly to the moment.
• Rameau's Nephew and D'Alembert's Dream by Denis Diderot. Diderot shocked traditional European moral frameworks by debating extreme materialistic nihilism. The dialogue is revered for its dynamic, dialectical brilliance and intellectual kinetic energy.
• Reveries of the Solitary Walker by Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Rousseau validated extreme social alienation and profound psychological self-isolation. Readers study the beautiful, lyrical prose that captures absolute existential isolation.
• Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe. Defoe engineered the ultimate myth of absolute isolation and physical self-reliance. The narrative established the foundational architectural blueprint for the modern survival story.
• Roxana by Daniel Defoe. The brutal calculation of the severe moral cost of independence captivated early readers. Modern critics study the dark, complex ambiguity of its deeply unreliable female narrator.
• The 120 Days of Sodom and Other Writings by Marquis de Sade. Sade systematically cataloged absolute power and physical exploitation. The text is analyzed for its extreme, mathematically rigid structuralism within transgressive literature.
• The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle by Tobias Smollett. Smollett aggressively satirized the intense hypocrisy of European aristocratic societies. Readers admire the sheer kinetic energy and grotesque caricatures defining the picaresque form.
• The Adventures of Roderick Random by Tobias Smollett. Readers faced the horrific realities of global naval warfare through a brutally comic lens. The novel provides a visceral, grotesque aesthetic that shaped early comic fiction.
• The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin by Benjamin Franklin. Franklin architected the foundational blueprint for American self-improvement. Literary scholars dissect the deliberate, highly conscious construction of the American persona.
• The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole. Walpole manufactured the gothic genre to process repressed collective historical trauma. The text marks the exact origin point of supernatural atmospheric literature and architectural dread.
• The Expedition of Humphry Clinker by Tobias Smollett. Smollett mapped the profound environmental degradation of early British industrialization. Audiences appreciate the highly sophisticated multi-vocal epistolary comedy and regional dialects.
• The Federalist Papers by Alexander Hamilton. Hamilton engineered the supreme logical framework for massive democratic consolidation. Readers study the supreme rhetorical precision and flawless persuasive architecture of the essays.
• The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia by Samuel Johnson. Johnson systematically dismantled the persistent human delusion of absolute personal happiness. The narrative is valued for the majestic, perfectly balanced cadence of Johnsonian prose.
• The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling by Henry Fielding. Fielding challenged strict aristocratic hypocrisy by elevating common ethical social morality. The book represents the structural perfection of the symmetrical, omnisciently narrated plot.
• The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano by Olaudah Equiano. Equiano weaponized firsthand traumatic testimony to drive massive global abolitionist reform. The text is a powerful artistic fusion of spiritual autobiography and urgent political rhetoric.
• The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman by Laurence Sterne. Sterne radically fragmented linear narrative to reflect emerging psychological association theories. The novel remains an unparalleled masterpiece of radical typographical play and non-linear genius.
• The Man of Feeling by Henry MacKenzie. MacKenzie commodified extreme male emotional vulnerability for mass public audience consumption. The work offers a fascinating study in the highly episodic, fragmented architecture of the sentimental novel.
• The Monk by Matthew Gregory Lewis. Lewis exploited deep societal paranoia through extreme transgressive gothic sensationalism. The novel is a masterful exercise in the escalation of macabre suspense and supernatural horror.
• The Mysteries of Udolpho by Ann Radcliffe. Radcliffe processed female helplessness within legally oppressive patriarchal property structures. The narrative invented the explained supernatural and established the aesthetics of the sublime landscape.
• The Nun by Denis Diderot. Diderot brutally exposed systemic institutional coercion within highly forced religious seclusion. Modern readers study the claustrophobic, tightly controlled psychological realism of the protagonist's voice.
• The Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Coleridge captured profound ecological guilt amidst rapid global maritime expansion. The poem is dissected for its hypnotic meter, internal rhyme, and enduring mythological symbolism.
• The Sorrows of Young Werther by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. Goethe triggered massive international youth suicide contagions through romanticized despair. The text remains the pure, distilled literary expression of Sturm und Drang emotionalism.
• The Vicar of Wakefield by Oliver Goldsmith. Goldsmith provided a comforting sentimental illusion of unshakeable rural morality. Critics analyze the delicate, highly complex balance of gentle irony and pastoral idealism.
• Vathek by William Beckford. Beckford capitalized on intense imperial orientalism and boundless toxic consumer decadence. The novel is appreciated for its hallucinatory, extravagant visual imagination and dark sublime aesthetics.
• Wieland and Memoirs of Carwin the Biloquist by Charles Brockden Brown. Brown explored extreme religious fanaticism and the severe fallibility of sensory perception. The narrative is a chilling study of the unreliable psychological narrator and auditory terror.
• Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. Goethe defined the ultimate template for bourgeois psychological personal self-actualization. The book functions as the absolute origin point and structural blueprint for the Bildungsroman literary form.

See lists of the top novels for the 1700s, the 1800s, and the 1900s.