Best Books, Fiction & Literature, History, Literature, Nonfiction

The 51 Best Books From and About the 1920’s

“What are the best 1920’s books?” We consulted 12 articles and 378 books to answer that very question. Below you will find our results of the 51 top books from and about the 1920’s of all-time. Click here to see the methodology used.

Info That can be Found in a Best 1920’s Book Listicle
  • Flappers
  • A single woman on the book cover
  • Sinclare Lewis
  • New York


Editor’s Pick: One Summer by Bill Bryson

Learn More / Buy

One Summer- America, 1927 by Bill Bryson


51.) A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway

Appears on: 2
Learn More / Buy

A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway


50.) A Passage to India by E.M. Forster

Appears on: 2
Learn More / Buy

A Passage to India by E.M. Forster


49.) A Room of One’s Own by Virginia Woolf

Appears on: 2
Learn More / Buy

A Room of One's Own by Virginia Woolf


48.) All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque

Appears on: 2
Learn More / Buy

All Quiet on the Western Front (All Quiet on the Western Front:The Road Back #1) by Erich Maria Remarque


47.) Gentlemen Prefer Blondes by Anita Loos

Appears on: 2
Learn More / Buy

Gentlemen Prefer Blondes by Anita Loos


46.) Just William by Richmal Crompton

Appears on: 2
Learn More / Buy

Just William (Just William #1) by Richmal Crompton


45.) Lady Chatterley’s Lover by D.H. Lawrence

Appears on: 2
Learn More / Buy

Lady Chatterley's Lover by D.H. Lawrence


44.) Look Homeward, Angel by Thomas Wolfe

Appears on: 2
Learn More / Buy

Look Homeward, Angel by Thomas Wolfe


43.) Main Street by Sinclair Lewis

Appears on: 2
Learn More / Buy

Main Street by Sinclair Lewis


42.) Manhattan Transfer by Dos Passos

Appears on: 2
Learn More / Buy

Manhattan Transfer by John Dos Passos


41.) Mein Kampf by A Huge Asshole

Appears on: 2
Learn More / Buy

Mein Kampf by Adolf Hitler


40.) Mother India

Appears on: 2
Learn More / Buy

Mother India- Selections from the Controversial 1927 Text, Edited and with an Introduction by Mrinalini Sinha Paperback – March 31, 2000 by Katherine Mayo


39.) Mrs Dalloway by Virginia Woolf

Appears on: 2
Learn More / Buy

Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf


38.) Only Yesterday by Frederick Lewis Allen

Appears on: 2
Learn More / Buy

Only Yesterday- An Informal History of the 1920's by Frederick Lewis Allen


37.) Our Times: The United States, 1900-1925 by Mark Sullivan

Appears on: 2
Learn More / Buy

Screen Shot 2015-11-23 at 10.27.00 PM

 


36.) Point Counter Point by Aldous Huxley

Appears on: 2
Learn More / Buy

Point Counter Point by Aldous Huxley


35.) So Big by Edna Ferber

Appears on: 2
Learn More / Buy

So Big by Edna Ferber


34.) Strange Interlude by Eugene O’Neill

Appears on: 2
Learn More / Buy

Strange Interlude by Eugene O'Neill


33.) The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton

Appears on: 2
Learn More / Buy

The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton


32.) The Boston Cooking School Cook Book

Appears on: 2
Learn More / Buy

The Boston Cooking School Cook Book by Fannie Merritt Farmer


31.) The Castle by Franz Kafka

Appears on: 2
Learn More / Buy

The Castle by Franz Kafka


30.) The Enchanted April by Elizabeth von Arnim

Appears on: 2
Learn More / Buy

The Enchanted April by Elizabeth von Arnim


29.) The Enormous Room by E.E.Cummings

Appears on: 2
Learn More / Buy

The Enormous Room (Xist Classics) by E.E. Cummings


28.) The Home-Maker

Appears on: 2
Learn More / Buy

The Home-Maker by Dorothy Canfield Fisher


27.) The Making of Americans by Gertrude Stein

Appears on: 2
Learn More / Buy

The Making of Americans by Gertrude Stein


26.) The Man Nobody Knows by Bruce Barton

Appears on: 2
Learn More / Buy

The Man Nobody Knows by Bruce Barton


25.) The Mind in the Making

Appears on: 2
Learn More / Buy

The Mind in the Making- The Relation of Intelligence to Social Reform - Complete English Version by James Harvey Robinson


24.) The New Negro by Alain Locke

Appears on: 2
Learn More / Buy

The New Negro by Alain LeRoy Locke


23.) The Outline of History by Herbert George Wells

Appears on: 2
Learn More / Buy

The Outline of History by H.G. Wells


22.) The Story of Doctor Dolittle by Hugh Lofting

Appears on: 2
Learn More / Buy

The Story of Doctor Dolittle (Doctor Dolittle #1) by Hugh Lofting, Michael Hague (Illustrator)


21.) The Trial by Franz Kafka

Appears on: 2
Learn More / Buy

The Trial by Franz Kafka


20.) The Weary Blues by Langston Hughes

Appears on: 2
Learn More / Buy

The Weary Blues by Langston Hughes



19.) To The Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf

Appears on: 2
Learn More / Buy

To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf


18.) Twilight Sleep by Edith Wharton

Appears on: 2
Learn More / Buy

Twilight Sleep by Edith Wharton


17.) Ulysses by James Joyce

Appears on: 2
Learn More / Buy

Ulysses by James Joyce


16.) We by Yevgeny Zamyatin

Appears on: 2
Learn More / Buy

We by Yevgeny Zamyatin


15.) Winnie the Pooh by A.A. Milne

Appears on: 2
Learn More / Buy

Winnie-the-Pooh (Winnie-the-Pooh #1) by A.A. Milne, Ernest H. Shepard (Illustrations)


14.) Women in Love by D.H. Lawrence

Appears on: 2
Learn More / Buy

Women in Love (Brangwen Family #2) by D.H. Lawrence


13.) Dave at Night by Gail Carson Levine

Appears on: 2
Learn More / Buy

Dave at Night By- Gail Carson Levine


12.) Harlem Stomp!: a cultural history of the Harlem Renaissance by Laban Carrick Hill

Appears on: 2
Learn More / Buy

Harlem Stomp!- a cultural history of the Harlem Renaissance By- Laban Carrick Hill


11.) Harlem Summer by Walter Dean Myers

Appears on: 2
Learn More / Buy

Harlem Summer


10.) Henry and the Kite Dragon By Bruce Edward Hall

Appears on: 2
Learn More / Buy

Henry and the Kite Dragon By- Bruce Edward Hall


9.) Elmer Gantry by Sinclair Lewis

Appears on: 3
Learn More / Buy

Elmer Gantry by Sinclair Lewis


8.) The Americanization of Edward Bok by Edward William Bok

Appears on: 3
Learn More / Buy

The Americanization of Edward Bok by Edward Bok


7.) The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner

Appears on: 3
Learn More / Buy

The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner


6.) The Waste Land by T.S. Eliot

Appears on: 3
Learn More / Buy

The Waste Land by T.S. Eliot


5.) This Side of Paradise by F. Scott Fitzgerald

Appears on: 3
Learn More / Buy

This Side of Paradise by F. Scott Fitzgerald


4.) Witness By Karen Hesse

Appears on: 3
Learn More / Buy

Witness by Karen Hesse


3.) The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

Appears on: 4
Learn More / Buy

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald


2.) Babbitt by Sinclair Lewis

Appears on: 5
Learn More / Buy

Babbitt by Sinclair Lewis


1.) The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway

Appears on: 5
Learn More / Buy

The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway



The 327 Other 1920’s Books Appearing on a Single List
  • A Dictionary of Twentieth-Century World History – Jan Palmowski
  • A Gentleman of Courage
  • A Good Woman
  • A High Wind in Jamaica
  • A Man from Maine
  • A Poor Wise Man
  • A Preface to Morals
  • A Vision
  • Absentee Ownership
  • Accelerated Grimace: Expressionism in the American Drama of the 1920sBy Mardi Valgemae
  • After Noon
  • After Wilson: The Struggle for the Democratic Party, 1920-1934By Douglas B. Craig
  • Age of Innocence
  • All Kneeling
  • Almanacs of American Life: Modern America 1914 to 1945 – Gregory, Ross
  • America in the 1920s. (The Decades of Twentieth-Century America Series
  • American Culture in the 1920sBy Susan Currell
  • American Decades – Layman, Richard
  • An American Idyll
  • An American Tragedy
  • An Emerging World Power, 1900-1929
  • An Ocean Apart, a World Away
  • An Old-fashioned ABC Book By: Elizabeth Allen Ashton
  • Anatole France Himself
  • Ariel
  • Arrowsmith
  • Ask Me Another
  • Aspects of the Novel
  • Asylum – William Seabrook
  • Auction Bridge Complete
  • Autobiography of Mark Twain
  • Bad Girl
  • Beau Geste
  • Beau Sabreur
  • Becoming Babe Ruth
  • Being and Time
  • Believe It or Not
  • Beyond the Pleasure Principle by Sigmund Freud
  • Big Blonde and Other Stories by Dorothy Parker
  • Billy Budd (posthumous)
  • Black Oxen
  • Bliss by Katherine Mansfield
  • Bootleg: Murder, Moonshine, and the Lawless Years of Prohibition.
  • Bridge of San Luis Rey
  • Call It Sleep – Henry Roth
  • Cane
  • Celeste’s Harlem Renaissance
  • Cheri by Colette
  • Choosing Up Sides
  • Citizen Klansmen: The Ku Klux Klan in Indiana, 1921-1928By Leonard J. Moore
  • Civilization in the United States
  • Claire Ambler
  • Collected Legal Papers
  • Coming of Age in Samoa
  • Conditioned Reflexes
  • Cornhuskers – Carl Sandburg
  • Count Luckner, the Sea Devil
  • Daily Life in the United States, 1920-1939: Decades of Promise and PainBy David E. Kyvig
  • Dance Marathons: Performing American Culture of the 1920s and 1930sBy Carol Martin
  • Dancing Fools and Weary Blues: The Great Escape of the TwentiesBy Lawrence R. Broer; John
    D. Walther
  • Dark Hester
  • Dear Mr. Rosenwald
  • Death Comes for the Archbishop
  • Decline and Fall by Evelyn Waugh
  • Disraeli
  • Dodsworth
  • Does Prohibition Work? – Martha Bensley Bruere
  • Doomsday
  • Duke Ellington, the Piano Prince and His Orchestra
  • Dusty Answer by Rosamond Lehmann
  • Egyptology: search for the tomb of Osiris, being the journal of Miss Emily Sands, November
    1926 By: Emily Sands
  • Elizabeth and Essex
  • Ella’s Big Chance: A Jazz Age Cinderella.
  • Emil and the Detectives
  • Emily of New Moon
  • Emma Goldman, My Disillusionment with Russia
  • Encyclopedia of the United States in the Twentieth Century – Kutler, Stanley I.
  • Every Man a Speculator: A History of Wall Street in American Life Steve Fraser
  • Everybody Was So Young – Amanda Vaill
  • Exile’s Return: A Literary Odyssey of the 1920sBy Malcolm Cowley; Donald W. Faulkner
  • Experience and Nature
  • Fabulous Fashions of the 1920s
  • Flappers and the New American Woman: Perceptions of Women from 1918 through the 1920s
  • Flight: The Journey of Charles Lindbergh
  • Gentle Julia
  • Glorious Apollo
  • Goethe
  • Good-bye to All That
  • Greenwood Encyclopedia of Daily Life in America – Francis J. Sicius
  • Harriet and the Piper
  • Helen of the Old House
  • Henry the Eighth
  • Her Father’s Daughter
  • His Children’s Children
  • History and Class Consciousness
  • How it Happened in Peach Hill By: Marthe Jocelyn
  • Hugh Selwyn Mauberley by Ezra Pound
  • I and Thou
  • Ideology and Utopia
  • If Winter Comes
  • In Our Time – Ernest Hemingway
  • In the American Grain
  • Introduction to the Science of Society
  • Jalna
  • Jazz Age: People and PerspectivesBy Mitchell Newton-Matza
  • Jean Piaget, Judgment and Reasoning in the Child
  • Jefferson and Hamilton
  • Joe-Joe’s First Flight
  • John Brown’s Body
  • Joseph and His Brethren
  • Keep Your Eye on the Kid: The Early Years of Buster Keaton. illus. by author.
  • Kindred of the Dust
  • Language
  • Law, Alcohol, and Order: Perspectives on National ProhibitionBy David E. Kyvig
  • Les Enfants Terribles by Jean Cocteau
  • Living Well Is the Best Revenge – Calvin Tomkins
  • Lost Ecstasy
  • Main Currents in American Thought
  • Mamba’s Daughters
  • Marcel Mauss, The Gift
  • Maria Chapdelaine
  • Mark Twain’s Autobiography
  • Mary-Marie
  • Middlesex By: Jeffrey Eugenides
  • Middletown
  • Miracles And Modern Spiritualism –Alfred Russel Wallace
  • Mirrors of Washington
  • Mistress Wilding
  • Modern Temper
  • Mr. Fortune’s Maggot by Sylvia Townsend Warner
  • Nadja by Andre Breton
  • Napoleon
  • Nature of the Physical World
  • New Aspects of Politics
  • New Hampshire
  • New World Coming By: Nathan Miller
  • Notes on Democracy
  • Now It Can Be Told
  • Of Time And The River – Thomas Wolfe
  • Old Pybus
  • One Increasing Purpose
  • Operation Red Jericho By: Joshua Mowll
  • Outwitting Our Nerves
  • Over Here: The First World War and American Society David M. Kennedy
  • Paint By Magic
  • Painted Windows
  • Parade’s End
  • Peace Negotiations
  • Peder Victorious
  • Public Opinion
  • Queen Victoria
  • Quest for Certainty
  • R.U.R.
  • Reconstruction in Philosophy
  • Religion and the Rise of Capitalism
  • Revolt in the Desert
  • Romancero Gitano by Federico Garcia Lorca
  • Roosevelt’s Letters to His Children
  • Roper’s Row
  • Saint Joan
  • Scarlet Sister Mary
  • Science and Poetry
  • Science and the Modern World
  • Self-Mastery Through Conscious Auto-Suggestion
  • Shailer Mathews, Faith of Modernism
  • Show Boat
  • Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse
  • Simon Called Peter
  • Sir Charlie: Chaplin, the Funniest Man in the World
  • Six Characters in Search of an Author
  • Six Days in October: The Stock Market Crash of 1929
  • Skyward
  • Smoke And Steel – Carl Sandburg
  • Social Change
  • Sorrell and Son
  • Soundings
  • Spoon River Anthology – Edgar Lee Masters
  • Structures of the Jazz Age: Mass Culture, Progressive Education, and Racial Discourse in
    American Modernism By Chip Rhodes
  • Studies in Classic American Literature
  • Summer for the Gods: The Scopes Trial and America’s Continuing Debate Over Science and
    Religion
  • Swan Song
  • Taft, Holmes, and the 1920s Court: An AppraisalBy David H. Burton
  • Temperance Or Prohibition – Francis J. Teitsort ed.
  • Tender Is The Night – F. Scott Fitzgerald
  • The 1920s Decade in Photos: The Roaring Twenties
  • The 1920s: From Prohibition to Charles Lindbergh
  • The 1920s: Luck By: Dorothy Hoobler
  • The Argonauts of the Western Pacific
  • The Art of Thinking
  • The Autobiography of Margot Asquith
  • The Beautiful and the Damned by F. Scott Fitzgerald
  • The Big Town – Ring Lardner
  • The Bishop Murder Case
  • The Blue Window
  • The Book Nobody Knows
  • The Boxcar Children
  • The Boy Who Invented TV: The Story of Philo Farnsworth
  • The Breaking Point
  • The Bridge of San Luis Rey
  • The Brimming Cup
  • The Call of the Canyon
  • The Carolinian
  • The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle
  • The Children of Odin: The Book of Northern Myths
  • The Coast of Folly
  • The Color Purple By: Alice Walker
  • The Concept of the Political
  • The Constant Nymph
  • The Cradle of the Deep
  • The Crisis of Parliamentary Democracy
  • The Cross Word Puzzle Books
  • The Decline of the West, vol. 2
  • The Dim Lantern
  • The Dollar Decade: Mammon and the Machine in 1920s AmericaBy Gary Dean Best
  • The Economic Consequences of the Peace
  • The Frontier in American History
  • The Galaxy
  • The Gangs of New York by Herbert Asbury
  • The Glorious Adventure
  • The Golden Day
  • The Good Earth By: Pearl S. Buck
  • The Great Impersonation
  • The Green Hat
  • The Greene Murder Case
  • The Head of the House of Coombe
  • The Heart of a Dog by Mikhail Bulgakov
  • The Heirs Apparent
  • The Hounds of Spring
  • The Hours By: Michael Cunningham
  • The House By: Danielle Steel
  • The Inimitable Jeeves by P.G Wodehouse
  • The Intelligent Woman’s Guide to Socialism and Capitalism
  • The Kat Who Walked in Beauty: the panoramic dailies of 1920 By: George Herriman
  • The Keeper of the Bees
  • The Kingdom Round the Corner
  • The Lamp in the Desert
  • The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page
  • The Light of Faith
  • The Little French Girl
  • The Little Match Girl By: Jerry Pinkney
  • The Logic of Modern Physics
  • The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann
  • The Magical Land of Noom
  • The Man of the Forest
  • The Mansions of Philosophy
  • The Meaning of Relativity
  • The Middle Border – Hamlin Garland
  • The Midlander
  • The Midnight Folk
  • The Milly-Molly-Mandy Storybook.
  • The Mine with the Iron Door
  • The Mirrors of Downing Street
  • The Mysterious Affair at Styles by Agatha Christie
  • The Mysterious Rider
  • The New Decalogue of Science
  • The Night Owls
  • The Old Countess
  • The Outline of Science
  • The Painted Veil by W. Somerset Maugham
  • The People, Yes – Carl Sandburg
  • The Perennial Bachelor
  • The Plastic Age
  • The Plutocrat
  • The Portygee
  • The Private Life of Helen of Troy
  • The Prophet
  • The Public and Its Problems
  • The Re-Creation of Brian Kent
  • The Revolt of the Masses
  • The Ring Lardner Reader – Ring Lardner
  • The Rise of American Civilization
  • The River’s End
  • The Royal Road to Romance
  • The Scopes Trial: Faith, Science, and American Education
  • The Sea-Hawk
  • The Sheik
  • The Silver Spoon
  • The Sisters-in-Law
  • The Specialist
  • The Star Fisher By: Laurence Yep
  • The Story of Mankind
  • The Story of My Experiments with Truth
  • The Story of Philosophy
  • The Strange Case of Miss Annie Spragg
  • The Timetables of History – Grun, Bernard
  • The Tragic Era
  • The Trial of Sacco and Vanzetti: A Primary Source Account
  • The Trumpeter of Krakow
  • The Twenties – Edmund Wilson
  • The Twenties in America: Politics and HistoryBy Niall Palmer
  • The Valley of Silent Men
  • The Velveteen Rabbit by Margery Williams
  • The Voice that Challenged a Nation By: Russell Freedman
  • The Wanderer of the Wasteland
  • Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
  • Theodore Roosevelt
  • They Came Like Swallows – William Maxwell
  • They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? – Horace McCoy
  • Thirty Years Among The Dead – Carl Wickland M.D.
  • This Freedom
  • This Land is your Land By: Woody Guthrie
  • Thomas Mann, The Magic Mountain
  • Three Across: The Great Atlantic Air Race of 1927
  • Tinkers By: Paul Harding
  • Tintin in the Land of the Soviets by Herge
  • To the Last Man
  • Tobacco Road – Erskine Caldwell
  • Tomorrow Morning
  • Towards a New Architecture
  • Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus
  • Trader Horn, vol. 1
  • Twentieth-Century Teen Culture by the Decades: A Reference GuideBy Lucy Rollin
  • Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair by Pablo Neruda
  • Twenty-Five Years
  • Twice Thirty
  • U.S.A. – John Dos Passos
  • Uncle Jed’s Barbershop By: Margaree King Mitchell
  • Vixen By: Jillian Larkin
  • When We Were Very Young
  • White Lilacs By: Carolyn Meyer
  • White Shadows in the South Seas
  • Why I Am Not a Christian
  • Why We Behave Like Human Beings
  • Winesburg, Ohio – Sherwood Anderson
  • Wintersmoon
  • With Courage and Cloth: Winning the Fight for a Woman’s Right to Vote.
  • Woman Suffrage and Politics
  • Young Fu of the Upper Yangtze By: Elizabeth Foreman Lewis

Article Sources Arranged by Publish Date