1. Booth Tarkington (1869)

American Novelist

A Pulitzer Prize-winner and one of the most popular novelists of his time, he wrote The Magnificent Ambersons and Alice Adams. His other works include Clarence: A Comedy in Four...

2. Zane Grey (1872)

American Novelist

American author best known for his Western novels Riders of the Purple Sage and The Lone Star Ranger. Many of his works were adapted for the screen, and several of...

3. Edgar Rice Burroughs (1875)

American Novelist

American writer who most famously created the Tarzan and Barsoom series. He was inducted into The Science Fiction Hall of Fame in 2003.

4. Jean Webster (1876)

American Novelist

American fiction writer whose best-known works include Dear Enemy (1915) and Daddy-Long-Legs (1912). Her literary works feature young female protagonists.

5. Henry Miller (1891)

American Novelist

American author whose semi-autobiographical style broke new literary ground. His best-known works include Tropic of Cancer, Tropic of Capricorn, and The Rosy Crucifixion Trilogy.

6. Dashiell Hammett (1894)

American Novelist

Author of such renowned detective novels as The Maltese Falcon, The Thin Man, and The Glass Key. He is famous for his legendary hard-boiled detective protagonists, Sam Spade and Nick...

7. Malcolm Cowley (1898)

American Novelist

An American author, poet, journalist, and critic, he is known for his 1929 poetry collection, Blue Juniata, and for his 1934 work, Exile's Return. His later works include The Dream...

8. Julien Green (1900)

American Novelist

A French-American writer, he is known for works such as The Dark Journey, The Closed Garden, Moira, and Each Man in His Darkness. He also published a nineteen-volume diary and...

9. Jane Hamilton (1957)

American Novelist

An American fiction writer, she is best known for her 1988 novel, The Book of Ruth, which describes the growing pains of a midwestern girl. Her other popular works include...

10. Mario Puzo (1920)

American Novelist

Italian-American novelist and screenwriter whose Mafia novel, The Godfather, was adapted into Francis Ford Coppola's legendary film trilogy. He also wrote the screenplays for the Superman movies, as well as novels...

11. Ken Kesey (1935)

American Novelist

American counterculture author best known for his novels One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Sometimes a Great Notion, and Demon Box. He was a key member of the psychedelic literary...

12. Toni Morrison (1931)

American Novelist

Author, educator, and Professor Emeritus at Princeton University whose best-known works include The Bluest Eye, Song of Solomon, and Sula. Her most famous novel, Beloved, won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in...

13. David Eddings (1931)

American Novelist

An American fantasy writer, he is known for several popular series, including The Belgariad (1982–84), The Malloreon (1987–91), and The Elenium (1989–91). His non-fantasy works include High Hunt (1973) and...

14. Barry Hughart (1934)

American Novelist

An American writer of fantasy novels, he was best known for The Chronicles of Master Li and Number Ten Ox trilogy. His other works include The Story of the Stone...

15. Annie Proulx (1935)

American Novelist

An American author and journalist, she received the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award for her 1993 novel, The Shipping News. She also wrote the short story, Brokeback Mountain,...

16. Don DeLillo (1936)

American Novelist

A Pulitzer Prize-winning author, he is most famous for works such as White Noise, Mao II, and Underworld. He won the PEN/Faulkner Award in 1992.

17. Neal Shusterman (1962)

American Novelist

Author whose young adult novel, The Schwa Was Here, received the California Young Reader Medal and the Boston Globe–Horn Book Award. He has written multiple series of books, including the...

18. Joyce Carol Oates (1938)

American Novelist

American author of numerous novels, short stories, plays, poems, and essays. She received the National Book Award for her 1969 novel, them, and was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize for...

19. Edmund White (1940)

American Novelist

An American novelist, essayist, and memoir writer, he is best known for The Joy of Gay Sex, a sex manual for men who have sex with men. His memoirs include...

20. Dan Simmons (1948)

American Novelist

An American science fiction author, he is best known for his Hyperion Cantos series and his Ilium/Olympos book cycle. Many of his books take their themes and/or titles from works...

21. Danielle Steel (1947)

American Novelist

American author who has written over fifty bestselling romantic novels. Her best known works include Passion's Promise and Now and Forever.

22. Katharine Weber (1955)

American Novelist

One of Granta magazine's 50 Best Young American Novelists of 1996, she is best known for works such as Objects in Mirror Are Closer Than They Appear, True Confections, and...

23. Mona Simpson (1957)

American Novelist

Lauded author whose debut novel, Anywhere but Here (1986), won the prestigious Whiting Prize. Her 2000 work, Off Keck Road, was the recipient of the Chicago Tribune Heartland Prize.

24. Ned Vizzini (1981)

American Novelist

American author who wrote four young adult books including It's Kind of a Funny Story, which was named #56 on the list of the 100 Best Teen Novels of all...

25. Tom Clancy (1947)

American Novelist

Bestselling American author of novels about war, intrigue, and espionage. His best known works-- many of which were adapted into successful screenplays-- include The Hunt for Red October, Clear and...

26. Tao Lin (1983)

American Novelist

A contemporary American writer, he is known for such novels as Taipei; Richard Yates; and Shoplifting from American Apparel. He also wrote a weekly column for Vice magazine.

27. Nicole Krauss (1974)

American Novelist

Nicole Krauss is an American author best known for her three novels Man Walks Into a Room The History of Love and Great House. Her fiction has been published in...

28. Louise Meriwether (1923)

American Novelist

Louise Meriwether is an American novelist essayist journalist and activist as well as a writer of biographies of historically important African Americans for children.

29. Norb Vonnegut (1958)

American Novelist

Norb Vonnegut is an American author of Wall Street thrillers and a financial commentator on his blog entitled Acrimoney. He attended Phillips Exeter Academy and received bachelor's and Master of...

30. Thomas McGuane (1939)

American Novelist

Thomas Francis McGuane III is an American author. His work includes ten novels short fiction and screenplays as well as three collections of essays devoted to his life in the...

31. Robert B. Wyatt (1940)

American Novelist

Robert B. Wyatt has had a long career devoted to the publication of fiction commencing in 1962 at the Doubleday Book Store chain in New York City where he was...

32. Shirlee Busbee (1941)

American Novelist

Shirlee Busbee is an American writer of romance novels since 1977. With over nine million copies of her books in print she is the recipient of numerous awards for excellence...

33. Louise Titchener (1941)

American Novelist

Louise F. Titchener was a US novelist since 1982. She wrote under various pseudonyms: Anne Silverlock and Jane Silverwood with Eileen Buckholtz Ruth Glick and Carolyn Males as Alyssa Howard...

34. Raymond Abbott (1942)

American Novelist

Raymond Abbott is an American novelist.

35. Kris Radish (1953)

American Novelist

Kris Radish is an American best-selling author award-winning journalist and nationally syndicated columnist. She has written two works of non-fiction nine novels and has appeared on several national television shows....

36. Pamela Burford (1954)

American Novelist

Pamela Burford is an American novelist. She is an award-winning author of 14 contemporary romance and romantic suspense novels and she is the twin sister of the author Patricia Ryan....

37. Robert Eversz (1954)

American Novelist

Robert McLeod Eversz is an American fiction writer screenwriter and educator. The author of the Nina Zero novels he is a co-founder of the Prague Summer Program for writers a...

38. Kurt Andersen (1954)

American Novelist

Kurt Andersen is an American novelist who is also host of the Peabody-winning public radio program Studio 360 a co-production between Public Radio International and WNYC. He graduated magna *...

39. Charlotte Agell (1959)

American Novelist

Charlotte Agell is a Swedish-born American author for young adults and children who currently lives in Maine. Her second novel Shift was featured on the front cover of the Brunswick...

40. John H. Ritter (1951)

American Novelist

John H. Ritter is an American novelist short story writer teacher and lecturer. He has written six novels and numerous short stories spanning the historical sports and sociopolitical genres in...

41. Kate Christensen (1962)

American Novelist

Kate Christensen is an American novelist. She won the 2008 PEN/Faulkner Award for her fourth novel The Great Man about a painter and the three women in his life. Her...

42. Walter Kirn (1962)

American Novelist

Kirn is an American novelist literary critic and essayist. He is the author of eight books including Up in the Air which was made into a movie starring George Clooney...

43. Laurie R. King (1952)

American Novelist

Laurie R. King is an American author best known for her detective fiction. Among her books are the Mary Russell series of historical mysteries featuring Sherlock Holmes as her mentor...

44. John Gregory Brown (1960)

American Novelist

John Gregory Brown is an American novelist.

45. Jess Mowry (1960)

American Novelist

Jess Mowry is an American author of books and stories for children and young adults. He has written eighteen books and many short stories for and about black children and...

46. Susan Choi (1969)

American Novelist

Susan Choi is an American novelist. Choi was born in South Bend Indiana to a Korean father and the American daughter of Russian Jewish immigrants. When she was nine years...

47. Lucinda Rosenfeld (1969)

American Novelist

Lucinda Rosenfeld is an American novelist.

48. Christian Bauman (1970)

American Novelist

Christian Bauman is an American novelist essayist and lyricist. A former soldier Bauman is arguably best known for his critically acclaimed 2002 debut novel The Ice Beneath You about the...

49. Myla Goldberg (1971)

American Novelist

Myla Goldberg is an American novelist and musician.

50. Samantha Hunt (1971)

American Novelist

Samantha Hunt is an American novelist essayist and short-story writer. She is the author of the novel The Seas published by MacAdam/Cage and the novel The Invention of Everything Else...