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A Century of Reading: The 10 Books That Defined the 1910s

Part two in a not-at-all controversial series.

Some books are flashes in the pan, read for entertainment and then left on a bus seat for the next lucky person to pick up and enjoy, forgotten by most after their season has passed. Others stick around, are read and re-read, are taught and discussed. sometimes due to great artistry, sometimes due to luck, and sometimes because they manage to recognize and capture some element of the culture of the time.

In the moment, you often can’t tell which books are which.  The Great Gatsby  wasn’t a bestseller upon its release, but we now see it as emblematic of a certain American sensibility in the 1920s. Of course, hindsight can also distort the senses; the canon looms and obscures. Still, over the next weeks, we’ll be publishing a list a day, each one attempting to define a discrete decade, starting with the 1900s (as you’ve no doubt guessed by now) and counting down until we get to the (nearly complete) 2010s.

Though the books on these lists need not be American in origin, I am looking for books that evoke some aspect of American life, actual or intellectual, in each decade—a global lens would require a much longer list. And of course, varied and complex as it is, there’s no list that could truly define American life over ten or any number of years, so I do not make any claim on exhaustiveness. I’ve simply selected books that, if read together, would give a fair picture of the landscape of literary culture for that decade—both as it was and as it is remembered. Finally, two process notes: I’ve limited myself to one book for author over the entire 12-part list, so you may see certain works skipped over in favor of others, even if both are important (for instance, I’ll be ignoring Dubliners so later I can include Ulysses ), and in the case of translated work, I’ll be using the date of the English translation, for obvious reasons.

For our second installment, below you’ll find 10 books that defined the second decade of the 1900s.

In 1889, trailblazing social worker, activist and suffragist Addams co-founded what would become America’s most famous settlement house, with her partner Ellen Gates Starr, in an old unused mansion in Chicago. They imagined it as a true cooperative space, which would provide housing, educational, artistic, and social programs to women from all walks of life. Soon Hull House grew, becoming deeply involved in local politics, and eventually expanding into 13 buildings.  Twenty Years at Hull House  is her memoir of that time, and of course is less influential than the work and the house itself, but I’m including it here as a record.

Barrie’s most famous story originated in 1904 as a play, and was published in novel form in 1911. As with  The Wonderful Wizard of Oz , the enduring popularity and relevance of this text is self-evident, but the older I get the more I think it relevant to modern American life (despite the fact that Barrie was a Scot who lived in London)—the vile repercussions of our culture-wide extended childhood (and particularly, boyhood, and all the excuses we make for it) have been nipping at our heels for decades.

Described by some as “perhaps the most popular novel of the Old West ever published,” but certainly a seminal Western novel—and therefore, in a certain sense, a seminal American novel by default—either way. As Russell Martin wrote in  The New York Times :

Grey created a fanciful world that related an archetypal American story—one that told us something important about what decent people we thought we were, and how each of us ought to act in the face of life’s mean tribulations.

But Grey’s mythical world was only loosely based on that brief moment in history when vast stretches of America actually were dominated by bison and Indians, bad men and frontier justice. ”The West is dead, my friend,” wrote the artist Charles M. Russell as early as l917.

A bestseller that has been adapted to film no less than five times, this is a novel that captured the American self-mythologizing imagination both in its time and for many years to come.

Edgar Rice Burroughs was an impressive jack-of-all-trades as a writer, producing science fiction, fantasy, westerns, and historical romances. But none of his other work approached the popularity Tarzan, the boy raised by apes, who was an instant sensation upon his publication. Burroughs wound up writing some 24 sequels, and he also founded a town based on his character. Yes—first he bought a ranch north of Los Angeles, which he named “Tarzana,” and the community that sprung up around said ranch officially adopted the name . “Edgar Rice Burroughs never would have looked upon himself as a social mover and shaker with social obligations,” Ray Bradbury told The Paris Review   in 2010. “But as it turns out—and I love to say it because it upsets everyone terribly—Burroughs is probably the most influential writer in the entire history of the world.”

By giving romance and adventure to a whole generation of boys, Burroughs caused them to go out and decide to become special. That’s what we have to do for everyone, give the gift of life with our books. Say to a girl or boy at age ten, Hey, life is fun! Grow tall! I’ve talked to more biochemists and more astronomers and technologists in various fields, who, when they were ten years old, fell in love with John Carter and Tarzan and decided to become something romantic. Burroughs put us on the moon. All the technologists read Burroughs.

Willa Cather knew a little something about westward expansion. She was born in Virginia in 1873, but moved with her family to Nebraska when she was ten, to the small town life that would inform the first novel of her Great Plains trilogy, and all of her best writing. It was greeted with acclaim when it was first published, and in its day recognized as a new kind of American masterpiece.

“The hero of the American novel very often starts on the farm, but he seldom stays there; instead, he uses it as a spring-board from which to plunge into the mysteries of politics or finance,” Edwin Clark wrote in a 1913 review in  The New York Times .

Probably the novel reflects a national tendency. To be sure, after we have carefully separated ourselves from the soil, we are apt to talk a lot about the advantages of a return to it, but in most cases, it ends there. The average American does not have any deep instinct for the land, or vital consciousness of the dignity and value of the life that may be lived upon it.

O Pioneers! is filled with this instinct and this consciousness. It is a tale of the old wood-and-field-worshipping races, Swedes and Bohemians, transplanted to Nebraskan uplands, of their struggle with the untamed soil, and their final conquest of it. Miss Cather has written a good story, we hasten to assure the reader who cares for good stories, but she has achieved something even finer. Through a direct, human tale of love and struggle and attainment, a tale that is American in the best sense of the word, there runs a thread of symbolism. It is practically a novel without a hero.

It’s also just wonderful. “Others of Cather’s books—for example, The Professor’s House —are sadder than O Pioneers! , because, being less romantic, they are harder to regard as a fiction,”  Joan Acocella wrote on the book’s 100th birthday. “But this is the one that takes a knife and stabs you through the heart, by its joining of such ravishment with such pessimism.”

Freud’s work hit the English language world in 1913, and its reverberations have been felt ever since. It was a revolution upon its publication, and soon became the founding document for an entire new social consciousness and therapeutic system—flawed as it may have been, there is no denying its influence, and its continuing influence in the way we see ourselves and each other today.

Though we’ll get our fill of modernism tomorrow, with the 1920s list, it was already beginning in this decade, with, among other things, the great American poet Gertrude Stein, whose  Tender Buttons  is considered to be all of the following : “a masterpiece of verbal Cubism, a modernist triumph, a spectacular failure, a collection of confusing gibberish, and an intentional hoax.”

A more prototypical “American story” of the era would be hard to find. An aristocratic Indianapolis family faces industrialization, social change, declining fortunes, and the influx of the newly-moneyed. “ The Magnificent Ambersons  is perhaps Tarkington’s best novel,” wrote critic Van Wyck Brooks, according to the back matter of every copy. “[It is] a typical story of an American family and town—the great family that locally ruled the roost and vanished virtually in a day as the town spread and darkened into a city. This novel no doubt was a permanent page in the social history of the United States, so admirably conceived and written was the tale of the Ambersons, their house, their fate and the growth of the community in which they were submerged in the end.” It won the Pulitzer Prize the next year.

Honestly, William Butler Yeats, widely acknowledged as one of the most important literary figures of the 20th century and beloved both in his native Ireland and in America (and in lots of other places), could go in a number of decades, but I’ll fit him in here, during his middle period, in the years just before he won the Nobel Prize in poetry in 1923. He published an edition of  The Wild Swans at Coole  in 1917, containing 29 poems and a play, and then an updated version two years later, adding 17 poems and scrapping the play. Included are “On being asked for a War Poem,” and “An Irish Airman Foresees His Death,” among others.

First of all,  Winesburg, Ohio is a formal achievement, being one of the earliest and still one of the best linked collections, each story set in the same fictional small town. But it was also immediately welcomed into the canon of Great American Literature upon its publication, in part, no doubt, because of its special and highly American sense of isolation. A reviewer in the  Boston Transcript  declared it proof “of what American fiction can be when an artist with vision and sensibility, with comprehension and the capacity to test reality with imagination, deals with the infinities that lie beneath the commonplace materials of American life.” He wasn’t the only fan. “America should read this book on her knees,” Hart Crane proclaimed in the year of its publication. “It constitutes an important chapter in the Bible of her consciousness.”

See also:   Frances Hodgson Burnett,  The Secret Garden (1911), T. S. Eliot,  The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock (1915), E. M. Forster, Howards End (1910), D. H. Lawrence, Sons and Lovers (1913),  James Joyce, Dubliners (1914),  James Joyce, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916), George Bernard Shaw,  Pygmalion  (1914) etc. 

WATCH THIS SPACE FOR THE MOST IMPORTANT BOOKS OF THE 1920s, TOMORROW

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Emily Temple

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Historical Fiction Books About the 1910s & 1900s

Discover the best books about the 1910s and 1900s, two decades of massive change spanning from the turn of the century to World War I.

When you think about the early 20th century, you think of a world on the brink. From the turn of the century and the First World War, the 1900s and 1910s saw massive changes from the beginning of flight to the horrors of a worldwide war.

In many ways, life almost 100 years ago was completely different than our lives today, but in some ways, things remain just the same.

Today, I’ve put together a list of books about the 1910s and 1900s. You’ll find something for everyone: fun 1910s historical fiction and terrifying WW1 books, nonfiction books about the 1900s, and even a few classic 1910s books worth a read.

Don’t Miss a Thing

Books About the 1900s

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

Betty smith.

A classic coming-of-age story that has enchanted readers for decades, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn chronicles young teen Francie Nolan as she grows up in the slums of Brooklyn. Covering poverty and the American dream, Betty Smith’s masterpiece points out the struggles of the poor families of the early 20th century. Yet, the enduring message of this classic book is one of hope for the future.

Publication Date: 1943 Amazon | Goodreads | More Info

The Forgotten Garden

Kate morton.

If you love books within books, you’ll love Kate Morton’s bestseller. After the death of her grandmother Nell, Cassandra learns she has inherited a cottage in England. Now she sets off on a journey to discover Nell’s past and hopefully find a path forward for herself. Kate Morton expertly peels away layers of revelations to finally get the overarching mystery – how did a little girl end up found in Australia carrying only a book of fairytales.

Publication Date: 1 June 2008 Amazon | Goodreads | More Info

Anne of Green Gables

L. m. montgomery.

Every child should be required to read the adventures of orphan Anne Shirley. When Matthew and Marilla Cuthbert decide to adopt a boy to help on their farm, they end up with a talkative wildfire of a girl who hates her red hair and has the biggest imagination possible. Using all her imagination and spark, Anne wins the hearts of everyone in town and becomes a joy in Green Gables and Avonlea.

Publication Date: 1908 Amazon | Goodreads | More Info

The Attic Child

In 1907, twelve-year-old Celestine is locked in the attic room of a large house by the sea, stolen from Africa and held against his will as kept as an unpaid servant. Decades later, Lowra, a young orphan girl from a privileged background, finds herself captive in the same attic room. When she’s older, Lowra tries to cope with her childhood abuse by searching for the truth of the other child from the attic.

Publication Date: 28 April 2022 Amazon | Goodreads | More Info

The Personal Librarian

Marie benedict and victoria christopher murray.

A novel based on the true story of Bella de Costa Greene, who was hired at a young age to be the curator for J.P. Morgan’s renowned library. However, Bella had a secret. Her dark complexion is not from her alleged Portuguese heritage but because she is African American, the daughter of the first Black man to graduate from Harvard.

Publication Date: 29 June 2021 Amazon | Goodreads | More Info

Save for Later

World War I Books

The Alice Network

In 1915, Eve Gardiner is overjoyed to join the Alice Network of the French Resistance during WWI, only to see it betrayed. Then, in 1947, Eve agrees to help Charlie St. Clair, an American socialite desperate to find her cousin, Rose. Rose disappeared in France during the Second World War, and Eve sees the shadows of her past in this new case. Combing both the major world wars, The Alice Network is quite a find for historical fiction readers.

Publication Date: 6 June 2017 Amazon | Goodreads | More Info

Private Peaceful

Michael morpurgo.

This simple but unforgettable story focuses on the lives of two brothers – Charlie and Thomas Peaceful. Tommo, too young to enlist, has lied about his age to follow his brother to the front lines of the war. Told over the course of one night, Tommo reflects on the events of his life and contemplates a grim future. A poignant reminder of the horrible realities of war, Private Peaceful is a powerful book that will stay with you long after you’ve read it.

Publication Date: 1 January 2003 Amazon | Goodreads | More Info

The Porcelain Moon

Janie chang.

At the end of the First World War, Pauline Deng runs away from her Chinese family in Paris to escape an arranged marriage back in Shanghai. In the French countryside, Pauline finds shelter with Camille, a French woman planning to escape her own abusive marriage. Until Pauline finds out a terrible secret about Camille, forcing them to make a decision that will bind them together forever.

Publication Date: 21 February 2023 Amazon | Goodreads | More Info

Band of Sisters

Lauren willig.

In April 1917, a charismatic alumna gives an impassioned speech at Smith College urging the women to go to France to help with relief efforts. Kate Moran has no plans to go, but when a girl drops out, Kate’s best friend Emmeline begs her to fill the slot. Based on a true story, Band of Sisters tells of these brave women coping with the hardships of the war while navigating old rivalries and betrayals.

Publication Date: 2 March 2021 Amazon | Goodreads | More Info

The Sandcastle Girls

Chris bohjalian.

Chris Bohjalian’s historical fiction novel describes the horrifying genocide of Armenians during World War I. Recent college graduate Elizabeth Endicott travels to Aleppo, Syria, with her father to deliver aid to the Armenians. Living at the American consulate and working in the hospital, she comes in first-hand contact with the suffering Armenians. There she befriends Armen, a young Armenian engineer whose wife and daughter were killed in the forced march across the desert.

Publication Date: 17 July 2012 Amazon | Goodreads

The Glass Ocean

Beatriz williams, lauren willig, & karen white.

In 1915, Southern belle Caroline Telfair Hochstetter hopes a trip to London on the R.M.S. Lusitania will revive her struggling marriage, but she can’t help but feel a spark for her old best friend, Robert Langford. Meanwhile, Tennessee Schaff, the daughter of a con man, pretends to be an Englishwoman returning home, hoping one last heist aboard the ship will free her from her partner. In 2013, author Sarah Blake opens the old chest of her great-grandfather who died on the Lusitania and discovers something that could change history.

Publication Date: 4 September 2018 Amazon | Goodreads  | More Info

1910s Books

The Lions of Fifth Avenue

Fiona davis.

In 1913, Laura Lyons lives inside the famed New York Public Library where her husband is superintendent. Yet she struggles with her traditional role as a housewife and begins a degree in journalism. In 1993, Sadie, Laura’s granddaughter, becomes the curator of one of the library’s collections. When rare books begin to disappear, Sadie finds that history is repeating itself.

Publication Date: 4 August 2020 Amazon | Goodreads | More Info

The Pull of the Stars

Emma donoghue.

In 1918, Nurse Julia Powers struggles to manage an Irish maternity ward ravaged by influenza and short-staffed by the war. With the help of volunteer Bridie Sweeney and controversial Doctor Kathleen Lynn, Julia tries her best to save the lives of expectant mothers as they bring new life into the world. An interesting character study, Donoghue’s novel reflects the strain of being a healthcare worker during a crisis. Publication Date: 21 July 2020 Amazon | Goodreads | More Info

Great Circle

Maggie shipstead.

To escape being typecast as a romantic lead, actress Hadley Baxter accepts a role in a biopic of Marian Graves, a female pilot who disappeared in Antarctica. Marian was rescued from a sinking ocean liner as a child and later began flying as a teen, supplementing her pilot lessons by working for a notorious bootlegger. The more Hadley learns about Marian’s attempt to circumnavigate the world, the more she realizes their fates are connected.

Publication Date: 4 May 2021 Amazon | Goodreads | More Info

The Dictionary of Lost Words

Pip williams.

As a child, Esme often stayed out of sight under the table while her father and his colleagues worked on creating the first Oxford English Dictionary . When she discovers the word “bondmaid” which the men have rejected, Esme realizes that many words related to women and the poor are often ignored. So Esme sets off to collect her own Dictionary of Lost Words during the height of the women’s suffrage movement.

Publication Date: 31 March 2020 Amazon  |  Goodreads  |  More Info

Drowning Ruth

Christina schwarz.

In the winter of 1919, young mother Mathilda Neumann drowned beneath the ice in a Wisconsin Lake. In Drowning Ruth , Schwarz takes you through the aftermath of Mathilda’s death and how it affected her daughter, her sister, and her husband. Weaving back and forth between before and after the drowning, you can’t help but wonder what really happened that night.

Publication Date: 1 January 2000 Amazon | Goodreads  

A Fall of Marigolds

Susan meissner.

In September 1911, Clara Wood is still mourning the death of her lover who fell to death during the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire. While working as a nurse on Ellis Island, she meets a man with a name engraved in a scarf and is caught in a moral dilemma. In 2011, Taryn Michaels mourns her husband’s death on 9/11 and discovers an engraved antique scarf in the fabric shop where she works.

Publication Date: 4 February 2014 Amazon | Goodreads  

Turn of the Century Classics

All Quiet on the Western Front

Erich maria remarque.

Shortly after the start of the First World War, the compelling speeches of his teacher caused Paul Bäumer and his entire class to enlist in the Imperial German Army. Thrust into the chaos of the front, Paul faces emotional and psychological tolls greater than he could ever imagine. Yet, Paul finds no relief when he returns home and struggles to adapt to civilian life.

Publication Date: 29 January 1929 Amazon | Goodreads | More Info

A Farewell to Arms

Ernest hemingway.

Ernest Hemingway’s semiautobiographical work recounts the story of an American ambulance driver on the Italian front of World War I who falls in love with a beautiful English nurse. Set against the horrors of war, A Farewell to Arms was Hemingway’s first bestseller and rightfully deserves a place on any list of 1910s books.

Publication Date: 1 September 1929 Amazon | Goodreads | More Info

East of Eden

John steinbeck.

With its focus on the message of the Biblical story of Cain and Abel, East of Eden is often considered one of Steinbeck’s greatest novels. Set in the Salinas Valley of California, the story follows Adam Trask, a wealthy man whose troubles with his brother are paralleled in his own twin sons. Covering the power of love and the pain of its absences, East of Eden is enduring classic literature for your to-read list.

Publication Date: 19 September 1952 Amazon | Goodreads

Sebastian Faulks

In one of the most classic WW1 books, Sebastian Faulks highlights the trauma of WWI veterans. Young English soldier Stephen Wraysford finds himself on the front lines in France, caught in a wild love affair with Isabelle Azaire. Yet, it’s the world of the trenches in the Battle of Amiens that ultimately ends the war but also forever changes Stephen. Later, in 1970, Stephen’s granddaughter Elizabeth tries to understand his war experiences.

Publication Date: 27 September 1993 Amazon | Goodreads

Thornton Wilder

Thornton Wilder’s allegorical play is generally considered his most popular work. In the small village of Grover’s Corner, you glimpse into the life of two neighboring families – the Gibbs and the Webbs. Act One establishes their daily life, Act Two covers love and marriage, and Act Three discusses death. With a sweet message of appreciating life while we live it, Our Town is a short play you can read in under an hour.

Publication Date: 1938 Amazon | Goodreads

Main Street

Sinclair lewis.

Carol Milford has always dreamed of redesigning villages and towns. While working as a librarian in St. Paul, she marries Will Kennicott and he convinces her to move to his small hometown of Gopher Prarie, Minnesota. There, her efforts to bring about progressive reforms are derided by the leading townspeople. Main Street was the first breakout success from Sinclair Lewis, who later became the first American to win the Nobel Prize in Literature.

Publication Date: 1920 Amazon | Goodreads

Nonfiction Books About 1900s & 1910s

A Night to Remember

Walter lord.

When the RMS Titanic set sail from England, she was declared as unsinkable, only to be sunk on her maiden voyage after hitting an iceberg. Lord’s riveting account of the fatal collision gives depth to the catastrophe, describing the behaviors of the passengers and crew, which ranged from heroic to selfish. 

Publication Date: 1 January 1955 Amazon | Goodreads  

The Radium Girls

After the Curies discovered the gleaming new element radium, its use exploded throughout the world. Hundreds of girls worked in much-coveted jobs in radium dial factories, known as “shining girls” because they would glow from their exposure to radium dust. When the women began to fall ill and die, they find themselves embroiled in a massive scandal and fight for worker’s rights, all brilliantly detailed in one of the bestselling new books about World War 1 and the 1920s.

Publication Date: 1 April 2017 Amazon | Goodreads

Erik Larson

In 1915, Germany declared that they considered the ocean around Britain a war zone and their dreaded U-Boats wreaked havoc on shipping traffic. Yet when the luxury ocean liner Lusitania set sail for New York, the crew felt it inconceivable that the Germans would target a civilian target. With his powerful narrative nonfiction ability, Erik Larson describes the horrific sinking of the Lusitania, a tragedy that urged the United States closer to joining World War I.

Publication Date: 1 January 2015 Amazon | Goodreads

Which Books About the 1910s and 1900s Are You Most Interested in Reading?

What do you think? Do you enjoy reading books about the Turn of the Century and World War I? What 1910s books would you recommend? As always, let me know in the comments!

More Historical Fiction Reading Lists:

• The Historical Fiction Collection
• The Best Western Books to Read
• Breathtaking World War 1 Books
• Fascinating Books About the 1920s
• Brilliant Books About the 1930s
• Tantalizing Books About the 1960s
• Historical Fiction Based on True Stories

Recommended

Reader Interactions

June 20, 2023 at 2:08 pm

Gosh, I was definitely thinking of Titanic: A Night To Remember, with that submersible missing. Just horrible.

There is a famous playwright from the small Texas town of Wharton. Horton Foote (1916-2009). He wrote the Oscar winning screenplay/adaptation for To Kill A Mockingbird. My grandmother & father are from that town & all my children were born there. His plays are set in the fictional town of Harrison/aka Wharton. He wrote a play called 1918, that is about the Spanish Influenza epidemic coming to the town. My grandfather died of the flu that fall.

So another good topic, for those who are interested. Mr. Foote’s writing is very nostalgic. He totally captures that time period in a small town. He also got an Oscar for his original screenplay for Tender Mercies starring Robert Duval & the lead actress Oscar went to Geraldine Page in the film The Trip To Bountiful, written by Mr. Foote.

Sorry, I digress, but several of his plays are set in the early twentieth century.