Above: The frontispiece to Harold Bell Wright's novel The Eyes of The World, the No. 1 bestseller of 1914. See the Goodreads 1914 Bestsellers Shelf here.
Browsing for vintage books that are about to celebrate their 100th anniversary? Hunting forgotten fiction that might have been on bedside tables at Downton Abbey? Want to see how Edwardian ladies ignored their rude neighbors on the trolley car in an age without cell phones or MP3 players?
The following lists may be of service.
TOP 10 BESTSELLERS of 1914
1. The Eyes of the World by Harold Bell Wright
TOP 10 BESTSELLERS of 1914
1. The Eyes of the World by Harold Bell Wright
2. Pollyanna by Eleanor H. Porter
4. The Salamander by
Owen Johnson
7. Penrod by
Booth Tarkington
Note: The ratings given above are taken from The Publisher's Weekly list of bestselling novels in the United States in the 1910s, a list that seems to be based entirely on contemporary (1914) sales data.
What was popular and readable in 1914 may not be considered popular or readable today. For example, the Goodreads.com "Most Popular Books Published in 1914" webpage, here, gives Diane of the Green Van by Leona Dalrymple a thumbs down, whilst The Eyes of the World by Harold Bell Wright continues to get good star-ratings but low volume -- very few people have heard of Wright, whose overall sales were once comparable to those of Charles Dickens.
Above: James Joyce in Zurich ca. 1918. As far as modern readers are concerned, James Joyce is the best literary author of the year 1914. Photo by C. Ruf, Wikimedia Commons.
TOP 20 BASED ON ACTUAL POPULARITY (2014)
The following books
were all bestsellers in 1914, but their ranking is based on Goodreads.com data from 2014 -- data which indicate exactly how many people actually read the book
in 2013-14 and how many stars they would give the book, out of a total of five
stars.
1. Joyce, James - Dubliners
3. Joyce, James - The Dead
7. Baum, L. Frank - Tik-Tok of Oz (Librivox Audio Book here)
9. Stoker, Bram - Dracula's Guest and Other Weird Stories (community audio here)
10. Unamuno, Miguel -
Niebla
12. Gibran, Kahlil - A
Tear and A Smile
14. Hesse, Herman - Rosshalde
17. Gide, André - Cavesdu Vatican
18. Wells, H.G. - TheWorld Set Free
Comments: Based on sheer
volume, James Joyce's masterpiece Dubliners led by a mile, with 83,101
readers, compared to the runner-up, Soseki Natsume's Kokoro, which drew
13,824 readers -- a difference of 70,000 readers which strongly suggests that Dubliners
is being assigned like crazy to high school and college classes.
But please note that
the number of people who chose to read (or were forced to read) a title may
have nothing to do with how they ranked the book. For example, people gave the No. 3 "book,"
Joyce's short story The Dead, a ranking of 4.15 stars out of 5 stars, while
rating Dubliners (the collection of stories in which "The Dead" appears) at only 3.86 stars out of five. In other words, you
might actually enjoy reading The Dead more than the other stories in the book Dubliners, a book whose popularity may have been lifted by its inclusion of The Dead.
The large volume of
people who read James Joyce may also have a great deal to do with title and
"brand recognition" -- his name is well represented in popular movies
and literature discussions today, while some of the authors listed are
forgotten or wrongfully neglected. For
example, Theodore Dreiser's work, The Titan, brings up the bottom of the
list with only 1142 readers, but it was given 4.26 stars by those who bothered
to read it -- the best rating of the bunch. That means modern readers were pleasantly
surprised. It's a forgotten gem.
25 FORGOTTEN GEMS OF 1914 BY 2014 STAR-RATING
What follows is a list of rank based entirely on GoodRead.com star-ratings given by 2014 readers, with complete disregard for the book's popularity.
1. Nomani, Shibli - Seerat-un-Nabi
3. Pessoa, Fernando - Keeper of Sheep
4. Faraday, Michael - Experimental Researches in Electricity
5. Mallarme, Stephane - Coup de des Jamais
6. Perkins, Charlotte - Benigna Machiavelli
7. Blackwood, Algernon - The Lost Valley and Other Stories
8. Beskow, Elsa - The Flowers' Festival
9. Stephens, James - The Demi-Gods
10. Benson, Robert Hugh - Lourdes
11. Barclay, Florence - The Wall of Partition
12. Dreiser, Theodore - The Titan
13. Ortega y Gasset, Jose - Meditations on Quixote
14. Oxenham, Elsie J. - Girls of the Hamlet Club
15. Schweitzer, Albert - The Mystery of the Kingdom of God
16. Kerwood, James Oliver - Kazan
17. Compana, Dino - Orphic Songs
18. Wright, Harold Bell - The Eyes of the World
19. Saki - Beasts and Super-Beasts
20. Kafka, Franz - In The Penal Colony
21. Lobachevsky, Nikolai - Theory of Parallels
22. Blackwood, Algernon - Incredible Adventures
23. Hodgson, William Hope - Men of the Deep Waters
24. Pankhurst, Emmeline - My Own Story
25. Altsheler, Joseph Alexander - The Guns of Shiloh
TOP ENGLISH LITERATURE OF 1914
1. Joyce, James. The
Dead
2. Joyce, James. Dubliners
3. Dreiser, Theodore.
The Titan (Trilogy of Desire No. 2).
4. Shaw, George
Bernard. A Treatise on Parents and Children.
5. Sinclair, Upton. Sylvia's
Marriage.
6. Wells, H.G. The
World Set Free.
7. Wilde, Oscar. Selected
Prose.
TOP WORLD LITERATURE OF 1914
TOP WORLD LITERATURE OF 1914
France, Anatole. The Revolt of the Angels.
Gide, Andre. Les Caves du Vatican
Hesse, Herman. Rosshalde.
Kafka, Franz. In
the Penal Colony.
Maeterlinck,
Maurice. The Unknown Guest.
Ortega Y Gasset,
Jose. Meditations on Quixote
Tagore,
Rabindranath. The King of the Dark
Chamber
Tagore, Rabindranath.The Post Office.
Unamuno, Miguel. Niebla
TOP POETRY BOOKS OF 1914
TOP POETRY BOOKS OF 1914
Compana, Dino - Orphic
Songs
Frost, Robert - North
of Boston
Gibran, Kahlil - A
Tear and a Smile
Mallarme, Stephane - Un
Coup de des Jamais N'Abolira le Hasard
Masters, Edgar Lee - Spoon
River Anthology
TOP WOMEN'S BOOKS OF 1914
TOP WOMEN'S BOOKS OF 1914
Pankhurst, Emmeline -
My Own Story
Stein, Gertrude - Tender
Buttons
TOP CHILDREN'S BOOKS
Appleton, Victor - Tom Swift and His Photo Telephone
Baum, L. Frank - Tik-Tok of Oz
Burnett, Frances Hodgson - T. Tembarom
Burgess, Thornton W. - The Adventures of Peter Cotton Tail
Oxenham, Elsie J. - Girls of the Hamlet Club
Porter, Eleanor H. - Pollyanna
Smith, Jessie Wilcox - Mother Goose
Tarkington, Booth - Penrod
TOP FANTASY, SCI-FI
AND HORROR OF 1914
1. Burroughs, Edgar Rice - Warlord of Mars
2. Burroughs, Edgar
Rice - At the Earth's Core
3. Burroughs, Edgar
Rice - Beasts of Tarzan
4. Stoker, Bram -
Dracula's Ghost
5. Stoker, Bram -
Dracula's Guest and Other Weird Stories
6. Blackwood,
Algernon - Incredible Adventures
7. Blackwood,
Algernon - The Lost Valley and Other Stories
TOP HISTORY BOOKS OF
1914
Altsheler, Joseph Alexander The Guns of Shiloh
TOP RELIGIOUS BOOKS
OF 1914
Schweitzer, Albert. The
Mystery of the Kingdom of God
Benson, Robert Hugh -
Lourdes
Chesterton, G.K. The
Flying Inn
Chesterton, G.K. The
Wisdom of Father Brown
Pessoa, Fernando The
Keeper of Sheep
TOP SCIENCE BOOKS OF
1914
Faraday, Michael - Experimental
Researches in Electricity
Freud, Sigmund - On
the History of the Psychoanalytic Movement
Lobachevsky,
Nikolai - The Theory of Parallels
TOP TRAVEL ADVENTURES
OF 1914
Hodgson, William Hope
- Men of the Deep Waters
Nomani, Shibli - Seerat-un-Nabi
Reed, John - Insurgent
Mexico
Roosevelt, Theodore -
Through the Brazilian Wilderness Winfield, Arthur M. - The Rover Boys in Alaska, or Lost in a Field of Ice
