Lists of so-called Top 100 Novels aren’t just judgments of books but of the moment the list is made, the era’s cultural prejudices, the fashions of the time–and of the people who read them in the future. Below is the Top 20 titles from such a list published in 1898 in the Illustrated London News, many of which are forgotten or not remembered fondly. Can these lists ever age well, including the lists we’re making today?

1. Don Quixote – 1604 – Miguel de Cervantes

2. The Holy War – 1682 – John Bunyan

3. Gil Blas – 1715 – Alain René le Sage

4. Robinson Crusoe – 1719 – Daniel Defoe

5. Gulliver’s Travels – 1726 – Jonathan Swift

6. Roderick Random – 1748 – Tobias Smollett

7. Clarissa – 1749 – Samuel Richardson

8. Tom Jones – 1749 – Henry Fielding

9. Candide – 1756 – Françoise de Voltaire

10. Rasselas – 1759 – Samuel Johnson

11. The Castle of Otranto – 1764 – Horace Walpole

12. The Vicar of Wakefield – 1766 – Oliver Goldsmith

13. The Old English Baron – 1777 – Clara Reeve

14. Evelina – 1778 – Fanny Burney

15. Vathek – 1787 – William Beckford

16. The Mysteries of Udolpho – 1794 – Ann Radcliffe

17. Caleb Williams – 1794 – William Godwin

18. The Wild Irish Girl – 1806 – Lady Morgan

19. Corinne – 1810 – Madame de Stael

20. The Scottish Chiefs – 1810 – Jane Porter

(Thanks Marginal Revolution.)