While all lists are subjective, we emphasized books that brought something new and innovative to the genre-books that inspired other fantasy writers as well as readers. We also limited the list to one book per author, to avoid crowding it with multiple titles in the same series. To keep this lineup manageable, we only included books originally published as a bound book on paper-which ruled out classics like Journey to the West and One Thousand and One Nights-and ensured they were currently and easily available in print.

But for this list, we concentrated on novels that are primarily fantasy, which is why you won’t see genre-straddlers like Madeleine L’Engle’s A Wrinkle in Time or Gene Wolfe’s The Book of the New Sun. Of course, there are no strict borders between these genres, and many books could be reasonably shelved under all three.

Origins aside, most scholars agree on a basic definition: fantasy is when something we consider supernatural occurs that can’t be explained by technology (as in science fiction) or the macabre (as in horror). For others, the modern genre for adults began with George MacDonald’s Phantastes in 1858, the story of a thirsty 21-year-old who wakes up in Fairy Land and falls in love with a marble statue sculpted by Pygmalion. For some, ancient poetry like Beowulf, The Odyssey, and The Epic of Gilgamesh is fair game. Yet even now, readers and critics can’t always agree on what fantasy is and what it isn’t.

Fantasy is the oldest genre of literature, pre-dating the invention of bound books by thousands of years thanks to mythology and folklore.

Tor fantasy books