swap_horiz Émile Zola Alternatives

1

Leo Tolstoy

Russian novelist (1828–1910) whose epic works 'War and Peace' (1869) and 'Anna Karenina' (1878) are widely regarded as a...

Russian Classic Realism Epic

9.4 Excellent

2

Fyodor Dostoevsky

Russian novelist (1821–1881) whose psychological depth in works like 'Crime and Punishment' (1866) and 'The Brothers Kar...

Russian Classic Realism 19TH Century

9.4 Excellent

3

Anton Chekhov

Russian playwright and author celebrated for his mastery of the modern short story and canonical plays like The Seagull.

Russian Realism Drama 19TH Century

9.2 Excellent

4

Victor Hugo

French Romantic novelist and poet (1802–1885) whose monumental works 'Les Misérables' (1862) and 'The Hunchback of Notre...

Classic French Social 19TH Century

9.0 Excellent

5

George Eliot

English novelist Mary Ann Evans, who wrote under a male pen name, renowned for her profound realist novels like *Middlem...

Realism Social 19TH Century British

9.0 Excellent

6

Machado de Assis

Brazilian novelist widely regarded as the greatest writer of Brazilian literature, famed for his 1881 realist masterpiec...

Classic Realism 19TH Century Psychological

9.0 Excellent

7

Gustave Flaubert

French novelist (1821–1880) whose 'Madame Bovary' (1857) faced an obscenity trial and became a landmark of literary real...

Classic French Realism 19TH Century

8.9 Great

8

Stendhal

19th-century French novelist renowned for his acute psychological realism, famously depicted in his masterpiece 'The Red...

Classic French Realism 19TH Century

8.7 Great

9

Honoré de Balzac

French realist novelist (1799–1850) whose interconnected series 'La Comédie humaine' comprises nearly 100 novels and sto...

Classic French Realism Social

8.6 Great

10

Alexandre Dumas

French historical novelist whose swashbuckling 1844 classics 'The Three Musketeers' and 'The Count of Monte Cristo' rema...

Adventure Classic French 19TH Century

8.5 Great

11

Guy de Maupassant

French author remembered as a master of the short story, notably 'The Necklace,' and for his realist psychological horro...

French Realism 19TH Century Short Story

8.5 Great

12

Thomas Hardy

English novelist and poet (1840–1928) whose works set in the fictional county of Wessex, including 'Tess of the d'Urberv...

Realism 19TH Century Tragedy British

8.3 Great

13

Edith Wharton

American novelist (1862–1937) and the first woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction (1921 for 'The Age of Innocence'...

Realism American Social 19TH Century

8.3 Great

14

Henry James

American-British novelist (1843–1916) whose psychologically nuanced works, including 'The Portrait of a Lady' (1881) and...

Classic Realism 19TH Century Psychological

8.2 Great

15

Ivan Turgenev

Russian novelist whose 1862 work Fathers and Sons introduced the concept of nihilism and captured 19th-century Russian s...

Russian Classic Realism Social

8.2 Great

16

Henry David Thoreau

American essayist, poet, and philosopher whose 1854 book *Walden* reflects upon simple living in natural surroundings an...

American 19TH Century Philosophical Transcendentalist

8.2 Great

17

William Makepeace Thackeray

British novelist celebrated for his 1848 satirical masterpiece *Vanity Fair*, widely renowned for its sharp critique of...

Social 19TH Century Satire British

8.0 Great

18

Jules Verne

French novelist (1828–1905) regarded as a founder of science fiction, whose adventure novels including 'Twenty Thousand...

Adventure Sci Fi Classic French

7.8 Good

19

Jack London

American novelist and short story writer who achieved international celebrity for his adventure novels *The Call of the...

Adventure American Social 19TH Century

7.8 Good

20

Anthony Trollope

English Victorian novelist best known for his *Chronicles of Barsetshire* series, which vividly and realistically depict...

Realism Social 19TH Century British

7.7 Good