SOURCE: "The Top 100," in New York Times Book Review, August 23, 1998, p. 27.

[Morris is a biographer and member of the Modern Library's editorial board. In the following essay, he describes his interactions with—and opinions of—other board members during the selection process for the Modern Library list.]

As one of the ten white-on-white, mostly male and middle-aged members of the Modern Library's editorial board, I suppose I should stick up for our list of the 100 greatest novels of the 20th century. We potent, grave and reverend signors debated our choices over many ruminative lunches (ruminare, to chew on: a more than normally necessary exercise when you're browsing at the Century Club), and we certainly weren't short of titles to choose from. In fact, Harry Evans, who was then the president and publisher of Random House and the original dreamer-up of the idea, casually asked each of us to...