Their heroines have long been seen as embodiments of passion and sexuality. On top of this, Leo Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina and Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita have been named the greatest works of world literature to appear in the last 200 years.

­Over a hundred American and British novelists, Jonathan Franzen, Stephen King and Joyce Carol Oates among them, faced the challenge of putting together their list of the cream of the crop of literary masterpieces.

According to Literary News online source, the group of wordsmiths had to choose from over 500 titles, ranging from collections of short stories to plays and poetry.  

As a result, the winner in the Top Ten 19th Century Masterpieces category is that well-known lady who threw herself under a train, Anna Karenina, with her next century “successor” the seductive Lolita.