Ragtime: A Novel (Modern Library 100 Best Novels)

Published in 1975 and selected as one of the Modern Library’s 100 best novels, Ragtime is a groundbreaking tapestry of early-20th-century America. Beginning in 1906 in New Rochelle, New York, the story blends real and fictional characters—Houdini, Henry Ford, Emma Goldman, and others—with imagined figures like a Harlem ragtime musician and an immigrant peddler. The novel weaves history, fantasy, and social upheaval into a vivid portrait of an era defined by innovation, inequality, and the quest for justice.