The Guardian's 100 Best Novels Written in English Bondage by W Somerset Maugham (1915) 45. The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton (1920) 46. Ulysses by James Joyce (1922) 47. Babbitt by Sinclair Lewis (1922) 48. A Passage to India by EM Forster (1924) 49. Gentlemen Prefer Blondes by Anita Loos (1925) 50. Mrs Dalloway by Virginia Woolf (1925) 51. The Great Gatsby by F Scott Fitzgerald (1925) 52. Lolly Willowes by Sylvia Townsend Warner (1926) 53. The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway (1926) 54. The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett (1929) 55. As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner (1930) 56. Brave New World by Aldous
Anita Loos ""Blondes"" would see three more printings sell through by year's end, and 20 in its first decade. The little book would see 85 editions in the years to come and eventually be translated into 14 languages, including Chinese. When asked who the models for her characters, Loos would almost always say they were composites of various people, but when pressed, admitted that toothless flirt Sir Francis Beekman was modeled after writer Joseph Hergesheimer and producer Jesse L. Lasky. Dorothy Shaw was modeled after herself and Constance Talmadge, and Lorelei herself most closely resembled acquisitive Ziegfeld showgirl, Lillian Lorraine, who was