Don't count on it. The Wall Street Journal takes a look at those books we were reading 100 years ago. Most have been long since forgotten.
From the piece...
Looking at the best-selling-fiction list of 100 years ago, I'm afraid I'd have to join the naysayers on the question of Mr. Brown's longevity. The No. 1 best seller in 1909 was "The Inner Shrine" by Basil King, a cleric who took up writing when failing eyesight forced his retirement from the church. In addition to writing several other commercially successful novels, Mr. King also communicated with spirits, particularly one "Henry Talbot."
America's first regular best-seller list seems to have appeared in 1895 in Bookman magazine, which aggregated monthly sales of a few dozen booksellers. That year, Ian Maclaren's novel "Beside the Bonnie Brier Bush" (sentimental sketches of rural Scotland) was No. 1 for seven months.
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