From fairy tales to horrors, from serious epics to fever dreams, fantasy is the most versatile genre, capable of doing anything you can imagine: romance, politics, war.

To quote Brandon Sanderson: "It's got everything you want, plus dragons."

Fantasy is as old as mankind but I have to start somewhere. Phantastes by George MacDonald is widely regarded as the first fantasy novel. This list picks up from him, continuing until the arbitrary cutoff point of 1990.