Editors are a lonely bunch.

The American Editors Association has released its 2009 "Annual Survey of Favorite Works of Art."

"In a word, alienation," is how AEA President Giuliana Manfredini characterized the survey results. Manfredini elaborated: "We have seen over the past few years, the survey trending slightly in this direction. But for a variety of reasons—some market and some economy driven—the dam seems to have broken last year, carrying our members to a very dark place insofar as their selections."

Here, then, are the top 10:

1. Edvard Munch’s "The Scream"

2. Pink Floyd’s "Another Brick in the Wall"

3. "The Prisoner"’s assertion, "I am not a number—I am a free man!"

4. The Beatles’ "Nowhere Man"

5. Edward Everett Hale’s The Man Without a Country

6. Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man

7. The Coen Brothers’ "The Man Who Wasn’t There"

8. Bob Seger’s "Feel Like a Number"

9. Thomas Harris’s The Silence of the Lambs

10. Robert Heinlein’s Stranger in a Strange Land

The survey, to which nearly 80,000 editors responded, asked members to identify their top pick from the fields of literature, film, music, TV, or any other artistic medium of their choice.