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This page lists books and their authors – the ones that aren't included in any of the other "Authors" categories. These categories are listed in the Authors Index.
These books are all novels, unless otherwise stated.
This page is different from most other pages on this website in that it is neither a complete list (how could it be?) nor a collection of titles that I happen to have heard asked in quizzes. Rather, it's something in between; I've tried to give a representative selection for each author – the ones that I think are most likely to come up. Of course there is a large degree of guesswork and subjectivity involved.
My aim is to put each author's best-known works into their proper context – are they the only things that he or she wrote, or are they the cream of a copious crop?
Where I've listed several of an author's works but there are some that I think are more likely to come up than others, I've identified those ones in bold type. If you ask questions about any of these authors, I would suggest that you should mention at least one of the ones in bold. (This too is obviously subject to guesswork and subjectivity.)
Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency (1987), The Long Dark Tea–Time of the Soul (1988), The Salmon of Doubt (2002, unfinished) – all featuring Dirk Gently. See also Authors: Sci–Fi | Douglas Adams | ||
Watership Down (1972), Shardik (1974), The Plague Dogs (1977), The Girl in a Swing (1980) | Richard Adams | ||
The White Tiger (Booker Prize 2008) | Aravind Adiga | ||
Brick Lane (2003), Alentejo Blue (2006), In the Kitchen (2009), Untold Story (2011) | Monica Ali | ||
Lucky Jim (1954), That Uncertain Feeling (1955), Take a Girl like You (1960), One Fat Englishman (1963), The Green Man (1969), Ending Up (1974), The Alteration (1976), Jake's Thing (1978), Stanley and the Women (1974), The Old Devils (Booker Prize 1986) | Kingsley Amis | ||
Colonel Sun: a James Bond adventure (1968, under the pseudonym Robert Markham) | |||
The Rachel Papers (first novel, 1973), Money (1984), London Fields (1989), The Information (1995), The Pregnant Widow (2010) | Martin Amis | ||
Not a Penny More, Not a Penny Less (1976), Shall We Tell the President? (1977), Kane and Abel (1979), The Prodigal Daughter (1982), First Among Equals (1984), A Matter of Honour (1986), As the Crow Flies (1991), Honour Among Thieves (1993), The Fourth Estate (1996), The Eleventh Commandment (1998), Sons of Fortune (2002), False Impression (2005), The Gospel According to Judas (2007), A Prisoner of Birth (2008), Paths of Glory: a novel about Mallory of Everest (2009) | Jeffrey Archer | ||
Behind the Scenes at the Museum (1995), Human Croquet (1997), Emotionally Weird (2000), Life After Life (2013), A God in Ruins (2015) | Kate Atkinson | ||
Also a series of crime novels featuring former police inspector Jackson Brodie: Case Histories (2004), One Good Turn (2006), When Will There Be Good News? (2008), Started Early, Took My Dog (2010), Big Sky (2019) | |||
The Edible Woman (1969), The Handmaid's Tale (1985), Cat's Eye (1988), The Robber Bride (1993), Alias Grace (1996), The Blind Assassin (Booker Prize 2000), Oryx and Crake (2003), The Testaments (2019 – a sequel to The Handmaid's Tale) | Margaret Atwood | ||
Love and Freindship (sic; epistolary novelette, written in 1790 at age 14); A History of England (1791); Lady Susan (epistolary novelette, written in 1794, but only published in 1871); The Watsons (1804, unfinished) | Jane Austen | ||
Sense and Sensibility (1811), Pride and Prejudice (1813), Mansfield Park (1814), Emma (1815), Northanger Abbey (1818), Persuasion (1818 – last completed), Sanditon (1817 – unfinished last) | |||
Jonathan Livingston Seagull (1970), Illusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah (1977) | Richard Bach | ||
National Velvet (1935) | Enid Bagnold | ||
The Dressmaker (1973 – US title The Secret Glass), The Bottle Factory Outing (1974), Sweet William (1975), Injury Time (1977), Young Adolf (1978), Filthy Lucre (written in 1946 but only published in 1986), An Awfully Big Adventure (1989), The Birthday Boys (1991), Every Man for Himself (1997), Master Georgie (1998), According to Queeney (2001) | Beryl Bainbridge | ||
Go Tell it on the Mountain (1953), Another Country (1962) | James Baldwin | ||
The Coral Island (1858), The Gorilla Hunters (1861), The Eagle Cliff (1889) | R. M. Ballantyne | ||
The Wind from Nowhere (1961), The Drowned World (1962), The Burning World (1964), The Crystal World (1966), The Atrocity Exhibition (1970), Crash (1973), Empire of the Sun (1984), Cocaine Nights (1996) | J. G. Ballard | ||
The Wasp Factory (1st, 1984), The Bridge (1986), Espedair Street (1987), The Crow Road (1992), Complicity (1993), The Quarry (2013 – published shortly after his death) | Iain Banks | ||
Flaubert's Parrot (1984), A History of the World in 10½ Chapters (1989), England, England (1998), Arthur & George (2005), The Sense of an Ending (2011) | Julian Barnes | ||
A Kind of Loving (1960) | Stan Barstow | ||
My Uncle Silas (1939), Fair Stood the Wind for France (1944), Love for Lydia (1952), The Darling Buds of May (1958) | H. E. Bates | ||
Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852) | Harriet Beecher Stowe | ||
Whistle Down the Wind (1961) | Mary Hayley Bell | ||
Jaws (1974), The Deep (1976), The Island (1979), The Girl of the Sea of Cortez (1982), Beast (1991), White Shark (1994) | Peter Benchley | ||
A Man from the North (1898), The Grand Babylon Hotel (1902), Anna of the Five Towns (1902), The Old Wives' Tale (1908), The Card (1911), Clayhanger (1910), Hilda Lessways (1911), These Twain (1916) | Arnold Bennett | ||
Light a Penny Candle (1982), The Lilac Bus (stories, 1984), Echoes (1985), Firefly Summer (1987), Circle of Friends (1990), The Copper Beech (1992), The Glass Lake (1994), Evening Class (1996), Tara Road (1998), Scarlet Feather (2000), Quentins (2002), Nights of Rain and Stars (2004), Whitethorn Woods (2006), Heart and Soul (2008), Minding Frankie (2010), A Week in Winter (2012), Chestnut Street (stories, published posthumously 2014) | Maeve Binchy | ||
Clara Vaughan (1864), Lorna Doone (1869) | R. D. Blackmore | ||
Psycho (1959) | Robert Bloch | ||
A Gentle Occupation (1980), Voices in the Garden (1981), West of Sunset (1984), Jericho (1991), A Period of Adjustment (1994), Closing Ranks (1997) | Dirk Bogarde | ||
The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas (2006 best–seller) | John Boyne | ||
Eating People is Wrong (1959), The History Man (1975) | Malcolm Bradbury | ||
A Woman of Substance (1979), Hold the Dream (1985), Act of Will (1986), To Be the Best (1988), Everything to Gain (1994), A Sudden Change of Heart (1998), Three Weeks in Paris (2002), Emma's Secret (2003), Unexpected Blessings (2004), The Ravenscar Dynasty (2006), A Secret Affair (2006), Just Rewards (2006), Breaking the Rules (2009), Letter from a Stranger (2011), Cavendon Hall (2014) | Barbara Taylor Bradford | ||
Room at the Top (1957), Life at the Top (1962) | John Braine | ||
Destry Rides Again (1930) | Max Brand | ||
Agnes Grey (1847), The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (1848) | Anne Bronte | ||
Jane Eyre (1847), Shirley (1849), Villette (1853), The Professor (posthumously, in 1857) | Charlotte Bronte | ||
Wuthering Heights (1847 – simultaneously with Anne's Agnes Grey – after Charlotte's Jane Eyre) | Emily Bronte | ||
Digital Fortress (1998), Deception Point (2001); see also Authors: Series | Dan Brown | ||
Prester John (1910), The Thirty–Nine Steps (1915), Greenmantle (1916), The Power House (1916), Mr. Standfast (1918), Huntingtower (1922), The Three Hostages (1924), John McNab (1925), Witch Wood (1927), Castle Gay (1930), The House of the Four Winds (1935), The Island of Sheep (1936) | John Buchan | ||
The Last Days of Pompeii (1834 novel) | Edward Bulwer–Lytton | ||
The Master and Margarita (Soviet satire – written 1928–40, published 1967) | Mikhail Bulgakov | ||
A Clockwork Orange (1962), Earthly Powers (1980) | Anthony Burgess | ||
Erewhon (sic) (1872 – a satire on Victorian society) | Samuel Butler | ||
Possession (1990), Still Life (1985), Babel Tower (1996), A Whistling Woman (2002), The Children's Book (2009), Angels and Insects (1992), The Virgin in the Garden (1978), Ragnarok (2011) | A. S. Byatt | ||
The Postman Always Rings Twice (1934), Mildred Pierce (1941), Double Indemnity (1943) | James M. Cain | ||
Tobacco Road (1932), God's Little Acre (1933) | Erskine Caldwell | ||
Swan (1994 – supermodel, officially credited, although it is common knowledge that the book was "ghostwritten") | Naomi Campbell | ||
Other Voices, Other Rooms (1948), Breakfast at Tiffany's (novella, 1958), In Cold Blood (1966 – "true crime novel") | Truman Capote | ||
The Bloody Chamber (short stories, 1979); Nights at the Circus (1984), Wise Children (1991) | Angela Carter | ||
The Big Sleep (1939), Farewell, My Lovely (1940), The High Window (1942), The Lady in the Lake (1943), The Little Sister (1949), The Long Good–Bye (1953), Playback (1958) | Raymond Chandler | ||
No Orchids for Miss Blandish (1939), An Ace Up My Sleeve (1974), A Coffin from Hong Kong (1962), The Vulture is a Patient Bird (1969), Hit and Run (1958), Like a Hole in the Head (1971), Tiger by the Tail (1954), Just a Matter of Time (1972), Knock, Knock! Who's There? (1973), I'll Bury My Dead (1953) | James Hadley Chase | ||
Girl with a Pearl Earring (1999) | Tracy Chevalier | ||
Killing Floor (1997), Die Trying (1998), Without Fail (2002), Persuader (2003), The Enemy (2004), One Shot (2005), Bad Luck and Trouble (2007), 61 Hours (2010), A Wanted Man (2012), Never Go Back (2013), Personal (2014) – all featuring the former American military policeman Jack Reacher | Lee Child | ||
The Riddle of the Sands (1903) – see Writers | Erskine Childers | ||
Savrola: A Tale of the Revolution in Laurania (published in serial form 1899, book form 1900; his only novel). Not to be confused with the American novelist of the same name (1871–1947) | Winston Churchill | ||
The Hunt for Red October (1984), Red Storm Rising (1986), Patriot Games (1987), Clear and Present Danger (1989), Debt of Honor (1994) | Tom Clancy | ||
King Rat (1962), Taipan (1966), Shogun (1975), Noble House (1981), Whirlwind (1986), Gai–jin (1993); died 1994 | James Clavell | ||
Fanny Hill: Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure (1748) | John Cleland | ||
The President is Missing (2018) | Former US President | Bill Clinton | |
US thriller writer | James Patterson | ||
Paths of Glory (1935 – title comes from Gray's Elegy) | Humphrey Cobb | ||
What a Carve Up! (1994), The Rotters' Club (2001), Middle England (2018) | Jonathan Coe | ||
Dangerous Lady (1992), The Jump (1995) – both adapted for TV | Martina Cole | ||
The World is Full of Married Men (1968), The Stud (1969), The Bitch (1979), Hollywood Wives (1983), Hollywood Husbands (1986) | Jackie Collins | ||
Prime Time (1988), Too Damn Famous (1995) | Joan Collins | ||
The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes (2020 – a prequel to previously published works) | Suzanne Collins | ||
The Woman in White (1859), No Name (1862), Armadale (1866) The Moonstone (1888) | Wilkie Collins | ||
Micah Clarke (1889), The White Company (1891), The Exploits of Brigadier Gerard (short stories in Strand magazine, principally 1894–5 and 1902–3), The Lost World (1912), The Poison Belt (1913), The Land of Mist (1926) – the last three featuring Professor Challenger (Note: the Sherlock Holmes stories appeared from 1887 to 1927) | Sir Arthur Conan Doyle | ||
The Nigger of the Narcissus (1897), Heart of Darkness (1899 novella), Lord Jim (1900), Nostromo (1904), Typhoon (1902 novella), The Secret Agent (1907), The Secert Sharer (1910), Under Western Eyes (1911), The Shadow Line (1915 novella), Victory (1915), The Rover (1923) | Joseph Conrad | ||
Lace (1982, and 1985 sequel), Savages (1987) | Shirley Conran | ||
Kate Hannigan (1950), The Fifteen Streets (1952), The Round Tower (1968), The Glass Virgin (1969), The Cinder Path (1978), The Black Velvet Gown (1984), Tilly Trotter (1989), The Black Candle (1989), The Rag Nymph (1991), The Tinker's Girl (1994) – author of over 80 novels, died in 1998 aged 91; see also Authors: Series | Catherine Cookson | ||
The Spy (1821), The Red Rover (1828). See also Series | James Fenimore Cooper | ||
The Red Badge of Courage (1895) – the story of a young Union soldier in the American Civil War | Stephen Crane | ||
The Andromeda Strain (1969), The Terminal Man (1972), Congo (1980), Sphere (1987), Jurassic Park (1990), Disclosure (1994), The Lost World (1995), Airframe (1996), Timeline (1999), State of Fear (2004), Next (2006) | Michael Crichton | ||
Hatter's Castle (1931), The Stars Look Down (1935), The Citadel (1937), The Judas Tree (1969), A Song of Sixpence (1964), A Pocketful of Rye (1969) | A. J. Cronin | ||
A Parliamentary Affair (1994), A Woman's Place (1996), She's Leaving Home (1997), The Ambassador (1999), Chasing Men (2000), This Honourable House (2001) | Edwina Currie | ||
Kid Andrew Cody and Julie Sparrow (1977 – a novel!) | Tony Curtis | ||
Captain Corelli's Mandolin (1994) | Louis de Bernieres | ||
Robinson Crusoe (1719), Moll Flanders (1722), A Journal of the Plague Year (1722 – a fictionalised account of the events of 1665) | Daniel Defoe | ||
The Ipcress File (1962), Funeral in Berlin (1964), Billion–Dollar Brain (1966), An Expensive Place to Die (1967), Only When I Larf (1968), Bomber (1970), Close–up (1972), Spy Story (1974), SS–GB (1978), Goodbye, Mickey Mouse (1982) | Len Deighton | ||
The Memoirs of a Midget (1921) | Walter de la Mare | ||
Test Kill (former England cricket captain – co–written with Clifford Makins, 1976) | Ted Dexter | ||
The Chimes (1844), The Cricket on the Hearth (1845) | Charles Dickens | ||
Vivian Grey (1826), Henrietta Temple (1837), Coningsby (1844), Sybil (1845), Tancred (1847), Endymion (1880), Falconet (1881, unfinished) | Benjamin Disraeli | ||
House of Cards (1989), To Play the King (1992), Final Cut (1994) | Michael Dobbs | ||
The Ginger Man (1955), A Singular Man (1963), The Beastly Beatitudes of Balthazar B (1968), A Fairy Tale of New York (1973) | J. P. Donleavy | ||
The Scarlet Pimpernel (1905) | Baroness d'Orczy | ||
Three Soldiers (1921), Manhattan Transfer (1925) | John Dos Passos | ||
The Commitments (1987), The Snapper (1990), The Van (1991), Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha (Booker Prize 1993), The Woman who Walked into Doors (1996), A Star Called Henry (1999) | Roddy Doyle | ||
A Summer Birdcage (1963), The Garrick Year (1964), The Millstone (1965), Jerusalem the Golden (1967), The Waterfall (1969), The Realms of Gold (1975), The Witch of Exmoor (1996), The Pepered Moth (2001) | Margaret Drabble | ||
The Loving Spirit (1931), Jamaica Inn (1936), Rebecca (1938), Frenchman's Creek (1941), My Cousin Rachel (1951), The Scapegoat (1957), The House on the Strand (1988); The Birds, Don't Look Now (short stories) | Daphne du Maurier | ||
Up the Junction (short story collection, 1964), Poor Cow (1967), Tear His Head Off His Shoulders (1974) | Nell Dunn | ||
Adam Bede (1859), The Mill on the Floss (1860), Silas Marner (1861), Romola (1863), Felix Holt, the Radical (1866), Middlemarch (1871–2), Daniel Deronda (1876) | George Eliot | ||
American Psycho (1991), Glamorama (1998) | Brett Easton Ellis | ||
Stark (1989), Gridlock (1991), This Other Eden (1993), Popcorn (1996), Blast from the Past (1998), Inconceivable (1999), Dead Famous (2001), High Society (2002), Past Mortem (2004), Tee First Casualty (2005), Chart Throb (2006), Blind Faith (2007), Meltdown (2010), Two Brothers (2012), Time and Time Again (2014) | Ben Elton | ||
The Wig My Father Wore (1995), What Are You Like? (2000), The Pleasure of Eliza Lynch (2002), The Gathering (Booker Prize 2007), The Forgotten Waltz (2011), The Green Road (2015) | Anne Enright | ||
The Horse Whisperer (1995), The Loop (1998), The Smoke Jumper (2001), The Divide (2005), The Brave (2010) | Nicholas Evans | ||
Two Valleys (1933), The Last Frontier (1941), Citizen Tom Paine (1943), Freedom Road (1944), My Glorious Brothers (1948), Spartacus (1951), The Proud and the Free (1960), April Morning (1961), Power (1962), The Crossing (1971), The Hessian (1972), The Immigrants (1977), Second Generation (1978), Max (1982), An Independent Woman (1997), Redemption (1999) – and over 30 other novels | Howard Fast | ||
The Sound and the Fury (1929), A Rose for Emily (1930), As I Lay Dying (1930), Light in August (1931), Sanctuary (1931), Absalom, Absalom! (1936), The Unvanquished (1938), The Hamlet (1940), Go Down, Moses (1942), Intruder in the Dust (1948), A Fable (1955), The Town (1957), The Mansion (1959) | William Faulkner | ||
A Trick of the Light (1984), The Girl at the Lion d'Or (1989), A Fool's Alphabet (1992), Birdsong (1993), The Fatal Englishman (1996), Charlotte Gray (1998), On Green Dolphin Street (2001), Human Traces (2005), Pistache (2006), Engleby (2007), Devil May Care (James Bond story, 2008 – published on the centenary of Ian Fleming's birth), A Week in December (2009), A Possible Life (2012) | Sebastian Faulks | ||
The Bridget Jones diaries: Bridget Jones's Diary (1996), Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason (1999), Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy (2013); also Cause Celeb (1994), Olivia Joules and the Overactive Imagination (2003) | Helen Fielding | ||
The History of the Adventures of Joseph Andrews and his Friend, Mr. Abraham Abrams (1742), The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling (1749) | Henry Fielding | ||
This Side of Paradise (1920), The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (short story, 1922), The Beautiful and Damned (1922), The Great Gatsby (1925), Tender is the Night (1934), The Last Tycoon (unfinished at his death in 1940; published posthumously in 1941) | F. Scott FitzGerald | ||
Sharp Objects (2006), Dark Places (2009), Gone Girl (2012) | Gillian Flynn | ||
The Good Soldier (1915) – see also Series | Ford Madox Ford | ||
Payment Deferred (1926), Death to the French (1932), The Gun (1933), The African Queen (1935), The General (1936), The Captain from Connecticut (1941), The Ship (1943), The Good Shepherd (1955) – see also Series | C. S. Forester | ||
Where Angels Fear to Tread (1905), The Longest Journey (1907), A Room with a View (1908), Howard's End (1910), A Passage to India (1924); Maurice (written 1913–14, published posthumously 1971) | E. M. Forster | ||
The Day of the Jackal (1971), The Odessa File (1972), The Dogs of War (1974), The Fourth Protocol (1984) | Frederick Forsyth | ||
The Collector (1963), The Magus (1966), The French Lieutenant's Woman (1969), Daniel Martin (1977) | John Fowles | ||
Night Sky (1983), Deceit (1993), Homeland (2006) | Clare Francis | ||
Dead Cert (his first novel, 1962), Trial Run (1978), Whip Hand (1979), Twice Shy (1981), Field of 13 (short stories, 1998), Under Orders (2006), Crossfire (2010) – died 2010 | Dick Francis | ||
Cold Mountain (1997), Thirteen Moons (2007), Nightwoods (2011) | Charles Frazier | ||
A Tiny Bit Marvellous (2010), Oh Dear Silvia (2012), According to Yes (2015), Because of You (2020) (celebrity author) | Dawn French | ||
The Women's Room (1977) – feminist novel (d. 2009) | Marilyn French | ||
The Liar (1991 – semi–autobiographical), The Hippopotamus (1994), Making History (1997), The Stars' Tennis Balls (2000) | Stephen Fry | ||
Sophie's World (1991 – a novel about philosophy); The Christmas Mystery (1992) | Jostein Gaarder | ||
The Snow Goose (1941), The Poseidon Adventure (1969) | Paul Gallico | ||
Death Wish (1972, as Paul Benjamin), Death Sentence (1975, also as Paul Benjamin), Hopscotch (1975) – and over 50 other novels, many written under the pseudonym Frank Wynne (among others); includes eight featuring Marshall Jeremy Six, written as Brian Wynne | Brian Garfield | ||
The Beach (1996), The Tesseract (1998), The Coma (2004) | Alex Garland | ||
Mary Barton (1848), Cranford (1851–3), Ruth (1853), North and South (1854–5), Sylvia's Lovers (1863), Wives and Daughters: an Everyday Story (1865) | Mrs. (Elizabeth) Gaskell | ||
Cold Comfort Farm (comic novel, 1932) | Stella Gibbons | ||
Lord of the Flies (1954 – his first and most successful novel), Pincher Martin (1956), The Spire (1964), Rites of Passage (1980) | William Golding | ||
The Vicar of Wakefield (1766) | Oliver Goldsmith | ||
I, Claudius (1934), Claudius the God (1935) | Robert Graves | ||
Lanark: A Life in Four Books (1981) | Alasdair Gray | ||
Riders of the Purple Sage (1912) | Zane Grey | ||
The Fault in Our Stars (2012 best–seller) | John Green | ||
The Man Within (first, 1929); Stamboul Train (1932), England Made Me (1935), Brighton Rock (1938), The Power and the Glory (1940), The Ministry of Fear (1943), The Heart of the Matter (1948), The Third Man (novel and screenplay, 1949), The Quiet American (1955), Our Man in Havana (1958), A Burnt–out Case (1960), The Comedians (1966), Travels with my Aunt (1969), The Honorary Consul (1973) | Graham Greene | ||
Love on the Dole (1933) | Walter Greenwood | ||
A Time to Kill (1989), The Firm (1991), The Pelican Brief (1992), The Client (1993), The Chamber (1994), The Rainmaker (1995), The Runaway Jury (1996), Skipping Christmas (2001) | John Grisham | ||
The Diary of a Nobody (1892) | George & Weedon Grossmith | ||
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night–Time (2003) | Mark Haddon | ||
King Solomon's Mines (1885), She: A History of Adventure (1886), Allan Quartermain (1887), Nada the Lily (1892) | H. Ryder Haggard | ||
Runway Zero–Eight (1958), The Final Diagnosis (1959), In High Places (1962), Hotel (1965), Airport (1968), Wheels (1971), The Moneychangers (1975), Overload (1979), Strong Medicine (1984), The Evening News (1990), Detective (1997). Note: Runway Zero–Eight (Hailey's first novel) started as the 1956 Canadian TV movie Flight into Danger, then became the 1957 film Zero Hour!. The spoof comedy film Airplane! (1980) is based on the same story. | Arthur Hailey | ||
Roots: the Saga of an American Family (1976) | Alex Haley | ||
Red Harvest (1929), The Dain Curse (1929), The Maltese Falcon (1930), The Glass Key (1931), The Thin Man (1934) | Dashiell Hammett | ||
The Poor Man and the Lady (1867 – unpublished and lost), Desperate Remedies (1871), Under the Greenwood Tree (1872), A Pair of Blue Eyes (1873), Far from the Madding Crowd (1874), The Hand of Ethelberta (1876), The Return of the Native (1878), The Trumpet–Major (1880), A Laodicean (1881), Two on a Tower (1882), The Mayor of Casterbridge (1886), The Woodlanders (1887), Tess of the d'Urbervilles (1891–2), The Well–Beloved (1892), Jude the Obscure (1895) | Thomas Hardy | ||
Chocolat (1999), Five Quarters of the Orange (2001), Gentlemen and Players (2005) | Joanne Harris | ||
The Go–Between (1953) | L. P. Hartley | ||
The Scarlet Letter (1850), The House of Seven Gables (1851) | Nathaniel Hawthorne | ||
Catch–22 (1961), Something Happened (1974), Good as Gold (1979), Closing Time (1994) | Joseph Heller | ||
Everything You Know (1999), Notes on a Scandal (2003), The Believers (2008) | Zoe Heller | ||
The Sun Also Rises (1926), A Farewell to Arms (1929), To Have and Have Not (1937), For Whom the Bell Tolls (1940), The Old Man and the Sea (1952), Islands in the Stream (posthumously, 1970). Short story collections include Men Without Women (1927), The Snows of Kilimanjaro (1936) | Ernest Hemingway | ||
The Eagle has Landed (1975), Night of the Fox (1986), A Prayer for the Dying (1987), The Eagle has Flown (1991), Thunder Point (1993), Angel of Death (1995), Flight of Eagles (1998), Day of Reckoning (2000) | Jack Higgins | ||
Strangers on a Train (first novel, 1950), The Price of Salt (1952, as Claire Morgan), The Talented Mr. Ripley (1955, and 4 sequels); and 15 other novels, the last being Small g: A Summer Idyll (1995, published posthumously) | Patricia Highsmith | ||
I'm the King of the Castle (1970), The Woman in Black (1983 novella), Strange Meeting, The Mist in the Mirror (1992), Mrs. De Winter (1993 – sequel to Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca); creator of detective Simon Serralier (first appeared in The Various Haunts of Men, 2004) | Susan Hill | ||
Catherine Herself (1920), And Now Goodbye (1931), Murder at School (1931), Lost Horizon (1933), Goodbye, Mr. Chips (1934), We Are Not Alone (1937), Random Harvest (1941), The Story of Dr. Wassell (1944), So Well Remembered (1945) | James Hilton | ||
A Kestrel for a Knave (1968 – filmed in 1969 as Kes) | Barry Hines | ||
South Riding (posthumous, 1936) | Winifred Holtby | ||
It Ends With Us (2016 bestseller), It Ends With Us (2022) | Colleen Hoover | ||
The Prisoner of Zenda (1894), Rupert of Hentzau (1898) | Anthony Hope | ||
High Fidelity (1995), About a Boy (1998), How to be Good (2001), A Long Way Down (2005), Slam (2007), Juliet, Naked (2009), Funny Girl (2014) | Nick Hornby | ||
The Kite Runner (2003), A Thousand Splendid Suns (2007), And the Mountains Echoed (2013) | Khaled Hosseini | ||
Tom Brown's Schooldays (1857), Tom Brown at Oxford (1861) | Thomas Hughes | ||
The Evil Sleep! (1952), Don't Crowd Me (1953), The Blackboard Jungle (1954), Second Ending (1956), Strangers When We Meet (1958), A Matter of Conviction (1959) ... etc., etc. See also Series and Authors: Children's | Evan Hunter | ||
Chrome Yellow (1921), Antic Hay (1923), Point Counter Point (1928), Brave New World (1932), Eyeless in Gaza (1936) | Aldous Huxley | ||
Sangre y arena (Blood and Sand, 1908), The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (1916), Entre naranjos (1900), La Tierra de Todos (1922) | Vicente Blasco Ibáñez | ||
The Doppelganger (1937), The Lonely Skier (1947 – filmed in 1948 as Snowbound), The White South (1949 – filmed in 1954 as Hell Below Zero), Campbell's Kingdom (1952 – filmed in 1957), The Wreck of the Mary Deare (1956 – filmed in 1959), The Doomed Oasis (1960 – serialised on BBC Radio 4 Extra), The Strode Venturer (1965 – dramatised on BBC Radio 4, 1974), Levkas Man (1971 – serialised on Australian TV), Golden Soak (1973 – serialised on Australian TV), Delta Connection (1996) – and over 20 other adventure thrillers | Hammond Innes | ||
Setting Free the Bears (1968), The Water–Method Man (1972), The 158–Pound Marriage (1974), The World According to Garp (1978), The Hotel New Hampshire (1981), The Cider House Rules (1985), A Prayer for Owen Meany (1989), A Son of the Circus (1994), A Widow for One Year (1998), The Fourth Hand (2001), Until I Find You (2005), Last Night in Twisted River (2009), In One Person (2012), Avenue of Mysteries (2015) | John Irving | ||
Rip van Winkle (1819), The Legend of Sleepy Hollow (1820) – short stories, published in The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent., attributed to the fictional Dutch historian Diedrich Knickerbocker | Washington Irving | ||
Tales of the Alhambra (1832) – a collection of essays, sketches and stories – inspired by, and partly written during, a visit to the palace/fortress in Granada (Spain) | |||
Mr. Norris Changes Trains (1935), Goodbye to Berlin (1939) – the latter, and possibly partly the former, providing the inspiration for John Van Druten's play I am a Camera, on which the musical Cabaret was based | Christopher Isherwood | ||
A Pale View of Hills (1982), An Artist of the Floating World (1986), The Remains of the Day (1989), The Unconsoled (1995), When We Were Orphans (2000), Never Let Me Go (2005), The Buried Giant (2015) | Kazuo Ishiguro | ||
The Finkler Question (Booker Prize 2010) | Howard Jacobson | ||
Fifty Shades of Grey (2011), Fifty Shades Darker (2012), Fifty Shades Freed (2012) | E. L. James | ||
Watch and Ward (1871), Roderick Hudson (1875), The American (1877), The Europeans (1878), Confidence (1979), Washington Square (1880), The Portrait of a Lady (1881), The Bostonians (1886), The Princess Casamassima (1886), The Reverberator (1888), The Aspern Papers (1888 novella), The Tragic Muse (1890), The Other House (1896), The spoils of Poynton (1897), What Maisie Knew (1897), The Turn of the Screw (1898 novella), The Awkward Age (1899), The Sacred Fount (1901), The Wings of the Dove (1902), The Ambassadors (1903), The Golden Bowl (1904), The Whole Family (1908), The Outcry (1911), The Ivory Tower (1917), The Sense of the Past (1917) | Henry James | ||
Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow (1886 – collection of humorous essays, and 1898 sequel), Three Men in a Boat (to say nothing of the dog) (1889), Three Men on the Bummel (1900) | Jerome K. Jerome | ||
Seventy–Two Virgins (2004) | Boris Johnson | ||
Fear of Flying (1973 – a story of female sexual emancipation) | Erica Jong | ||
From Here to Eternity (1951), Some Came Running (1957), The Pistol (1959), The Thin Red Line (1962), Go to the Widow–Maker (1967), The Merry Month of May (1971), A Touch of Danger (1973), Viet Journal (1974), Whistle (1978) | James Jones | ||
Dubliners (1914 – short stories), A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916), Ulysses (1922), Finnegan's Wake (1939) | James Joyce | ||
The Far Pavilions (1978) | M. M. Kaye | ||
Zorba the Geeek (1946), The Greek Passion (1954), Freedom or Death (1954 – a.k.a. Christ Recrucified), The Last Temptation (of Christ) (1953) | Nikos Kazantzakis | ||
Lake Wobegon Days (1985 – based on a radio series about life in a fictitious small town in the American heartland) | Garrison Keillor | ||
Schindler's Ark (his 17th novel – Booker Prize 1982 – source for Spielberg's film Schindler's List) | Thomas Keneally | ||
On the Road (written 1947–51, published 1957), The Dharma Bums (1958), Big Sur (1962) | Jack Kerouac | ||
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1962) | Ken Kesey | ||
Different Seasons (1982) – a collection of four novellas: Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption: Hope Springs Eternal (filmed in 1994 as The Shawshank Redemption), Apt Pupil: Summer of Curruption (filmed in 1998 with same title), The Body: Fall from Innocence (filmed in 1986 as Stand By Me), The Breathing Method: A Winter's Tale (not filmed yet!) | Stephen King | ||
Westward Ho! (1855), The Water Babies (1863), Hereward the Wake: "Last of the English" (1866) | Charles Kingsley | ||
The Man who Would be King (short story, 1888), Plain Tales from the Hills (short stories, 1888), The Light that Failed (1891), Captains Courageous (1896), Stalky & Co. (short stories, 1899); see also Children's authors, Poets | Rudyard Kipling | ||
Invitation to Life (1934), Song on Your Bugles (1936), You Play the Black and the Red Comes Up (1938), This Above All (1941 – "considered one of the significant novels of the Second World War" – Wikipedia), Lassie Come–Home (1940) | Eric Knight | ||
The Gladiators (1933), Darkness at Noon (1940) | Arthur Koestler | ||
Star Quest (1968), The Flesh in the Furnace (1972), Demon Seed (1973), Shattered (1973), Whispers (1980), Phantoms (1983), Intensity (1987), Watchers (1987), Lightning (1988), Midnight (1989), The Bad Place (1990), Hideaway (1992), False Memory (1999), Velocity (2005), The Husband (2006) – and over 100 other novels, including the Odd Thomas and Frankenstein series, many under a variety of pseudonyms | Dean Koontz | ||
Scruples (1978 and 1990 sequel), Princess Daisy (1980), Mistral's Daughter (1982), I'll Take Manhattan (1986), Till We Meet Again (1988), Dazzle (1990), Torch Song (1993) | Judith Krantz | ||
The Joke (1967), The Book of Laughter and Forgetting (1979), The Unbearable Lightness of Being (1984), Immortality (1990) | Milan Kundera | ||
The Buddha of Suburbia (1990), The Black Album (1995), Intimacy (1998), Gabriel's Gift (2001), The Body (2003), Something to Tell You (2008), The Last Word (2014) | Hanif Kureishi | ||
Anna and the King of Siam (1944 – source for The King and I), Never Dies the Dream (1949) | Margaret Landon | ||
The White Peacock (1911), Sons and Lovers (1913), The Rainbow (1915), Women in Love (1920), Aaron's Rod (1920), Kangaroo (1923), The Plumed Serpent (1926), Lady Chatterley's Lover (1928); The Virgin and the Gypsy (short story or novella, published posthumously in 1930) | D. H. Lawrence | ||
Call for the Dead (1961 – filmed in 1966 as The Deadly Affair), A Murder of Quality (1962), The Spy who Came In from the Cold (1963), The Looking Glass War (1965), A Small Town in Germany (1968), The Naive and Sentimental Lover (1971), Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (1974), The Honourable Schoolboy (1977), Smiley's People (1979), The Little Drummer Girl (1983), A Perfect Spy (1986), The Russia House (1989), The Secret Pilgrim (1990), The Night Manager (1993), Our Game (1995), The Tailor of Panama (1996), Single & Single (1999), The Constant Gardener (2001), Absolute Friends (2003), The Mission Song (2006), A Most Wanted Man (2008), Our Kind of Traitor (2010), A Delicate Truth (2013), A Legacy of Spies (2017), Agent Running in the Field (2019), Silverview (2021 – his 26th and final novel, published posthumously) | John le Carré | ||
To Kill a Mockingbird (1960), Go Set a Watchman (2015) | Harper Lee | ||
In His Own Write (1964), A Spaniard in the Works (1965) – two collections of nonsensical stories, poems and cartoons | John Lennon | ||
The Grass is Singing (1950), The Golden Notebook (1962), Memoirs of a Survivor (1974), The Good Terrorist (1985), The Fifth Child (1988), Ben, in the World (2000), The Sweetest Dream (2001), The Cleft (2007), Alfred and Emily (2008) | Doris Lessing | ||
A Kiss before Dying (1953), Rosemary's Baby (1953), This Perfect Day (1970), The Stepford Wives (1972), The Boys from Brazil (1976), Silver (1991) | Ira Levin | ||
The Pilgrim's Regress (1933), The Screwtape Letters (1942), Till We Have Faces (1956), Screwtape Proposes a Toast (1959) | C. S. Lewis | ||
Main Street: The Story of Carol Kennicott (1920), Babbitt (1922), Arrowsmith (1925), Elmer Gantry (1927), Dodsworth (1929), It Can't Happen Here (1935), Gideon Parrish (1943), Cass Timberlane (1945), Kingsblood Royal (1947) Nobel prize for literature 1930 | Sinclair Lewis | ||
How Green was My Valley (1939), None but the Lonely Heart (1943), Green, Green My Valley Now (1975) | Richard Llewellyn | ||
The Call of the Wild (1903), The Sea–Wolf (1904), White Fang (1906), Before Adam (1907), The Iron Heel (1908), Martin Eden (1909) | Jack London | ||
Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1925), But Gentlemen Marry Brunettes (1927) | Anita Loos | ||
Under the Volcano (semi–autobiographical novel, 1947 – filmed by John Huston in 1984) | Malcolm Lowry | ||
Sinister Street (1913–14), The Altar Steps (1922), The Parson's Progress (1923), The Heavenly Ladder (1924), The Monarch of the Glen (1941), Whisky Galore (1947), Thin Ice (1956). See also Series | Compton Mackenzie | ||
HMS Ulysses (1955), The Guns of Navarone (1957), South by Java Head (1958), Fear is the Key (1961), Ice Station Zebra (1963), When Eight Bells Toll (1966), Where Eagles Dare (1967), Force 10 from Navarone (1968), Puppet on a Chain (1969), Caravan to Vaccarès (1970), Bear Island (1971), Breakheart Pass (1974) | Alistair Maclean | ||
The Naked and the Dead (1948), An American Dream (1965 – semi–autobiographical), The Executioner's Song (1979 – a "factional" account of the execution of Gary Gilmore in 1977), Ancient Evenings (1983), Tough Guys Don't Dance (1984) | Norman Mailer | ||
Le Morte d'Arthur (1485 – a classic compilation of Arthurian tales, first published by William Caxton) | Thomas Malory | ||
Fludd (1989), A Place of Greater Safety (1992), An Experiment in Love (1995), Beyond Black (2005), Wolf Hall, Bring Up the Bodies (Booker Prize 2009 and 2012 respectively), The Mirror and the Light (2020, longlisted) | Hilary Mantel | ||
Mr. Midshipman Easy (1836) | Captain (Frederick) Marryat | ||
Bhowani Junction (1954 – filmed in 1956 starring Ava Gardner and Stewart Granger) | John Masters | ||
Liza of Lambeth (1897), Mrs. Craddock (1902), The Magician (1908), Of Human Bondage (1915), The Moon and Sixpence (1919), The Painted Veil (1925), The Casuarina Tree (short stories, 1926), Ashenden (1928), Cakes and Ale (1930), The Summing Up (1938), Up at the Villa (1941), The Razor's Edge (1944), Then and Now (1946), Catalina (1948) | W. Somerset Maugham | ||
Tim (1974 – filmed in 1979 starring Piper Laurie and Mel Gibson), The Thorn Birds (family saga, first published 1977, adapted as a TV mini–series in 1983), An Indecent Obsession (1981), The Ladies of Missalonghi (1987), Morgan's Run (2000), The Touch (2003) | Colleen McCullough | ||
The Cement Garden (1978), The Comfort of Strangers (1981), The Child in Time (1987), The Innocent (1990), Black Dogs (1992), Enduring Love (1997), Amsterdam (Booker Prize 1998), Atonement (2001), Saturday (2005), On Chesil Beach (2007), Solar (2010), Sweet Tooth (2012), The Children Act (2014) | Ian McEwan | ||
Bravo Two Zero (1993 – a highly fictionalised account of an SAS mission in which he took part in 1991, during the Persian Gulf War) | Andy McNab | ||
Typee (1846, romantic adventure), and sequels Omoo (1847), Mardi (1849); Moby Dick (1851 – published first in Britain as The Whale, and 27 days later in the US as Moby–Dick); Billy Budd (posthumous novella, 1924) | Herman Melville | ||
The Shaving of Shagpat (1856), The Egoist (1879) | George Meredith | ||
Peyton Place (1956), The Tight White Collar (1961), No Adam in Eden (1953) | Grace Metalious | ||
Tropic of Cancer (1934), Black Spring (1936), Tropic of Capricorn (1939), The Colossus of Maroussi (1941), Sexus (1949), Plexus (1953), Quiet Days in Clichy (1956), Nexus (1960) | Henry Miller | ||
Gone with the Wind (1936) | Margaret Mitchell | ||
Highland Fling (1931), Christmas Pudding (1932), Wigs on the Green (1935), Pigeon Pie (1940), The Pursuit of Love (1945), Love in a Cold Climate (1946), The Blessing (1951), Don't Tell Alfred (1960) | Nancy Mitford | ||
H. M. Corvette (1942), East Coast Corvette (1943), Corvette Command (1944), H. M. Frigate (1946), H. M. S. Marlborough will Enter Harbour (1947), The Cruel Sea (1951), The Story of Esther Costello (1952), The Ship that Died of Shame (1952 short story), The Tribe that Lost its Head (1956), The Nylon Pirates (1960), Something to Hide (1963), A Fair Day's Work (1964), Richer than All his Tribe (1968), The Kapillan of Malta (1973) | Nicholas Monsarrat | ||
Utopia (completed in 1516, not published in English until 1551 – 16 years after the author's death; depicts a fictional island society and its religious, social and political customs) | Sir Thomas More | ||
News from Nowhere (1890) | William Morris | ||
Judith Hearne (1955), The Feast of Lupercal (1957), The Luck of Ginger Coffey (1960), An Answer from Limbo (1962), The Emperor of Ice–Cream (1965), I Am Mary Dunne (1968), Fergus (1970), The Revolution Script (1971), Catholics (1972), The Great Victorian Collection (1975), The Doctor's Wife (1976), The Mangan Inheritance (1979), The Temptation of Eileen Hughes (1981), Cold Heaven (1983), Black Robe (1985), The Colour of Blood (1987), Lies of Silence (1990), No Other Life (1993), The Statement (1995), The Magician's Wife (1997) | Brian Moore | ||
The Bluest Eye (1970), Sula (1973), Song of Solomon (1977), Tar Baby (1981), Beloved (1987), Jazz (1992), Paradise (1997), Love (2003), A Mercy (2008), Home (2012), God Help the Child (2015) | Toni Morrison | ||
Paradise Postponed (1985), Summer's Lease (1988), Titmuss Regained (1990) | John Mortimer | ||
Under the Net (1954), The Bell (1958), A Severed Head (1961), An Unofficial Rose (1962), The Unicorn (1963), The Black Prince (1973), The Sacred and Profane Love Machine (1974), The Sea, The Sea (Booker Prize 1978), Jackson's Dilemma (1995) – and 15 other novels | Iris Murdoch | ||
The Real Life of Sebastian Knight (1941), Bend Sinister (1947), Lolita (1955), Pnin (1957), Pale Fire (1962), Ada or Ardor: A Family Chronicle (1969), Transparent Things (1972), Look at the Harlequins! (1974), The Original of Laura (controversially published posthumously from an incomplete original, 2009) | Vladimir Nabokov | ||
A House for Mr. Biswas (1961), In a Free State (Booker Prize 1971), A Bend in the River (1979) | V. S. Naipaul | ||
The Time Traveler's Wife (2003), Her Fearful Symmetry (2009), Raven Girl (2013) | Audrey Niffenegger | ||
August is a Wicked Month (1965), Casualties of Peace (1966), A Pagan Place (1970), Wild Decembers (1999) | Edna O'Brien | ||
The Famished Road (Booker Prize 1991), Dangerous Love (1996), Starbook (2007) | Ben Okri | ||
Coming Through Slaughter (1976), In the Skin of a Lion (1987), The English Patient (Booker Prize 1992), Anil's Ghost (2000), Divisadero (2007), The Cat's Table (2011) | Michael Ondaatje | ||
Burmese Days (1934), A Clergyman's Daughter (1935), Keep the Aspidistra Flying (1936), Coming Up For Air (1939), Animal Farm (1945), Nineteen Eighty–Four (1949) – see also Authors: Non–Fiction | George Orwell | ||
Hemingway's Lot (1995), The Truth (2012) | Michael Palin | ||
Laments for the Living (1930), After Such Pleasures (1933) – short story collections | Dorothy Parker | ||
Man and Boy (1999), One For My Baby (2001), Man and Wife (2003), The Family Way (2004), Stories We Could Tell (2006), My Favourite Wife (2007), Starting Over (2009), Men From the Boys (2010), The Murder Bag (2014), The Slaughter Man (2015) – British (former) music journalist | Tony Parsons | ||
Cry, the Beloved Country (1948), Too Late the Phalarope (1953), Ah, But Your Land is Beautiful (1981) | Alan Paton | ||
After Me Comes the Flood (2014), The Essex Serpent (2016) | Sarah Perry | ||
The End of Summer (1971), Snow in April (1972), The Day of the Storm (1975), Wild Mountain Thyme (1978), The Carousel (1982), The Shell Seekers (1987), Voices in Summer (1984), September (1990), Coming Home (1995), Winter Solstice (2000) | Rosamunde Pilcher | ||
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values (1974), Lila: An Inquiry into Morals (1991) | Robert M. Pirsig | ||
The Bell Jar (1963 – semi–autobiographical novel, published less than a month before her death) | Sylvia Plath | ||
The Fall of the House of Usher (1839), The Murders in the Rue Morgue (1841), The Masque of the Red Death (1842), The Pit and the Pendulum (1842) – stories; The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket (1838 – his only completed novel) | Edgar Allan Poe | ||
The Good Companions (1929), Angel Pavement (1930), Let the People Sing (1939), Bright Day (1946), Jenny Villiers (1947), The Other Place (1952 – short stories), The Magicians (1954) | J. B. Priestley | ||
Postcards (1992), The Shipping News (1993), Accordion Crimes (1996), That Old Ace in the Hole (2002) | E. Annie Proulx | ||
Stella Dallas (1922), Now Voyager (1941 – title comes from Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass; Bette Davis won an Oscar for the 1942 film) | Olive Higgins Prouty | ||
The Dark Arena (1955), The Fortunate Pilgrim (1965), The Godfather (1969), Fools Die (1978), The Sicilian (1984), The Fourth K (1991), The Last Don (1996), Omerta (2000), The Family (2001 – finished by his partner Carol Gino) | Mario Puzo | ||
V. (1963), The Crying of Lot 49 (1966), Gravity's Rainbow (1973), Vineland (1990), Mason & Dixon (1997), Against the Day (2006), Inherent Vice (2009) | Thomas Pynchon | ||
The L–Shaped Room (1960), The Backward Shadow (1970), Two is Lonely (1974) | Lynne Reid Banks | ||
The Last of the Wine (1956), The King Must Die (1958), The Bull from the Sea (1962), The Mask of Apollo (1966), Fire from Heaven (1969), The Persian Boy (1972), The Praise Singer (1978), Funeral Games (1981) – historical novels, set in ancient Greece | Mary Renault | ||
A Demon In My View (1976), A Judgement in Stone (1977), Live Flesh (1986), The Bridesmaid (1989), The Crocodile Bird (1993), A Sight for Sore Eyes (1998), Thirteen Steps Down (2004), The Water's Lovely (2006), Portobello (2008), The Girl Next Door (2014), Dark Corners (published posthumously, 2015); in total 24 Wexford novels, 28 standalone novels (plus 14 written as Barbara Vine), 3 novellas, and 7 short story collections | Ruth Rendell | ||
The Dice Man (1971), Adventures of Wim (1986), The Search for the Dice Man (1993) – pen name of George Cockcroft) | Luke Rhinehart | ||
Pamela: Or, Virtue Rewarded (1740), Clarissa: Or the History of a Young Lady (1748), The History of Sir Charles Grandison (1753) | Samuel Richardson | ||
Who's That Lady in the President's Bed (1972), Charleston (1981), On Leaving Charleston (1984), The Time Returns (1985), New Orleans Legacy (1987), Scarlett (1991 sequel to Margaret Mitchell's Gone with the Wind), From Fields of Gold (1994), A Love Divine (1997) | Alexandra Ripley | ||
Never Love a Stranger (1948), The Dream Merchants (1949), A Stone for Danny Fisher (1952 – source for Elvis Presley's film King Creole), Never Leave Me (1953), 79 Park Avenue (1955), Stiletto (1960), The Carpetbaggers (1961), Where Love Has Gone (1962), The Adventurers (1966), The Betsy (1971), The Pirate (1974), The Lonely Lady (1976), Dreams Die First (1978), Memories of Another Day (1979), Goodbye, Janette (1981), Spellbinder (1982), Tycoon (1997) | Harold Robbins | ||
Northwest Passage (1937) | Kenneth Roberts | ||
Goodbye, Columbus (1959), Portnoy's Complaint (1969), The Great American Novel (1973), The Ghost Writer (1979), The Anatomy Lesson (1983), American Pastoral (Pulitzer Prize 1998), I Married a Communist (1998), The Human Stain (2000), The Plot Against America (2004), Everyman (2006), Nemesis (2010) | Philip Roth | ||
The Casual Vacancy (2012 – her first novel for adult readers; made into a BBC TV series in 2015) | J. K. Rowling | ||
Grimus (1975), Midnight's Children (Booker Prize 1981, Booker of Bookers 1993, Best of the Booker 2009), Shame (1983), The Satanic Verses (1988), The Moor's Last Sigh (1995), The Ground Beneath Her Feet (1999), Fury (2001), Shalimar the Clown (2005), The Enchantress of Florence (2008), Two Years Eight Months and Twenty–Eight Nights (2015) | Salman Rushdie | ||
The Catcher in the Rye (1951), A Perfect Day for Bananafish, For Esmé – with Love and Squalor (short stories, 1953), Franny and Zooey (1961 – separately in the New Yorker, Franny 1955 and Zooey 1977) | J. D. Salinger | ||
Whose Body? (1923), Clouds of Witness (1926), Unnatural Death (1927), The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club (1928), Strong Poison (1930), The Documents in the Case (1930 – the only one in this list that doesn't feature Lord Peter Wimsey), The Five Red Herrings (1931), Have His Carcase (1932), Murder Must Advertise (1933), The Nine Tailors (1934), Gaudy Night (1935) | Dorothy L. Sayers | ||
Lucky (1999), The Lovely Bones (2002), The Almost Moon (2007) | Alice Sebold | ||
The Golden Gate (1986), A Suitable Boy (1993), An Equal Music (1999), A Suitable Girl (2016) | Vikram Seth | ||
Riotous Assembly (1971), Indecent Exposure (1973), Porterhouse Blue (1974), Blott on the Landscape (1975), Wilt (1976), The Great Pursuit (1977), The Throwback (1978), The Wilt Alternative (1979), Ancestral Vices (1980), Vintage Stuff (1982), The Midden (1996), The Gropes (2009), Wilt On High (1984), Grantchester Grind (1995), Wilt in Nowhere (2004), The Wilt Inheritance (2010) | Tom Sharpe | ||
The Young Lions (1948), The Troubled Air (1951), Lucy Crown (1956), Two Weeks in another Town (1960), Voices of a Summer Day (1965), Rich Man, Poor Man (1970), Evening in Byzantium (1973), Nightwork (1975), Beggarman, Thief (1977), The Top of the Hill (1979), Bread Upon the Waters (1981), Acceptable Losses (1982) | Irwin Shaw | ||
The Naked Face (1970), The Other Side of Midnight (1973), A Stranger in the Mirror (1976), Bloodline (1977), Rage of Angels (1980), Master of the Game (1982), If Tomorrow Comes (1985), Windmills of the Gods (1987), The Sands of Time (1988), Memories of Midnight (1990), The Doomsday Conspiracy (1991), The Stars Shine Down (1992), Nothing Lasts Forever (1994), Morning, Noon and Night (1995), The Best Laid Plans (1997), Tell Me Your Dreams (1998), The Sky is Falling (2001), Are You Afraid of the Dark? (2004) – the 7th best selling fiction author of all time, died 2007 | Sidney Sheldon | ||
We Need to Talk about Kevin (2005 – winner of the Orange Prize for Fiction; filmed in 2011 starring Tilda Swinton) | Lionel Shriver | ||
Stephen Morris (1923, published 1961), Marazan (1926), Ruined City (1938), An Old Captivity (1940), Pied Piper (1942), Pastoral (1944), Most Secret (1945), The Chequer Board (1948), No Highway (1947), A Town like Alice (1950), Round the Bend (1951), The Far Country (1952), In the Wet (1953), Requiem for a Wren (1955), Beyond the Black Stump (1956), On the Beach (1957), Round the Bend, Trustee from the Toolroom (1960) | Nevil Shute | ||
Saturday Night and Sunday Morning (1958), The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner (short story, 1959), The General (1960 – filmed in 1968 as Counterpoint, starring Charlton Heston, Maximilian Schell and Leslie Nielsen), Key to the Door (1960), The Ragman's Daughter (1963) | Alan Sillitoe | ||
The Dark of the Sun (1965), The Sound of Thunder (1966), Shout at the Devil (1968), Gold Mine (1970), The Diamond Hunters (1971), The Sunbird (1972), Eagle in the Sky (1974), The Eye of the Tiger (1975), Cry Wolf (1976), Hungry as the Sea (1978), Wild Justice (1979) – see also Series | Wilbur Smith | ||
White Teeth (2000), The Autograph Man (2002), On Beauty (2005), NW (2012) | Zadie Smith | ||
The Adventures of Roderick Random (published anonymously in 1748), The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle (published anonymously in 1751), The Expedition of Humphry Clinker (1771) | Tobias Smollett | ||
Memento Mori (1959), The Ballad of Peckham Rye (1960), The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1961), The Girls of Slender Means (1963), The Public Image (1968), Loitering with Intent (1981), Aiding and Abetting (2000), The Finishing School (2004) | Muriel Spark | ||
Fame is the Spur (1940) | Howard Spring | ||
Going Home (1973), The Promise (1977), Now and Forever (1978),
Summer's End (1979), The Ring (1980), Palomino (1981), Remembrance (1981), To Love
Again (1981), Crossings (1982), Once in a Lifetime (1982), Changes (1983), A
Perfect Stranger (1983), Full Circle (1984), Family Album (1985), Secrets (1985),
No Greater Love (1989), Wanderlust (1986), Fine Things (1987), Kaleidoscope (1987),
Zoya (1988), Daddy (1989), Sisters (1989), Star (1989), Message from Nam
(1990), Heartbeat (1991), No Greater Love (1991), Jewels (1992), Mixed Blessings (1992),
Vanished (1993), Accident (1994), The Gift (1994), Five Days In Paris (1995), Silent Honor (1996), The Ghost (1997), Special
Delivery (1997), His Bright Light (1998), Bittersweet (1999), The Klone and I (1998), The Long Road Home (1998), The House on Hope Street (2000),
The Wedding (2000), The Kiss (2001), Leap of Faith (2001), Answered Prayers (2002), Johnny Angel (2003), Safe Harbour (2003),
The House (2006), Big Girl (2010), Hotel Vendome (2011), Friends Forever (2012), Until the End of Time (2013), Winners (2013),
Power Play (2014), A Perfect Life (2014), Pegasus (2014), Prodigal Son (2015), Undercover (2015), Dangerous Games (2017), Against All Odds (2017) According to Wikipedia, only William Shakespeare, Agatha Christie and Barbara Cartland have sold more fictional books than Danielle Steel. She has published almost 200 novels, of which the above have been among the most successful. Those in bold type have been adapted for television or video. As of 2024, she has published 46 novels since 2017 but Wikipedia doesn't have separate pages for any of them. |
Danielle Steel | ||
Cup of Gold (1929), To a God Unknown (1933), Tortilla Flat (1935), In Dubious Battle (1936), Of Mice and Men (1937), The Grapes of Wrath (1939), The Moon is Down (1942), Cannery Row (1945), The Wayward Bus (1947), East of Eden (1952), Sweet Thursday (1954), The Short Reign of Pippin IV: A Fascination (1957), The Winter of Our Discontent (1961) | John Steinbeck | ||
The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman (9 vols, 1759–67), A Sentimental Journey through France and Italy (1768) | Laurence Sterne | ||
The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1886); Weir of Hermiston (unfinished at the time of the author's sudden death in 1894, published as such posthumously in 1896); see also Children's books | Robert Louis Stevenson | ||
Lust for Life (1934 – Van Gogh), Adversary in the House (1947 – US socialist leader Eugene V. Debs), The Agony and the Ecstasy (1961 – Michelangelo), Those Who Love (1965 – John Adams), The Passions of the Mind (1971 – Sigmund Freud), The Origin (1980 – Darwin) | Irving Stone | ||
This Sporting Life (1960), Flight into Camden (1961), Home (1970), The Changing Room (1971), Pasmore (1972), Saville (Booker Prize 1976) | David Storey | ||
Lie Down in Darkness (1951), The Long March (1956), Set This House on Fire (1960), The Confessions of Nat Turner (1967), Sophie's Choice (1979) | William Styron | ||
Every Night, Josephine! (1963), Valley of the Dolls (1966), The Love Machine (1969), Once is Not Enough (1973), Dolores (1976), Yargo (1979) | Jacqueline Susann | ||
Perfume: The Story of a Murderer (1985) | Patrick Süskind | ||
The Sweet–Shop Owner (1980), Shuttlecock (1981), Waterland (1983), Last Orders (Booker Prize 1996), Tomorrow (2007), Wish You Were Here (2011) | Graham Swift | ||
A Tale of a Tub (1704 – "To which is added An Account of a Battel between the Ancient and Modern Books in St. James's Library" – known as The Battle of the Books), Gulliver's Travels (1726) | Jonathan Swift | ||
The Gentleman from Indiana (1899), Monsieur Beaucaire (1900), The Two Vanrevels (1902), Penrod (1914), Seventeen (1916), The Magnificent Ambersons (1918), Alice Adams (1921), Gentle Julia (1922) | Booth Tarkington | ||
The Secret History (1992), The Little Friend (2002), The Goldfinch (2013) | Donna Tartt | ||
The Accident (2014), The Lie (2015), The Missing (2016) | C. L. Taylor | ||
The Hustler (1959), The Man who Fell to Earth (1963), Mockingbird (1980), The Steps of the Sun (1983), The Queen's Gambit (1983), The Color of Money (1984) | Walter Tevis | ||
Catherine (1839–40), The Luck of Barry Lyndon (1844), Mrs. Perkins's Ball (1846 – published under the pseudonym "M. A. Titmarsh"), The Book of Snobs (1848 – a collection of pieces, which popularised the modern usage of the word "snob"), Vanity Fair (1848), Pendennis (1848–50), Men's Wives (1852), The History of Henry Esmond (1852), The Newcomes (1855), The Rose and the Ring (1855), The Virginians (1857–9), The Adventures of Philip ... (1862) | William Makepeace Thackeray | ||
The Mosquito Coast (1981 – writer arguably better known for his travel books) | Paul Theroux | ||
Portrait of the Artist as a Young Dog (short stories, 1940) | Dylan Thomas | ||
The Virgin Soldiers (1966), Tropic of Ruislip (1974), Dangerous Davies, the Last Detective (1976), The Magic Army (1981) | Leslie Thomas | ||
Lark Rise (1939), Over to Candleford (1941), Candleford Green (1943) – published together as Lark Rise to Candleford (1945); Still Glides the Stream (published posthumously in 1948) | Flora Thompson | ||
Hell's Angels (1967), Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1971), The Curse of Lono (1980), The Rum Diary (written in the early 1960s, published in 1998) | Hunter S. Thompson | ||
Whistling for the Elephants (1999), Flying Under Bridges (2001) | Sandi Toksvig | ||
A Confederacy of Dunces (completed in 1964, published in 1980, 11 years after the author's suicide); The Neon Bible (written in 1954, aged 16; published 1989) | John Kennedy Toole | ||
The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (published in German in 1927, English 1935) | B. Traven | ||
Restoration (1989 – Sunday Express Book of the Year), Sacred Country (1992 – James Tait Black Memorial Prize), Music and Silence (1999 – Whitbread Awards Best Novel), The Road Home (2008 – Orange Prize), Marivel: A Man of his Time (2012 – Wellcome Trust Prize and Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction), The Gustav Sonata (2016 – Costa Awards Best Novel) | Rose Tremain | ||
The Ragged–Trousered Philanthropists (published posthumously in 1914) | Robert Tressell | ||
The McDermots of Ballyclovan (1847), The Kellys and the O'Kellys (1848), The Three Clerks (1858), Castle Richmond (1860), Orley Farm (1862), Rachel Ray (1863), The Belton Estate (1866), The Claverings (1867), He Knew He Was Right (1869), The Vicar of Bullhampton (1870), Sir Harry Hotspur of Humblethwaite (1871), Ralph the Heir (1871), Lady Anna (1874), The Way We Live Now (1875), The American Senator (1877), An Eye for an Eye (1879), Cousin Henry (1879), Ayala's Angel (1881), Doctor Wortle's School (1881), The Fixed Period (1882), Kept in the Dark (1882). See also Series | Anthony Trollope | ||
Eliza Stanhope (1978), Parson Harding's Daughter (1979), Leaves from the Valley (1980), The City of Gems (1981), The Steps of the Sun (1983), The Taverner's Place (1986), The Choir (1988), A Village Affair (1989), The Rector's Wife (1991), ... , The Other Family (2010), Daughters–in–Law (2011), The Soldier's Wife (2012), Balancing Act (2014) | Joanna Trollope | ||
The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today (1873), The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876), The Prince and the Pauper (1882), The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884), A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court (1889), The American Claimant (1892), The Tragedy of Pudd'nhead Wilson (1894), Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc (1896), A Double Barrelled Detective Story (1902, short story – Sherlock Holmes in the Wild West), A Dog's Tale, A Horse's Tale (1904 and 1907 – short stories), The Mysterious Stranger (unfinished), Hellfire Hotchkiss (unfinished) | Mark Twain | ||
Couples (1968), The Witches of Eastwick (1984), The Centaur (1964), Bech, a Book (1965, and sequels in 1982 and 1998) – see also Series | John Updike | ||
Battle Cry (1953), The Angry Hills (1955), Exodus (1958), Mila 18 (1961), Armageddon: A Novel of Berlin (1963), Topaz (1967), QB VII (1970), Trinity (1976), The Haj (1984), Mitla Pass (1988), Redemption (1995), A God in Ruins (1999) | Leon Uris | ||
Williwaw (1946), The City and the Pillar (1948), The Best Man (1960), Julian (1964), Myra Breckenridge (1968), Kalki (1978), Creation (1981), Duluth (1983), Live from Golgotha (1992) – see also Series | Gore Vidal | ||
Cat's Cradle (1963), Slaughterhouse Five (1969), Breakfast of Champions (1973) | Kurt Vonnegut | ||
The Third Life of Grange Copeland (1970), Meridian (1976), The Color Purple (1982), In Search of Our Mothers' Gardens (a collection of prose pieces, 1983), To Hell with Dying (1988), The Temple of My Familiar (1989), Possessing the Secret of Joy (1992) | Alice Walker | ||
The Four Just Men (1905), The Clue of the Twisted Candle (1918), Kate Plus Ten (1919), The Daffodil Mystery (1920), Angel of Terror (1922), The Crimson Circle (1922), The Valley of Ghosts (1922), The Clue of the New Pin (1923), The Dark Eyes of Lnodon (1924), The Mind of Mr. J. G. Reeder (short stories, 1925), The Terrible People (1926), Terror Keep (1926), Big Foot (1927), The Calendar (1930); was involved in the creation of King Kong, but died before the film was released (1932) | Edgar Wallace | ||
Ben–Hur: A Tale of the Christ (1880) | Lew Wallace | ||
The Castle of Otranto (1764) – son of a famous prime minister | Horace Walpole | ||
The Ice House (1992), The Sculptress (1993), The Scold's Bridle (1994), The Dark Room (1995), The Echo (1997), The Tinder Box (1999), The Shape of Snakes (2000), Acid Row (2001), Fox Evil (2002), Disordered Minds (2003), The Devil's Feather (2005), The Chameleon's Shadow (2007) – first five books adapted by BBC TV, 1996–9 | Minette Walters | ||
Decline and Fall (1928), Vile Bodies (1930), Black Mischief (1932), A Handful of Dust (1934), Scoop (1938), Put Out More Flags (1942), Brideshead Revisited (1945), The Loved One (1948), Helena (1950), Love Among the Ruins (1953), The Ordeal of Gilbert Pinfold (1957) | Evelyn Waugh | ||
The Fat Woman's Joke (1967), Puffball (1980), The Life and Loves of a She–Devil (1983), The Heart of the Country (2007), The Cloning of Joanna May (1989), Worst Fears (1996), The Bulgari Connection (2001), She May not Leave (2005), Kehua! – A Ghost Story (2010), Habits of the House (2012), The New Countess (2013) | Fay Weldon | ||
The Time Machine (first – 1895), The Wonderful Visit (1895), The Island of Dr. Moreau (1896), The Wheels of Chance (1896), The Invisible Man (1897), War of the Worlds (1898), Love and Mr. Lewisham (1899), When the Sleeper Wakes (1899), The First Men in the Moon (1901), The Food of the Gods and How it Came to Earth (1904), Kipps: The Story of a Simple Soul (1905), In the Days of the Comet (1906), The History of Mr. Polly (1910), Shape of Things to Come (1933), You Can't Be Too Careful (last – 1941) | H. G. Wells | ||
Trainspotting (1993), The Acid House (1994 – short story collection), Marabou Stork Nightmares (1995), Ecstasy: Three Tales of Chemical Romance (1996 – novellas), Filth (1998), Glue (2001), Porno (2002), The Bedroom Secrets of the Master Chefs (2006), Crime (2008), Skagboys (2012), The Sex Lives of Siamese Twins (2014) | Irvine Welsh | ||
Jumping the Queue (1983 – first adult novel, aged 71), The Camomile Lawn (1984), Harnessing Peacocks (1985), The Vacillations of Poppy Carew (1986), Not That Sort of Girl (1987), Second Fiddle (1988), A Sensible Life (1990), A Dubious Legacy (1992), An Imaginative Experience (1994), Part of the Furniture (1997) – died 2002 aged 90 | Mary Wesley | ||
The Dream Life of Balso Snell (1931), Miss Lonelyhearts (1933), A Cool Million (1934), The Day of the Locust (1939) | Nathaniel West | ||
The Touchstone (1900), The House of Mirth (1905), Ethan Frome (1911), The Reef (1912), The Custom of the Country (1913), Summer 1917), The Age of Innocence (1920), The Children (1928), The Buccaneers (1939, unfinished) | Edith Wharton | ||
The Canterville Ghost (short story, 1887 – included in Lord Arthur Savile's Crime and Other Stories, 1891), The Picture of Dorian Gray (1891 – his only novel) | Oscar Wilde | ||
The Bridge of San Luis Rey (1927), The Woman of Andros (1930), Ides of March (1948), The Eighth Day (1967), Theophilus North (1973) | Thornton Wilder | ||
Tarka the Otter (1927), Salar the Salmon (1935) | Henry Williamson | ||
Hemlock and After 91952), Anglo–Saxon Attitudes (1956), The Middle Age Of Mrs. Elliot (1958), The Old Men at the Zoo (1961), Late Call (1964) Late Call | Angus Wilson | ||
Oranges are Not the Only Fruit (1985 – fictionalised autobiography), Sexing the Cherry (1989), Gut Symmetries (1997), The World and Other Places (1998 – short story collection), The Stone Gods (2007) | Jeanette Winterson | ||
The Pothunters (1902 – first novel); Aunts Aren't Gentlemen (1974 – the last published in his lifetime) | P. G. Wodehouse | ||
The Bonfire of the Vanities (1987), A Man in Full (1998), I Am Charlotte Simmons (2004), Back to Blood (2012) | Tom Wolfe | ||
The Voyage Out (first novel, 1915), Night and Day (1919), Jacob's Room (1922), Mrs. Dalloway (1925), To the Lighthouse (1927), Orlando (1928), The Waves (1931), The Years (1937), Between the Acts (1941) | Virginia Woolf | ||
The Caine Mutiny (1951), Marjorie Morningstar (1955), The Winds of War (1971), The Hope (1993), The Glory (1994), War and Remembrance (1978) | Herman Wouk | ||
Beau Geste (1924) | P. C. Wren |
© Haydn Thompson 2017–24