20th-century Literature
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Literature Literature is any collection of Writing, written work, but it is also used more narrowly for writings specifically considered to be an art form, especially novels, Play (theatre), plays, and poetry, poems. It includes both print and Electroni ...
of the 20th century refers to
world literature World literature is used to refer to the world's total national literature and the circulation of works into the wider world beyond their country of origin. In the past, it primarily referred to the masterpieces of Western European literature. ...
produced during the 20th century (1901 to 2000). The main periods in question are often grouped by scholars as
Modernist literature Modernist literature originated in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and is characterised by a self-conscious separation from traditional ways of writing in both poetry and prose fiction writing. Modernism experimented with literary form a ...
,
Postmodern literature Postmodern literature is a form of literature that is characterized by the use of metafiction, unreliable narration, self-reflexivity, and intertextuality, and which often thematizes both historical and political issues. This style of experimen ...
, flowering from roughly 1900 to 1940 and 1960 to 1990 respectively, roughly using
World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...
as a transition point. After 1960, the somewhat malleable term "
contemporary literature Contemporary literature is literature which is generally set after World War II and coincident with contemporary history. Subgenres of contemporary literature include contemporary romance and others. History Literary movements are always contemp ...
" widely appears. Although these terms (modern, contemporary and postmodern) are generally applicable to and stem from Western literary history, scholars often use them in reference to Asian,
Latin American Latin Americans (; ) are the citizenship, citizens of Latin American countries (or people with cultural, ancestral or national origins in Latin America). Latin American countries and their Latin American diaspora, diasporas are Metroethnicity, ...
and
African literature African literature is literature from Africa, either Oral literature, oral ("orature") or written in African languages, African and Afro-Asiatic languages, Afro-Asiatic languages. Examples of Precolonialism, pre-colonial African literature can be ...
s. Non-western writers, in particular in
Postcolonial literature Postcolonial literature is the literature by people from formerly colonized countries, originating from all continents except Antarctica. Postcolonial literature often addresses the problems and consequences of the colonization and subsequent deco ...
, have been at the forefront of literary evolution during the twentieth century. Technological advances facilitated lower production cost for books, coupled with rising populations and literacy rates, which resulted in a significant rise in production of popular literature and trivial literature, comparable to the similar developments in music. The division of "popular literature" and "high literature" in the 20th century is overlapped by
genres Genre () is any style or form of communication in any mode (written, spoken, digital, artistic, etc.) with socially agreed-upon conventions developed over time. In popular usage, it normally describes a category of literature, music, or other form ...
such as
detectives A detective is an investigator, usually a member of a law enforcement agency. They often collect information to solve crimes by talking to witnesses and informants, collecting physical evidence, or searching records in databases. This leads the ...
or
science fiction Science fiction (often shortened to sci-fi or abbreviated SF) is a genre of speculative fiction that deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts. These concepts may include information technology and robotics, biological manipulations, space ...
, despite being largely ignored by mainstream
literary criticism A genre of arts criticism, literary criticism or literary studies is the study, evaluation, and interpretation of literature. Modern literary criticism is often influenced by literary theory, which is the philosophical analysis of literature's ...
for most of the century. These genres developed their own establishments and critical awards; these include the
Nebula Award The Nebula Awards annually recognize the best works of science fiction or fantasy published in the United States. The awards are organized and awarded by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association (SFWA), a nonprofit association of pr ...
(since 1965), the
British Fantasy Award The British Fantasy Awards (BFA) are awarded annually by the British Fantasy Society (BFS), first in 1976. Prior to that they were known as The August Derleth Fantasy Awards (see August Derleth Award). First awarded in 1972 (to ''The Knight of ...
(since 1971) or the
Mythopoeic Awards The Mythopoeic Awards for literature and literary studies are given annually for outstanding works in the fields of myth, fantasy, and the scholarly study of these areas. Established by the Mythopoeic Society in 1971, the Mythopoeic Fantasy Awar ...
(since 1971). Towards the end of the 20th century,
electronic literature Electronic literature or digital literature is a genre of literature where digital capabilities such as interactivity, multimodality or Generative literature, algorithmic text generation are used aesthetically. Works of electronic literature ar ...
grew in importance in light of the development of
hypertext Hypertext is E-text, text displayed on a computer display or other electronic devices with references (hyperlinks) to other text that the reader can immediately access. Hypertext documents are interconnected by hyperlinks, which are typic ...
and later the
World Wide Web The World Wide Web (WWW or simply the Web) is an information system that enables Content (media), content sharing over the Internet through user-friendly ways meant to appeal to users beyond Information technology, IT specialists and hobbyis ...
. The
Nobel Prize in Literature The Nobel Prize in Literature, here meaning ''for'' Literature (), is a Swedish literature prize that is awarded annually, since 1901, to an author from any country who has, in the words of the will of Swedish industrialist Alfred Nobel, "in ...
was awarded annually throughout the century (with the exception of 1914, 1918, 1935 and 1940–1943), the first laureate (1901) being
Sully Prudhomme René François Armand "Sully" Prudhomme (; 16 March 1839 – 6 September 1907) was a French poet and essayist. He was the first winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1901. Born in Paris, Prudhomme originally studied to be an engineer, bu ...
. ''The New York Times'' Best Seller list has been published since 1942. The best-selling literary works of the 20th century are estimated to be ''
The Lord of the Rings ''The Lord of the Rings'' is an Epic (genre), epic high fantasy novel written by English author and scholar J. R. R. Tolkien. Set in Middle-earth, the story began as a sequel to Tolkien's 1937 children's book ''The Hobbit'' but eventually d ...
'' (1954/55, 150 million copies), ''Le Petit Prince'' (''
The Little Prince ''The Little Prince'' (, ) is a novella written and illustrated by French writer and aviator Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. It was first published in English and French in the United States by Reynal & Hitchcock in April 1943 and was published po ...
'', 1943, 140 million copies), ''
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone ''Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone'' is a fantasy novel written by British author J. K. Rowling. It is the first novel in the ''Harry Potter'' series and was Rowling's debut novel. It follows Harry Potter, a young wizard who disco ...
'' (1997, 120 million copies) and ''
And Then There Were None ''And Then There Were None'' is a mystery fiction, mystery novel by the English writer Agatha Christie, who described it as the most difficult of her books to write. It was first published in the United Kingdom by the Collins Crime Club on 6 N ...
'' (1939, 115 million copies). ''The Lord of the Rings'' was also voted "book of the century" in various surveys. ''
Perry Rhodan ''Perry Rhodan'' is a German space opera franchise, named after its hero. It commenced in 1961 and has been ongoing for decades, written by an ever-changing team of authors. Having sold approximately two billion copies (in novella format) worl ...
'' (1961 to present) proclaimed as the best-selling book series, with an estimated total of 1 billion copies sold.


1901–1918

The ''
Fin de siècle "''Fin de siècle''" () is a French term meaning , a phrase which typically encompasses both the meaning of the similar English idiom '' turn of the century'' and also makes reference to the closing of one era and onset of another. Without co ...
'' movement of the ''
Belle Époque The Belle Époque () or La Belle Époque () was a period of French and European history that began after the end of the Franco-Prussian War in 1871 and continued until the outbreak of World War I in 1914. Occurring during the era of the Fr ...
'' persisted into the 20th century, but was brutally cut short with the outbreak of World War I (an effect depicted e.g. in
Thomas Mann Paul Thomas Mann ( , ; ; 6 June 1875 – 12 August 1955) was a German novelist, short story writer, social critic, philanthropist, essayist, and the 1929 Nobel Prize in Literature laureate. His highly symbolic and ironic epic novels and novell ...
's ''
The Magic Mountain ''The Magic Mountain'' (, ) is a novel by Thomas Mann. It was first published in Germany in November 1924. Since then, it has gone through numerous editions and been translated into many languages. It is widely considered a seminal work of 20t ...
'', published 1924). The
Dada Dada () or Dadaism was an anti-establishment art movement that developed in 1915 in the context of the Great War and the earlier anti-art movement. Early centers for dadaism included Zürich and Berlin. Within a few years, the movement had s ...
movement of 1916–1920 was at least in part a protest against the
bourgeois The bourgeoisie ( , ) are a class of business owners, merchants and wealthy people, in general, which emerged in the Late Middle Ages, originally as a "middle class" between the peasantry and Aristocracy (class), aristocracy. They are tradition ...
nationalist Nationalism is an idea or movement that holds that the nation should be congruent with the State (polity), state. As a movement, it presupposes the existence and tends to promote the interests of a particular nation,Anthony D. Smith, Smith, A ...
and
colonialist Colonialism is the control of another territory, natural resources and people by a foreign group. Colonizers control the political and tribal power of the colonised territory. While frequently an Imperialism, imperialist project, colonialism c ...
interests which many Dadaists believed were the root cause of the war; the movement heralded the
Surrealism Surrealism is an art movement, art and cultural movement that developed in Europe in the aftermath of World War I in which artists aimed to allow the unconscious mind to express itself, often resulting in the depiction of illogical or dreamlike s ...
movement of the 1920s. 1900 * ''
Lord Jim ''Lord Jim'' is a novel by Joseph Conrad originally published as a serial in '' Blackwood's Magazine'' from October 1899 to November 1900. An early and primary event in the story is the abandonment of a passenger ship in distress by its crew, ...
'' by
Joseph Conrad Joseph Conrad (born Józef Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski, ; 3 December 1857 – 3 August 1924) was a Poles in the United Kingdom#19th century, Polish-British novelist and story writer. He is regarded as one of the greatest writers in the Eng ...
(Poland, England) * ''
The Knights of the Cross ''The Knights of the Cross'' or ''The Teutonic Knights'' () is a 1900 historical novel by the Polish writer Henryk Sienkiewicz. Its first English translation was published in the same year as the original. The book was serialized by the magazi ...
'' by
Henryk Sienkiewicz Henryk Adam Aleksander Pius Sienkiewicz ( , ; 5 May 1846 – 15 November 1916), also known by the pseudonym Litwos (), was a Polish epic writer. He is remembered for his historical novels, such as The Trilogy, the Trilogy series and especially ...
(Poland) ''Genre fiction'' * ''
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz ''The Wonderful Wizard of Oz'' is a 1900 children's novel written by author L. Frank Baum and illustrated by W. W. Denslow. It is the first novel in the Oz series of books. A Kansas farm girl named Dorothy ends up in the ma ...
'' by
L. Frank Baum Lyman Frank Baum (; May 15, 1856 – May 6, 1919) was an American author best known for his children's fantasy books, particularly '' The Wonderful Wizard of Oz'', part of a series. In addition to the 14 ''Oz'' books, Baum penned 41 other novels ...
(US) 1901 * ''
Buddenbrooks ''Buddenbrooks'' () is a 1901 novel by Thomas Mann, chronicling the decline of a wealthy north German merchant family over the course of four generations, incidentally portraying the manner of life and mores of the Hanseatic bourgeoisie in th ...
'' by
Thomas Mann Paul Thomas Mann ( , ; ; 6 June 1875 – 12 August 1955) was a German novelist, short story writer, social critic, philanthropist, essayist, and the 1929 Nobel Prize in Literature laureate. His highly symbolic and ironic epic novels and novell ...
(Germany) * '' The Inheritors'' by
Joseph Conrad Joseph Conrad (born Józef Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski, ; 3 December 1857 – 3 August 1924) was a Poles in the United Kingdom#19th century, Polish-British novelist and story writer. He is regarded as one of the greatest writers in the Eng ...
and
Ford Madox Ford Ford Madox Ford (né Joseph Leopold Ford Hermann Madox Hueffer ( ); 17 December 1873 – 26 June 1939) was an English novelist, poet, critic and editor whose journals ''The English Review'' and ''The Transatlantic Review (1924), The Transatlant ...
(England) * '' Kim'' by
Rudyard Kipling Joseph Rudyard Kipling ( ; 30 December 1865 – 18 January 1936)''The Times'', (London) 18 January 1936, p. 12. was an English journalist, novelist, poet, and short-story writer. He was born in British Raj, British India, which inspired much ...
(India, England) ''Genre fiction'' * '' The Purple Cloud'' by
M. P. Shiel Matthew Phipps Shiell (21 July 1865 – 17 February 1947), known as M. P. Shiel, was a British writer, remembered mainly for supernatural horror and scientific romances. His work was published as serials, novels, and as short stories. '' The Pu ...
(
Montserrat Montserrat ( , ) is a British Overseas Territories, British Overseas Territory in the Caribbean. It is part of the Leeward Islands, the northern portion of the Lesser Antilles chain of the West Indies. Montserrat is about long and wide, wit ...
, England) * ''
The First Men in the Moon ''The First Men in the Moon'' by the English author H. G. Wells is a scientific romance, originally serialised in ''The Strand Magazine'' and '' The Cosmopolitan'' from November 1900 to June 1901 and published in hardcover in 1901. Wells calle ...
'' by
H. G. Wells Herbert George Wells (21 September 1866 – 13 August 1946) was an English writer, prolific in many genres. He wrote more than fifty novels and dozens of short stories. His non-fiction output included works of social commentary, politics, hist ...
(England) 1902 * ''
Heart of Darkness ''Heart of Darkness'' is an 1899 novella by Polish-British novelist Joseph Conrad in which the sailor Charles Marlow tells his listeners the story of his assignment as steamer captain for a Belgium, Belgian company in the African interior. Th ...
'' by
Joseph Conrad Joseph Conrad (born Józef Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski, ; 3 December 1857 – 3 August 1924) was a Poles in the United Kingdom#19th century, Polish-British novelist and story writer. He is regarded as one of the greatest writers in the Eng ...
* ''
The Immoralist ''The Immoralist'' () is a novel by André Gide, published in France in 1902. Plot ''The Immoralist'' is a recollection of events that Michel narrates to his three visiting friends. One of those friends solicits job search assistance for Miche ...
'' by
André Gide André Paul Guillaume Gide (; 22 November 1869 – 19 February 1951) was a French writer and author whose writings spanned a wide variety of styles and topics. He was awarded the 1947 Nobel Prize in Literature. Gide's career ranged from his begi ...
(France) * ''
The Wings of the Dove ''The Wings of the Dove'' is a 1902 novel by Henry James. It tells the story of Milly Theale, an American heiress stricken with a serious disease, and her effect on the people around her. Some of these people befriend Milly with honourable ...
'' by
Henry James Henry James ( – ) was an American-British author. He is regarded as a key transitional figure between literary realism and literary modernism, and is considered by many to be among the greatest novelists in the English language. He was the ...
(US, England) * '' The Grand Babylon Hotel'' by
Arnold Bennett Enoch Arnold Bennett (27 May 1867 – 27 March 1931) was an English author, best known as a novelist, who wrote prolifically. Between the 1890s and the 1930s he completed 34 novels, seven volumes of short stories, 13 plays (some in collaborati ...
(England) ''Genre fiction'' * ''
The Hound of the Baskervilles ''The Hound of the Baskervilles'' is the third of the four Detective fiction, crime novels by British writer Arthur Conan Doyle featuring the detective Sherlock Holmes. Originally serial (literature), serialised in ''The Strand Magazine'' from ...
'' by
Arthur Conan Doyle Sir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle (22 May 1859 – 7 July 1930) was a British writer and physician. He created the character Sherlock Holmes in 1887 for ''A Study in Scarlet'', the first of four novels and fifty-six short stories about Hol ...
(Scotland) * '' Just So Stories'' by
Rudyard Kipling Joseph Rudyard Kipling ( ; 30 December 1865 – 18 January 1936)''The Times'', (London) 18 January 1936, p. 12. was an English journalist, novelist, poet, and short-story writer. He was born in British Raj, British India, which inspired much ...
''Plays'' * ''
Man and Superman ''Man and Superman'' is a four-act drama written by George Bernard Shaw in 1903, in response to a call for Shaw to write a play based on the Don Juan theme. ''Man and Superman'' opened at the Royal Court Theatre in London on 21 May 1905 as a fou ...
'' by
George Bernard Shaw George Bernard Shaw (26 July 1856 – 2 November 1950), known at his insistence as Bernard Shaw, was an Irish playwright, critic, polemicist and political activist. His influence on Western theatre, culture and politics extended from the 188 ...
(Ireland) * ''
The Lower Depths ''The Lower Depths'' (, literally: ''At the bottom'') is a play by Russian dramatist Maxim Gorky written in 1902 and produced by the Moscow Arts Theatre on December 18, 1902, under the direction of Konstantin Stanislavski. It became his first ma ...
'' by
Maxim Gorky Alexei Maximovich Peshkov (;  – 18 June 1936), popularly known as Maxim Gorky (; ), was a Russian and Soviet writer and proponent of socialism. He was nominated five times for the Nobel Prize in Literature. Before his success as an aut ...
1903 * ''
Romance Romance may refer to: Common meanings * Romance (love), emotional attraction towards another person and the courtship behaviors undertaken to express the feelings ** Romantic orientation, the classification of the sex or gender with which a pers ...
'' by
Joseph Conrad Joseph Conrad (born Józef Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski, ; 3 December 1857 – 3 August 1924) was a Poles in the United Kingdom#19th century, Polish-British novelist and story writer. He is regarded as one of the greatest writers in the Eng ...
and
Ford Madox Ford Ford Madox Ford (né Joseph Leopold Ford Hermann Madox Hueffer ( ); 17 December 1873 – 26 June 1939) was an English novelist, poet, critic and editor whose journals ''The English Review'' and ''The Transatlantic Review (1924), The Transatlant ...
* ''
The Ambassadors ''The Ambassadors'' is a 1903 novel by Henry James, originally published as a serial in the ''North American Review'' (NAR). The novel is a dark comedy which follows the trip of protagonist Lewis Lambert Strether to Europe to bring the son of ...
'' by
Henry James Henry James ( – ) was an American-British author. He is regarded as a key transitional figure between literary realism and literary modernism, and is considered by many to be among the greatest novelists in the English language. He was the ...
* '' The Pit'' by
Frank Norris Benjamin Franklin Norris Jr. (March 5, 1870 – October 25, 1902) was an American journalist and novelist during the Progressive Era, whose fiction was predominantly in the naturalism (literature), naturalist genre. His notable works include ''M ...
(US) * '' In Wonderland'' by
Knut Hamsun Knut Hamsun (4 August 1859 – 19 February 1952) was a Norwegian writer who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1920 Nobel Prize in Literature, 1920. Hamsun's work spans more than 70 years and shows variation with regard to conscio ...
(Norway) ''Genre fiction'' * ''
The Call of the Wild ''The Call of the Wild'' is an adventure novel by Jack London, published in 1903 and set in Yukon, Canada, during the 1890s Klondike Gold Rush, when strong sled dogs were in high demand. The central character of the novel is a dog named Buck. ...
'' by
Jack London John Griffith London (; January 12, 1876 – November 22, 1916), better known as Jack London, was an American novelist, journalist and activist. A pioneer of commercial fiction and American magazines, he was one of the first American authors t ...
(US) * ''
The Riddle of the Sands ''The Riddle of the Sands: A Record of Secret Service'' is a 1903 novel by Erskine Childers. The book, which enjoyed immense popularity in the years before World War I, is an early example of the espionage novel and was extremely influentia ...
'' by Erskine Childers (England, Ireland) 1904 * ''
The Golden Bowl ''The Golden Bowl'' is a 1904 novel by Henry James. Set in England, this complex, intense study of marriage and adultery completes what some critics have called the "major phase" of James's career. ''The Golden Bowl'' explores the tangle of in ...
'' by
Henry James Henry James ( – ) was an American-British author. He is regarded as a key transitional figure between literary realism and literary modernism, and is considered by many to be among the greatest novelists in the English language. He was the ...
* ''
Nostromo ''Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard'' is a 1904 novel by Joseph Conrad, set in the fictitious South American republic of "Costaguana". It was originally published serially in monthly instalments of '' T.P.'s Weekly''. In 1998, the Modern Libra ...
'' by
Joseph Conrad Joseph Conrad (born Józef Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski, ; 3 December 1857 – 3 August 1924) was a Poles in the United Kingdom#19th century, Polish-British novelist and story writer. He is regarded as one of the greatest writers in the Eng ...
* '' The Napoleon of Notting Hill'' by
G. K. Chesterton Gilbert Keith Chesterton (29 May 1874 – 14 June 1936) was an English author, philosopher, Christian apologist, journalist and magazine editor, and literary and art critic. Chesterton created the fictional priest-detective Father Brow ...
(England) * ''
The Peasants ''The Peasants'' () is a novel written by the Polish author Władysław Reymont in four parts between 1904 and 1909. He started writing it in 1897, but because of a railway accident and health problems, it took seven years to complete. The first ...
'' by
Władysław Reymont Władysław Stanisław Reymont (; born Rejment; 7 May 1867 – 5 December 1925) was a Polish novelist and the laureate of the 1924 Nobel Prize in Literature. His best-known work is the award-winning four-volume novel '' Chłopi'' (''The Peasant ...
(Poland) ''Genre fiction'' * '' The Food of the Gods'' by
H. G. Wells Herbert George Wells (21 September 1866 – 13 August 1946) was an English writer, prolific in many genres. He wrote more than fifty novels and dozens of short stories. His non-fiction output included works of social commentary, politics, hist ...
* ''
The Sea-Wolf ''The Sea-Wolf'' is a 1904 psychological adventure novel by American writer Jack London. The book's protagonist, Humphrey Van Weyden, is a literary critic who is a survivor of an ocean collision and who comes under the dominance of Wolf Larsen, ...
'' by
Jack London John Griffith London (; January 12, 1876 – November 22, 1916), better known as Jack London, was an American novelist, journalist and activist. A pioneer of commercial fiction and American magazines, he was one of the first American authors t ...
* ''
Green Mansions ''Green Mansions: A Romance of the Tropical Forest'' is a 1904 exotic romance by William Henry Hudson about a traveller to the Guyana jungle of southeastern Venezuela and his encounter with a forest-dwelling girl named Rima. The principal ...
'' by
William Henry Hudson William Henry Hudson (4 August 1841 – 18 August 1922), known in Argentina as Guillermo Enrique Hudson, was an English Argentines, Anglo-Argentine author, natural history, naturalist and ornithology, ornithologist. Born in the Argentine pampas w ...
(Argentina, England) ''Plays'' * ''
John Bull's Other Island ''John Bull's Other Island'' is a comedy about Ireland, written by George Bernard Shaw in 1904. Shaw himself was born in Dublin, yet this is one of only two plays of his where he thematically returned to his homeland, the other being '' O'Flaher ...
'' by
George Bernard Shaw George Bernard Shaw (26 July 1856 – 2 November 1950), known at his insistence as Bernard Shaw, was an Irish playwright, critic, polemicist and political activist. His influence on Western theatre, culture and politics extended from the 188 ...
* ''
The Cherry Orchard ''The Cherry Orchard'' () is the last play by Russian playwright Anton Chekhov. Written in 1903, it was first published by '' Znaniye'' (Book Two, 1904), and came out as a separate edition later that year in Saint Petersburg, via A.F. Marks Pu ...
'' by
Anton Chekhov Anton Pavlovich Chekhov (; ; 29 January 1860 – 15 July 1904) was a Russian playwright and short-story writer, widely considered to be one of the greatest writers of all time. His career as a playwright produced four classics, and his b ...
1905 * ''
Hadrian the Seventh ''Hadrian the Seventh: A Romance'' (sometimes called ''Hadrian VII'') is a 1904 novel by the English novelist Frederick Rolfe, who wrote under the pseudonym "Baron Corvo". Rolfe's best-known work, this novel of wish-fulfilment developed out of a ...
'' by
Frederick Rolfe Frederick William Rolfe (surname pronounced ), better known as Baron Corvo (Italian for "Crow"), and also calling himself Frederick William Serafino Austin Lewis Mary Rolfe (22 July 1860 – 25 October 1913), was an English writer, artist, ph ...
aka Baron Corvo (England, Italy) * ''
Where Angels Fear to Tread ''Where Angels Fear to Tread'' is a 1905 novel by E. M. Forster. The title comes from a line in Alexander Pope's poem ''An Essay on Criticism'': "For fools rush in where angels fear to tread". The BBC adapted the novel for television in 1966 ...
'' by
E. M. Forster Edward Morgan Forster (1 January 1879 – 7 June 1970) was an English author. He is best known for his novels, particularly '' A Room with a View'' (1908), ''Howards End'' (1910) and '' A Passage to India'' (1924). He also wrote numerous shor ...
(England) * ''
Kipps ''Kipps: The Story of a Simple Soul'' is a novel by H. G. Wells, first published in 1905. It was reportedly Wells's own favourite among his works, and it has been adapted for stage, cinema and television productions, including the musical '' ...
'' by
H. G. Wells Herbert George Wells (21 September 1866 – 13 August 1946) was an English writer, prolific in many genres. He wrote more than fifty novels and dozens of short stories. His non-fiction output included works of social commentary, politics, hist ...
* Songs of Life and Hope by
Rubén Darío Félix Rubén García Sarmiento (18 January 1867 – 6 February 1916), known as Rubén Darío ( , ), was a Nicaraguan poet who initiated the Spanish-language literary movement known as '' modernismo'' (modernism) that flourished at the end of ...
(Nicaragua) * ''
The House of Mirth ''The House of Mirth'' is a novel by American author Edith Wharton, published on 7 October 1905. It is a sharp, brutal, and destructive tragedy which tells the story of Lily Bart, a well-born but impoverished woman belonging to New York City's ...
'' by
Edith Wharton Edith Newbold Wharton (; ; January 24, 1862 – August 11, 1937) was an American writer and designer. Wharton drew upon her insider's knowledge of the upper-class New York "aristocracy" to portray, realistically, the lives and morals of the Gil ...
(US) * '' The Club of Queer Trades'' by
G. K. Chesterton Gilbert Keith Chesterton (29 May 1874 – 14 June 1936) was an English author, philosopher, Christian apologist, journalist and magazine editor, and literary and art critic. Chesterton created the fictional priest-detective Father Brow ...
1906 * ''
The Jungle ''The Jungle'' is a novel by American author and muckraking-journalist Upton Sinclair, known for his efforts to expose corruption in government and business in the early 20th century. In 1904, Sinclair spent seven weeks gathering information ...
'' by
Upton Sinclair Upton Beall Sinclair Jr. (September 20, 1878 – November 25, 1968) was an American author, muckraker journalist, and political activist, and the 1934 California gubernatorial election, 1934 Democratic Party (United States), Democratic Party ...
(US) * ''
The Confusions of Young Törless ''The Confusions of Young Törless'' (), or ''Young Törless'', is the literary debut of the Austrian philosophical novelist and essayist Robert Musil, first published in 1906. Musil's novel is ostensibly a ''Bildungsroman'', a story of a young di ...
'' by
Robert Musil Robert Musil (; 6 November 1880 – 15 April 1942) was an Austrian philosophical writer. His unfinished novel, ''The Man Without Qualities'' (), is generally considered to be one of the most important and influential modernist novels. Family M ...
(Austria) * ''
Mother A mother is the female parent of a child. A woman may be considered a mother by virtue of having given birth, by raising a child who may or may not be her biological offspring, or by supplying her ovum for fertilisation in the case of ges ...
'' by
Maxim Gorky Alexei Maximovich Peshkov (;  – 18 June 1936), popularly known as Maxim Gorky (; ), was a Russian and Soviet writer and proponent of socialism. He was nominated five times for the Nobel Prize in Literature. Before his success as an aut ...
''Genre fiction'' * ''
Puck of Pook's Hill ''Puck of Pook's Hill'' is a fantasy book by Rudyard Kipling, published in 1906, containing a series of short stories set in different periods of English history. It can count both as historical fantasy – since some of the stories told of ...
'' by
Rudyard Kipling Joseph Rudyard Kipling ( ; 30 December 1865 – 18 January 1936)''The Times'', (London) 18 January 1936, p. 12. was an English journalist, novelist, poet, and short-story writer. He was born in British Raj, British India, which inspired much ...
* '' Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens'' by
J. M. Barrie Sir James Matthew Barrie, 1st Baronet, (; 9 May 1860 19 June 1937) was a Scottish novelist and playwright, best remembered as the creator of Peter Pan. He was born and educated in Scotland and then moved to London, where he wrote several succe ...
(Scotland) * ''
Time and the Gods ''Time and the Gods'' is the second book by Irish fantasy writer Lord Dunsany, considered a major influence on the work of J. R. R. Tolkien, H. P. Lovecraft, Ursula K. Le Guin, and others. It is a collection of short stories linked by Dunsany' ...
'' by
Lord Dunsany Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett, 18th Baron Dunsany (; 24 July 1878 – 25 October 1957), commonly known as Lord Dunsany, was an Anglo-Irish writer and dramatist. He published more than 90 books during his lifetime, and his output consist ...
(Ireland, England) * ''
White Fang ''White Fang'' is a novel by American author Jack London (1876–1916) about a wild wolfdog's journey to domestication in Yukon Territory and the Northwest Territories during the 1890s Klondike Gold Rush. First serialized in ''Outing'' magazin ...
'' by
Jack London John Griffith London (; January 12, 1876 – November 22, 1916), better known as Jack London, was an American novelist, journalist and activist. A pioneer of commercial fiction and American magazines, he was one of the first American authors t ...
''Plays'' * '' The Aran Islands'' by
John Millington Synge Edmund John Millington Synge (; 16 April 1871 – 24 March 1909), popularly known as J. M. Synge, was an Irish playwright, poet, writer, essayist, and collector of folklores. As an important driving force behind the Irish Literary Revival, Ir ...
(Ireland) * ''
The Morality of Mrs. Dulska ''The'' is a grammatical article in English, denoting nouns that are already or about to be mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The ...
'' by
Gabriela Zapolska Maria Gabriela Stefania Korwin-Piotrowska (1857–1921), known as Gabriela Zapolska, was a Polish novelist, playwright, naturalist writer, feuilletonist, theatre critic and stage actress. Zapolska wrote 41 plays, 23 novels, 177 short stories, 25 ...
(Poland) 1907 * '' Bardidi'' by
Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay (anglicised as Sarat Chandra Chatterjee; 15 September 1876 – 16 January 1938) was a Bengali novelist and short story writer of the early 20th century. He generally wrote about the lives of Bengali family and socie ...
(India) * ''
The Secret Agent ''The Secret Agent: A Simple Tale'' is an anarchist spy fiction novel by Polish-British author Joseph Conrad, first published on 12 September 1907.. The story is set in Soho, London in 1886 and deals with Mr. Adolf Verloc and his work as a sp ...
'' by
Joseph Conrad Joseph Conrad (born Józef Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski, ; 3 December 1857 – 3 August 1924) was a Poles in the United Kingdom#19th century, Polish-British novelist and story writer. He is regarded as one of the greatest writers in the Eng ...
* ''
The Longest Journey ''The Longest Journey'' () is a 1999 Adventure game, point-and-click adventure video game, written by Ragnar Tørnquist, developed by Norwegian studio Funcom, and released on Microsoft Windows in November 1999; an iOS version was later develope ...
'' by
E. M. Forster Edward Morgan Forster (1 January 1879 – 7 June 1970) was an English author. He is best known for his novels, particularly '' A Room with a View'' (1908), ''Howards End'' (1910) and '' A Passage to India'' (1924). He also wrote numerous shor ...
''Genre fiction'' * '' The Listener and Other Stories'' by
Algernon Blackwood Algernon Henry Blackwood, CBE (14 March 1869 – 10 December 1951) was an English broadcasting narrator, journalist, novelist and short story writer, and among the most prolific ghost story writers in the history of the genre. The literary cr ...
(England) – contains The Willows, one of the first '
cosmic horror Lovecraftian horror, also called cosmic horror or eldritch horror, is a subgenre of horror, fantasy fiction and weird fiction that emphasizes the horror of the unknowable and incomprehensible more than gore or other elements of shock. It is nam ...
' stories * '' The Hill of Dreams'' by
Arthur Machen Arthur Machen ( or ; 3 March 1863 – 15 December 1947) was the pen-name of Arthur Llewellyn Jones, a Welsh people, Welsh author and mysticism, mystic of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He is best known for his influential supernatural ...
(England) ''Plays'' * ''
The Playboy of the Western World ''The Playboy of the Western World'' is a three-act play written by Irish playwright John Millington Synge, first performed at the Abbey Theatre, Dublin, on 26 January 1907. The work is considered a centerpiece of the Irish Literary Revival mo ...
'' by
John Millington Synge Edmund John Millington Synge (; 16 April 1871 – 24 March 1909), popularly known as J. M. Synge, was an Irish playwright, poet, writer, essayist, and collector of folklores. As an important driving force behind the Irish Literary Revival, Ir ...
''Poetry'' * '' Cautionary Tales for Children'' by
Hilaire Belloc Joseph Hilaire Pierre René Belloc ( ; ; 27 July 187016 July 1953) was a French-English writer, politician, and historian. Belloc was also an orator, poet, sailor, satirist, writer of letters, soldier, and political activist. His Catholic fait ...
(France, England) 1908 * '' The Man Who Was Thursday'' by
G. K. Chesterton Gilbert Keith Chesterton (29 May 1874 – 14 June 1936) was an English author, philosopher, Christian apologist, journalist and magazine editor, and literary and art critic. Chesterton created the fictional priest-detective Father Brow ...
* ''
A Room with a View ''A Room with a View'' is a 1908 novel by English writer E. M. Forster, about a young woman in the restrained culture of Edwardian-era England. Set in Italy and England, the story is both a romance and a humorous critique of English society ...
'' by
E. M. Forster Edward Morgan Forster (1 January 1879 – 7 June 1970) was an English author. He is best known for his novels, particularly '' A Room with a View'' (1908), ''Howards End'' (1910) and '' A Passage to India'' (1924). He also wrote numerous shor ...
* ''
The Iron Heel ''The Iron Heel'' is a dystopian and political novel in the form of science fiction by American writer Jack London, first published in 1908. Plot The main premise of the book is the rise of a socialist mass movement in the United Statesstrong ...
'' by
Jack London John Griffith London (; January 12, 1876 – November 22, 1916), better known as Jack London, was an American novelist, journalist and activist. A pioneer of commercial fiction and American magazines, he was one of the first American authors t ...
* ''
Hell In religion and folklore, hell is a location or state in the afterlife in which souls are subjected to punishment after death. Religions with a linear divine history sometimes depict hells as eternal destinations, such as Christianity and I ...
'' by
Henri Barbusse Henri Barbusse (; 17 May 1873 – 30 August 1935) was a French novelist, short story writer, journalist, poet and political activist. He began his literary career in the 1890s as a Symbolist poet and continued as a neo-Naturalist novelist; i ...
(France, Russia) * '' The Magician'' by
Somerset Maugham William Somerset Maugham ( ; 25 January 1874 – 16 December 1965) was an English writer, known for his plays, novels and short stories. Born in Paris, where he spent his first ten years, Maugham was schooled in England and went to a German un ...
(England, France) – based on the author's meeting with
Aleister Crowley Aleister Crowley ( ; born Edward Alexander Crowley; 12 October 1875 – 1 December 1947) was an English occultist, ceremonial magician, poet, novelist, mountaineer, and painter. He founded the religion of Thelema, identifying himself as the pr ...
''Genre fiction'' * ''
The Wind in the Willows ''The Wind in the Willows'' is a children's novel by the British novelist Kenneth Grahame, first published in 1908. It details the story of Mole, Ratty, and Badger as they try to help Mr. Toad, after he becomes obsessed with motorcars and get ...
'' by
Kenneth Grahame Kenneth Grahame ( ; 8 March 1859 – 6 July 1932) was a British writer. He is best remembered for the classic of children's literature ''The Wind in the Willows'' (1908). Born in Scotland, he spent most of his childhood with his grandmother in ...
(England) ''Poetry'' * ''Personae'' by
Ezra Pound Ezra Weston Loomis Pound (30 October 1885 – 1 November 1972) was an List of poets from the United States, American poet and critic, a major figure in the early modernist poetry movement, and a Collaboration with Nazi Germany and Fascist Ita ...
(US, England, Italy) – one of the first examples of 'modernist' poetry 1909 * '' Martin Eden'' by
Jack London John Griffith London (; January 12, 1876 – November 22, 1916), better known as Jack London, was an American novelist, journalist and activist. A pioneer of commercial fiction and American magazines, he was one of the first American authors t ...

Sparrows: the story of an unprotected girl
by Horace W C Newte * ''
Tono-Bungay ''Tono-Bungay'' is a realist semiautobiographical novel written by H. G. Wells and first published in book form in 1909. It has been called "arguably his most artistic book". It had been serialised before book publication, both in the United ...
'' by
H. G. Wells Herbert George Wells (21 September 1866 – 13 August 1946) was an English writer, prolific in many genres. He wrote more than fifty novels and dozens of short stories. His non-fiction output included works of social commentary, politics, hist ...
* '' Three Lives'' by
Gertrude Stein Gertrude Stein (February 3, 1874 – July 27, 1946) was an American novelist, poet, playwright, and art collector. Born in Allegheny, Pennsylvania (now part of Pittsburgh), and raised in Oakland, California, Stein moved to Paris in 1903, and ...
(US, France) ''Poetry'' * '' Exultations'' by
Ezra Pound Ezra Weston Loomis Pound (30 October 1885 – 1 November 1972) was an List of poets from the United States, American poet and critic, a major figure in the early modernist poetry movement, and a Collaboration with Nazi Germany and Fascist Ita ...
* ''
Poems Poetry (from the Greek language, Greek word ''poiesis'', "making") is a form of literature, literary art that uses aesthetics, aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language to evoke meaning (linguistics), meanings in addition to, or in ...
'' by
William Carlos Williams William Carlos Williams (September 17, 1883 – March 4, 1963) was an American poet and physician closely associated with modernism and imagism. His '' Spring and All'' (1923) was written in the wake of T. S. Eliot's '' The Waste Land'' (1922). ...
(US) ''Plays'' * '' The Blue Bird'' by
Maurice Maeterlinck Maurice Polydore Marie Bernard Maeterlinck (29 August 1862 – 6 May 1949), also known as Count/Comte Maeterlinck from 1932, was a Belgian playwright, poet, and essayist who was Flemish but wrote in French. He was awarded the 1911 Nobel Prize in ...
(Belgium) 1910 * ''
Howards End ''Howards End'' is a novel by E. M. Forster, first published in 1910, about social conventions, codes of conduct and relationships in turn-of-the-century England. ''Howards End'' is considered by many to be Forster's masterpiece. The book wa ...
'' by
E. M. Forster Edward Morgan Forster (1 January 1879 – 7 June 1970) was an English author. He is best known for his novels, particularly '' A Room with a View'' (1908), ''Howards End'' (1910) and '' A Passage to India'' (1924). He also wrote numerous shor ...
* ''
The Card ''The Card'' is a comic novel written by Arnold Bennett in 1911 (entitled ''Denry the Audacious'' in the American edition). It was later made into a 1952 movie, starring Alec Guinness and Petula Clark. Like much of Bennett's best work, it is ...
'' by
Arnold Bennett Enoch Arnold Bennett (27 May 1867 – 27 March 1931) was an English author, best known as a novelist, who wrote prolifically. Between the 1890s and the 1930s he completed 34 novels, seven volumes of short stories, 13 plays (some in collaborati ...
* ''
The History of Mr Polly ''The History of Mr. Polly'' is a 1910 comic novel by H. G. Wells. Plot summary The protagonist of ''The History of Mr. Polly'' is an antihero inspired by H. G. Wells's early experiences in the drapery trade: Alfred Polly, born circa 1 ...
'' by
H. G. Wells Herbert George Wells (21 September 1866 – 13 August 1946) was an English writer, prolific in many genres. He wrote more than fifty novels and dozens of short stories. His non-fiction output included works of social commentary, politics, hist ...
1911 * ''
Zuleika Dobson ''Zuleika Dobson'', full title ''Zuleika Dobson, or, an Oxford love story'', is the only novel by English essayist Max Beerbohm, a satire of undergraduate life at Oxford published in 1911. It includes the famous line "Death cancels all engageme ...
'' by
Max Beerbohm Sir Henry Maximilian Beerbohm (24 August 1872 – 20 May 1956) was an English essayist, Parody, parodist and Caricature, caricaturist under the signature Max. He first became known in the 1890s as a dandy and a humorist. He was the theatre crit ...
(England) * '' In a German Pension'' by
Katherine Mansfield Kathleen Mansfield Murry (née Beauchamp; 14 October 1888 – 9 January 1923) was a New Zealand writer and critic who was an important figure in the Literary modernism, modernist movement. Her works are celebrated across the world and have been ...
(England) – short stories * '' Under Western Eyes'' by
Joseph Conrad Joseph Conrad (born Józef Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski, ; 3 December 1857 – 3 August 1924) was a Poles in the United Kingdom#19th century, Polish-British novelist and story writer. He is regarded as one of the greatest writers in the Eng ...
* '' The White Peacock'' by
D. H. Lawrence David Herbert Lawrence (11 September 1885 – 2 March 1930) was an English novelist, short story writer, poet, playwright, literary critic, travel writer, essayist, and painter. His modernist works reflect on modernity, social alienation ...
(England) * ''
Jennie Gerhardt ''Jennie Gerhardt'' is a 1911 novel by Theodore Dreiser. Plot summary Jennie Gerhardt is a destitute young woman. While working in a hotel in Columbus, Ohio, Jennie meets George Brander, a United States Senator, who becomes infatuated with her ...
'' by
Theodore Dreiser Theodore Herman Albert Dreiser (; August 27, 1871 – December 28, 1945) was an American novelist and journalist of the naturalism (literature), naturalist school. His novels often featured main characters who succeeded at their objectives despi ...
(US) *'' In Desert and Wilderness'' by
Henryk Sienkiewicz Henryk Adam Aleksander Pius Sienkiewicz ( , ; 5 May 1846 – 15 November 1916), also known by the pseudonym Litwos (), was a Polish epic writer. He is remembered for his historical novels, such as The Trilogy, the Trilogy series and especially ...
(Poland) ''Genre fiction'' * ''
Peter and Wendy ''Peter Pan; or, the Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up'', often known simply as ''Peter Pan'', is a work by J. M. Barrie, in the form of a 1904 play and a 1911 novel titled ''Peter and Wendy''. Both versions tell the story of Peter Pan, a mischievous ...
'' by
J. M. Barrie Sir James Matthew Barrie, 1st Baronet, (; 9 May 1860 19 June 1937) was a Scottish novelist and playwright, best remembered as the creator of Peter Pan. He was born and educated in Scotland and then moved to London, where he wrote several succe ...
(Scotland) 1912 * ''
The Trespasser Trespasser is, in the law of tort, property law and criminal law, a person who commits the crime of trespassing on a property. Trespasser or ''variant'' may refer to: * Trespasser (video game), ''Trespasser'' (video game), a 1998 computer game ma ...
'' by
D. H. Lawrence David Herbert Lawrence (11 September 1885 – 2 March 1930) was an English novelist, short story writer, poet, playwright, literary critic, travel writer, essayist, and painter. His modernist works reflect on modernity, social alienation ...
* ''
Death in Venice ''Death in Venice ''() is a novella by German author Thomas Mann, published in 1912. It presents an ennobled writer who visits Venice and is liberated, uplifted, and then increasingly obsessed by the sight of a boy in a family of Polish tourist ...
'' by
Thomas Mann Paul Thomas Mann ( , ; ; 6 June 1875 – 12 August 1955) was a German novelist, short story writer, social critic, philanthropist, essayist, and the 1929 Nobel Prize in Literature laureate. His highly symbolic and ironic epic novels and novell ...
(Germany) ''Genre fiction'' * ''
Riders of the Purple Sage ''Riders of the Purple Sage'' is a Western novel by Zane Grey, first published by Harper & Brothers in 1912. Considered by scholars to have played a significant role in shaping the formula of the popular Western genre, the novel has been calle ...
'' by
Zane Grey Pearl Zane Grey (January 31, 1872 – October 23, 1939) was an American author and dentist. He is known for his popular adventure novels and stories associated with the Western genre in literature and the arts; he idealized the American frontier ...
(US) * '' The Lost World'' by
Arthur Conan Doyle Sir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle (22 May 1859 – 7 July 1930) was a British writer and physician. He created the character Sherlock Holmes in 1887 for ''A Study in Scarlet'', the first of four novels and fifty-six short stories about Hol ...
* ''
Tarzan of the Apes ''Tarzan of the Apes'' is a 1912 novel by American writer Edgar Rice Burroughs, and the first in the Tarzan series. The story was first printed in the pulp magazine '' The All-Story'' in October 1912 before being released as a novel in June 191 ...
'' by
Edgar Rice Burroughs Edgar Rice Burroughs (September 1, 1875 – March 19, 1950) was an American writer, best known for his prolific output in the adventure, science fiction, and fantasy genres. Best known for creating the characters Tarzan (who appeared in ...
(US) ''Plays'' * '' Pygmalion'' by
George Bernard Shaw George Bernard Shaw (26 July 1856 – 2 November 1950), known at his insistence as Bernard Shaw, was an Irish playwright, critic, polemicist and political activist. His influence on Western theatre, culture and politics extended from the 188 ...
1913 * '' Petersburg'' by
Andrei Bely Boris Nikolaevich Bugaev (, ; – 8 January 1934), better known by the pen name Andrei Bely or Biely, was a Russian novelist, Symbolist poet, theorist and literary critic. He was a committed anthroposophist and follower of Rudolf Steiner. Hi ...
(Russia) * '' Swann's Way'' by
Marcel Proust Valentin Louis Georges Eugène Marcel Proust ( ; ; 10 July 1871 – 18 November 1922) was a French novelist, literary critic, and essayist who wrote the novel (in French – translated in English as ''Remembrance of Things Past'' and more r ...
(France) * ''
Le Grand Meaulnes ''Le Grand Meaulnes'' () is the only novel by French author Alain-Fournier, who was killed in the first month of World War I. The novel, published in 1913, a year before the author's death, is somewhat autobiographical, especially the name of the ...
'' by
Alain-Fournier Henri-Alban Fournier (; 3 October 1886 – 22 September 1914),Mémoire des hommes
Secrétariat ...
(France) * ''
Sons and Lovers ''Sons and Lovers'' is a 1913 novel by the English writer D. H. Lawrence. It traces emotional conflicts through the protagonist, Paul Morel, and his suffocating relationships with a demanding mother and two very different lovers, which exert ...
'' by
D. H. Lawrence David Herbert Lawrence (11 September 1885 – 2 March 1930) was an English novelist, short story writer, poet, playwright, literary critic, travel writer, essayist, and painter. His modernist works reflect on modernity, social alienation ...
* ''
Chance Chance may refer to: Mathematics * In mathematics, likelihood of something (by way of the likelihood function or probability density function) * ''Chance'' (statistics magazine) Places * Chance, Kentucky, US * Chance, Maryland, US * Chanc ...
'' by
Joseph Conrad Joseph Conrad (born Józef Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski, ; 3 December 1857 – 3 August 1924) was a Poles in the United Kingdom#19th century, Polish-British novelist and story writer. He is regarded as one of the greatest writers in the Eng ...
''Genre fiction'' * '' A Prisoner in Fairyland'' by
Algernon Blackwood Algernon Henry Blackwood, CBE (14 March 1869 – 10 December 1951) was an English broadcasting narrator, journalist, novelist and short story writer, and among the most prolific ghost story writers in the history of the genre. The literary cr ...
– adapted into a play, it later became the
Andrew Lloyd Webber Andrew Lloyd Webber, Baron Lloyd-Webber (born 22 March 1948) is an English composer and impresario of musical theatre. Several of his musicals have run for more than a decade both in the West End theatre, West End and on Broadway theatre, Broad ...
musical ''
Starlight Express '' Starlight Express'' is a 1984 musical with music by Andrew Lloyd Webber and lyrics by Richard Stilgoe. It tells the story of a young but obsolete steam engine, Rusty, who races in a championship against modern locomotives of diesel and el ...
'' * '' The Mystery of Dr. Fu-Manchu'' by '
Sax Rohmer Arthur Henry "Sarsfield" Ward (15 February 1883 – 1 June 1959), better known as Sax Rohmer, was an English novelist. He is best remembered for his series of novels featuring the master criminal Fu Manchu."Rohmer, Sax" by Jack Adrian in David ...
' (England) ''Poetry'' * '' Alcools'' by
Guillaume Apollinaire Guillaume Apollinaire (; ; born Kostrowicki; 26 August 1880 – 9 November 1918) was a French poet, playwright, short story writer, novelist and art critic of Poland, Polish descent. Apollinaire is considered one of the foremost poets of the ...
(Poland, France) – dada poems * ''
Gitanjali __NOTOC__ ''Gitanjali'' () is a collection of poems by the Bengali poet Rabindranath Tagore. Tagore received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1913, for its English translation, '' Song Offerings'', making him the first non-European and the fi ...
'' by
Rabindranath Tagore Rabindranath Thakur (; anglicised as Rabindranath Tagore ; 7 May 1861 – 7 August 1941) was a Bengalis, Bengali polymath who worked as a poet, writer, playwright, composer, philosopher, social reformer, and painter of the Bengal Renai ...
1914 * ''
Dubliners ''Dubliners'' is a collection of fifteen short stories by James Joyce, first published in 1914. It presents a naturalistic depiction of Irish middle class life in and around Dublin in the early years of the 20th century. The stories were writ ...
'' by
James Joyce James Augustine Aloysius Joyce (born James Augusta Joyce; 2 February 1882 – 13 January 1941) was an Irish novelist, poet, and literary critic. He contributed to the modernist avant-garde movement and is regarded as one of the most influentia ...
(Ireland, France, Italy) – short stories * '' The Prussian Officer and Other Stories'' by
D. H. Lawrence David Herbert Lawrence (11 September 1885 – 2 March 1930) was an English novelist, short story writer, poet, playwright, literary critic, travel writer, essayist, and painter. His modernist works reflect on modernity, social alienation ...
– short stories * '' Der Untertan'' by
Heinrich Mann Luiz Heinrich Mann (; March 27, 1871 – March 11, 1950), best known as simply Heinrich Mann, was a German writer known for his sociopolitical novels. From 1930 until 1933, he was president of the fine poetry division of the Prussian Academy ...
* '' The Vatican Cellars'' by
André Gide André Paul Guillaume Gide (; 22 November 1869 – 19 February 1951) was a French writer and author whose writings spanned a wide variety of styles and topics. He was awarded the 1947 Nobel Prize in Literature. Gide's career ranged from his begi ...
* '' Tender Buttons'' by
Gertrude Stein Gertrude Stein (February 3, 1874 – July 27, 1946) was an American novelist, poet, playwright, and art collector. Born in Allegheny, Pennsylvania (now part of Pittsburgh), and raised in Oakland, California, Stein moved to Paris in 1903, and ...
* '' The Golem'' by
Gustav Meyrink Gustav Meyrink (19 January 1868 – 4 December 1932) was the pseudonym of Gustav Meyer, an Austrian author, novelist, dramatist, translator, and banker, most famous for his novel ''The Golem (Meyrink novel), The Golem''. He has been described as ...
(
Austria Austria, formally the Republic of Austria, is a landlocked country in Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine Federal states of Austria, states, of which the capital Vienna is the List of largest cities in Aust ...
) *
Mist Mist is a phenomenon caused by small droplets of water suspended in the cold air, usually by condensation. Physically, it is an example of a Dispersion (chemistry), dispersion. It is most commonly seen where water vapor in warm, moist air meets ...
by
Miguel de Unamuno Miguel de Unamuno y Jugo (; ; 29 September 1864 – 31 December 1936) was a Spanish essayist, novelist, poet, playwright, philosopher, professor of Greek and Classics, and later rector at the University of Salamanca. His major philosophical ...
(Spain) * '' Maurice'' by
E. M. Forster Edward Morgan Forster (1 January 1879 – 7 June 1970) was an English author. He is best known for his novels, particularly '' A Room with a View'' (1908), ''Howards End'' (1910) and '' A Passage to India'' (1924). He also wrote numerous shor ...
– unpublished * '' Sinister Street'' by
Compton Mackenzie Sir Edward Montague Compton Mackenzie, (17 January 1883 – 30 November 1972) was a Scottish writer of fiction, biography, histories and a memoir, as well as a cultural commentator, raconteur and lifelong Scottish nationalist. He was one of t ...
(Scotland, Greece) * '' The Flying Inn'' by
G. K. Chesterton Gilbert Keith Chesterton (29 May 1874 – 14 June 1936) was an English author, philosopher, Christian apologist, journalist and magazine editor, and literary and art critic. Chesterton created the fictional priest-detective Father Brow ...
*''
The Ragged-Trousered Philanthropists ''The Ragged-Trousered Philanthropists'' is a 1914 semi-autobiographical novel by Irish house painter and sign writer Robert Noonan, who wrote the book in his spare time under the pen name Robert Tressell. Published after Tressell's death fro ...
'' by
Robert Noonan Robert Phillipe Noonan (17 April 1870 – 3 February 1911), born Robert Croker, and best known by the pen name Robert Tressell, was an Irish writer best known for his novel ''The Ragged-Trousered Philanthropists''. Tressell spent his early adul ...
(UK) ''Poetry'' * ''
North of Boston ''North of Boston'' is a poetry collection by Robert Frost, first published in 1914 by David Nutt, in London. Most of the poems resemble short dramas or dialogues. It is also called a book of people because most of the poems deal with New Engla ...
'' by
Robert Frost Robert Lee Frost (March26, 1874January29, 1963) was an American poet. Known for his realistic depictions of rural life and his command of American Colloquialism, colloquial speech, Frost frequently wrote about settings from rural life in New E ...
(US) 1915 * ''
The Good Soldier ''The Good Soldier: A Tale of Passion'' is a 1915 novel by the British writer Ford Madox Ford. It is set just before World War I, and chronicles the tragedy of Edward Ashburnham and his seemingly perfect marriage, along with that of his two A ...
'' by
Ford Madox Ford Ford Madox Ford (né Joseph Leopold Ford Hermann Madox Hueffer ( ); 17 December 1873 – 26 June 1939) was an English novelist, poet, critic and editor whose journals ''The English Review'' and ''The Transatlantic Review (1924), The Transatlant ...
* ''
The Rainbow ''The Rainbow'' is a novel by British author D. H. Lawrence, first published by Methuen & Co. in 1915. It follows three generations of the Brangwen family living in Nottinghamshire, focusing particularly on the individual's struggle for growt ...
'' by
D. H. Lawrence David Herbert Lawrence (11 September 1885 – 2 March 1930) was an English novelist, short story writer, poet, playwright, literary critic, travel writer, essayist, and painter. His modernist works reflect on modernity, social alienation ...
* ''
The Metamorphosis ''The Metamorphosis'' (), also translated as ''The Transformation'', is a novella by Franz Kafka published in 1915. One of Kafka's best-known works, ''The Metamorphosis'' tells the story of salesman Gregor Samsa, who wakes to find himself inex ...
'' by
Franz Kafka Franz Kafka (3 July 1883 – 3 June 1924) was a novelist and writer from Prague who was Jewish, Austrian, and Czech and wrote in German. He is widely regarded as a major figure of 20th-century literature. His work fuses elements of Litera ...
* '' Of Human Bondage'' by
Somerset Maugham William Somerset Maugham ( ; 25 January 1874 – 16 December 1965) was an English writer, known for his plays, novels and short stories. Born in Paris, where he spent his first ten years, Maugham was schooled in England and went to a German un ...
* The Underdogs by
Mariano Azuela Mariano Azuela González (January 1, 1873 – March 1, 1952) was a Mexican writer and medical doctor, best known for his fictional stories of the Mexican Revolution of 1910. He wrote novels, works for theatre and literary criticism. He is t ...
(Mexico) * ''
Victory The term victory (from ) originally applied to warfare, and denotes success achieved in personal duel, combat, after military operations in general or, by extension, in any competition. Success in a military campaign constitutes a strategic vi ...
'' by
Joseph Conrad Joseph Conrad (born Józef Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski, ; 3 December 1857 – 3 August 1924) was a Poles in the United Kingdom#19th century, Polish-British novelist and story writer. He is regarded as one of the greatest writers in the Eng ...
* ''Pointed Roofs'' by
Dorothy Richardson Dorothy Miller Richardson (17 May 1873 – 17 June 1957) was a British author and journalist. Author of ''Pilgrimage'', a sequence of 13 semi-autobiographical novels published between 1915 and 1967—though Richardson saw them as chapters of o ...
* ''
The Voyage Out ''The Voyage Out'' is the first novel by Virginia Woolf, published in 1915 by Duckworth. Development and first draft Woolf began work on ''The Voyage Out'' by 1910 (perhaps as early as 1907) and had finished an early draft by 1912. The novel ...
'' by
Virginia Woolf Adeline Virginia Woolf (; ; 25 January 1882 28 March 1941) was an English writer and one of the most influential 20th-century modernist authors. She helped to pioneer the use of stream of consciousness narration as a literary device. Vir ...
(England) * ''Vainglory'' by
Ronald Firbank Arthur Annesley Ronald Firbank (17 January 1886 – 21 May 1926) was an innovative English novelist. His eight short novels, partly inspired by the London aesthetes of the 1890s, especially Oscar Wilde, consist largely of dialogue, with referen ...
(England) * '' Rashōmon'' by
Ryūnosuke Akutagawa , art name , was a Japanese writer active in the Taishō period in Japan. He is regarded as the "father of the Japanese short story", and Japan's premier literary award, the Akutagawa Prize, is named after him. He took his own life at the age ...
''Genre fiction'' * ''
The Thirty-Nine Steps ''The Thirty-Nine Steps'' is a 1915 adventure novel by the Scottish literature, Scottish author John Buchan, first published by William Blackwood and Sons, Edinburgh. It was Serial (literature), serialized in ''Argosy (magazine)#The All-Story, ...
'' by
John Buchan John Buchan, 1st Baron Tweedsmuir (; 26 August 1875 – 11 February 1940) was a Scottish novelist, historian, British Army officer, and Unionist politician who served as Governor General of Canada, the 15th since Canadian Confederation. As a ...
(Scotland, Canada) 1916 * ''
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man ''A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man'' is the second book and first novel of Irish writer James Joyce, published in 1916. A ''Künstlerroman'' written in a modernist style, it traces the religious and intellectual awakening of young Ste ...
'' by
James Joyce James Augustine Aloysius Joyce (born James Augusta Joyce; 2 February 1882 – 13 January 1941) was an Irish novelist, poet, and literary critic. He contributed to the modernist avant-garde movement and is regarded as one of the most influentia ...
* ''
Women in Love ''Women in Love'' is a 1920 novel by English author D. H. Lawrence. It is a sequel to his earlier novel, '' The Rainbow'' (1915), and follows the continuing loves and lives of the Brangwen sisters, Gudrun and Ursula. Gudrun Brangwen, an arti ...
'' by
D. H. Lawrence David Herbert Lawrence (11 September 1885 – 2 March 1930) was an English novelist, short story writer, poet, playwright, literary critic, travel writer, essayist, and painter. His modernist works reflect on modernity, social alienation ...
– initially banned, published in 1920 ''Genre fiction'' * ''
Greenmantle ''Greenmantle'' is the second of five novels by John Buchan featuring the character Richard Hannay. It was first published in 1916 by Hodder & Stoughton, London. It is one of two Hannay novels set during the First World War, the other being ...
'' by
John Buchan John Buchan, 1st Baron Tweedsmuir (; 26 August 1875 – 11 February 1940) was a Scottish novelist, historian, British Army officer, and Unionist politician who served as Governor General of Canada, the 15th since Canadian Confederation. As a ...
''Poetry'' * ''
Salt-Water Poems and Ballads ''Salt-Water Poems and Ballads'' is a book of poetry on themes of seafaring and maritime history by British future Poet Laureate John Masefield. It was first published in 1916 by Macmillan, with illustrations by Charles Pears. The collectio ...
'' by
John Masefield John Edward Masefield (; 1 June 1878 – 12 May 1967) was an English poet and writer. He was Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom, Poet Laureate from 1930 until his death in 1967, during which time he lived at Burcot, Oxfordshire, near Abingdon ...
(England) * '' Mountain Interval'' by
Robert Frost Robert Lee Frost (March26, 1874January29, 1963) was an American poet. Known for his realistic depictions of rural life and his command of American Colloquialism, colloquial speech, Frost frequently wrote about settings from rural life in New E ...
1917 * '' Under Fire'' by
Henri Barbusse Henri Barbusse (; 17 May 1873 – 30 August 1935) was a French novelist, short story writer, journalist, poet and political activist. He began his literary career in the 1890s as a Symbolist poet and continued as a neo-Naturalist novelist; i ...
(France, Russia) * ''
Walpurgis Night Walpurgis Night (), an abbreviation of Saint Walpurgis Night (from the German language, German ), also known as Saint Walpurga's Eve (alternatively spelled Saint Walburga's Eve) and Walpurgisnacht, is the Vigil#Eves of religious celebrations ...
'' by
Gustav Meyrink Gustav Meyrink (19 January 1868 – 4 December 1932) was the pseudonym of Gustav Meyer, an Austrian author, novelist, dramatist, translator, and banker, most famous for his novel ''The Golem (Meyrink novel), The Golem''. He has been described as ...
* '' Growth of the Soil'' by
Knut Hamsun Knut Hamsun (4 August 1859 – 19 February 1952) was a Norwegian writer who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1920 Nobel Prize in Literature, 1920. Hamsun's work spans more than 70 years and shows variation with regard to conscio ...
* '' The Shadow Line'' by
Joseph Conrad Joseph Conrad (born Józef Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski, ; 3 December 1857 – 3 August 1924) was a Poles in the United Kingdom#19th century, Polish-British novelist and story writer. He is regarded as one of the greatest writers in the Eng ...
* '' Caprice'' by
Ronald Firbank Arthur Annesley Ronald Firbank (17 January 1886 – 21 May 1926) was an innovative English novelist. His eight short novels, partly inspired by the London aesthetes of the 1890s, especially Oscar Wilde, consist largely of dialogue, with referen ...
* ''
Devdas ''Devdas'' (, transliterated as ''Dēbôdās'') is a Bengali romance novel written by Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay. The story pivots a tragic triangle linking Devdas, an archetypal lover in viraha (separation); Paro, his forbidden childhood love ...
'' by
Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay (anglicised as Sarat Chandra Chatterjee; 15 September 1876 – 16 January 1938) was a Bengali novelist and short story writer of the early 20th century. He generally wrote about the lives of Bengali family and socie ...
''Poetry'' * ''
Dulce et Decorum est "Dulce et Decorum Est" is a poem written by Wilfred Owen during World War I, and published posthumously in 1920. Its Latin title is from a verse written by the Roman poet Horace: '' Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori''. In English, this mea ...
and Anthem for Doomed Youth'' by
Wilfred Owen Wilfred Edward Salter Owen Military Cross, MC (18 March 1893 – 4 November 1918) was an English poet and soldier. He was one of the leading poets of the First World War. His war poetry on the horrors of Trench warfare, trenches and Chemi ...
(England) – published posthumously * ''
Prufrock and Other Observations "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" is the first professionally published poem by the American-born British poet T. S. Eliot (1888–1965). It relates the varying thoughts of its title character in a stream of consciousness. Eliot began writin ...
'' by
T. S. Eliot Thomas Stearns Eliot (26 September 18884 January 1965) was a poet, essayist and playwright.Bush, Ronald. "T. S. Eliot's Life and Career", in John A Garraty and Mark C. Carnes (eds), ''American National Biography''. New York: Oxford University ...
(US, England) ''Non-fiction'' * ''
The State and Revolution ''The State and Revolution: The Marxist Doctrine of the State and the Tasks of the Proletariat in the Revolution'' () is a book written by Vladimir Lenin and published in 1917 which describes his views on the role of the state in society, the ne ...
'' by
Vladimir Lenin Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov ( 187021 January 1924), better known as Vladimir Lenin, was a Russian revolutionary, politician and political theorist. He was the first head of government of Soviet Russia from 1917 until Death and state funeral of ...
1918 * ''
Tarr ''Tarr'' is a modernist novel by Wyndham Lewis, written in 1907–11, revised and expanded in 1914–15 and first serialized in the magazine '' The Egoist'' from April 1916 until November 1917. The American version was published in 1918, with an ...
'' by
Wyndham Lewis Percy Wyndham Lewis (18 November 1882 – 7 March 1957) was a British writer, painter and critic. He was a co-founder of the Vorticist movement in art and edited ''Blast (British magazine), Blast'', the literary magazine of the Vorticists. His ...
(Canada, England) * ''Man of Straw'' by
Heinrich Mann Luiz Heinrich Mann (; March 27, 1871 – March 11, 1950), best known as simply Heinrich Mann, was a German writer known for his sociopolitical novels. From 1930 until 1933, he was president of the fine poetry division of the Prussian Academy ...
(Germany) ''Poetry'' * '' Calligrammes'' by
Guillaume Apollinaire Guillaume Apollinaire (; ; born Kostrowicki; 26 August 1880 – 9 November 1918) was a French poet, playwright, short story writer, novelist and art critic of Poland, Polish descent. Apollinaire is considered one of the foremost poets of the ...
– dada poetry ''Non-fiction'' * ''
Eminent Victorians ''Eminent Victorians'' is a book by Lytton Strachey (one of the older members of the Bloomsbury Group), first published in 1918, and consisting of biography, biographies of four leading figures from the Victorian era. Its fame rests on the irreve ...
'' by
Lytton Strachey Giles Lytton Strachey (; 1 March 1880 – 21 January 1932) was an English writer and critic. A founding member of the Bloomsbury Group and author of ''Eminent Victorians'', he established a new form of biography in which psychology, psychologic ...
(England) * ''
Reflections of a Nonpolitical Man The ''Reflections of a Nonpolitical Man'' () is a non-fiction work by German author Thomas Mann published in 1918. Unlike his brother Heinrich, Thomas Mann supported the German war effort during World War I. The book, which runs to almost six h ...
'' by
Thomas Mann Paul Thomas Mann ( , ; ; 6 June 1875 – 12 August 1955) was a German novelist, short story writer, social critic, philanthropist, essayist, and the 1929 Nobel Prize in Literature laureate. His highly symbolic and ironic epic novels and novell ...
(Germany)


Interwar period

The 1920s were a period of literary creativity, and works of several notable authors appeared during the period.
D. H. Lawrence David Herbert Lawrence (11 September 1885 – 2 March 1930) was an English novelist, short story writer, poet, playwright, literary critic, travel writer, essayist, and painter. His modernist works reflect on modernity, social alienation ...
's novel ''
Lady Chatterley's Lover ''Lady Chatterley's Lover'' is the final novel by English author D. H. Lawrence, which was first published privately in 1928, in Florence, Italy, and in 1929, in Paris, France. An unexpurgated edition was not published openly in the United Ki ...
'' was a scandal at the time because of its explicit descriptions of sex. James Joyce's novel, '' Ulysses'', published in 1922 in Paris, was one of the most important achievements of literary modernism. 1919 * '' Within a Budding Grove'' by
Marcel Proust Valentin Louis Georges Eugène Marcel Proust ( ; ; 10 July 1871 – 18 November 1922) was a French novelist, literary critic, and essayist who wrote the novel (in French – translated in English as ''Remembrance of Things Past'' and more r ...
* '' Night and Day'' by
Virginia Woolf Adeline Virginia Woolf (; ; 25 January 1882 28 March 1941) was an English writer and one of the most influential 20th-century modernist authors. She helped to pioneer the use of stream of consciousness narration as a literary device. Vir ...
* ''
Winesburg, Ohio ''Winesburg, Ohio'' (full title: ''Winesburg, Ohio: A Group of Tales of Ohio Small-Town Life'') is a 1919 short story cycle by the American author Sherwood Anderson. The work is structured around the life of protagonist George Willard, from t ...
'' by
Sherwood Anderson Sherwood Anderson (September 13, 1876 – March 8, 1941) was an American novelist and short story writer, known for subjective and self-revealing works. Self-educated, he rose to become a successful copywriter and business owner in Cleveland and ...
(US) – the first 'lost generation' novel * '' Valmouth'' by
Ronald Firbank Arthur Annesley Ronald Firbank (17 January 1886 – 21 May 1926) was an innovative English novelist. His eight short novels, partly inspired by the London aesthetes of the 1890s, especially Oscar Wilde, consist largely of dialogue, with referen ...
* ''
Bazaar-e-Husn ''Bazaar-e-Husn'' () or ''Seva Sadan'' () is a Hindustani novel by Munshi Premchand. It was originally written in Urdu under the title ''Bazaar-e-Husn'' ("Market of Beauty" or Red-light district) but was first published in Hindi from Calcutt ...
'' by
Premchand Dhanpat Rai Srivastava (31 July 1880 – 8 October 1936), better known as Munshi Premchand based on his pen name Premchand (), was an Indian writer famous for his modern Hindustani language, Hindustani literature. Premchand was a pioneer ...
(publ. in Hindi as ''Seva-sadan'') ''Genre fiction'' * ''
Dope Dope may refer to: Chemistry Biochemistry * Dope, a slang word for a euphoria-producing drug, particularly: ** Cocaine ** Cannabis (drug) ** Heroin ** Opioid * DOPE, or 1,2-Dioleoyl-''sn''-glycero-3-phosphoethanolamine, a phospholipid * Discret ...
'' by
Sax Rohmer Arthur Henry "Sarsfield" Ward (15 February 1883 – 1 June 1959), better known as Sax Rohmer, was an English novelist. He is best remembered for his series of novels featuring the master criminal Fu Manchu."Rohmer, Sax" by Jack Adrian in David ...
– inspired by the true story of Limehouse dope-dealer
Brilliant Chang Brilliant (Billy) Chang (real name Chan Nan; born c. 1886, death date unknown) was a Chinese restaurateur and drug dealer who was implicated in supplying the drugs that killed Freda Kempton in 1922.Dope Darling'' by Leda Burke (
David Garnett David Garnett (9 March 1892 – 17 February 1981) was an English writer and publisher. As a child, he had a cloak made of rabbit skin and thus received the nickname "Bunny", by which he was known to friends and intimates all his life. Early ...
) (England) 1920 * '' We'' by
Yevgeny Zamyatin Yevgeny Ivanovich Zamyatin ( rus, Евге́ний Ива́нович Замя́тин, p=jɪvˈɡʲenʲɪj ɪˈvanəvʲɪdʑ zɐˈmʲætʲɪn; – 10 March 1937), sometimes anglicized as Eugene Zamyatin, was a Russian author of science fictio ...
(
Russia Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia. It is the list of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the world, and extends across Time in Russia, eleven time zones, sharing Borders ...
) * ''
Limbo The unofficial term Limbo (, or , referring to the edge of Hell) is the afterlife condition in medieval Catholic theology, of those who die in original sin without being assigned to the Hell of the Damned. However, it has become the gene ...
'' by
Aldous Huxley Aldous Leonard Huxley ( ; 26 July 1894 – 22 November 1963) was an English writer and philosopher. His bibliography spans nearly 50 books, including non-fiction novel, non-fiction works, as well as essays, narratives, and poems. Born into the ...
(England) – short stories * '' The Lost Girl'' by
D. H. Lawrence David Herbert Lawrence (11 September 1885 – 2 March 1930) was an English novelist, short story writer, poet, playwright, literary critic, travel writer, essayist, and painter. His modernist works reflect on modernity, social alienation ...
* ''
This Side of Paradise ''This Side of Paradise'' is the 1920 debut novel by American writer F. Scott Fitzgerald. It examines the lives and morality of carefree American youth at the dawn of the Jazz Age. Its protagonist, Amory Blaine, is a handsome middle-class stu ...
'' by F. Scott Fitzgerald (US) * '' The London Venture'' by
Michael Arlen Michael Arlen (born Dikran Sarkis Kouyoumdjian;, , 16 November 1895 – 23 June 1956) was an essayist, short story writer, novelist, playwright, and scriptwriter. He had his greatest successes in the 1920s while living and writing in England, ...
(
Armenia Armenia, officially the Republic of Armenia, is a landlocked country in the Armenian Highlands of West Asia. It is a part of the Caucasus region and is bordered by Turkey to the west, Georgia (country), Georgia to the north and Azerbaijan to ...
, England) * '' Storm of Steel'' by
Ernst Jünger Ernst Jünger (; 29 March 1895 – 17 February 1998) was a German author, highly decorated soldier, philosopher, and entomology, entomologist who became publicly known for his World War I memoir ''Storm of Steel''. The son of a successful busin ...
(Germany) * ''
A Voyage to Arcturus ''A Voyage to Arcturus'' is a novel by the Scottish writer David Lindsay, first published in 1920. An interstellar voyage is the framework for a narrative of a journey through fantastic landscapes. The story is set at Tormance, an imaginary pl ...
'' by David Lindsay (Scotland) * '' Main Street'' by
Sinclair Lewis Harry Sinclair Lewis (February 7, 1885 – January 10, 1951) was an American novelist, short-story writer, and playwright. In 1930 Nobel Prize in Literature, 1930, he became the first author from the United States (and the first from the America ...
(US) * ''
The Age of Innocence ''The Age of Innocence'' is a novel by American author Edith Wharton, published on 25 October 1920. It was her eighth novel, and was initially serialized in 1920 in four parts, in the magazine '' Pictorial Review''. Later that year, it was rele ...
'' by
Edith Wharton Edith Newbold Wharton (; ; January 24, 1862 – August 11, 1937) was an American writer and designer. Wharton drew upon her insider's knowledge of the upper-class New York "aristocracy" to portray, realistically, the lives and morals of the Gil ...
(US) ''Plays'' * ''
Six Characters in Search of an Author ''Six Characters in Search of an Author'' ( ) is an Italian play by Luigi Pirandello, written and first performed in 1921. An absurdist metatheatric play about the relationship among authors, their characters, and theatre practitioners, it p ...
'' by
Luigi Pirandello Luigi Pirandello (; ; 28 June 1867 – 10 December 1936) was an Italians, Italian dramatist, novelist, poet, and short story writer whose greatest contributions were his plays. He was awarded the 1934 Nobel Prize in Literature "for his bold and ...
(Italy) * '' Beyond the Horizon and
Anna Christie ''Anna Christie'' is a Play (theatre), play in four acts by Eugene O'Neill. It made its Broadway theatre, Broadway debut at the Vanderbilt Theatre on November 2, 1921. O'Neill received the 1922 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for this work. According ...
'' by
Eugene O'Neill Eugene Gladstone O'Neill (October 16, 1888 – November 27, 1953) was an American playwright. His poetically titled plays were among the first to introduce into the U.S. the drama techniques of Realism (theatre), realism, earlier associated with ...
– Pulitzer prize winner 1921 * '' The Guermantes Way'' by
Marcel Proust Valentin Louis Georges Eugène Marcel Proust ( ; ; 10 July 1871 – 18 November 1922) was a French novelist, literary critic, and essayist who wrote the novel (in French – translated in English as ''Remembrance of Things Past'' and more r ...
* '' Crome Yellow'' by
Aldous Huxley Aldous Leonard Huxley ( ; 26 July 1894 – 22 November 1963) was an English writer and philosopher. His bibliography spans nearly 50 books, including non-fiction novel, non-fiction works, as well as essays, narratives, and poems. Born into the ...
* ''
England, My England and Other Stories ''England, My England'' is a collection of short stories by D. H. Lawrence. Individual items were originally written between 1913 and 1921, many of them against the background of World War I. Most of these versions were placed in magazines or p ...
'' by
D. H. Lawrence David Herbert Lawrence (11 September 1885 – 2 March 1930) was an English novelist, short story writer, poet, playwright, literary critic, travel writer, essayist, and painter. His modernist works reflect on modernity, social alienation ...
– short stories * ''
The Forsyte Saga ''The Forsyte Saga'', first published under that title in 1922, is a series of three novels and two interludes published between 1906 and 1921 by the English author John Galsworthy, who won the 1932 Nobel Prize in Literature. They chronicle th ...
'' by
John Galsworthy John Galsworthy (; 14 August 1867 – 31 January 1933) was an English novelist and playwright. He is best known for his trilogy of novels collectively called '' The Forsyte Saga'', and two later trilogies, ''A Modern Comedy'' and ''End of th ...
(England) – pentalogy, first volume published in 1906 * '' My Life and Loves'' by
Frank Harris Frank Harris (14 February 1856 – 26 August 1931) was an Irish-American editor, novelist, short story writer, journalist and publisher, who was friendly with many well-known figures of his day. Born in Ireland, he emigrated to the United State ...
(England, US) – four volumes of quasi-factual sex gossip, the fifth completed by Alex Trocchi ''Plays'' * ''
Back to Methuselah ''Back to Methuselah (A Metabiological Pentateuch)'' by George Bernard Shaw consists of a preface (''The Infidel Half Century'') and a series of five plays: ''In the Beginning: B.C. 4004 (In the Garden of Eden)'', ''The Gospel of the Brothers Ba ...
'' by
George Bernard Shaw George Bernard Shaw (26 July 1856 – 2 November 1950), known at his insistence as Bernard Shaw, was an Irish playwright, critic, polemicist and political activist. His influence on Western theatre, culture and politics extended from the 188 ...
* ''
R.U.R. (Rossum's Universal Robots) ''R.U.R.'' is a 1920 science fiction play by the Czech writer Karel Čapek. "R.U.R." stands for (Rossum's Universal Robots, a phrase that has been used as a subtitle in English versions). The play had its world premiere on 2 January 1921 in ...
'' by
Karel Čapek Karel Čapek (; 9 January 1890 – 25 December 1938) was a Czech writer, playwright, critic and journalist. He has become best known for his science fiction, including his novel '' War with the Newts'' (1936) and play '' R.U.R.'' (''Rossum' ...
– from which the term 'robot' was coined 1922 * '' Ulysses'' by
James Joyce James Augustine Aloysius Joyce (born James Augusta Joyce; 2 February 1882 – 13 January 1941) was an Irish novelist, poet, and literary critic. He contributed to the modernist avant-garde movement and is regarded as one of the most influentia ...
* ''
Jacob's Room ''Jacob's Room'' is the third novel by Virginia Woolf, first published on 26 October 1922. The novel centres, in a very ambiguous way, around the life story of the protagonist Jacob Flanders and is presented almost entirely through the impressi ...
'' by
Virginia Woolf Adeline Virginia Woolf (; ; 25 January 1882 28 March 1941) was an English writer and one of the most influential 20th-century modernist authors. She helped to pioneer the use of stream of consciousness narration as a literary device. Vir ...
* ''
Sodom and Gomorrah In the Abrahamic religions, Sodom and Gomorrah () were two cities destroyed by God for their wickedness. Sodom and Gomorrah are repeatedly invoked throughout the Hebrew Bible, Deuterocanonical texts, and the New Testament as symbols of sin, di ...
'' by
Marcel Proust Valentin Louis Georges Eugène Marcel Proust ( ; ; 10 July 1871 – 18 November 1922) was a French novelist, literary critic, and essayist who wrote the novel (in French – translated in English as ''Remembrance of Things Past'' and more r ...
* '' Croatian God Mars'' by
Miroslav Krleža Miroslav Krleža (; 7 July 1893 – 29 December 1981) was a Croatian writer who is widely considered to be the greatest Croatian writer of the 20th century. He wrote notable works in all the literary genres, including poetry ('' The Ballads o ...
* '' The Enormous Room'' by
E. E. Cummings Edward Estlin Cummings (October 14, 1894 – September 3, 1962), commonly known as e e cummings or E. E. Cummings, was an American poet, painter, essayist, author, and playwright. During World War I, he worked as an ambulance driver and was ...
(US) * '' Futility'' by William Gerhardie (Russia, England) * ''
The Beautiful and Damned ''The Beautiful and Damned'' is a 1922 novel by American writer F. Scott Fitzgerald. Set in New York City, the novel's plot follows a young artist Anthony Patch and his flapper wife Gloria Gilbert who become "wrecked on the shoals of dissipati ...
'' by F. Scott Fitzgerald * '' Mortal Coils'' by
Aldous Huxley Aldous Leonard Huxley ( ; 26 July 1894 – 22 November 1963) was an English writer and philosopher. His bibliography spans nearly 50 books, including non-fiction novel, non-fiction works, as well as essays, narratives, and poems. Born into the ...
– short stories * ''
Aaron's Rod Aaron's rod () refers to any of the walking sticks carried by Moses' brother, Aaron, in the Torah. The Bible tells how, along with Moses's rod, Aaron's rod was endowed with miraculous power during the Plagues of Egypt that preceded the Exodus. ...
'' by
D. H. Lawrence David Herbert Lawrence (11 September 1885 – 2 March 1930) was an English novelist, short story writer, poet, playwright, literary critic, travel writer, essayist, and painter. His modernist works reflect on modernity, social alienation ...
Kim * '' The Garden Party'' by
Katherine Mansfield Kathleen Mansfield Murry (née Beauchamp; 14 October 1888 – 9 January 1923) was a New Zealand writer and critic who was an important figure in the Literary modernism, modernist movement. Her works are celebrated across the world and have been ...
– short stories * '' Siddhartha'' by
Hermann Hesse Hermann Karl Hesse (; 2 July 1877 – 9 August 1962) was a Germans, German-Swiss people, Swiss poet and novelist, and the 1946 Nobel Prize in Literature laureate. His interest in Eastern philosophy, Eastern religious, spiritual, and philosophic ...
(Germany, Switzerland) * '' Peter Whiffle'' by
Carl Van Vechten Carl Van Vechten (; June 17, 1880December 21, 1964) was an American writer and Fine-art photography, artistic photographer who was a patron of the Harlem Renaissance and the literary estate, literary executor of Gertrude Stein. He gained fame ...
(US) * '' Babbitt'' by
Sinclair Lewis Harry Sinclair Lewis (February 7, 1885 – January 10, 1951) was an American novelist, short-story writer, and playwright. In 1930 Nobel Prize in Literature, 1930, he became the first author from the United States (and the first from the America ...
* '' Lady into Fox'' by
David Garnett David Garnett (9 March 1892 – 17 February 1981) was an English writer and publisher. As a child, he had a cloak made of rabbit skin and thus received the nickname "Bunny", by which he was known to friends and intimates all his life. Early ...
* ''
The True Story of Ah Q ''The True Story of Ah Q'' is an episodic novella written by Lu Xun using third-person narration perspective, first published as a serial between December 4, 1921 and February 12, 1922. It was later included in his first short story collectio ...
'' by
Lu Xun Lu Xun ( zh, c=魯迅, p=Lǔ Xùn, ; 25 September 188119 October 1936), pen name of Zhou Shuren, born Zhou Zhangshou, was a Chinese writer. A leading figure of modern Chinese literature, he wrote in both vernacular and literary Chinese as a no ...
(China) ''Poetry'' * ''
The Waste Land ''The Waste Land'' is a poem by T. S. Eliot, widely regarded as one of the most important English-language poems of the 20th century and a central work of modernist poetry. Published in 1922, the 434-line poem first appeared in the United ...
'' by
T. S. Eliot Thomas Stearns Eliot (26 September 18884 January 1965) was a poet, essayist and playwright.Bush, Ronald. "T. S. Eliot's Life and Career", in John A Garraty and Mark C. Carnes (eds), ''American National Biography''. New York: Oxford University ...
1923 * '' Confessions of Zeno'' by
Italo Svevo Aron Hector Schmitz (19 December 186113 September 1928), better known by the pseudonym Italo Svevo (), was an Italian and Austro-Hungarian writer, businessman, novelist, playwright, and short story writer. A close friend of Irish novelist and ...
(Italy) * ''
The Good Soldier Švejk ''The Good Soldier Švejk'' () is an unfinished satirical dark comedy novel by Czech writer Jaroslav Hašek, published in 1921–1923, about a good-humored, simple-minded, middle-aged man who appears to be enthusiastic to serve Austria-Hungary i ...
'' by
Jaroslav Hašek Jaroslav Hašek (; 1883–1923) was a Czechs, Czech writer, Humorism, humorist, Satire, satirist, journalist, Bohemianism, bohemian, first anarchist and then communist, and commissar of the Red Army against the Czechoslovak Legion. He is best k ...
(
Czechoslovakia Czechoslovakia ( ; Czech language, Czech and , ''Česko-Slovensko'') was a landlocked country in Central Europe, created in 1918, when it declared its independence from Austria-Hungary. In 1938, after the Munich Agreement, the Sudetenland beca ...
) * '' The Captive'' by
Marcel Proust Valentin Louis Georges Eugène Marcel Proust ( ; ; 10 July 1871 – 18 November 1922) was a French novelist, literary critic, and essayist who wrote the novel (in French – translated in English as ''Remembrance of Things Past'' and more r ...
* ''
Kangaroo Kangaroos are marsupials from the family Macropodidae (macropods, meaning "large foot"). In common use, the term is used to describe the largest species from this family, the red kangaroo, as well as the antilopine kangaroo, eastern gre ...
'' by
D. H. Lawrence David Herbert Lawrence (11 September 1885 – 2 March 1930) was an English novelist, short story writer, poet, playwright, literary critic, travel writer, essayist, and painter. His modernist works reflect on modernity, social alienation ...
* ''
Antic Hay ''Antic Hay'' is a novel by Aldous Huxley, published in 1923. The story takes place in London, and gives a satiric depiction of the aimless or self-absorbed cultural elite in the sad and turbulent times following the end of World War I. A 1923 ...
'' by
Aldous Huxley Aldous Leonard Huxley ( ; 26 July 1894 – 22 November 1963) was an English writer and philosopher. His bibliography spans nearly 50 books, including non-fiction novel, non-fiction works, as well as essays, narratives, and poems. Born into the ...
* '' Three Soldiers'' by
John Dos Passos John Roderigo Dos Passos (; January 14, 1896 – September 28, 1970) was an American novelist, most notable for his U.S.A. (trilogy), ''U.S.A.'' trilogy. Born in Chicago, Dos Passos graduated from Harvard College in 1916. He traveled widely as a ...
(US) * '' The Great American Novel'' by
William Carlos Williams William Carlos Williams (September 17, 1883 – March 4, 1963) was an American poet and physician closely associated with modernism and imagism. His '' Spring and All'' (1923) was written in the wake of T. S. Eliot's '' The Waste Land'' (1922). ...
* '' The Devil in the Flesh'' by
Raymond Radiguet Raymond Radiguet (; 18 June 1903 – 12 December 1923) was a French novelist and poet whose two novels were noted for their explicit themes, and unique style and tone. Early life Radiguet was born in Saint-Maur-des-Fossés, Saint-Maur, Val-de-M ...
(France) * '' Aelita'' by Alexey Tolstoy (Russia) ''Plays'' * '' The Shadow of a Gunman'' by
Seán O'Casey Seán O'Casey ( ; born John Casey; 30 March 1880 – 18 September 1964) was an Irish dramatist and memoirist. A committed socialist, he was the first Irish playwright of note to write about the Dublin working classes. Early life O'Casey was ...
(Ireland) ''Poetry'' * ''
New Hampshire New Hampshire ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It borders Massachusetts to the south, Vermont to the west, Maine and the Gulf of Maine to the east, and the Canadian province of Quebec t ...
'' by
Robert Frost Robert Lee Frost (March26, 1874January29, 1963) was an American poet. Known for his realistic depictions of rural life and his command of American Colloquialism, colloquial speech, Frost frequently wrote about settings from rural life in New E ...
* '' The Duino Elegies'' by
Rainer Maria Rilke René Karl Wilhelm Johann Josef Maria Rilke (4 December 1875 – 29 December 1926), known as Rainer Maria Rilke, was an Austrian poet and novelist. Acclaimed as an Idiosyncrasy, idiosyncratic and expressive poet, he is widely recognized as ...
1924 * ''
The Magic Mountain ''The Magic Mountain'' (, ) is a novel by Thomas Mann. It was first published in Germany in November 1924. Since then, it has gone through numerous editions and been translated into many languages. It is widely considered a seminal work of 20t ...
'' by
Thomas Mann Paul Thomas Mann ( , ; ; 6 June 1875 – 12 August 1955) was a German novelist, short story writer, social critic, philanthropist, essayist, and the 1929 Nobel Prize in Literature laureate. His highly symbolic and ironic epic novels and novell ...
(Germany) * ''
In Our Time In Our Time may refer to: * ''In Our Time'' (1944 film), a film starring Ida Lupino and Paul Henreid * ''In Our Time'' (1982 film), a Taiwanese anthology film featuring director Edward Yang; considered the beginning of the "New Taiwan Cinema" * ''In ...
'' by
Ernest Hemingway Ernest Miller Hemingway ( ; July 21, 1899 – July 2, 1961) was an American novelist, short-story writer and journalist. Known for an economical, understated style that influenced later 20th-century writers, he has been romanticized fo ...
(US) – short stories * ''
A Passage to India ''A Passage to India'' is a 1924 novel by English author E. M. Forster set against the backdrop of the British Raj and the Indian independence movement in the 1920s. It was selected as one of the 100 great works of 20th-century English liter ...
'' by
E. M. Forster Edward Morgan Forster (1 January 1879 – 7 June 1970) was an English author. He is best known for his novels, particularly '' A Room with a View'' (1908), ''Howards End'' (1910) and '' A Passage to India'' (1924). He also wrote numerous shor ...
* ''
The Vortex ''The Vortex'' is a play in three acts by the English writer and actor Noël Coward. The play depicts the sexual vanity of a rich, ageing beauty, her troubled relationship with her adult son, and drug abuse in British society circles after the ...
'' by
José Eustasio Rivera José Eustasio Rivera Salas (February 19, 1888 – December 1, 1928) was a Colombian lawyer and author primarily known for his national epic ''The Vortex''. Early life José Eustasio Rivera was born on February 19, 1888, in Aguas Calientes, a ...
(Colombia) * '' Little Mexican and Other Stories'' by
Aldous Huxley Aldous Leonard Huxley ( ; 26 July 1894 – 22 November 1963) was an English writer and philosopher. His bibliography spans nearly 50 books, including non-fiction novel, non-fiction works, as well as essays, narratives, and poems. Born into the ...
– short stories * ''
Bohemian Lights ''Bohemian Lights'', or ''Luces de Bohemia'' in the original Spanish, is a play written by Ramón del Valle-Inclán, published in 1924. The central character is Max Estrella, a struggling poet afflicted by blindness due to developing syphilis. ...
'' by
Ramón del Valle-Inclán Ramón María del Valle-Inclán y de la Peña (born in Vilanova de Arousa, Galicia, Spain, on October 28, 1866, and died in Santiago de Compostela on January 5, 1936) was a Spanish dramatist, novelist, and member of the Spanish Generation o ...
(Spain) * '' The Fox and The Captain's Doll'' by
D. H. Lawrence David Herbert Lawrence (11 September 1885 – 2 March 1930) was an English novelist, short story writer, poet, playwright, literary critic, travel writer, essayist, and painter. His modernist works reflect on modernity, social alienation ...
– short stories *'' Miranda'' by Antoni Lange (Poland) *Riddles and Conundrums for All Occasions ''Genre fiction'' * ''
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd ''The Murder of Roger Ackroyd'' is a detective novel by the British writer Agatha Christie, her third to feature Hercule Poirot as the lead detective. The novel was published in the UK in June 1926 by William Collins, Sons, having previously ...
'' by
Agatha Christie Dame Agatha Mary Clarissa Christie, Lady Mallowan, (; 15 September 1890 – 12 January 1976) was an English people, English author known for her 66 detective novels and 14 short story collections, particularly those revolving ...
(England) ''Plays'' * ''
Juno and the Paycock ''Juno and the Paycock'' is a play by Seán O'Casey. Highly regarded and often performed in Ireland, it was first staged at the Abbey Theatre in Dublin in 1924. It is set in the working-class tenements of Dublin in the early 1920s, during the I ...
'' by
Seán O'Casey Seán O'Casey ( ; born John Casey; 30 March 1880 – 18 September 1964) was an Irish dramatist and memoirist. A committed socialist, he was the first Irish playwright of note to write about the Dublin working classes. Early life O'Casey was ...
* ''
The Vortex ''The Vortex'' is a play in three acts by the English writer and actor Noël Coward. The play depicts the sexual vanity of a rich, ageing beauty, her troubled relationship with her adult son, and drug abuse in British society circles after the ...
'' by
Noël Coward Sir Noël Peirce Coward (16 December 189926 March 1973) was an English playwright, composer, director, actor, and singer, known for his wit, flamboyance, and what ''Time (magazine), Time'' called "a sense of personal style, a combination of c ...
(England) 1925 * ''
Mrs Dalloway ''Mrs Dalloway'' is a novel by Virginia Woolf published on 14 May 1925. It details a day in the life of Clarissa Dalloway, a fictional upper-class woman in post-First World War England. The working title of ''Mrs Dalloway'' was ''The Hours ...
'' by
Virginia Woolf Adeline Virginia Woolf (; ; 25 January 1882 28 March 1941) was an English writer and one of the most influential 20th-century modernist authors. She helped to pioneer the use of stream of consciousness narration as a literary device. Vir ...
* ''
The Trial ''The Trial'' () is a novel written by Franz Kafka in 1914 and 1915 and published posthumously on 26 April 1925. One of his best-known works, it tells the story of Josef K., a man arrested and prosecuted by a remote, inaccessible authority, wi ...
'' by
Franz Kafka Franz Kafka (3 July 1883 – 3 June 1924) was a novelist and writer from Prague who was Jewish, Austrian, and Czech and wrote in German. He is widely regarded as a major figure of 20th-century literature. His work fuses elements of Litera ...
(
Czechoslovakia Czechoslovakia ( ; Czech language, Czech and , ''Česko-Slovensko'') was a landlocked country in Central Europe, created in 1918, when it declared its independence from Austria-Hungary. In 1938, after the Munich Agreement, the Sudetenland beca ...
) – posthumous, first English translation in 1930 * ''
The Great Gatsby ''The Great Gatsby'' () is a 1925 novel by American writer F. Scott Fitzgerald. Set in the Jazz Age on Long Island, near New York City, the novel depicts first-person narrator Nick Carraway's interactions with Jay Gatsby, a mysterious mi ...
'' by F. Scott Fitzgerald – often described as the epitome of the "Jazz Age" in American literature * ''The Green Hat'' by
Michael Arlen Michael Arlen (born Dikran Sarkis Kouyoumdjian;, , 16 November 1895 – 23 June 1956) was an essayist, short story writer, novelist, playwright, and scriptwriter. He had his greatest successes in the 1920s while living and writing in England, ...
– perhaps the epitome of the jazz age in British literature * '' Paris Peasant'' by
Louis Aragon Louis Aragon (; 3 October 1897 – 24 December 1982) was a French poet who was one of the leading voices of the Surrealism, surrealist movement in France. He co-founded with André Breton and Philippe Soupault the surrealist review ''Littératur ...
(France) * '' Albertine disparue'' by
Marcel Proust Valentin Louis Georges Eugène Marcel Proust ( ; ; 10 July 1871 – 18 November 1922) was a French novelist, literary critic, and essayist who wrote the novel (in French – translated in English as ''Remembrance of Things Past'' and more r ...
* '' Manhattan Transfer'' by
John Dos Passos John Roderigo Dos Passos (; January 14, 1896 – September 28, 1970) was an American novelist, most notable for his U.S.A. (trilogy), ''U.S.A.'' trilogy. Born in Chicago, Dos Passos graduated from Harvard College in 1916. He traveled widely as a ...
* '' In the American Grain'' by
William Carlos Williams William Carlos Williams (September 17, 1883 – March 4, 1963) was an American poet and physician closely associated with modernism and imagism. His '' Spring and All'' (1923) was written in the wake of T. S. Eliot's '' The Waste Land'' (1922). ...
* '' The Desert of Love'' by
François Mauriac François Charles Mauriac (; ; 11 October 1885 – 1 September 1970) was a French novelist, dramatist, critic, poet, and journalist, a member of the'' Académie française'' (from 1933), and laureate of the 1952 Nobel Prize in Literature, Nobel Pr ...
(France) * '' Gentlemen Prefer Blondes'' by
Anita Loos Corinne Anita Loos (April 26, 1888 – August 18, 1981) was an American actress, novelist, playwright and screenwriter. In 1912, she became the first female staff screenwriter in Hollywood (film industry), Hollywood, when D. W. Griffith put h ...
(US) * '' Those Barren Leaves'' by
Aldous Huxley Aldous Leonard Huxley ( ; 26 July 1894 – 22 November 1963) was an English writer and philosopher. His bibliography spans nearly 50 books, including non-fiction novel, non-fiction works, as well as essays, narratives, and poems. Born into the ...
* '' St Mawr'' by
D. H. Lawrence David Herbert Lawrence (11 September 1885 – 2 March 1930) was an English novelist, short story writer, poet, playwright, literary critic, travel writer, essayist, and painter. His modernist works reflect on modernity, social alienation ...
– short stories * ''
The Making of Americans ''The Making of Americans: Being a History of a Family's Progress'' is a modernist novel by Gertrude Stein. The novel traces the genealogy, history, and psychological development of members of the fictional Hersland and Dehning families. Stein ...
'' by
Gertrude Stein Gertrude Stein (February 3, 1874 – July 27, 1946) was an American novelist, poet, playwright, and art collector. Born in Allegheny, Pennsylvania (now part of Pittsburgh), and raised in Oakland, California, Stein moved to Paris in 1903, and ...
* ''
Heart of a Dog ''Heart of a Dog'' (, ) is a novella by Russian author Mikhail Bulgakov. A biting satire of Bolshevism, it was written in 1925 at the height of the New Economic Policy, a period during which communism appeared to be relaxing in the Soviet Union. ...
'' by
Mikhail Bulgakov Mikhail Afanasyevich Bulgakov ( ; rus, links=no, Михаил Афанасьевич Булгаков, p=mʲɪxɐˈil ɐfɐˈnasʲjɪvʲɪdʑ bʊlˈɡakəf; – 10 March 1940) was a Russian and Soviet novelist and playwright. His novel ''The M ...
(Russia / Soviet Union) * ''
The Artamonov Business ''The Artamonov Business'' (), also translated as ''The Artamonovs'' or ''Decadence'', is a novel by Maxim Gorky written during his 10-year emigration from Soviet Russia. It was published in Berlin in 1925 by ''Verlag "Kniga"''. Critics often call ...
'' by
Maxim Gorky Alexei Maximovich Peshkov (;  – 18 June 1936), popularly known as Maxim Gorky (; ), was a Russian and Soviet writer and proponent of socialism. He was nominated five times for the Nobel Prize in Literature. Before his success as an aut ...
(Russia / Soviet Union) ''Genre fiction'' * ''
Beau Geste ''Beau Geste'' is an adventure novel by British writer P. C. Wren, which details the adventures of three English brothers who enlist separately in the French Foreign Legion following the theft of a valuable jewel from the country house of a r ...
'' by
P. C. Wren Percival Christopher Wren (1 November 1875 – 22 November 1941) was an English writer, mostly of adventure fiction. He is remembered best for ''Beau Geste'', a much-filmed book of 1924, involving the French Foreign Legion in North Africa. This ...
(England) ''Poetry'' * ''
The Hollow Men "The Hollow Men" (1925) is a poem by the modernist writer T. S. Eliot. Like much of his work, its themes are overlapping and fragmentary, concerned with post–World War I Europe under the Treaty of Versailles, hopelessness, religious conversi ...
'' by
T. S. Eliot Thomas Stearns Eliot (26 September 18884 January 1965) was a poet, essayist and playwright.Bush, Ronald. "T. S. Eliot's Life and Career", in John A Garraty and Mark C. Carnes (eds), ''American National Biography''. New York: Oxford University ...
''Non-fiction'' * ''
The Old Straight Track ''The Old Straight Track: Its Mounds, Beacons, Moats, Sites and Mark Stones'' is a book by Alfred Watkins, first published in 1925, describing the existence of alleged ley lines in Great Britain. Presentation Watkins presents a methodical and th ...
'' by
Alfred Watkins Alfred Watkins (27 January 1855 – 15 April 1935) was an English businessman and amateur archaeologist who developed the idea of ley lines. Life Watkins was born in Hereford to an affluent family which had moved to the town in 1820 to establ ...
(England) – introducing ley lines 1926 * '' The Castle'' by
Franz Kafka Franz Kafka (3 July 1883 – 3 June 1924) was a novelist and writer from Prague who was Jewish, Austrian, and Czech and wrote in German. He is widely regarded as a major figure of 20th-century literature. His work fuses elements of Litera ...
– posthumous, first English translation in 1932 * '' The Counterfeiters'' by
André Gide André Paul Guillaume Gide (; 22 November 1869 – 19 February 1951) was a French writer and author whose writings spanned a wide variety of styles and topics. He was awarded the 1947 Nobel Prize in Literature. Gide's career ranged from his begi ...
* ''
The Sun Also Rises ''The Sun Also Rises'' is the first novel by the American writer Ernest Hemingway, following his experimental novel-in-fragments '' In Our Time (short story collection)'' (1925). It portrays American and British expatriates who travel from Par ...
'' aka ''Fiesta'' by
Ernest Hemingway Ernest Miller Hemingway ( ; July 21, 1899 – July 2, 1961) was an American novelist, short-story writer and journalist. Known for an economical, understated style that influenced later 20th-century writers, he has been romanticized fo ...
* '' Moravagine'' by
Blaise Cendrars Frédéric-Louis Sauser (1 September 1887 – 21 January 1961), better known as Blaise Cendrars (), was a Swiss-born novelist and poet who became a naturalized French citizen in 1916. He was a writer of considerable influence in the European ...
(France) * ''
Don Segundo Sombra ''Don Segundo Sombra'' is a 1926 novel by Argentine rancher Ricardo Güiraldes. Like José Hernández's poem of the 1870s, '' Martín Fierro'', its protagonist is a gaucho. However, unlike Hernandez's poem, ''Don Segundo Sombra'' does not ro ...
'' by Ricardo Güiraldes (Argentina) * ''
Nigger Heaven ''Nigger Heaven'' is a novel by Carl Van Vechten published in October 1926. The book is set during the Harlem Renaissance in the United States in the 1920s. The book and its title have been controversial since its publication. The novel is a po ...
'' by
Carl Van Vechten Carl Van Vechten (; June 17, 1880December 21, 1964) was an American writer and Fine-art photography, artistic photographer who was a patron of the Harlem Renaissance and the literary estate, literary executor of Gertrude Stein. He gained fame ...
* '' Two or Three Graces and Other Stories'' by
Aldous Huxley Aldous Leonard Huxley ( ; 26 July 1894 – 22 November 1963) was an English writer and philosopher. His bibliography spans nearly 50 books, including non-fiction novel, non-fiction works, as well as essays, narratives, and poems. Born into the ...
– short stories * '' The Plumed Serpent'' by
D. H. Lawrence David Herbert Lawrence (11 September 1885 – 2 March 1930) was an English novelist, short story writer, poet, playwright, literary critic, travel writer, essayist, and painter. His modernist works reflect on modernity, social alienation ...
* ''
The Call of Cthulhu "The Call of Cthulhu" is a cosmic horror short story by American writer H. P. Lovecraft. Written in the summer of 1926, it was first published in the pulp magazine ''Weird Tales'' in February 1928. The story is a founding document of the Cthul ...
'' by
H. P. Lovecraft Howard Phillips Lovecraft (, ; August 20, 1890 – March 15, 1937) was an American writer of Weird fiction, weird, Science fiction, science, fantasy, and horror fiction. He is best known for his creation of the Cthulhu Mythos. Born in Provi ...
''Genre fiction'' * ''
Winnie-the-Pooh Winnie-the-Pooh (also known as Edward Bear, Pooh Bear or simply Pooh) is a fictional Anthropomorphism, anthropomorphic teddy bear created by English author A. A. Milne and English illustrator E. H. Shepard. Winnie-the-Pooh first appeared by ...
'' by
A. A. Milne Alan Alexander Milne (; 18 January 1882 – 31 January 1956) was an English writer best known for his books about the teddy bear Winnie-the-Pooh, as well as children's poetry. Milne was primarily a playwright before the huge success of Winnie-th ...
(England) ''Poetry'' * ''
A Drunk Man Looks at the Thistle ''A Drunk Man Looks at the Thistle'' () is a long poem by Hugh MacDiarmid written in Scots and published in 1926. It is composed as a form of monologue with influences from stream of consciousness genres of writing. A poem of extremes, it rang ...
'' by '
Hugh MacDiarmid Christopher Murray Grieve (11 August 1892 – 9 September 1978), best known by his pen name Hugh MacDiarmid ( , ), was a Scottish poet, journalist, essayist and political figure. He is considered one of the principal forces behind the Scottish ...
' (Scotland) ''Plays'' * ''
The Plough and the Stars ''The Plough and the Stars'' is a four-act play by the Irish writer Seán O'Casey that was first performed on 8 February 1926 at the Abbey Theatre. It is set in Dublin and addresses the 1916 Easter Rising. The play's title references the Sta ...
'' by
Seán O'Casey Seán O'Casey ( ; born John Casey; 30 March 1880 – 18 September 1964) was an Irish dramatist and memoirist. A committed socialist, he was the first Irish playwright of note to write about the Dublin working classes. Early life O'Casey was ...
* ''
Raktakarabi Raktakarabi or Roktokorobi may refer to: * ''Raktakarabi'' (film), 2017 Indian Bengali-language film * ''Raktakarabi'' (play), 1924 play by Rabindranath Tagore * ''Roktokorobi'' (TV series), 2023 TV series {{dis ...
'' by
Rabindranath Tagore Rabindranath Thakur (; anglicised as Rabindranath Tagore ; 7 May 1861 – 7 August 1941) was a Bengalis, Bengali polymath who worked as a poet, writer, playwright, composer, philosopher, social reformer, and painter of the Bengal Renai ...
''Non-fiction'' * ''
Seven Pillars of Wisdom ''Seven Pillars of Wisdom'' is the autobiographical account of the experiences of British Army Colonel T. E. Lawrence ("Lawrence of Arabia") while serving as a military advisor to Bedouin forces during the Arab Revolt against the Ottoman Empi ...
'' by
T. E. Lawrence Thomas Edward Lawrence (16 August 1888 – 19 May 1935) was a British Army officer, archaeologist, diplomat and writer known for his role during the Arab Revolt and Sinai and Palestine campaign against the Ottoman Empire in the First W ...
(England, Arabia) 1927 * ''
To the Lighthouse ''To the Lighthouse'' is a 1927 novel by Virginia Woolf. The novel centres on the Ramsay family and their visits to the Isle of Skye in Scotland between 1910 and 1920. Following and extending the tradition of modernist novelists like Marcel P ...
'' by
Virginia Woolf Adeline Virginia Woolf (; ; 25 January 1882 28 March 1941) was an English writer and one of the most influential 20th-century modernist authors. She helped to pioneer the use of stream of consciousness narration as a literary device. Vir ...
* '' Time Regained'' by
Marcel Proust Valentin Louis Georges Eugène Marcel Proust ( ; ; 10 July 1871 – 18 November 1922) was a French novelist, literary critic, and essayist who wrote the novel (in French – translated in English as ''Remembrance of Things Past'' and more r ...
* '' Steppenwolf'' by
Hermann Hesse Hermann Karl Hesse (; 2 July 1877 – 9 August 1962) was a Germans, German-Swiss people, Swiss poet and novelist, and the 1946 Nobel Prize in Literature laureate. His interest in Eastern philosophy, Eastern religious, spiritual, and philosophic ...
* '' Men Without Women'' by
Ernest Hemingway Ernest Miller Hemingway ( ; July 21, 1899 – July 2, 1961) was an American novelist, short-story writer and journalist. Known for an economical, understated style that influenced later 20th-century writers, he has been romanticized fo ...
– short stories * '' Vestal Fire'' by
Compton Mackenzie Sir Edward Montague Compton Mackenzie, (17 January 1883 – 30 November 1972) was a Scottish writer of fiction, biography, histories and a memoir, as well as a cultural commentator, raconteur and lifelong Scottish nationalist. He was one of t ...
* '' Dusty Answer'' by
Rosamond Lehmann Rosamond Nina Lehmann (3 February 1901 – 12 March 1990) was an English novelist and translator. Her first novel, '' Dusty Answer'' (1927), was a ''succès de scandale''; she subsequently became established in the literary world, and intimat ...
(England) * ''
Elmer Gantry ''Elmer Gantry'' is a 1927 satirical novel written by Sinclair Lewis that presents aspects of the religious activity of the United States in fundamentalist and evangelistic circles and the attitudes of the 1920s public toward it. Reverend Dr. ...
'' by
Sinclair Lewis Harry Sinclair Lewis (February 7, 1885 – January 10, 1951) was an American novelist, short-story writer, and playwright. In 1930 Nobel Prize in Literature, 1930, he became the first author from the United States (and the first from the America ...
* '' The Rocking-Horse Winner'' by
D. H. Lawrence David Herbert Lawrence (11 September 1885 – 2 March 1930) was an English novelist, short story writer, poet, playwright, literary critic, travel writer, essayist, and painter. His modernist works reflect on modernity, social alienation ...
– short stories ''Poetry'' * '' Jhôra Palok'' by
Jibanananda Das Jibanananda Das (17 February 1899 – 22 October 1954) was a Bengali poet, writer, novelist and essayist in the Bengali language. Popularly called "Rupashi Banglar Kabi'' ('Poet of Beautiful Bengal'), Das is the most read Bengali poet after Rab ...
(India) ''Plays'' * ''The Silver Tassie'' by
Seán O'Casey Seán O'Casey ( ; born John Casey; 30 March 1880 – 18 September 1964) was an Irish dramatist and memoirist. A committed socialist, he was the first Irish playwright of note to write about the Dublin working classes. Early life O'Casey was ...
(Ireland) 1928 * ''
Berlin Alexanderplatz ''Berlin Alexanderplatz'' () is a 1929 novel by Alfred Döblin. It is considered one of the most important and innovative works of the Weimar culture, Weimar Republic. In a 2002 poll of 100 noted writers, the book was named among the top 100 bo ...
'' by
Alfred Döblin Bruno Alfred Döblin (; 10 August 1878 – 26 June 1957) was a German novelist, essayist, and doctor, best known for his novel '' Berlin Alexanderplatz'' (1929). A prolific writer whose œuvre spans more than half a century and a wide variety of ...
(Germany) * '' Nadja'' by
André Breton André Robert Breton (; ; 19 February 1896 – 28 September 1966) was a French writer and poet, the co-founder, leader, and principal theorist of surrealism. His writings include the first ''Surrealist Manifesto'' (''Manifeste du surréalisme'') ...
(France) * '' Story of the Eye'' by
Georges Bataille Georges Albert Maurice Victor Bataille (; ; 10 September 1897 – 8 July 1962) was a French philosopher and intellectual working in philosophy, literature, sociology, anthropology, and history of art. His writing, which included essays, novels, ...
(France) * ''
Parade's End ''Parade's End'' is a tetralogy of novels by the British novelist and poet Ford Madox Ford, first published from 1924 to 1928. The novels chronicle the life of a member of the English gentry before, during and after World War I. The setting is ...
'' by
Ford Madox Ford Ford Madox Ford (né Joseph Leopold Ford Hermann Madox Hueffer ( ); 17 December 1873 – 26 June 1939) was an English novelist, poet, critic and editor whose journals ''The English Review'' and ''The Transatlantic Review (1924), The Transatlant ...
– war tetralogy, first volume in 1926 * Gypsy Ballads by
Federico García Lorca Federico del Sagrado Corazón de Jesús García Lorca (5 June 1898 – 19 August 1936) was a Spanish poet, playwright, and theatre director. García Lorca achieved international recognition as an emblematic member of the Generation of '27, a g ...
* ''
Point Counter Point ''Point Counter Point'' is a novel by Aldous Huxley, first published in 1928. It is Huxley's longest novel, and was notably more complex and serious than his earlier fiction. In 1998, the Modern Library ranked ''Point Counter Point'' 44th ...
'' by
Aldous Huxley Aldous Leonard Huxley ( ; 26 July 1894 – 22 November 1963) was an English writer and philosopher. His bibliography spans nearly 50 books, including non-fiction novel, non-fiction works, as well as essays, narratives, and poems. Born into the ...
* ''
Lady Chatterley's Lover ''Lady Chatterley's Lover'' is the final novel by English author D. H. Lawrence, which was first published privately in 1928, in Florence, Italy, and in 1929, in Paris, France. An unexpurgated edition was not published openly in the United Ki ...
'' by
D. H. Lawrence David Herbert Lawrence (11 September 1885 – 2 March 1930) was an English novelist, short story writer, poet, playwright, literary critic, travel writer, essayist, and painter. His modernist works reflect on modernity, social alienation ...
– banned until 1963 * ''
Decline and Fall ''Decline and Fall'' is the first novel by the English author Evelyn Waugh, first published in 1928. It was Waugh's first published novel; an earlier attempt, titled '' The Temple at Thatch'', was destroyed by Waugh while still in manuscript fo ...
'' by
Evelyn Waugh Arthur Evelyn St. John Waugh (; 28 October 1903 – 10 April 1966) was an English writer of novels, biographies, and travel books; he was also a prolific journalist and book reviewer. His most famous works include the early satires ''Decli ...
(England) * '' Amerika'' by
Franz Kafka Franz Kafka (3 July 1883 – 3 June 1924) was a novelist and writer from Prague who was Jewish, Austrian, and Czech and wrote in German. He is widely regarded as a major figure of 20th-century literature. His work fuses elements of Litera ...
– posthumous, first English translation in 1938 * ''
All Quiet on the Western Front ''All Quiet on the Western Front'' () is a semi-autobiographical novel by Erich Maria Remarque, a German veteran of World War I. The book describes the German soldiers' extreme physical and mental trauma during the war as well as the detachme ...
'' by
Erich Maria Remarque Erich Maria Remarque (; ; born Erich Paul Remark; 22 June 1898 – 25 September 1970) was a German novelist. His landmark novel '' All Quiet on the Western Front'' (1928), based on his experience in the Imperial German Army during World War ...
(Germany) – recounts the horrors of World War I and also the deep detachment from German civilian life felt by many men returning from the front * '' Chevengur'' by
Andrei Platonov Andrei Platonovich Platonov ( rus, Андрей Платонович Платонов, , ɐnˈdrʲej plɐˈtonəvʲɪtɕ plɐˈtonəf; []; – 5 January 1951) was a Soviet Russian people, Russian novelist, short story writer, philosopher, play ...
(Soviet Russia, excerpts) * ''The City (Pidmohylny novel), The City'' by
Valerian Pidmohylny Valerian Petrovych Pidmohylny ( Ukrainian: Валер'ян Петрович Підмогильний; 2 February 1901 - 3 November 1937) was a Ukrainian modernist, most famous for his novel '' The City'' (). Like a number of Ukrainian writers ...
(Soviet Ukraine) ''Plays'' * ''
Strange Interlude ''Strange Interlude'' is an experimental play in nine acts by American playwright Eugene O'Neill. It won the 1928 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. ''Strange Interlude'' is one of the few modern plays to make extensive use of a soliloquy technique, in ...
'' by
Eugene O'Neill Eugene Gladstone O'Neill (October 16, 1888 – November 27, 1953) was an American playwright. His poetically titled plays were among the first to introduce into the U.S. the drama techniques of Realism (theatre), realism, earlier associated with ...
(US) – Pulitzer prize winner * '' Messrs. Glembay'' by
Miroslav Krleža Miroslav Krleža (; 7 July 1893 – 29 December 1981) was a Croatian writer who is widely considered to be the greatest Croatian writer of the 20th century. He wrote notable works in all the literary genres, including poetry ('' The Ballads o ...
1929 * '' Les Enfants Terribles'' by
Jean Cocteau Jean Maurice Eugène Clément Cocteau ( , ; ; 5 July 1889 11 October 1963) was a French poet, playwright, novelist, designer, film director, visual artist and critic. He was one of the foremost avant-garde artists of the 20th-c ...
(France) * ''
A Farewell to Arms ''A Farewell to Arms'' is a novel by American writer Ernest Hemingway, set during the Italian campaign of World War I. First published in 1929, it is a first-person account of an American, Frederic Henry, serving as a lieutenant () in the a ...
'' by
Ernest Hemingway Ernest Miller Hemingway ( ; July 21, 1899 – July 2, 1961) was an American novelist, short-story writer and journalist. Known for an economical, understated style that influenced later 20th-century writers, he has been romanticized fo ...
(US) * ''
Look Homeward, Angel ''Look Homeward, Angel: A Story of the Buried Life'' is a 1929 novel by Thomas Wolfe. It is Wolfe's first novel, and is considered a highly autobiographical American coming-of-age story. The character of Eugene Gant is generally believed to be ...
'' by
Thomas Wolfe Thomas Clayton Wolfe (October 3, 1900 – September 15, 1938) was an American novelist and short story writer. He is known largely for his first novel, '' Look Homeward, Angel'' (1929), and for the short fiction that appeared during the last ye ...
* ''
Death of a Hero ''Death of a Hero'' is a World War I novel by Richard Aldington. It was his first novel, published by Chatto & Windus in 1929, and thought to be partly autobiographical. Plot summary ''Death of a Hero'' is the story of a young English arti ...
'' by
Richard Aldington Richard Aldington (born Edward Godfree Aldington; 8 July 1892 – 27 July 1962) was an English writer and poet. He was an early associate of the Imagist movement. His 50-year writing career covered poetry, novels, criticism and biography. He ed ...
(England) * ''
The Sound and the Fury ''The Sound and the Fury'' is a novel by the American author William Faulkner. It employs several narrative styles, including stream of consciousness. Published in 1929, ''The Sound and the Fury'' was Faulkner's fourth novel, and was not immedi ...
'' by
William Faulkner William Cuthbert Faulkner (; September 25, 1897 – July 6, 1962) was an American writer. He is best known for William Faulkner bibliography, his novels and short stories set in the fictional Yoknapatawpha County, Mississippi, a stand-in fo ...
(US) * Doña Bárbara by
Rómulo Gallegos Rómulo Ángel del Monte Carmelo Gallegos Freire (2 August 1884 – 5 April 1969) was a Venezuelan novelist and politician. In 1948, he became the first freely elected President of Venezuela, president in Venezuela's history. He was removed from ...
(Venezuela) * ''
Mario and the Magician ''Mario and the Magician'' () is a novella written by German author Thomas Mann in 1929. It was published by Martin Secker in 1930 in an English translation by Helen Tracy Lowe-Porter, and her translation was included in Thomas Mann's ''Stories ...
'' by
Thomas Mann Paul Thomas Mann ( , ; ; 6 June 1875 – 12 August 1955) was a German novelist, short story writer, social critic, philanthropist, essayist, and the 1929 Nobel Prize in Literature laureate. His highly symbolic and ironic epic novels and novell ...
(Germany) * '' The Escaped Cock'' by
D. H. Lawrence David Herbert Lawrence (11 September 1885 – 2 March 1930) was an English novelist, short story writer, poet, playwright, literary critic, travel writer, essayist, and painter. His modernist works reflect on modernity, social alienation ...
(England) * '' The Defence'' by
Vladimir Nabokov Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov ( ; 2 July 1977), also known by the pen name Vladimir Sirin (), was a Russian and American novelist, poet, translator, and entomologist. Born in Imperial Russia in 1899, Nabokov wrote his first nine novels in Rus ...
(Russia, France) *
Wolf Solent ''Wolf Solent'' is a novel by John Cowper Powys (1872–1963) that was written while he was based in Patchin Place, New York City, and travelling around the US as a lecturer. It was published by Simon and Schuster in May 1929 in New York. The Br ...
by
John Cowper Powys John Cowper Powys ( ; 8 October 187217 June 1963) was an English novelist, philosopher, lecturer, critic and poet born in Shirley, Derbyshire, where his father was vicar of the parish church in 1871–1879. Powys appeared with a volume of verse ...
(England) * ''
The Good Companions ''The Good Companions'' is a novel by the English author J. B. Priestley. Written in 1929, it follows the fortunes of a Concert Party (entertainment), concert party on a tour of England. It is Priestley's most famous novel and established hi ...
'' by J. B. Priestley (England) ''Non-fiction'' * ''
Good-Bye to All That ''Good-Bye to All That'' is an autobiography by Robert Graves which first appeared in 1929, when the author was 34 years old. "It was my bitter leave-taking of England," he wrote in a prologue to the revised second edition of 1957, "where I ha ...
'' by
Robert Graves Captain Robert von Ranke Graves (24 July 1895 – 7 December 1985) was an English poet, soldier, historical novelist and critic. His father was Alfred Perceval Graves, a celebrated Irish poet and figure in the Gaelic revival; they were b ...
(England) * ''
A Room of One's Own ''A Room of One's Own'' is an extended essay, divided into six chapters, by Virginia Woolf, first published in 1929. The work is based on two lectures Woolf delivered in October 1928 at Newnham College, Cambridge, Newnham College and Girton Co ...
'' by
Virginia Woolf Adeline Virginia Woolf (; ; 25 January 1882 28 March 1941) was an English writer and one of the most influential 20th-century modernist authors. She helped to pioneer the use of stream of consciousness narration as a literary device. Vir ...
(England) ''Genre fiction'' * ''
Red Harvest ''Red Harvest'' ( 1929) is a novel by American writer Dashiell Hammett. The story is narrated by the Continental Op, a frequent character in Hammett's fiction, much of which is drawn from his own experiences as an operative of the Pinkerton ...
'' by
Dashiell Hammett Samuel Dashiell Hammett ( ; May 27, 1894 – January 10, 1961) was an American writer of hard-boiled detective novels and short stories. He was also a screenwriter and political activist. Among the characters he created are Sam Spade ('' The Ma ...
(US) – the first hard-boiled American detective novel * '' Yogayog'' by
Rabindranath Tagore Rabindranath Thakur (; anglicised as Rabindranath Tagore ; 7 May 1861 – 7 August 1941) was a Bengalis, Bengali polymath who worked as a poet, writer, playwright, composer, philosopher, social reformer, and painter of the Bengal Renai ...
(India) – original fiction in Bengali 1930 * '' Vile Bodies'' by
Evelyn Waugh Arthur Evelyn St. John Waugh (; 28 October 1903 – 10 April 1966) was an English writer of novels, biographies, and travel books; he was also a prolific journalist and book reviewer. His most famous works include the early satires ''Decli ...
* '' The Apes of God'' by
Wyndham Lewis Percy Wyndham Lewis (18 November 1882 – 7 March 1957) was a British writer, painter and critic. He was a co-founder of the Vorticist movement in art and edited ''Blast (British magazine), Blast'', the literary magazine of the Vorticists. His ...
* '' Brief Candles'' by
Aldous Huxley Aldous Leonard Huxley ( ; 26 July 1894 – 22 November 1963) was an English writer and philosopher. His bibliography spans nearly 50 books, including non-fiction novel, non-fiction works, as well as essays, narratives, and poems. Born into the ...
– short stories * ''
As I Lay Dying ''As I Lay Dying'' is a 1930 Southern Gothic novel by American author William Faulkner. Faulkner's fifth novel, it is consistently ranked among the best novels of the 20th century.The New Lifetime Reading Plan: The Classical Guide to World Lit ...
'' by
William Faulkner William Cuthbert Faulkner (; September 25, 1897 – July 6, 1962) was an American writer. He is best known for William Faulkner bibliography, his novels and short stories set in the fictional Yoknapatawpha County, Mississippi, a stand-in fo ...
* ''
Narcissus and Goldmund ''Narcissus and Goldmund'' (, ), also published in English as ''Death and the Lover'', is a novel written by the German-Swiss author Hermann Hesse which was first published in 1930. At its publication, ''Narcissus and Goldmund'' was considered ...
'' by
Hermann Hesse Hermann Karl Hesse (; 2 July 1877 – 9 August 1962) was a Germans, German-Swiss people, Swiss poet and novelist, and the 1946 Nobel Prize in Literature laureate. His interest in Eastern philosophy, Eastern religious, spiritual, and philosophic ...
* ''
Angel Pavement ''Angel Pavement'' is a novel by J. B. Priestley, published in 1930 after the enormous success of ''The Good Companions'' (1929). It is a social panorama of the city of London, seen largely through the eyes of the employees of the firm Twigg & ...
'' by J. B. Priestley * '' The Virgin and the Gypsy and Love Among the Haystacks'' by
D. H. Lawrence David Herbert Lawrence (11 September 1885 – 2 March 1930) was an English novelist, short story writer, poet, playwright, literary critic, travel writer, essayist, and painter. His modernist works reflect on modernity, social alienation ...
– short stories ''Genre fiction'' * ''
Last and First Men ''Last and First Men: A Story of the Near and Far Future'' is a "future history" science fiction novel written in 1930 by the British author Olaf Stapledon. A work of unprecedented scale in the genre, it describes the history of humanity from t ...
'' by
Olaf Stapledon William Olaf Stapledon (10 May 1886 – 6 September 1950) was an English philosopher and author of science fiction.Andy Sawyer, " illiamOlaf Stapledon (1886-1950)", in Bould, Mark, et al, eds. ''Fifty Key Figures in Science Fiction''. New York ...
(England) * '' The Maltese Falcon'' by
Dashiell Hammett Samuel Dashiell Hammett ( ; May 27, 1894 – January 10, 1961) was an American writer of hard-boiled detective novels and short stories. He was also a screenwriter and political activist. Among the characters he created are Sam Spade ('' The Ma ...
(US) ''Poetry'' * '' Whoroscope'' by
Samuel Beckett Samuel Barclay Beckett (; 13 April 1906 – 22 December 1989) was an Irish writer of novels, plays, short stories, and poems. Writing in both English and French, his literary and theatrical work features bleak, impersonal, and Tragicomedy, tra ...
(Ireland, France) ''Plays'' * ''
Private Lives ''Private Lives'' is a 1930 comedy of manners in three acts by Noël Coward. It concerns a divorced couple who, while honeymooning with their new spouses, discover that they are staying in adjacent rooms at the same hotel. Despite a perpetuall ...
'' by
Noël Coward Sir Noël Peirce Coward (16 December 189926 March 1973) was an English playwright, composer, director, actor, and singer, known for his wit, flamboyance, and what ''Time (magazine), Time'' called "a sense of personal style, a combination of c ...
''Non-fiction'' * ''
Memoirs of a Fox-Hunting Man ''Memoirs of a Fox-Hunting Man'' is a novel by Siegfried Sassoon, first published in 1928 by Faber and Faber. Originally published anonymously, it went on to become a bestseller, and won both the Hawthornden Prize and the James Tait Black Memori ...
'' by
Siegfried Sassoon Siegfried Loraine Sassoon (8 September 1886 – 1 September 1967) was an English war poet, writer, and soldier. Decorated for bravery on the Western Front (World War I), Western Front, he became one of the leading poets of the First World ...
(England) – 2 volumes, 1st in 1929 1931 * '' The Good Earth'' by Pearl S. Buck * ''
The Waves ''The Waves'' is a 1931 novel by English novelist Virginia Woolf. It is critically regarded as her most experimental work, consisting of ambiguous and cryptic soliloquies spoken mainly by six characters: Bernard, Susan, Rhoda, Neville, Jinny an ...
'' by
Virginia Woolf Adeline Virginia Woolf (; ; 25 January 1882 28 March 1941) was an English writer and one of the most influential 20th-century modernist authors. She helped to pioneer the use of stream of consciousness narration as a literary device. Vir ...
* '' Night Flight'' by
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry Antoine Marie Jean-Baptiste Roger, vicomte de Saint-Exupéry (29 June 1900 – 31 July 1944), known simply as Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (, , ), was a French writer, poet, journalist and aviator. Born in Lyon to an French nobility, aristocratic ...
(France) ''Genre fiction'' * ''
The Glass Key ''The Glass Key'' is a novel by American writer Dashiell Hammett. First published as a serial in '' Black Mask'' magazine in 1930, it then was collected in 1931 (in London; the American edition followed 3 months later). It tells the story of a ...
'' by
Dashiell Hammett Samuel Dashiell Hammett ( ; May 27, 1894 – January 10, 1961) was an American writer of hard-boiled detective novels and short stories. He was also a screenwriter and political activist. Among the characters he created are Sam Spade ('' The Ma ...
* ''
At the Mountains of Madness ''At the Mountains of Madness'' is a science-fiction and cosmic horror novella by the American author H. P. Lovecraft, written in February/March 1931 and published in 1936. Rejected that year by ''Weird Tales'' editor Farnsworth Wright on t ...
'' by
H. P. Lovecraft Howard Phillips Lovecraft (, ; August 20, 1890 – March 15, 1937) was an American writer of Weird fiction, weird, Science fiction, science, fantasy, and horror fiction. He is best known for his creation of the Cthulhu Mythos. Born in Provi ...
''Plays'' * ''
Mourning Becomes Electra ''Mourning Becomes Electra'' is a play cycle written by American playwright Eugene O'Neill. The play premiered on Broadway at the Guild Theatre on 26 October 1931 where it ran for 150 performances before closing in March 1932, starring Lee Ba ...
'' by
Eugene O'Neill Eugene Gladstone O'Neill (October 16, 1888 – November 27, 1953) was an American playwright. His poetically titled plays were among the first to introduce into the U.S. the drama techniques of Realism (theatre), realism, earlier associated with ...
* ''
Cavalcade A cavalcade is a procession or parade on horseback, or a mass distance ride by a company of riders. Sometimes the focus of a cavalcade is participation rather than display and the participants do not wear costumes or ride in formation. ...
'' by
Noël Coward Sir Noël Peirce Coward (16 December 189926 March 1973) was an English playwright, composer, director, actor, and singer, known for his wit, flamboyance, and what ''Time (magazine), Time'' called "a sense of personal style, a combination of c ...
''Non-fiction'' * ''
Axel's Castle ''Axel's Castle: A Study in the Imaginative Literature of 1870–1930'' is a 1931 book of literary criticism by Edmund Wilson on the Symbolist movement in literature. Contents It includes a brief overview of the movement's origins and chapters ...
'' by
Edmund Wilson Edmund Wilson Jr. (May 8, 1895 – June 12, 1972) was an American writer, literary critic, and journalist. He is widely regarded as one of the most important literary critics of the 20th century. Wilson began his career as a journalist, writing ...
(US) * '' Music at Night'' by
Aldous Huxley Aldous Leonard Huxley ( ; 26 July 1894 – 22 November 1963) was an English writer and philosopher. His bibliography spans nearly 50 books, including non-fiction novel, non-fiction works, as well as essays, narratives, and poems. Born into the ...
1932 * '' The Return of Philip Latinowicz'' by
Miroslav Krleža Miroslav Krleža (; 7 July 1893 – 29 December 1981) was a Croatian writer who is widely considered to be the greatest Croatian writer of the 20th century. He wrote notable works in all the literary genres, including poetry ('' The Ballads o ...
* '' Journey to the End of Night'' by
Louis-Ferdinand Céline Louis Ferdinand Auguste Destouches (27 May 1894 – 1 July 1961), better known by the pen name Louis-Ferdinand Céline ( ; ), was a French novelist, polemicist, and physician. His first novel '' Journey to the End of the Night'' (1932) won the ' ...
(France) * ''
Brave New World ''Brave New World'' is a dystopian novel by English author Aldous Huxley, written in 1931, and published in 1932. Largely set in a futuristic World State, whose citizens are environmentally engineered into an intelligence-based social hier ...
'' by
Aldous Huxley Aldous Leonard Huxley ( ; 26 July 1894 – 22 November 1963) was an English writer and philosopher. His bibliography spans nearly 50 books, including non-fiction novel, non-fiction works, as well as essays, narratives, and poems. Born into the ...
(England) * '' The Memorial'' by
Christopher Isherwood Christopher William Bradshaw Isherwood (26 August 1904 – 4 January 1986) was an Anglo-American novelist, playwright, screenwriter, autobiographer, and diarist. His best-known works include '' Goodbye to Berlin'' (1939), a semi-autobiographical ...
(England) * '' Laughter in the Dark'' by
Vladimir Nabokov Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov ( ; 2 July 1977), also known by the pen name Vladimir Sirin (), was a Russian and American novelist, poet, translator, and entomologist. Born in Imperial Russia in 1899, Nabokov wrote his first nine novels in Rus ...
(Russia, France) * ''
Light in August ''Light in August'' is a 1932 novel by American author William Faulkner. It belongs to the Southern Gothic and modernist literary genres. Set in the author's present day, the interwar period, the novel centers on two strangers, a pregnant wh ...
'' by
William Faulkner William Cuthbert Faulkner (; September 25, 1897 – July 6, 1962) was an American writer. He is best known for William Faulkner bibliography, his novels and short stories set in the fictional Yoknapatawpha County, Mississippi, a stand-in fo ...
* ''
A Glastonbury Romance ''A Glastonbury Romance'' was written by John Cowper Powys (1873–1963) in rural upstate New York (state), New York and first published by Simon and Schuster in New York City in March 1932. An English edition published by John Lane (publis ...
'' by
John Cowper Powys John Cowper Powys ( ; 8 October 187217 June 1963) was an English novelist, philosopher, lecturer, critic and poet born in Shirley, Derbyshire, where his father was vicar of the parish church in 1871–1879. Powys appeared with a volume of verse ...
* '' Stamboul Train'' by
Graham Greene Henry Graham Greene (2 October 1904 – 3 April 1991) was an English writer and journalist regarded by many as one of the leading novelists of the 20th century. Combining literary acclaim with widespread popularity, Greene acquired a re ...
(England) * '' Black Mischief'' by
Evelyn Waugh Arthur Evelyn St. John Waugh (; 28 October 1903 – 10 April 1966) was an English writer of novels, biographies, and travel books; he was also a prolific journalist and book reviewer. His most famous works include the early satires ''Decli ...
* ''
Radetzky March The "Radetzky March", Op. 228, (; ) is a march composed by Johann Strauss (Senior) which was first performed on 31 August 1848 in Vienna to celebrate the victory of the Austrian Empire under Field Marshal Joseph Radetzky von Radetz (the piec ...
'' by
Joseph Roth Moses Joseph Roth (2 September 1894 – 27 May 1939) was an Austrian-Jewish journalist and novelist, best known for his family saga '' Radetzky March'' (1932), about the decline and fall of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, his novel of Jewish life ...
(Austria) * ''
Jew Boy Jews (, , ), or the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group and nation, originating from the Israelites of ancient Israel and Judah. They also traditionally adhere to Judaism. Jewish ethnicity, religion, and community are highly inte ...
'' by
Simon Blumenfeld Simon Blumenfeld (25 November 1907 – 13 April 2005) was a British columnist, novelist, playwright, theatre critic, editor and Communist. Although he described himself as Jewish, he was born to a family of Sicilian refugees, who eventually ...
(England) ''Poetry'' * '' The Orators'' by
W. H. Auden Wystan Hugh Auden (; 21 February 1907 – 29 September 1973) was a British-American poet. Auden's poetry is noted for its stylistic and technical achievement, its engagement with politics, morals, love, and religion, and its variety in tone, ...
(England) 1933 * ''
Man's Fate ''Man's Fate'' (French: ''La Condition humaine'', "The Human Condition") is a 1933 novel written by André Malraux about the failed communist insurrection in Shanghai in 1927, and the existential quandaries facing a diverse group of people asso ...
'' by
André Malraux Georges André Malraux ( ; ; 3 November 1901 – 23 November 1976) was a French novelist, art theorist, and minister of cultural affairs. Malraux's novel ''La Condition Humaine'' (''Man's Fate'') (1933) won the Prix Goncourt. He was appointed ...
(France) * '' Love on the Dole'' by
Walter Greenwood Walter Greenwood (17 December 1903 – 13 September 1974) was an English novelist, best known for the socially influential novel '' Love on the Dole'' (1933). Early life Greenwood was born at 56 Ellor Street, his father's house and hairdr ...
(England) * ''
Miss Lonelyhearts ''Miss Lonelyhearts'' is a novella by Nathanael West. He began writing it early in 1930 and completed the manuscript in November 1932. Published in 1933, it is an Expressionist Expressionism is a modernist movement, initially in poetry and ...
'' by
Nathanael West Nathanael West (born Nathan Weinstein; October 17, 1903 – December 22, 1940) was an American writer and screenwriter. He is remembered for two darkly satirical novels: '' Miss Lonelyhearts'' (1933) and '' The Day of the Locust'' (1939), set ...
(US) * '' The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas'' by
Gertrude Stein Gertrude Stein (February 3, 1874 – July 27, 1946) was an American novelist, poet, playwright, and art collector. Born in Allegheny, Pennsylvania (now part of Pittsburgh), and raised in Oakland, California, Stein moved to Paris in 1903, and ...
* '' Cat Country'' by
Lao She Shu Qingchun (3 February 189924 August 1966), known by his pen name Lao She, was a Chinese writer of Manchu ethnicity, known for his vivid portrayal of urban life and his colorful use of the Beijing dialect, such as in the novel '' Rickshaw Boy' ...
(China) ''Genre fiction'' * ''
Lost Horizon ''Lost Horizon'' is a 1933 novel by the English writer James Hilton. The book was turned into a film, also called '' Lost Horizon'', in 1937 by the director Frank Capra and a musical remake in 1973 by the producer Ross Hunter with music by Bu ...
'' by James Hilton (England) * '' Murder Must Advertise'' by
Dorothy L. Sayers Dorothy Leigh Sayers ( ; 13 June 1893 – 17 December 1957) was an English crime novelist, playwright, translator and critic. Born in Oxford, Sayers was brought up in rural East Anglia and educated at Godolphin School in Salisbury and Somerv ...
(England) * '' The Oppermanns'' by
Lion Feuchtwanger Lion Feuchtwanger (; 7 July 1884 – 21 December 1958) was a German Jewish novelist and playwright. A prominent figure in the literary world of Weimar Republic, Weimar Germany, he influenced contemporaries including playwright Bertolt Brecht. ...
''Non-fiction'' * ''
Down and Out in Paris and London ''Down and Out in Paris and London'' is the first full-length work by the English author George Orwell, published in 1933. It is a memoir in two parts on the theme of poverty in the two cities. Its target audience was the middle- and upper-cla ...
'' by
George Orwell Eric Arthur Blair (25 June 1903 – 21 January 1950) was an English novelist, poet, essayist, journalist, and critic who wrote under the pen name of George Orwell. His work is characterised by lucid prose, social criticism, opposition to a ...
(England) * '' Texts and Pretexts'' by
Aldous Huxley Aldous Leonard Huxley ( ; 26 July 1894 – 22 November 1963) was an English writer and philosopher. His bibliography spans nearly 50 books, including non-fiction novel, non-fiction works, as well as essays, narratives, and poems. Born into the ...
* '' In Praise of Shadows'' by
Jun'ichirō Tanizaki was a Japanese author who is considered to be one of the most prominent figures in modern Japanese literature. The tone and subject matter of his work range from shocking depictions of sexuality and destructive erotic obsessions to subtle portr ...
1934 * ''
Tropic of Cancer The Tropic of Cancer, also known as the Northern Tropic, is the Earth's northernmost circle of latitude where the Sun can be seen directly overhead. This occurs on the June solstice, when the Northern Hemisphere is tilted toward the Sun ...
'' by
Henry Miller Henry Valentine Miller (December 26, 1891 – June 7, 1980) was an American novelist, short story writer and essayist. He broke with existing literary forms and developed a new type of semi-autobiographical novel that blended character study, so ...
(US) – a groundbreaking obscenity case before the
U.S. Supreme Court The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that turn on question ...
in 1961 allowed its publication there * ''
Call It Sleep ''Call It Sleep'' is a 1934 novel by Henry Roth. The book is about a young boy growing up in the Jewish immigrant ghetto of New York's Lower East Side in the early 20th century. Although it earned acclaim, the book sold poorly and was out of p ...
'' by
Henry Roth Henry Roth (February 8, 1906 – October 13, 1995) was an American novelist and short story writer who found success later in life after his 1934 novel '' Call It Sleep'' was reissued in paperback in 1964. Biography Roth was born in Tysmenitz n ...
(Austria, US) * ''
Tender Is the Night ''Tender Is the Night'' is the fourth and final novel completed by American writer F. Scott Fitzgerald. Set in the French Riviera during the twilight of the Jazz Age, the 1934 novel chronicles the rise and fall of Dick Diver, a promising young ...
'' by F. Scott Fitzgerald * '' Threepenny Novel'' by
Bertolt Brecht Eugen Berthold Friedrich Brecht (10 February 1898 – 14 August 1956), known as Bertolt Brecht and Bert Brecht, was a German theatre practitioner, playwright, and poet. Coming of age during the Weimar Republic, he had his first successes as a p ...
(Germany) * '' Despair'' by
Vladimir Nabokov Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov ( ; 2 July 1977), also known by the pen name Vladimir Sirin (), was a Russian and American novelist, poet, translator, and entomologist. Born in Imperial Russia in 1899, Nabokov wrote his first nine novels in Rus ...
* '' It's a Battlefield'' by
Graham Greene Henry Graham Greene (2 October 1904 – 3 April 1991) was an English writer and journalist regarded by many as one of the leading novelists of the 20th century. Combining literary acclaim with widespread popularity, Greene acquired a re ...
* ''
A Handful of Dust ''A Handful of Dust'' is a novel by the British writer Evelyn Waugh. First published in 1934, it is often grouped with the author's early, satirical comic novels for which he became famous in the pre–World War II years. Some commentators re ...
'' by
Evelyn Waugh Arthur Evelyn St. John Waugh (; 28 October 1903 – 10 April 1966) was an English writer of novels, biographies, and travel books; he was also a prolific journalist and book reviewer. His most famous works include the early satires ''Decli ...
* '' 20,000 Streets Under the Sky'' by Patrick Hamilton (England) * '' Voyage in the Dark'' by
Jean Rhys Jean Rhys, ( ; born Ella Gwendoline Rees Williams; 24 August 1890 – 14 May 1979) was a novelist who was born and grew up in the Caribbean island of Dominica. From the age of 16, she resided mainly in England, where she was sent for her educa ...
(
Dominica Dominica, officially the Commonwealth of Dominica, is an island country in the Caribbean. It is part of the Windward Islands chain in the Lesser Antilles archipelago in the Caribbean Sea. The capital, Roseau, is located on the western side of t ...
, France, England) * '' Appointment in Samarra'' by
John O'Hara John Henry O'Hara (January 31, 1905 – April 11, 1970) was an American writer. He was one of America's most prolific writers of Short story, short stories, credited with helping to invent ''The New Yorker'' magazine short story style.John O'H ...
(US) * '' A Scots Quair'' by Lewis Grassic Gibbon (Scotland) – trilogy, first volume published in 1932 * ''
Novel with Cocaine ''Novel with Cocaine'' (, also translated as ''Cocain Romance'' and ''Romance with Cocaine'') is a novel first published in 1934 in literature, 1934 in a Russian émigré literary magazine ''Chisla'' (''Numbers'') under a pen name M. Ageyev. Th ...
aka Cocain Romance'' by M. Ageyev (France) ''Genre fiction'' * '' The Postman Always Rings Twice'' by James M. Cain (US) ''Poetry'' * '' 18 Poems'' by
Dylan Thomas Dylan Marlais Thomas (27 October 1914 – 9 November 1953) was a Welsh poet and writer, whose works include the poems " Do not go gentle into that good night" and " And death shall have no dominion", as well as the "play for voices" ''Un ...
(
Wales Wales ( ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is bordered by the Irish Sea to the north and west, England to the England–Wales border, east, the Bristol Channel to the south, and the Celtic ...
) ''Non-fiction'' * ''
Burmese Days ''Burmese Days'' is the first novel and second book by English writer George Orwell, published in 1934. Set in British Burma during the waning days of empire, when Burma was ruled from Delhi as part of British India, the novel serves as "a po ...
'' by
George Orwell Eric Arthur Blair (25 June 1903 – 21 January 1950) was an English novelist, poet, essayist, journalist, and critic who wrote under the pen name of George Orwell. His work is characterised by lucid prose, social criticism, opposition to a ...
* ''
Death in the Afternoon ''Death in the Afternoon'' is a non-fiction book written by Ernest Hemingway Ernest Miller Hemingway ( ; July 21, 1899 – July 2, 1961) was an American novelist, short-story writer and journalist. Known for an economical, understat ...
'' by
Ernest Hemingway Ernest Miller Hemingway ( ; July 21, 1899 – July 2, 1961) was an American novelist, short-story writer and journalist. Known for an economical, understated style that influenced later 20th-century writers, he has been romanticized fo ...
1935 * ''
Mr Norris Changes Trains ''Mr Norris Changes Trains'' (published in the United States as ''The Last of Mr. Norris'') is a 1935 novel by the British writer Christopher Isherwood. It is frequently included with '' Goodbye to Berlin'', another Isherwood novel, in a singl ...
'' by
Christopher Isherwood Christopher William Bradshaw Isherwood (26 August 1904 – 4 January 1986) was an Anglo-American novelist, playwright, screenwriter, autobiographer, and diarist. His best-known works include '' Goodbye to Berlin'' (1939), a semi-autobiographical ...
* '' Eyeless in Gaza'' by
Aldous Huxley Aldous Leonard Huxley ( ; 26 July 1894 – 22 November 1963) was an English writer and philosopher. His bibliography spans nearly 50 books, including non-fiction novel, non-fiction works, as well as essays, narratives, and poems. Born into the ...
* '' Auto-da-Fe'' by
Elias Canetti Elias Canetti (; 25 July 1905 – 14 August 1994; ; ) was a German-language writer, known as a Literary modernism, modernist novelist, playwright, memoirist, and nonfiction writer. Born in Ruse, Bulgaria, to a Sephardi Jews, Sephardic Jewish fam ...
(
Bulgaria Bulgaria, officially the Republic of Bulgaria, is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the eastern portion of the Balkans directly south of the Danube river and west of the Black Sea. Bulgaria is bordered by Greece and Turkey t ...
, Germany) * ''
A Clergyman's Daughter ''A Clergyman's Daughter'' is a 1935 novel by English author George Orwell. It tells the story of Dorothy Hare, the titular clergyman's daughter, whose life is turned upside down when she suffers an attack of amnesia. It is Orwell's most formall ...
'' by
George Orwell Eric Arthur Blair (25 June 1903 – 21 January 1950) was an English novelist, poet, essayist, journalist, and critic who wrote under the pen name of George Orwell. His work is characterised by lucid prose, social criticism, opposition to a ...
* '' England Made Me'' by
Graham Greene Henry Graham Greene (2 October 1904 – 3 April 1991) was an English writer and journalist regarded by many as one of the leading novelists of the 20th century. Combining literary acclaim with widespread popularity, Greene acquired a re ...
* '' A House in Paris'' by
Elizabeth Bowen Elizabeth Dorothea Cole Bowen ( ; 7 June 1899 – 22 February 1973) was an Anglo-Irish people, Anglo-Irish novelist and short story writer notable for her books about "The Big House in Ireland, the Big House" of Irish Landed gentry, landed ...
(Ireland) * ''
Tortilla Flat ''Tortilla Flat'' (1935) is an early John Steinbeck novel set in Monterey, California. The novel was the author's first clear critical and commercial success. The book portrays a group of 'paisanos'—literally, countrymen—a small band of e ...
'' by
John Steinbeck John Ernst Steinbeck ( ; February 27, 1902 – December 20, 1968) was an American writer. He won the 1962 Nobel Prize in Literature "for his realistic and imaginative writings, combining as they do sympathetic humor and keen social percep ...
(US) * '' Studs Lonigan'' by James T. Farrell (US) – trilogy, first volume published in 1932 ''Genre fiction'' * ''
Little House on the Prairie The ''Little House on the Prairie'' books comprise a series of American children's novels written by Laura Ingalls Wilder (b. Laura Elizabeth Ingalls). The stories are based on her childhood and adulthood in the Midwestern United States, Americ ...
'' by
Laura Ingalls Wilder Laura Elizabeth Ingalls Wilder (February 7, 1867 – February 10, 1957) was an American writer, teacher, and journalist. She is best known as the author of the children's book series ''Little House on the Prairie'', published between 1932 and 1 ...
(US) ''Poetry'' * '' Collected Poems'' by
Cecil Day-Lewis Cecil Day-Lewis (or Day Lewis; 27 April 1904 – 22 May 1972), often written as C. Day-Lewis, was an Anglo-Irish poet and Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom from 1968 until his death in 1972. He also wrote mystery stories under the pseudony ...
(Northern Ireland) ''Plays'' * ''
Waiting for Lefty ''Waiting for Lefty'' is a 1935 play by the American playwright Clifford Odets; it was his first play to be produced. Consisting of a series of related vignettes, the entire play is framed by a meeting of cab drivers who are planning a lab ...
'' by
Clifford Odets Clifford Odets (July 18, 1906 – August 14, 1963) was an American playwright, screenwriter, and actor. In the mid-1930s, he was widely seen as the potential successor to Nobel Prize–winning playwright Eugene O'Neill, as O'Neill began to withd ...
(US) 1936 * '' Death on the Installment Plan'' by
Louis-Ferdinand Céline Louis Ferdinand Auguste Destouches (27 May 1894 – 1 July 1961), better known by the pen name Louis-Ferdinand Céline ( ; ), was a French novelist, polemicist, and physician. His first novel '' Journey to the End of the Night'' (1932) won the ' ...
* '' Black Spring'' by
Henry Miller Henry Valentine Miller (December 26, 1891 – June 7, 1980) was an American novelist, short story writer and essayist. He broke with existing literary forms and developed a new type of semi-autobiographical novel that blended character study, so ...
* '' U.S.A.'' by
John Dos Passos John Roderigo Dos Passos (; January 14, 1896 – September 28, 1970) was an American novelist, most notable for his U.S.A. (trilogy), ''U.S.A.'' trilogy. Born in Chicago, Dos Passos graduated from Harvard College in 1916. He traveled widely as a ...
* '' Mephisto'' by
Klaus Mann Klaus Heinrich Thomas Mann (18 November 1906 – 21 May 1949) was a German writer and dissident. He was the son of Thomas Mann, a nephew of Heinrich Mann and brother of Erika Mann (with whom he maintained a lifelong close relationship) and Go ...
(Germany, US) * '' Absalom, Absalom!'' by
William Faulkner William Cuthbert Faulkner (; September 25, 1897 – July 6, 1962) was an American writer. He is best known for William Faulkner bibliography, his novels and short stories set in the fictional Yoknapatawpha County, Mississippi, a stand-in fo ...
* ''
Keep the Aspidistra Flying ''Keep the Aspidistra Flying'', first published in 1936, is a socially critical novel by George Orwell set in 1930s London. The main theme is Gordon Comstock's romantic ambition to defy worship of the money-god and status, and the dismal lif ...
'' by
George Orwell Eric Arthur Blair (25 June 1903 – 21 January 1950) was an English novelist, poet, essayist, journalist, and critic who wrote under the pen name of George Orwell. His work is characterised by lucid prose, social criticism, opposition to a ...
* '' Confession of a Murderer'' by
Joseph Roth Moses Joseph Roth (2 September 1894 – 27 May 1939) was an Austrian-Jewish journalist and novelist, best known for his family saga '' Radetzky March'' (1932), about the decline and fall of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, his novel of Jewish life ...
* ''
Invitation to a Beheading ''Invitation to a Beheading'' () is a novel by Russian American author Vladimir Nabokov. It was originally published in Russian from 1935 to 1936 as a serial in '' Sovremennye zapiski'', a Russian émigré magazine. In 1938, the work was publishe ...
'' by
Vladimir Nabokov Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov ( ; 2 July 1977), also known by the pen name Vladimir Sirin (), was a Russian and American novelist, poet, translator, and entomologist. Born in Imperial Russia in 1899, Nabokov wrote his first nine novels in Rus ...
* '' The Wessex Novels'' by
John Cowper Powys John Cowper Powys ( ; 8 October 187217 June 1963) was an English novelist, philosopher, lecturer, critic and poet born in Shirley, Derbyshire, where his father was vicar of the parish church in 1871–1879. Powys appeared with a volume of verse ...
(England) – tetralogy, 1st vol published in 1927 * ''
Godaan ''Godaan'' (, ) is a Hindi novel by Munshi Premchand. It was first published in 1936 and is considered one of the greatest novels of modern Indian literature. Themed around the socio-economic deprivation as well as the exploitation of the vil ...
'' by
Premchand Dhanpat Rai Srivastava (31 July 1880 – 8 October 1936), better known as Munshi Premchand based on his pen name Premchand (), was an Indian writer famous for his modern Hindustani language, Hindustani literature. Premchand was a pioneer ...
''Poetry'' * ''
Ballads of Petrica Kerempuh ''The Ballads of Petrica Kerempuh'' () is a philosophically poetic work by the Croatian writer Miroslav Krleža, comprising thirty poems published between December 1935 and March 1936. Overview The work spans a period of five centuries, focusi ...
'' by
Miroslav Krleža Miroslav Krleža (; 7 July 1893 – 29 December 1981) was a Croatian writer who is widely considered to be the greatest Croatian writer of the 20th century. He wrote notable works in all the literary genres, including poetry ('' The Ballads o ...
* ''Dhushor Pandulipi'' by
Jibanananda Das Jibanananda Das (17 February 1899 – 22 October 1954) was a Bengali poet, writer, novelist and essayist in the Bengali language. Popularly called "Rupashi Banglar Kabi'' ('Poet of Beautiful Bengal'), Das is the most read Bengali poet after Rab ...
(India) ''Genre fiction'' * ''
Jamaica Inn The Jamaica Inn is a traditional inn on Bodmin Moor in Cornwall, England, which was built as a coaching inn in 1750, and has a historical association with smuggling. Located just off the A30, near the middle of the moor close to the hamlet of ...
'' by
Daphne du Maurier Dame Daphne du Maurier, Lady Browning, (; 13 May 1907 – 19 April 1989) was an English novelist, biographer and playwright. Her parents were actor-manager Gerald du Maurier, Sir Gerald du Maurier and his wife, actress Muriel Beaumont. Her gra ...
(England) * ''
Gone with the Wind Gone with the Wind most often refers to: * Gone with the Wind (novel), ''Gone with the Wind'' (novel), a 1936 novel by Margaret Mitchell * Gone with the Wind (film), ''Gone with the Wind'' (film), the 1939 adaptation of the novel Gone with the Wind ...
'' by
Margaret Mitchell Margaret Munnerlyn Mitchell (November 8, 1900 – August 16, 1949) was an American novelist and journalist. Mitchell wrote only one novel that was published during her lifetime, the American Civil War-era novel ''Gone With the Wind (novel), Gone ...
(US) * '' A Gun for Sale'' by
Graham Greene Henry Graham Greene (2 October 1904 – 3 April 1991) was an English writer and journalist regarded by many as one of the leading novelists of the 20th century. Combining literary acclaim with widespread popularity, Greene acquired a re ...
1937 * '' To Have and Have Not'' by
Ernest Hemingway Ernest Miller Hemingway ( ; July 21, 1899 – July 2, 1961) was an American novelist, short-story writer and journalist. Known for an economical, understated style that influenced later 20th-century writers, he has been romanticized fo ...
* ''
The Years ''The Years'' is a 1937 novel by Virginia Woolf, the last she published in her lifetime. It traces the history of the Pargiter family from the 1880s to the "present day" of the mid-1930s. Although spanning fifty years, the novel is not epic i ...
'' by
Virginia Woolf Adeline Virginia Woolf (; ; 25 January 1882 28 March 1941) was an English writer and one of the most influential 20th-century modernist authors. She helped to pioneer the use of stream of consciousness narration as a literary device. Vir ...
* ''
Of Mice and Men ''Of Mice and Men'' is a 1937 novella written by American author John Steinbeck. It describes the experiences of George Milton and Lennie Small, two displaced migrant worker, migrant ranch workers, as they move from place to place in California ...
'' by
John Steinbeck John Ernst Steinbeck ( ; February 27, 1902 – December 20, 1968) was an American writer. He won the 1962 Nobel Prize in Literature "for his realistic and imaginative writings, combining as they do sympathetic humor and keen social percep ...
* '' Lions and Shadows'' by
Christopher Isherwood Christopher William Bradshaw Isherwood (26 August 1904 – 4 January 1986) was an Anglo-American novelist, playwright, screenwriter, autobiographer, and diarist. His best-known works include '' Goodbye to Berlin'' (1939), a semi-autobiographical ...
* '' The Black Book'' by
Lawrence Durrell Lawrence George Durrell (; 27 February 1912 – 7 November 1990) was an expatriate British novelist, poet, dramatist, and travel writer. He was the eldest brother of naturalist and writer Gerald Durrell. Born in India to British colonial pa ...
(UK, Egypt) * '' Ferdydurke'' by
Witold Gombrowicz Witold Marian Gombrowicz (August 4, 1904 – July 24, 1969) was a Polish writer and playwright. His works are characterised by deep psychological analysis, a certain sense of paradox and absurd, anti-nationalism, anti-nationalist flavor. In 1937, ...
(Poland) * '' Revenge for Love'' by
Wyndham Lewis Percy Wyndham Lewis (18 November 1882 – 7 March 1957) was a British writer, painter and critic. He was a co-founder of the Vorticist movement in art and edited ''Blast (British magazine), Blast'', the literary magazine of the Vorticists. His ...
* ''
White Mule White is the lightest color and is achromatic (having no chroma). It is the color of objects such as snow, chalk, and milk, and is the opposite of black. White objects fully (or almost fully) reflect and scatter all the visible wavelen ...
'' by
William Carlos Williams William Carlos Williams (September 17, 1883 – March 4, 1963) was an American poet and physician closely associated with modernism and imagism. His '' Spring and All'' (1923) was written in the wake of T. S. Eliot's '' The Waste Land'' (1922). ...
* '' Wide Boys Never Work'' by Robert Westerby (England, US) * ''
Rickshaw Boy ''Rickshaw Boy'' or ''Camel Xiangzi'' () is a novel by the Chinese author Lao She about the life of a fictional Beijing Pulled rickshaw, rickshaw man. It is considered a classic of 20th-century Chinese literature. History Lao She began the no ...
'' by
Lao She Shu Qingchun (3 February 189924 August 1966), known by his pen name Lao She, was a Chinese writer of Manchu ethnicity, known for his vivid portrayal of urban life and his colorful use of the Beijing dialect, such as in the novel '' Rickshaw Boy' ...
(China) * ''
The Life of Klim Samgin ''The Life of Klim Samgin'' () is a four-volume novel written by Maxim Gorky from 1925 up to his death in 1936. It is Gorky's most ambitious work, intended to depict "all the classes, all the trends, all the tendencies, all the hell-like commotio ...
'' by
Maxim Gorky Alexei Maximovich Peshkov (;  – 18 June 1936), popularly known as Maxim Gorky (; ), was a Russian and Soviet writer and proponent of socialism. He was nominated five times for the Nobel Prize in Literature. Before his success as an aut ...
– posthumous, tetralogy, first three volumes published in 1927–1931 ''Genre fiction'' * ''
Star Maker ''Star Maker'' is a science fiction novel by British writer Olaf Stapledon, published in 1937. Continuing the theme of the author's previous book, ''Last and First Men'' (1930)—which narrated a history of the human species over two billion ...
'' by
Olaf Stapledon William Olaf Stapledon (10 May 1886 – 6 September 1950) was an English philosopher and author of science fiction.Andy Sawyer, " illiamOlaf Stapledon (1886-1950)", in Bould, Mark, et al, eds. ''Fifty Key Figures in Science Fiction''. New York ...
* ''
Night and the City ''Night and the City'' is a 1950 British film noir directed by Jules Dassin and starring Richard Widmark, Gene Tierney and Googie Withers. It is based on the novel of the same name by Gerald Kersh. Shot on location in London and at Shepp ...
'' by Gerald Kersh (England, US) * '' The Face on the Cutting-Room Floor'' by Cameron McCabe (
Ernest Bornemann Ernst Wilhelm Julius Bornemann (12 April 1915 – 4 June 1995), also known by his self-chosen anglicisation Ernest Borneman, was a German crime writer, filmmaker, anthropologist, ethnomusicologist, psychoanalyst, sexologist, communist agitator ...
) (Germany, England) * ''
The Hobbit ''The Hobbit, or There and Back Again'' is a children's fantasy novel by the English author J. R. R. Tolkien. It was published in 1937 to wide critical acclaim, being nominated for the Carnegie Medal and awarded a prize from the ...
'' by
J. R. R. Tolkien John Ronald Reuel Tolkien (, 3 January 1892 – 2 September 1973) was an English writer and philologist. He was the author of the high fantasy works ''The Hobbit'' and ''The Lord of the Rings''. From 1925 to 1945, Tolkien was the Rawlinson ...
(England) ''Non-fiction'' * ''
The Road to Wigan Pier ''The Road to Wigan Pier'' is a book by the English writer George Orwell, first published in 1937. Its first half documents his sociological investigations of the bleak living conditions among the working class in Lancashire and Yorkshire in the ...
'' by
George Orwell Eric Arthur Blair (25 June 1903 – 21 January 1950) was an English novelist, poet, essayist, journalist, and critic who wrote under the pen name of George Orwell. His work is characterised by lucid prose, social criticism, opposition to a ...
* ''
How Green Was My Valley ''How Green Was My Valley'' is a 1939 novel by Richard Llewellyn, narrated by Huw Morgan, the main character, about his Welsh family and the mining community in which they live. The author had claimed that he based the book on his own experi ...
'' by
Richard Llewellyn Richard Dafydd Vivian Llewellyn Lloyd (; 8 December 1906, London – 30 November 1983, Dublin), known by his pen name Richard Llewellyn ( , ), was a British novelist of a Welsh background, who is best remembered for his 1939 novel '' How G ...
(Wales) 1938 * ''
Nausea Nausea is a diffuse sensation of unease and discomfort, sometimes perceived as an urge to vomit. It can be a debilitating symptom if prolonged and has been described as placing discomfort on the chest, abdomen, or back of the throat. Over 30 d ...
'' by
Jean-Paul Sartre Jean-Paul Charles Aymard Sartre (, ; ; 21 June 1905 – 15 April 1980) was a French philosopher, playwright, novelist, screenwriter, political activist, biographer, and literary criticism, literary critic, considered a leading figure in 20th ...
(France) * ''
Murphy Murphy is an Irish surname meaning "Sea Warrior". Origins and variants The surname is a variant of two Irish surnames: "Ó Murchadha"/"Ó Murchadh" (descendant of "Murchadh"), and "Mac Murchaidh"/" Mac Murchadh" (son of "Murchadh") derived ...
'' by
Samuel Beckett Samuel Barclay Beckett (; 13 April 1906 – 22 December 1989) was an Irish writer of novels, plays, short stories, and poems. Writing in both English and French, his literary and theatrical work features bleak, impersonal, and Tragicomedy, tra ...
* ''
Tropic of Capricorn The Tropic of Capricorn (or the Southern Tropic) is the circle of latitude that contains the subsolar point at the December (or southern) solstice. It is thus the southernmost latitude where the Sun can be seen directly overhead. It also reach ...
'' by
Henry Miller Henry Valentine Miller (December 26, 1891 – June 7, 1980) was an American novelist, short story writer and essayist. He broke with existing literary forms and developed a new type of semi-autobiographical novel that blended character study, so ...
* '' Man's Hope'' by
André Malraux Georges André Malraux ( ; ; 3 November 1901 – 23 November 1976) was a French novelist, art theorist, and minister of cultural affairs. Malraux's novel ''La Condition Humaine'' (''Man's Fate'') (1933) won the Prix Goncourt. He was appointed ...
* '' The Death of the Heart'' by
Elizabeth Bowen Elizabeth Dorothea Cole Bowen ( ; 7 June 1899 – 22 February 1973) was an Anglo-Irish people, Anglo-Irish novelist and short story writer notable for her books about "The Big House in Ireland, the Big House" of Irish Landed gentry, landed ...
* '' Brighton Rock'' by
Graham Greene Henry Graham Greene (2 October 1904 – 3 April 1991) was an English writer and journalist regarded by many as one of the leading novelists of the 20th century. Combining literary acclaim with widespread popularity, Greene acquired a re ...
* ''
Scoop Scoop, Scoops or The Scoop may refer to: Artefacts * Scoop (machine part), a component of machinery to carry things * Scoop (tool), a shovel-like tool, particularly one deep and curved, used in digging * Scoop (theater), a type of wide area l ...
'' by
Evelyn Waugh Arthur Evelyn St. John Waugh (; 28 October 1903 – 10 April 1966) was an English writer of novels, biographies, and travel books; he was also a prolific journalist and book reviewer. His most famous works include the early satires ''Decli ...
* '' The Gift'' by
Vladimir Nabokov Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov ( ; 2 July 1977), also known by the pen name Vladimir Sirin (), was a Russian and American novelist, poet, translator, and entomologist. Born in Imperial Russia in 1899, Nabokov wrote his first nine novels in Rus ...
''Genre fiction'' * '' Brighton Rock'' by
Graham Greene Henry Graham Greene (2 October 1904 – 3 April 1991) was an English writer and journalist regarded by many as one of the leading novelists of the 20th century. Combining literary acclaim with widespread popularity, Greene acquired a re ...
* ''
Rebecca Rebecca () appears in the Hebrew Bible as the wife of Isaac and the mother of Jacob and Esau. According to biblical tradition, Rebecca's father was Bethuel the Aramean from Paddan Aram, also called Aram-Naharaim. Rebecca's brother was Laban (Bi ...
'' by
Daphne du Maurier Dame Daphne du Maurier, Lady Browning, (; 13 May 1907 – 19 April 1989) was an English novelist, biographer and playwright. Her parents were actor-manager Gerald du Maurier, Sir Gerald du Maurier and his wife, actress Muriel Beaumont. Her gra ...
''Non-fiction'' * ''
Journey to a War ''Journey to a War'' is a travel book in prose and verse by W. H. Auden and Christopher Isherwood, published in 1939. The book is in three parts: a series of poems by Auden describing his and Isherwood's journey to China in 1938 ; a "Travel-Diar ...
'' by
W. H. Auden Wystan Hugh Auden (; 21 February 1907 – 29 September 1973) was a British-American poet. Auden's poetry is noted for its stylistic and technical achievement, its engagement with politics, morals, love, and religion, and its variety in tone, ...
and
Christopher Isherwood Christopher William Bradshaw Isherwood (26 August 1904 – 4 January 1986) was an Anglo-American novelist, playwright, screenwriter, autobiographer, and diarist. His best-known works include '' Goodbye to Berlin'' (1939), a semi-autobiographical ...
* ''
Homage to Catalonia ''Homage to Catalonia'' is a 1938 memoir by English writer George Orwell, in which he accounts his personal experiences and observations while fighting in the Spanish Civil War. Covering the period between December 1936 and June 1937, Orwell re ...
'' by
George Orwell Eric Arthur Blair (25 June 1903 – 21 January 1950) was an English novelist, poet, essayist, journalist, and critic who wrote under the pen name of George Orwell. His work is characterised by lucid prose, social criticism, opposition to a ...
* '' Enemies of Promise'' by
Cyril Connolly Cyril Vernon Connolly CBE (10 September 1903 – 26 November 1974) was an English literary critic and writer. He was the editor of the influential literary magazine ''Horizon (British magazine), Horizon'' (1940–49) and wrote ''Enemies of Pro ...
(England) 1939 * ''
The Grapes of Wrath ''The Grapes of Wrath'' is an American realist novel written by John Steinbeck and published in 1939. The book won the National Book Award and Pulitzer Prize for fiction, and it was cited prominently when Steinbeck was awarded the Nobel Prize ...
'' by
John Steinbeck John Ernst Steinbeck ( ; February 27, 1902 – December 20, 1968) was an American writer. He won the 1962 Nobel Prize in Literature "for his realistic and imaginative writings, combining as they do sympathetic humor and keen social percep ...
* ''
Finnegans Wake ''Finnegans Wake'' is a novel by Irish literature, Irish writer James Joyce. It was published in instalments starting in 1924, under the title "fragments from ''Work in Progress''". The final title was only revealed when the book was publishe ...
'' by
James Joyce James Augustine Aloysius Joyce (born James Augusta Joyce; 2 February 1882 – 13 January 1941) was an Irish novelist, poet, and literary critic. He contributed to the modernist avant-garde movement and is regarded as one of the most influentia ...
* '' The Banquet in Blitva'' by
Miroslav Krleža Miroslav Krleža (; 7 July 1893 – 29 December 1981) was a Croatian writer who is widely considered to be the greatest Croatian writer of the 20th century. He wrote notable works in all the literary genres, including poetry ('' The Ballads o ...
* ''
At Swim-Two-Birds ''At Swim-Two-Birds'' is a 1939 novel by Irish writer Flann O'Brien, Brian O'Nolan, writing under the pseudonym Flann O'Brien. It is widely considered to be O'Brien's masterpiece, and one of the most sophisticated examples of metafiction. The ...
'' by
Flann O'Brien Brian O'Nolan (; 5 October 19111 April 1966), his pen name being Flann O'Brien, was an Civil Service of the Republic of Ireland, Irish civil service official, novelist, playwright and satirist, who is now considered a major figure in twentieth- ...
(Ireland) * ''
Goodbye to Berlin ''Goodbye to Berlin'' is a 1939 novel by Anglo-American writer Christopher Isherwood set during the waning days of the Weimar Republic. The novel recounts Isherwood's 1929–1932 sojourn as a pleasure-seeking British expatriate on the eve of Ado ...
'' by
Christopher Isherwood Christopher William Bradshaw Isherwood (26 August 1904 – 4 January 1986) was an Anglo-American novelist, playwright, screenwriter, autobiographer, and diarist. His best-known works include '' Goodbye to Berlin'' (1939), a semi-autobiographical ...
* '' After Many a Summer'' by
Aldous Huxley Aldous Leonard Huxley ( ; 26 July 1894 – 22 November 1963) was an English writer and philosopher. His bibliography spans nearly 50 books, including non-fiction novel, non-fiction works, as well as essays, narratives, and poems. Born into the ...
* '' Coming Up for Air'' by
George Orwell Eric Arthur Blair (25 June 1903 – 21 January 1950) was an English novelist, poet, essayist, journalist, and critic who wrote under the pen name of George Orwell. His work is characterised by lucid prose, social criticism, opposition to a ...
* '' On the Marble Cliffs'' by
Ernst Jünger Ernst Jünger (; 29 March 1895 – 17 February 1998) was a German author, highly decorated soldier, philosopher, and entomology, entomologist who became publicly known for his World War I memoir ''Storm of Steel''. The son of a successful busin ...
* '' Good Morning, Midnight'' by
Jean Rhys Jean Rhys, ( ; born Ella Gwendoline Rees Williams; 24 August 1890 – 14 May 1979) was a novelist who was born and grew up in the Caribbean island of Dominica. From the age of 16, she resided mainly in England, where she was sent for her educa ...
* '' The Day of the Locust'' by
Nathanael West Nathanael West (born Nathan Weinstein; October 17, 1903 – December 22, 1940) was an American writer and screenwriter. He is remembered for two darkly satirical novels: '' Miss Lonelyhearts'' (1933) and '' The Day of the Locust'' (1939), set ...
* '' The Legend of the Holy Drinker'' by
Joseph Roth Moses Joseph Roth (2 September 1894 – 27 May 1939) was an Austrian-Jewish journalist and novelist, best known for his family saga '' Radetzky March'' (1932), about the decline and fall of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, his novel of Jewish life ...
* '' Lotte in Weimar'' by
Thomas Mann Paul Thomas Mann ( , ; ; 6 June 1875 – 12 August 1955) was a German novelist, short story writer, social critic, philanthropist, essayist, and the 1929 Nobel Prize in Literature laureate. His highly symbolic and ironic epic novels and novell ...
* '' The Confidential Agent'' by
Graham Greene Henry Graham Greene (2 October 1904 – 3 April 1991) was an English writer and journalist regarded by many as one of the leading novelists of the 20th century. Combining literary acclaim with widespread popularity, Greene acquired a re ...
* '' Mister Johnson'' by Joyce Cary (Ireland) * ''
Wind, Sand and Stars ''Wind, Sand and Stars'' (French title: ''Terre des hommes'', literally "Land of Men") is a memoir by the French aristocrat aviator-writer Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, and a winner of several literary awards. It was first published in France in F ...
'' by
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry Antoine Marie Jean-Baptiste Roger, vicomte de Saint-Exupéry (29 June 1900 – 31 July 1944), known simply as Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (, , ), was a French writer, poet, journalist and aviator. Born in Lyon to an French nobility, aristocratic ...
* '' Pal Joey'' by
John O'Hara John Henry O'Hara (January 31, 1905 – April 11, 1970) was an American writer. He was one of America's most prolific writers of Short story, short stories, credited with helping to invent ''The New Yorker'' magazine short story style.John O'H ...
''Genre fiction'' * '' The Big Sleep'' by
Raymond Chandler Raymond Thornton Chandler (July 23, 1888 – March 26, 1959) was an American-British novelist and screenwriter. In 1932, at the age of forty-four, Chandler became a detective fiction writer after losing his job as an oil company executive durin ...
(US) * '' Rogue Male'' by
Geoffrey Household Geoffrey Edward West Household (30 November 1900 – 4 October 1988) was a prolific British novelist who specialized in thrillers. He is best known for his novel '' Rogue Male'' (1939). Personal life He was born in Bristol; his father Hora ...
(England) * '' The Mask of Dimitrios'' by
Eric Ambler Eric Clifford Ambler OBE (28 June 1909 – 23 October 1998) was an English author of thrillers, in particular spy novels, who introduced a new realism to the genre. Also working as a screenwriter, Ambler used the pseudonym Eliot Reed for books ...
* ''
And Then There Were None ''And Then There Were None'' is a mystery fiction, mystery novel by the English writer Agatha Christie, who described it as the most difficult of her books to write. It was first published in the United Kingdom by the Collins Crime Club on 6 N ...
'' by
Agatha Christie Dame Agatha Mary Clarissa Christie, Lady Mallowan, (; 15 September 1890 – 12 January 1976) was an English people, English author known for her 66 detective novels and 14 short story collections, particularly those revolving ...
''Poetry'' * '' Autumn Journal'' by
Louis MacNeice Frederick Louis MacNeice (12 September 1907 – 3 September 1963) was an Irish poet, playwright and producer for the BBC. Known for its exploration of introspection, empiricism, and belonging, his poetic work is now ranked among the twentieth ...
(N Ireland) * '' The Map of Love'' by
Dylan Thomas Dylan Marlais Thomas (27 October 1914 – 9 November 1953) was a Welsh poet and writer, whose works include the poems " Do not go gentle into that good night" and " And death shall have no dominion", as well as the "play for voices" ''Un ...
''Plays'' * ''
This Happy Breed ''This Happy Breed'' is a play by Noël Coward. It was written in 1939 but, because of the outbreak of World War II, it was not staged until 1942, when it was performed on alternating nights with another Coward play, '' Present Laughter''. The ...
'' by
Noël Coward Sir Noël Peirce Coward (16 December 189926 March 1973) was an English playwright, composer, director, actor, and singer, known for his wit, flamboyance, and what ''Time (magazine), Time'' called "a sense of personal style, a combination of c ...


World War II

1940 * '' Native Son'' by Richard Wright (US, France) * ''
Darkness at Noon ''Darkness at Noon'' (, ) is a novel by Austrian-Hungarian-born novelist Arthur Koestler, first published in 1940. His best known work, it is the tale of Rubashov, an Old Bolshevik who is arrested, imprisoned, and tried for treason against the ...
'' by
Arthur Koestler Arthur Koestler (, ; ; ; 5 September 1905 – 1 March 1983) was an Austria-Hungary, Austro-Hungarian-born author and journalist. Koestler was born in Budapest, and was educated in Austria, apart from his early school years. In 1931, Koestler j ...
(Hungary, England) * ''
The Master and Margarita ''The Master and Margarita'' () is a novel by Mikhail Bulgakov, written in the Soviet Union between 1928 and 1940. A censored version, with several chapters cut by editors, was published posthumously in ''Moscow (magazine), Moscow'' magazine in ...
'' by
Mikhail Bulgakov Mikhail Afanasyevich Bulgakov ( ; rus, links=no, Михаил Афанасьевич Булгаков, p=mʲɪxɐˈil ɐfɐˈnasʲjɪvʲɪdʑ bʊlˈɡakəf; – 10 March 1940) was a Russian and Soviet novelist and playwright. His novel ''The M ...
– published in English 1966 * ''
For Whom the Bell Tolls ''For Whom the Bell Tolls'' is a novel by Ernest Hemingway published in 1940. It tells the story of Robert Jordan, a young American volunteer attached to a Republican guerrilla unit during the Spanish Civil War. As a dynamiter, he is assigned ...
'' by
Ernest Hemingway Ernest Miller Hemingway ( ; July 21, 1899 – July 2, 1961) was an American novelist, short-story writer and journalist. Known for an economical, understated style that influenced later 20th-century writers, he has been romanticized fo ...
* ''
The Power and the Glory ''The Power and the Glory'' is a 1940 novel by British author Graham Greene. The title is an allusion to the doxology often recited at the end of the Lord's Prayer: "For thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory, forever and ever, amen." ...
'' by
Graham Greene Henry Graham Greene (2 October 1904 – 3 April 1991) was an English writer and journalist regarded by many as one of the leading novelists of the 20th century. Combining literary acclaim with widespread popularity, Greene acquired a re ...
* ''
The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter ''The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter'' (1940) is the debut novel of American author Carson McCullers, who was 23 at the time of publication. It is a Southern Gothic novel about a deaf man named John Singer and the people he encounters in a 1930s m ...
'' by
Carson McCullers Carson McCullers (February 19, 1917 – September 29, 1967) was an American novelist, short-story writer, playwright, essayist, and poet. Her first novel, ''The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter'' (1940), explores the spiritual isolation of misfits ...
(US) * '' Portrait of the Artist as a Young Dog'' by
Dylan Thomas Dylan Marlais Thomas (27 October 1914 – 9 November 1953) was a Welsh poet and writer, whose works include the poems " Do not go gentle into that good night" and " And death shall have no dominion", as well as the "play for voices" ''Un ...
* ''Owen Glendower'' by
John Cowper Powys John Cowper Powys ( ; 8 October 187217 June 1963) was an English novelist, philosopher, lecturer, critic and poet born in Shirley, Derbyshire, where his father was vicar of the parish church in 1871–1879. Powys appeared with a volume of verse ...
* '' You Can't Go Home Again'' by
Thomas Wolfe Thomas Clayton Wolfe (October 3, 1900 – September 15, 1938) was an American novelist and short story writer. He is known largely for his first novel, '' Look Homeward, Angel'' (1929), and for the short fiction that appeared during the last ye ...
* ''
And Quiet Flows the Don ''And Quiet Flows the Don'' (''Quiet Flows the Don'' or ''The Silent Don'', ) is a novel in four volumes by Russian writer Mikhail Sholokhov. The first three volumes were written from 1925 to 1932 and published in the Soviet magazine '' Okty ...
'' by
Mikhail Sholokhov Mikhail Aleksandrovich Sholokhov ( rus, Михаил Александрович Шолохов, p=ˈʂoləxəf; – 21 February 1984) was a Russian novelist and winner of the 1965 Nobel Prize in Literature. He is known for writing about life ...
(Russia) – two volumes, first published in 1934 *The feeling of the world by
Carlos Drummond de Andrade Carlos Drummond de Andrade () (October 31, 1902 – August 17, 1987) was a Brazilian poet and writer, considered by some as the greatest Brazilian poet of all time. He has become something of a national cultural symbol in Brazil, where his wi ...
(Brazil) ''Genre fiction'' * '' Journey into Fear'' by
Eric Ambler Eric Clifford Ambler OBE (28 June 1909 – 23 October 1998) was an English author of thrillers, in particular spy novels, who introduced a new realism to the genre. Also working as a screenwriter, Ambler used the pseudonym Eliot Reed for books ...
(England) * ''
Farewell, My Lovely ''Farewell, My Lovely'' is a novel by Raymond Chandler, published in 1940, the second novel he wrote featuring the Los Angeles private eye Philip Marlowe. It was adapted for the screen three times and was also adapted for the stage and radio. ...
'' by
Raymond Chandler Raymond Thornton Chandler (July 23, 1888 – March 26, 1959) was an American-British novelist and screenwriter. In 1932, at the age of forty-four, Chandler became a detective fiction writer after losing his job as an oil company executive durin ...
''Plays'' * ''
The Iceman Cometh ''The Iceman Cometh'' is a play written by American playwright Eugene O'Neill in 1939. First published in 1946, the play premiered on Broadway at the Martin Beck Theatre on October 9, 1946, directed by Eddie Dowling, where it ran for 136 perf ...
'' by
Eugene O'Neill Eugene Gladstone O'Neill (October 16, 1888 – November 27, 1953) was an American playwright. His poetically titled plays were among the first to introduce into the U.S. the drama techniques of Realism (theatre), realism, earlier associated with ...
''Non-fiction'' * '' To the Finland Station'' by
Edmund Wilson Edmund Wilson Jr. (May 8, 1895 – June 12, 1972) was an American writer, literary critic, and journalist. He is widely regarded as one of the most important literary critics of the 20th century. Wilson began his career as a journalist, writing ...
1941 * '' Hangover Square'' by Patrick Hamilton * '' Reflections in a Golden Eye'' by
Carson McCullers Carson McCullers (February 19, 1917 – September 29, 1967) was an American novelist, short-story writer, playwright, essayist, and poet. Her first novel, ''The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter'' (1940), explores the spiritual isolation of misfits ...
* '' The Third Policeman'' by
Flann O'Brien Brian O'Nolan (; 5 October 19111 April 1966), his pen name being Flann O'Brien, was an Civil Service of the Republic of Ireland, Irish civil service official, novelist, playwright and satirist, who is now considered a major figure in twentieth- ...
''Genre fiction'' * ''
Mildred Pierce ''Mildred Pierce'' is a psychological drama by James M. Cain published by Alfred A. Knopf in 1941. A story of “social inequity and opportunity in America" set during the Great Depression, ''Mildred Pierce'' follows the trajectory of a lower ...
'' by James M. Cain ''Non-fiction'' * '' Grey Eminence'' by
Aldous Huxley Aldous Leonard Huxley ( ; 26 July 1894 – 22 November 1963) was an English writer and philosopher. His bibliography spans nearly 50 books, including non-fiction novel, non-fiction works, as well as essays, narratives, and poems. Born into the ...
1942 * '' The Stranger'' by
Albert Camus Albert Camus ( ; ; 7 November 1913 – 4 January 1960) was a French philosopher, author, dramatist, journalist, world federalist, and political activist. He was the recipient of the 1957 Nobel Prize in Literature at the age of 44, the s ...
(
Algeria Algeria, officially the People's Democratic Republic of Algeria, is a country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It is bordered to Algeria–Tunisia border, the northeast by Tunisia; to Algeria–Libya border, the east by Libya; to Alger ...
, France) * '' Our Lady of the Flowers'' by
Jean Genet Jean Genet (; ; – ) was a French novelist, playwright, poet, essayist, and political activist. In his early life he was a vagabond and petty criminal, but he later became a writer and playwright. His major works include the novels '' The Th ...
(France) * ''
Flight to Arras ''Flight to Arras'' () is a memoir by French author Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. Written in 1942, it recounts his role in the Armée de l'Air (French Air Force) as pilot of a reconnaissance plane during the Battle of France in 1940. The book conde ...
'' by
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry Antoine Marie Jean-Baptiste Roger, vicomte de Saint-Exupéry (29 June 1900 – 31 July 1944), known simply as Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (, , ), was a French writer, poet, journalist and aviator. Born in Lyon to an French nobility, aristocratic ...
''Plays'' * ''
The Flies ''The Flies'' () is a play by Jean-Paul Sartre, produced in 1943. It is an adaptation of the Electra myth, previously used by the Greek playwrights Sophocles, Aeschylus and Euripides. The play recounts the story of Orestes and his sister E ...
'' by
Jean-Paul Sartre Jean-Paul Charles Aymard Sartre (, ; ; 21 June 1905 – 15 April 1980) was a French philosopher, playwright, novelist, screenwriter, political activist, biographer, and literary criticism, literary critic, considered a leading figure in 20th ...
1943 * '' Arrival and Departure'' by
Arthur Koestler Arthur Koestler (, ; ; ; 5 September 1905 – 1 March 1983) was an Austria-Hungary, Austro-Hungarian-born author and journalist. Koestler was born in Budapest, and was educated in Austria, apart from his early school years. In 1931, Koestler j ...
* '' The Ministry of Fear'' by
Graham Greene Henry Graham Greene (2 October 1904 – 3 April 1991) was an English writer and journalist regarded by many as one of the leading novelists of the 20th century. Combining literary acclaim with widespread popularity, Greene acquired a re ...
* '' The Human Comedy'' by
William Saroyan William Saroyan (; August 31, 1908 – May 18, 1981) was an Armenian-American novelist, playwright, and short story writer. He was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1940, and in 1943 won the Academy Award for Best Story for the film ''The ...
* ''
The Man Without Qualities ''The Man Without Qualities'' (; 1930–1943) is an unfinished modernist novel in three volumes and various drafts, by the Austrian writer Robert Musil. The novel is a "story of ideas", which takes place in the time of the Austro-Hungarian mona ...
'' by
Robert Musil Robert Musil (; 6 November 1880 – 15 April 1942) was an Austrian philosophical writer. His unfinished novel, ''The Man Without Qualities'' (), is generally considered to be one of the most important and influential modernist novels. Family M ...
(Austria) – trilogy, first volume published 1930 ''Genre fiction'' * ''
Double Indemnity ''Double Indemnity'' is a 1944 American film noir directed by Billy Wilder and produced by Buddy DeSylva and Joseph Sistrom. Wilder and Raymond Chandler adapted the screenplay from James M. Cain's Double Indemnity (novel), novel of the same na ...
'' by James M. Cain * ''
The Little Prince ''The Little Prince'' (, ) is a novella written and illustrated by French writer and aviator Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. It was first published in English and French in the United States by Reynal & Hitchcock in April 1943 and was published po ...
'' by
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry Antoine Marie Jean-Baptiste Roger, vicomte de Saint-Exupéry (29 June 1900 – 31 July 1944), known simply as Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (, , ), was a French writer, poet, journalist and aviator. Born in Lyon to an French nobility, aristocratic ...
(France) ''Poetry'' * Selected Poems by
Keith Douglas Keith Castellain Douglas (24 January 1920 – 9 June 1944) was an English poet and soldier noted for his war poetry during the Second World War and his wry memoir of the Western Desert campaign, '' Alamein to Zem Zem''. He was killed in action ...
(England) ''Non-fiction'' * ''
Being and Nothingness ''Being and Nothingness: An Essay on Phenomenological Ontology'' (), sometimes published with the subtitle ''A Phenomenological Essay on Ontology'', is a 1943 book by the philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre. In the book, Sartre develops a philosophical a ...
'' by
Jean-Paul Sartre Jean-Paul Charles Aymard Sartre (, ; ; 21 June 1905 – 15 April 1980) was a French philosopher, playwright, novelist, screenwriter, political activist, biographer, and literary criticism, literary critic, considered a leading figure in 20th ...
* ''
The Myth of Sisyphus ''The Myth of Sisyphus'' () is a 1942 Philosophy, philosophical work by Albert Camus. Influenced by philosophers such as Søren Kierkegaard, Arthur Schopenhauer, and Friedrich Nietzsche, Camus introduces his philosophy of the absurdism, absurd. T ...
'' by
Albert Camus Albert Camus ( ; ; 7 November 1913 – 4 January 1960) was a French philosopher, author, dramatist, journalist, world federalist, and political activist. He was the recipient of the 1957 Nobel Prize in Literature at the age of 44, the s ...
1944 * ''
The Horse's Mouth ''The Horse's Mouth'' is a 1944 novel by Anglo-Irish writer Joyce Cary, the third in his ''First Trilogy'', whose first two books are ''Herself Surprised'' (1941) and ''To Be a Pilgrim'' (1942). ''The Horse's Mouth'' follows the adventures o ...
'' by Joyce Cary * ''
Ficciones ' (in English: "Fictions") is a collection of short stories by Argentine writer and poet Jorge Luis Borges, originally written and published in Spanish between 1941 and 1956. Thirteen stories from ''Ficciones'' were first published by New Direc ...
'' by
Jorge Luis Borges Jorge Francisco Isidoro Luis Borges Acevedo ( ; ; 24 August 1899 – 14 June 1986) was an Argentine short-story writer, essayist, poet and translator regarded as a key figure in Spanish literature, Spanish-language and international literatur ...
(
Argentina Argentina, officially the Argentine Republic, is a country in the southern half of South America. It covers an area of , making it the List of South American countries by area, second-largest country in South America after Brazil, the fourt ...
) – short stories * ''
The Razor's Edge ''The Razor's Edge'' is a 1944 novel by W. Somerset Maugham. It tells the story of Larry Darrell, an American pilot traumatized by his experiences in World War I, who sets off in search of some transcendent meaning in his life. Maugham is th ...
'' by
Somerset Maugham William Somerset Maugham ( ; 25 January 1874 – 16 December 1965) was an English writer, known for his plays, novels and short stories. Born in Paris, where he spent his first ten years, Maugham was schooled in England and went to a German un ...
* '' Time Must Have a Stop'' by
Aldous Huxley Aldous Leonard Huxley ( ; 26 July 1894 – 22 November 1963) was an English writer and philosopher. His bibliography spans nearly 50 books, including non-fiction novel, non-fiction works, as well as essays, narratives, and poems. Born into the ...
''Plays'' * ''
The Glass Menagerie ''The Glass Menagerie'' is a memory play by Tennessee Williams that premiered in 1944 and catapulted Williams from obscurity to fame. The play has strong autobiographical elements, featuring characters based on its author, his histrionic mo ...
'' by
Tennessee Williams Thomas Lanier Williams III (March 26, 1911 – February 25, 1983), known by his pen name Tennessee Williams, was an American playwright and screenwriter. Along with contemporaries Eugene O'Neill and Arthur Miller, he is considered among the three ...
(US) 1945 * '' Black Boy'' by
Richard Wright (author) Richard Nathaniel Wright (September 4, 1908 – November 28, 1960) was an American author of novels, short stories, poems, and non-fiction. Much of his literature concerns racial themes, especially related to the plight of African Americans duri ...
* ''
Animal Farm ''Animal Farm'' (originally ''Animal Farm: A Fairy Story'') is a satirical allegorical novella, in the form of a beast fable, by George Orwell, first published in England on 17 August 1945. It tells the story of a group of anthropomorphic far ...
'' by
George Orwell Eric Arthur Blair (25 June 1903 – 21 January 1950) was an English novelist, poet, essayist, journalist, and critic who wrote under the pen name of George Orwell. His work is characterised by lucid prose, social criticism, opposition to a ...
* ''
Watt The watt (symbol: W) is the unit of Power (physics), power or radiant flux in the International System of Units (SI), equal to 1 joule per second or 1 kg⋅m2⋅s−3. It is used to quantification (science), quantify the rate of Work ...
'' by
Samuel Beckett Samuel Barclay Beckett (; 13 April 1906 – 22 December 1989) was an Irish writer of novels, plays, short stories, and poems. Writing in both English and French, his literary and theatrical work features bleak, impersonal, and Tragicomedy, tra ...
– published in 1953 * ''
Brideshead Revisited ''Brideshead Revisited: The Sacred & Profane Memories of Captain Charles Ryder'' is a novel by the English writer Evelyn Waugh, first published in 1945. It follows, from the 1920s to the early 1940s, the life and romances of Charles Ryder, esp ...
'' by
Evelyn Waugh Arthur Evelyn St. John Waugh (; 28 October 1903 – 10 April 1966) was an English writer of novels, biographies, and travel books; he was also a prolific journalist and book reviewer. His most famous works include the early satires ''Decli ...
* '' Black Boy'' by Richard Wright * ''
Lark Rise to Candleford ''Lark Rise to Candleford'' is a trilogy of autobiographical novel, semi-autobiographical novels by Flora Thompson about the countryside of north-east Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire, England, at the end of the 19th century. The stories were ...
'' by
Flora Thompson Flora Jane Thompson (née Timms; 5 December 1876 – 21 May 1947) was an English novelist and poet best known for her autobiography, semi-autobiographical trilogy about the English countryside, ''Lark Rise to Candleford''. Early life and f ...
(England) – trilogy, first volume in 1939 ''Genre fiction'' * '' If He Hollers Let Him Go'' by
Chester Himes Chester Bomar Himes (July 29, 1909 – November 12, 1984) was an American writer. His works, some of which have been filmed, include '' If He Hollers Let Him Go'', published in 1945, and the '' Harlem Detective'' series of novels for which he i ...
(US, France) * ''
The Space Trilogy ''The Space Trilogy'' (also known as ''The Cosmic Trilogy'' or ''The Ransom Trilogy'') is a series of science fiction novels by British writer C. S. Lewis. The trilogy consists of '' Out of the Silent Planet'' (1938), '' Perelandra'' (1943), ...
'' by
C. S. Lewis Clive Staples Lewis (29 November 1898 – 22 November 1963) was a British writer, literary scholar and Anglican lay theologian. He held academic positions in English literature at both Magdalen College, Oxford (1925–1954), and Magdalen ...
(N Ireland) – first volume published in 1938 1946 * ''
Cry, the Beloved Country ''Cry, the Beloved Country'' is a 1948 novel by South African writer Alan Paton. Set in the prelude to apartheid in South Africa, it follows a black village priest and a white farmer who must deal with news of a murder. American publisher B ...
'' by
Alan Paton Alan Stewart Paton (11 January 1903 – 12 April 1988) was a South African writer and anti-apartheid activist. His works include the novels '' Cry, the Beloved Country'' (1948), '' Too Late the Phalarope'' (1953), and the short story ''The Wa ...
(South Africa) * '' The Miracle of the Rose'' by
Jean Genet Jean Genet (; ; – ) was a French novelist, playwright, poet, essayist, and political activist. In his early life he was a vagabond and petty criminal, but he later became a writer and playwright. His major works include the novels '' The Th ...
*
El Señor Presidente (''Mister President'') is a 1946 novel written in Spanish by Nobel Prize-winning Guatemalan writer and diplomat Miguel Ángel Asturias (1899–1974). A landmark text in Latin American literature, explores the nature of political dictatorship ...
by
Miguel Ángel Asturias Miguel Ángel Asturias Rosales (; 19 October 1899 – 9 June 1974) was a Guatemalan poet-diplomat, novelist, playwright and journalist. Winning the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1967, his work helped bring attention to the importance of i ...
(Guatemala) * ''
Froth on the Daydream ''Froth on the Daydream'' (, "The Froth of Days") is a 1947 surrealist novel by French author Boris Vian. Although told as a linear narrative, the novel employs surrealism and contains multiple plot lines, including the love stories of two coup ...
'' by
Boris Vian Boris Vian (; 10 March 1920 – 23 June 1959) was a French polymath who is primarily remembered for his novels. Those published under the pseudonym Vernon Sullivan were bizarre parodies of criminal fiction, highly controversial at the time of th ...
(France) * ''
The Member of the Wedding ''The Member of the Wedding'' is a 1946 novel by Southern writer Carson McCullers. It took McCullers five years to complete, although she interrupted the work for a few months to write the novella '' The Ballad of the Sad Café''.McDowell, Mar ...
'' by
Carson McCullers Carson McCullers (February 19, 1917 – September 29, 1967) was an American novelist, short-story writer, playwright, essayist, and poet. Her first novel, ''The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter'' (1940), explores the spiritual isolation of misfits ...
''Poetry'' * '' Deaths and Entrances'' by
Dylan Thomas Dylan Marlais Thomas (27 October 1914 – 9 November 1953) was a Welsh poet and writer, whose works include the poems " Do not go gentle into that good night" and " And death shall have no dominion", as well as the "play for voices" ''Un ...
''Plays'' * ''
The Winslow Boy ''The Winslow Boy'' is an English play from 1946 by Terence Rattigan based on an incident involving George Archer-Shee in the Edwardian era. The incident took place at the Royal Naval College, Osborne. Background Set against the strict cod ...
'' by
Terence Rattigan Sir Terence Mervyn Rattigan (10 June 191130 November 1977) was a British dramatist and screenwriter. He was one of England's most popular mid-20th-century dramatists. His plays are typically set in an upper-middle-class background.Geoffrey Wan ...
(England) ''Non-fiction'' * '' Alamein to Zem Zem'' by
Keith Douglas Keith Castellain Douglas (24 January 1920 – 9 June 1944) was an English poet and soldier noted for his war poetry during the Second World War and his wry memoir of the Western Desert campaign, '' Alamein to Zem Zem''. He was killed in action ...
* '' Memoirs of Hecate County'' by
Edmund Wilson Edmund Wilson Jr. (May 8, 1895 – June 12, 1972) was an American writer, literary critic, and journalist. He is widely regarded as one of the most important literary critics of the 20th century. Wilson began his career as a journalist, writing ...
* '' This Way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen'' by
Tadeusz Borowski Tadeusz Borowski (; 12 November 1922 – 3 July 1951) was a Polish writer and journalist. His wartime poetry and stories dealing with his experiences as a prisoner at Auschwitz are recognized as classics of Polish literature. Early life Boro ...
(Poland) 1947 * '' The Plague'' by
Albert Camus Albert Camus ( ; ; 7 November 1913 – 4 January 1960) was a French philosopher, author, dramatist, journalist, world federalist, and political activist. He was the recipient of the 1957 Nobel Prize in Literature at the age of 44, the s ...
* ''
Under the Volcano ''Under the Volcano'' is a novel by the English writer Malcolm Lowry (1909–1957) published in 1947. It tells the story of Geoffrey Firmin, an alcoholic British Consulate general, consul in the Mexican city of Cuernavaca, Quauhnahuac on the D ...
'' by
Malcolm Lowry Clarence Malcolm Lowry (; 28 July 1909 – 26 June 1957) was an English poet and novelist who is best known for his 1947 novel ''Under the Volcano'', which was voted No. 11 in the Modern Library's 100 Best Novels list.
(England, Canada) * ''
Bend Sinister In heraldry, a bend is a band or strap running from the upper dexter (the bearer's right side and the viewer's left) corner of the shield to the lower sinister (the bearer's left side, and the viewer's right). Authorities differ as to how m ...
'' by
Vladimir Nabokov Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov ( ; 2 July 1977), also known by the pen name Vladimir Sirin (), was a Russian and American novelist, poet, translator, and entomologist. Born in Imperial Russia in 1899, Nabokov wrote his first nine novels in Rus ...
* '' The Victim'' by
Saul Bellow Saul Bellow (born Solomon Bellows; June 10, 1915April 5, 2005) was a Canadian-American writer. For his literary work, Bellow was awarded the Pulitzer Prize, the 1976 Nobel Prize in Literature, and the National Medal of Arts. He is the only write ...
(Canada, US) * '' The Conformist'' by
Alberto Moravia Alberto Pincherle (; 28 November 1907 – 26 September 1990), known by his pseudonym Alberto Moravia ( , ), was an Italian novelist and journalist. His novels explored matters of modern sexuality, social alienation and existentialism. Moravia i ...
(Italy) * '' The Middle of the Journey'' by
Lionel Trilling Lionel Mordecai Trilling (July 4, 1905 – November 5, 1975) was an American literary critic, short story writer, essayist, and teacher. He was one of the leading U.S. critics of the 20th century who analyzed the contemporary cultural, social, ...
(US) * '' Slaves of Solitude'' by Patrick Hamilton * '' Of Love and Hunger'' by
Julian MacLaren-Ross Julian Maclaren-Ross (7 July 1912 – 3 November 1964) was a British novelist, short-story writer, memoirist, screenwriter, and literary critic. Background He was born James McLaren Ross in South Norwood, London, in 1912, the youngest of three ...
(England) * ''
Funeral Rites A funeral is a ceremony connected with the final disposition of a corpse, such as a burial or cremation, with the attendant observances. Funerary customs comprise the complex of beliefs and practices used by a culture to remember and respect th ...
'' by
Jean Genet Jean Genet (; ; – ) was a French novelist, playwright, poet, essayist, and political activist. In his early life he was a vagabond and petty criminal, but he later became a writer and playwright. His major works include the novels '' The Th ...
* '' Snow Country'' by
Yasunari Kawabata was a Japanese novelist and short story writer whose spare, lyrical, subtly-shaded prose works won him the 1968 Nobel Prize in Literature, the first Japanese author to receive the award. His works have enjoyed broad international appeal and ...
''Plays'' * ''
A Streetcar Named Desire ''A Streetcar Named Desire'' is a play written by Tennessee Williams and first performed on Broadway on December 3, 1947. The play dramatizes the experiences of Blanche DuBois, a former Southern belle who, after encountering a series of pe ...
'' by
Tennessee Williams Thomas Lanier Williams III (March 26, 1911 – February 25, 1983), known by his pen name Tennessee Williams, was an American playwright and screenwriter. Along with contemporaries Eugene O'Neill and Arthur Miller, he is considered among the three ...
''Non-fiction'' * ''
The Diary of a Young Girl ''The Diary of a Young Girl'', commonly referred to as ''The Diary of Anne Frank'', is a book of the writings from the Dutch language, Dutch-language diary kept by Anne Frank while she was in hiding for two years with her family during the Neth ...
'' by
Anne Frank Annelies Marie Frank (, ; 12 June 1929 – February or March 1945)Research by The Anne Frank House in 2015 revealed that Frank may have died in February 1945 rather than in March, as Dutch authorities had long assumed"New research sheds new li ...
(Netherlands) 1948 * ''The Naked and the Dead'' by Norman Mailer (US) * ''Confessions of a Mask'' by 'Yukio Mishima' (Japan) * ''The Heart of the Matter'' by
Graham Greene Henry Graham Greene (2 October 1904 – 3 April 1991) was an English writer and journalist regarded by many as one of the leading novelists of the 20th century. Combining literary acclaim with widespread popularity, Greene acquired a re ...
* El Túnel by Ernesto Sabato (Argentina) * ''The City and the Pillar'' by Gore Vidal (US) * ''Ape and Essence'' by
Aldous Huxley Aldous Leonard Huxley ( ; 26 July 1894 – 22 November 1963) was an English writer and philosopher. His bibliography spans nearly 50 books, including non-fiction novel, non-fiction works, as well as essays, narratives, and poems. Born into the ...
* ''Ashes and Diamonds'' by Jerzy Andrzejewski (Poland) * ''Querelle of Brest'' by
Jean Genet Jean Genet (; ; – ) was a French novelist, playwright, poet, essayist, and political activist. In his early life he was a vagabond and petty criminal, but he later became a writer and playwright. His major works include the novels '' The Th ...
''Genre fiction'' * ''No Orchids for Miss Blandish (novel), No Orchids for Miss Blandish'' by James Hadley Chase (England) ''Plays'' * ''The Browning Version (play), The Browning Version'' by
Terence Rattigan Sir Terence Mervyn Rattigan (10 June 191130 November 1977) was a British dramatist and screenwriter. He was one of England's most popular mid-20th-century dramatists. His plays are typically set in an upper-middle-class background.Geoffrey Wan ...
''Non-fiction'' * ''The Second Sex'' by Simone de Beauvoir (France — early feminist study) * ''The Kon-Tiki Expedition'' by Thor Heyerdahl (Norway) 1949 * ''Nineteen Eighty-Four'' by
George Orwell Eric Arthur Blair (25 June 1903 – 21 January 1950) was an English novelist, poet, essayist, journalist, and critic who wrote under the pen name of George Orwell. His work is characterised by lucid prose, social criticism, opposition to a ...
* ''The Roads to Freedom'' by
Jean-Paul Sartre Jean-Paul Charles Aymard Sartre (, ; ; 21 June 1905 – 15 April 1980) was a French philosopher, playwright, novelist, screenwriter, political activist, biographer, and literary criticism, literary critic, considered a leading figure in 20th ...
– trilogy, first volume published 1945 * ''The Thief's Journal'' by
Jean Genet Jean Genet (; ; – ) was a French novelist, playwright, poet, essayist, and political activist. In his early life he was a vagabond and petty criminal, but he later became a writer and playwright. His major works include the novels '' The Th ...
* ''The Man with the Golden Arm'' by Nelson Algren (US) * ''The Train Was on Time'' by Heinrich Böll (Germany) * ''The Aleph (short story collection), The Aleph'' by
Jorge Luis Borges Jorge Francisco Isidoro Luis Borges Acevedo ( ; ; 24 August 1899 – 14 June 1986) was an Argentine short-story writer, essayist, poet and translator regarded as a key figure in Spanish literature, Spanish-language and international literatur ...
* ''The Kingdom of this World'' by Alejo Carpentier (Mexico) * ''The Heat of the Day'' by
Elizabeth Bowen Elizabeth Dorothea Cole Bowen ( ; 7 June 1899 – 22 February 1973) was an Anglo-Irish people, Anglo-Irish novelist and short story writer notable for her books about "The Big House in Ireland, the Big House" of Irish Landed gentry, landed ...
''Genre fiction'' * ''The Trouble with Harry'' by Jack Trevor Story (England) * ''The Mating Season (novel), The Mating Season'' by P. G. Wodehouse ''Plays'' * ''Death of a Salesman'' by Arthur Miller (US)


Postwar period

The intermediate postwar period separating "Modernism" from "Postmodernism" (1950s literature) is the ''floruit'' of the beat generation and the classical science fiction of Isaac Asimov, Arthur C. Clarke and Robert A. Heinlein. This period also saw the publication of Samuel Beckett's trilogy of novels, ''Molloy (novel), Molloy'', ''Malone Dies'', and ''The Unnameable'', which enacted the dissolution of the self-identical human subject and inspired later novelists such as Thomas Bernhard, John Banville, and David Markson. The first works of
electronic literature Electronic literature or digital literature is a genre of literature where digital capabilities such as interactivity, multimodality or Generative literature, algorithmic text generation are used aesthetically. Works of electronic literature ar ...
were written in the 1950s. 1950 * ''Scenes from Provincial Life (novel), Scenes from Provincial Life'' by William Cooper (novelist), William Cooper (England) – the first of the British 1950s 'kitchen sink' novels * Canto General by Pablo Neruda ''Plays'' * ''The Bald Soprano'' by Eugène Ionesco (Romania, France) ''Genre fiction'' * ''A Town Like Alice'' by Nevil Shute (England, Australia) * ''Strangers on a Train (novel), Strangers On a Train'' by Patricia Highsmith (US) ''Non-fiction'' * ''The Authoritarian Personality'' by Theodor Adorno (Germany, US) 1951 * ''Molloy (novel), Molloy'' by
Samuel Beckett Samuel Barclay Beckett (; 13 April 1906 – 22 December 1989) was an Irish writer of novels, plays, short stories, and poems. Writing in both English and French, his literary and theatrical work features bleak, impersonal, and Tragicomedy, tra ...
(Ireland, France) * ''Malone Dies'' by
Samuel Beckett Samuel Barclay Beckett (; 13 April 1906 – 22 December 1989) was an Irish writer of novels, plays, short stories, and poems. Writing in both English and French, his literary and theatrical work features bleak, impersonal, and Tragicomedy, tra ...
(Ireland, France) * ''The Catcher in the Rye'' by J. D. Salinger (US) * The Hive (Cela novel), The Hive by Camilo José Cela (Spain) * ''Porius (A Romance of the Dark Ages)'' by
John Cowper Powys John Cowper Powys ( ; 8 October 187217 June 1963) was an English novelist, philosopher, lecturer, critic and poet born in Shirley, Derbyshire, where his father was vicar of the parish church in 1871–1879. Powys appeared with a volume of verse ...
(England) * ''The Grass Harp'' by Truman Capote (US) * ''Memoirs of Hadrian'' by Marguerite Yourcenar (France) * ''The Opposing Shore'' by Julien Gracq (France) ''Plays'' * ''The Lesson'' by Eugène Ionesco (Romania, France) ''Non-fiction'' * ''The Rebel (book), The Rebel'' by
Albert Camus Albert Camus ( ; ; 7 November 1913 – 4 January 1960) was a French philosopher, author, dramatist, journalist, world federalist, and political activist. He was the recipient of the 1957 Nobel Prize in Literature at the age of 44, the s ...
(France) 1952 * ''Invisible Man'' by Ralph Ellison (US) * ''Wise Blood'' by Flannery O'Connor (US) * ''Go (Holmes novel), Go'' by John Clellon Holmes (US) – the first Beat Generation, Beat novel * ''The Natural'' by Bernard Malamud (US) * ''The Old Man and the Sea'' by
Ernest Hemingway Ernest Miller Hemingway ( ; July 21, 1899 – July 2, 1961) was an American novelist, short-story writer and journalist. Known for an economical, understated style that influenced later 20th-century writers, he has been romanticized fo ...
* ''East of Eden (novel), East of Eden'' by
John Steinbeck John Ernst Steinbeck ( ; February 27, 1902 – December 20, 1968) was an American writer. He won the 1962 Nobel Prize in Literature "for his realistic and imaginative writings, combining as they do sympathetic humor and keen social percep ...
* ''Strachey love letter algorithm, Love Letter Generator'' by Christopher Strachey ''Genre fiction'' * ''The Tiger in the Smoke'' by Margery Allingham (England) * ''The Killer Inside Me'' by Jim Thompson (writer), Jim Thompson (US) ''Plays'' * ''The Chairs'' by Eugène Ionesco (Romania, France) 1953 * ''The Unnameable'' by
Samuel Beckett Samuel Barclay Beckett (; 13 April 1906 – 22 December 1989) was an Irish writer of novels, plays, short stories, and poems. Writing in both English and French, his literary and theatrical work features bleak, impersonal, and Tragicomedy, tra ...
(Ireland, France) * ''Junkie (novel), Junkie and Queer (novel), Queer'' by William S. Burroughs (US) * ''Go Tell It on the Mountain (novel), Go Tell It On the Mountain'' by James Baldwin (writer), James Baldwin (US, France) * ''The Outsider (Wright novel), The Outsider'' by Richard Wright * ''The Adventures of Augie March'' by
Saul Bellow Saul Bellow (born Solomon Bellows; June 10, 1915April 5, 2005) was a Canadian-American writer. For his literary work, Bellow was awarded the Pulitzer Prize, the 1976 Nobel Prize in Literature, and the National Medal of Arts. He is the only write ...
* ''The Captive Mind'' by Czesław Miłosz (Poland) * ''Hurry on Down'' by John Wain (England) – the first 'angry young man' novel ''Genre fiction'' * ''Casino Royale (novel), Casino Royale'' by Ian Fleming (England, Jamaica) – first James Bond novel * ''The Long Goodbye (novel), The Long Goodbye'' by
Raymond Chandler Raymond Thornton Chandler (July 23, 1888 – March 26, 1959) was an American-British novelist and screenwriter. In 1932, at the age of forty-four, Chandler became a detective fiction writer after losing his job as an oil company executive durin ...
* ''Childhood's End'' by Arthur C. Clarke (England, Sri Lanka) * ''Foundation (Isaac Asimov novel), Foundation'' by Isaac Asimov (US) – trilogy, first volume published in 1951 * ''Prelude to a Certain Midnight'' by Gerald Kersh ''Plays'' * ''Waiting for Godot'' by
Samuel Beckett Samuel Barclay Beckett (; 13 April 1906 – 22 December 1989) was an Irish writer of novels, plays, short stories, and poems. Writing in both English and French, his literary and theatrical work features bleak, impersonal, and Tragicomedy, tra ...
1954 * ''Lord of the Flies'' by William Golding (England) * ''Lucky Jim'' by Kingsley Amis (England) – the most famous 'angry young man' novel * ''Under the Net'' by Iris Murdoch (England) * ''Bonjour Tristesse'' by Françoise Sagan (France) ''Genre fiction'' * ''Fahrenheit 451'' by Ray Bradbury (US) * ''Story of O'' by Pauline Réage (France) ''Plays'' * ''Under Milk Wood'' by
Dylan Thomas Dylan Marlais Thomas (27 October 1914 – 9 November 1953) was a Welsh poet and writer, whose works include the poems " Do not go gentle into that good night" and " And death shall have no dominion", as well as the "play for voices" ''Un ...
* ''The Quare Fellow'' by Brendan Behan (Ireland) ''Non-fiction'' * ''The Doors of Perception'' by
Aldous Huxley Aldous Leonard Huxley ( ; 26 July 1894 – 22 November 1963) was an English writer and philosopher. His bibliography spans nearly 50 books, including non-fiction novel, non-fiction works, as well as essays, narratives, and poems. Born into the ...
1955 * ''Lolita'' by
Vladimir Nabokov Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov ( ; 2 July 1977), also known by the pen name Vladimir Sirin (), was a Russian and American novelist, poet, translator, and entomologist. Born in Imperial Russia in 1899, Nabokov wrote his first nine novels in Rus ...
* ''One (David Karp novel), One'' by David Karp (novelist), David Karp (US) * ''The Quiet American'' by
Graham Greene Henry Graham Greene (2 October 1904 – 3 April 1991) was an English writer and journalist regarded by many as one of the leading novelists of the 20th century. Combining literary acclaim with widespread popularity, Greene acquired a re ...
* ''The Bread of Those Early Years (novel), The Bread of Those Early Years'' by Heinrich Böll * ''The Tree of Man'' by Patrick White (Australia) * ''The Inheritors (William Golding), The Inheritors'' by William Golding * Pedro Páramo by Juan Rulfo (Mexico) * ''The Voyeur (novel), The Voyeur'' by Alain Robbe-Grillet (France) * ''The Genius and the Goddess'' by
Aldous Huxley Aldous Leonard Huxley ( ; 26 July 1894 – 22 November 1963) was an English writer and philosopher. His bibliography spans nearly 50 books, including non-fiction novel, non-fiction works, as well as essays, narratives, and poems. Born into the ...
* ''The Deer Park'' by Norman Mailer * ''The Recognitions'' by William Gaddis (US) * ''Memed, My Hawk'' by Yaşar Kemal (Turkey) ''Genre fiction'' * ''
The Lord of the Rings ''The Lord of the Rings'' is an Epic (genre), epic high fantasy novel written by English author and scholar J. R. R. Tolkien. Set in Middle-earth, the story began as a sequel to Tolkien's 1937 children's book ''The Hobbit'' but eventually d ...
'' by
J. R. R. Tolkien John Ronald Reuel Tolkien (, 3 January 1892 – 2 September 1973) was an English writer and philologist. He was the author of the high fantasy works ''The Hobbit'' and ''The Lord of the Rings''. From 1925 to 1945, Tolkien was the Rawlinson ...
, first volume in 1954 * ''The Talented Mr. Ripley'' by Patricia Highsmith ''Plays'' * ''Cat on a Hot Tin Roof'' by
Tennessee Williams Thomas Lanier Williams III (March 26, 1911 – February 25, 1983), known by his pen name Tennessee Williams, was an American playwright and screenwriter. Along with contemporaries Eugene O'Neill and Arthur Miller, he is considered among the three ...
* ''Bus Stop (play), Bus Stop'' by William Inge (US) ''Poetry'' * ''The Less Deceived'' by Philip Larkin (England) 1956 * ''The Fall (Albert Camus novel), The Fall'' by
Albert Camus Albert Camus ( ; ; 7 November 1913 – 4 January 1960) was a French philosopher, author, dramatist, journalist, world federalist, and political activist. He was the recipient of the 1957 Nobel Prize in Literature at the age of 44, the s ...
*''The Devil to Pay in the Backlands'' by João Guimarães Rosa * ''Giovanni's Room'' by James Baldwin (writer), James Baldwin * ''The Lonely Londoners'' by Samuel Selvon (Trinidad, England) * ''A Walk on the Wild Side (novel), A Walk on the Wild Side'' by Nelson Algren ''Genre fiction'' * ''The Chronicles of Narnia'' by
C. S. Lewis Clive Staples Lewis (29 November 1898 – 22 November 1963) was a British writer, literary scholar and Anglican lay theologian. He held academic positions in English literature at both Magdalen College, Oxford (1925–1954), and Magdalen ...
(N Ireland) – seven volumes, first in 1950 * ''Peyton Place (novel), Peyton Place'' by Grace Metalious * ''The Hundred and One Dalmatians'' by Dodie Smith (England) ''Plays'' * ''Look Back In Anger'' by John Osborne (England) – the first 'angry young man' play ''Poetry'' * ''Howl and Other Poems'' by Allen Ginsberg (US) ''Non-fiction'' * ''Heaven and Hell (essay), Heaven and Hell'' by
Aldous Huxley Aldous Leonard Huxley ( ; 26 July 1894 – 22 November 1963) was an English writer and philosopher. His bibliography spans nearly 50 books, including non-fiction novel, non-fiction works, as well as essays, narratives, and poems. Born into the ...
1957 * ''On the Road'' by Jack Kerouac (Canada, US) * ''Young Adam'' by Alexander Trocchi (Scotland) * ''Room at the Top (novel), Room at the Top'' by John Braine (England) * ''Doctor Zhivago (novel), Doctor Zhivago'' by Boris Pasternak (Russia) * ''Voss (novel), Voss'' by Patrick White * ''The Assistant (Malamud novel), The Assistant'' by Bernard Malamud * ''Second Thoughts (Michel Butor novel), Second Thoughts'' by Michel Butor (France) * ''Pnin (novel), Pnin'' by
Vladimir Nabokov Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov ( ; 2 July 1977), also known by the pen name Vladimir Sirin (), was a Russian and American novelist, poet, translator, and entomologist. Born in Imperial Russia in 1899, Nabokov wrote his first nine novels in Rus ...
* ''Cairo Trilogy'' by Naguib Mahfouz (Egypt) * ''Gimpel the Fool'' by Isaac Bashevis Singer (Poland, US) – short stories, originally published in Yiddish years earlier * ''Atlas Shrugged'' by Ayn Rand (US) ''Genre fiction'' * ''On the Beach (novel), On the Beach'' by Nevil Shute ''Plays'' * ''The Room (play), The Room and The Birthday Party (play), The Birthday Party'' by Harold Pinter (England) * ''Endgame (play), Endgame'' by
Samuel Beckett Samuel Barclay Beckett (; 13 April 1906 – 22 December 1989) was an Irish writer of novels, plays, short stories, and poems. Writing in both English and French, his literary and theatrical work features bleak, impersonal, and Tragicomedy, tra ...
* ''The Entertainer (play), The Entertainer'' by John Osborne * ''Orpheus Descending'' by
Tennessee Williams Thomas Lanier Williams III (March 26, 1911 – February 25, 1983), known by his pen name Tennessee Williams, was an American playwright and screenwriter. Along with contemporaries Eugene O'Neill and Arthur Miller, he is considered among the three ...
* ''The Visit (play), The Visit'' by Friedrich Dürrenmatt (Switzerland) ''Poetry'' * ''Calling Out to Yeti'' by Wisława Szymborska (Poland) 1958 * ''If This Is a Man'' by Primo Levi (Italy) * ''Breakfast at Tiffany's (novella), Breakfast At Tiffany's'' by Truman Capote * ''The Dharma Bums'' by Jack Kerouac * ''Saturday Night and Sunday Morning'' by Alan Sillitoe (England) * ''A Taste of Honey'' by Shelagh Delaney (England) * ''Things Fall Apart'' by Chinua Achebe (Nigeria) * ''The Bell (novel), The Bell'' by Iris Murdoch * ''Fowlers End'' by Gerald Kersh * ''Our Man in Havana'' by
Graham Greene Henry Graham Greene (2 October 1904 – 3 April 1991) was an English writer and journalist regarded by many as one of the leading novelists of the 20th century. Combining literary acclaim with widespread popularity, Greene acquired a re ...
* ''Candy (Southern and Hoffenberg novel), Candy'' by Terry Southern (US) ''Genre fiction'' * ''Exodus (Uris novel), Exodus'' by Leon Uris (US) * ''Zimiamvian Trilogy'' by E. R. Eddison (England) – first volume in 1935 * ''Nigel Molesworth, Molesworth'' by Geoffrey Willans (England) and Ronald Searle (England, France) – tetralogy, first book in 1954 ''Plays'' * ''Krapp's Last Tape'' by
Samuel Beckett Samuel Barclay Beckett (; 13 April 1906 – 22 December 1989) was an Irish writer of novels, plays, short stories, and poems. Writing in both English and French, his literary and theatrical work features bleak, impersonal, and Tragicomedy, tra ...
* ''Suddenly, Last Summer'' by
Tennessee Williams Thomas Lanier Williams III (March 26, 1911 – February 25, 1983), known by his pen name Tennessee Williams, was an American playwright and screenwriter. Along with contemporaries Eugene O'Neill and Arthur Miller, he is considered among the three ...
''Non-fiction'' * ''The Theatre and Its Double'' by Antonin Artaud (France) * ''Borstal Boy'' by Brendan Behan 1959 * ''A Raisin in the Sun'' by Lorraine Hansberry (United States of America) * ''The Tin Drum'' by Günter Grass (Germany) * ''Naked Lunch'' by William S. Burroughs * ''The Last of the Just'' by André Schwarz-Bart (France) * ''Goodbye, Columbus'' by Philip Roth (US) * ''Zazie dans le Métro (novel), Zazie in the Metro'' by Raymond Queneau (France) * ''In the Labyrinth (novel), In the Labyrinth'' by Alain Robbe-Grillet * ''The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner'' by Alan Sillitoe * ''Billy Liar'' by Keith Waterhouse (England) * ''The Long Day Wanes'' by Anthony Burgess (England) – trilogy, first volume published in 1956 * ''The Magic Christian (novel), The Magic Christian'' by Terry Southern ''Genre fiction'' * ''Gormenghast series, The Gormenghast Trilogy'' by Mervyn Peake (England) – first volume in 1946 * ''The Getaway (novel), The Getaway'' by Jim Thompson (writer), Jim Thompson ''Plays'' * ''The Dumb Waiter and The Caretaker (play), The Caretaker'' by Harold Pinter * ''Rhinoceros (play), Rhinoceros'' by Eugène Ionesco


Cold War period, 1960–1989

1960 * ''To Kill a Mockingbird'' by Harper Lee (US) * ''The London Trilogy'' by Colin MacInnes (England) – first volume, ''Absolute Beginners (novel), Absolute Beginners'', published in 1957 * ''Cain's Book'' by Alexander Trocchi (UK, France, US) * ''This Sporting Life'' by David Storey (UK) * ''A Burnt-Out Case'' by
Graham Greene Henry Graham Greene (2 October 1904 – 3 April 1991) was an English writer and journalist regarded by many as one of the leading novelists of the 20th century. Combining literary acclaim with widespread popularity, Greene acquired a re ...
* ''Hiroshima Mon Amour'' by Marguerite Duras (France) * ''The Ballad of Peckham Rye'' by Muriel Spark (Scotland) * ''The Rosy Crucifixion'' by
Henry Miller Henry Valentine Miller (December 26, 1891 – June 7, 1980) was an American novelist, short story writer and essayist. He broke with existing literary forms and developed a new type of semi-autobiographical novel that blended character study, so ...
(US) – trilogy, first volume published 1949 * ''The Sot-Weed Factor (1960 novel), The Sot-Weed Factor'' by John Barth (US) * ''The Magician of Lublin (novel), The Magician of Lublin'' by Isaac Bashevis Singer ''Non-fiction and Quasi-fiction'' * ''The Morning of the Magicians by Louis Pauwels'' and Jacques Bergier (France) – the 1960s obsession with the occult starts here. Published in English 1963 * ''A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller Jr.'' (US) 1961 * ''Catch-22'' by Joseph Heller (US) * ''A House for Mr Biswas'' by V. S. Naipaul (Trinidad, England) * ''Riders in the Chariot'' by Patrick White * ''The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (novel), The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie'' by Muriel Spark * ''A Severed Head'' by Iris Murdoch * ''Sword of Honour'' by
Evelyn Waugh Arthur Evelyn St. John Waugh (; 28 October 1903 – 10 April 1966) was an English writer of novels, biographies, and travel books; he was also a prolific journalist and book reviewer. His most famous works include the early satires ''Decli ...
– trilogy, first volume published in 1952 * ''Revolutionary Road'' by Richard Yates (novelist), Richard Yates (US) * ''Hear Us O Lord from Heaven Thy Dwelling Place'' by
Malcolm Lowry Clarence Malcolm Lowry (; 28 July 1909 – 26 June 1957) was an English poet and novelist who is best known for his 1947 novel ''Under the Volcano'', which was voted No. 11 in the Modern Library's 100 Best Novels list.
– posthumous ''Genre fiction'' * ''Solaris (novel), Solaris'' by Stanisław Lem (Poland) * ''Stranger in a Strange Land'' by Robert A. Heinlein (US) * ''The Man in the High Castle'' by Philip K. Dick (US) 1962 * ''One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich'' by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (Russia) * ''A Clockwork Orange (novel), A Clockwork Orange and The Wanting Seed'' by Anthony Burgess (England) * ''Pale Fire'' by
Vladimir Nabokov Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov ( ; 2 July 1977), also known by the pen name Vladimir Sirin (), was a Russian and American novelist, poet, translator, and entomologist. Born in Imperial Russia in 1899, Nabokov wrote his first nine novels in Rus ...
* ''Island (Huxley novel), Island'' by
Aldous Huxley Aldous Leonard Huxley ( ; 26 July 1894 – 22 November 1963) was an English writer and philosopher. His bibliography spans nearly 50 books, including non-fiction novel, non-fiction works, as well as essays, narratives, and poems. Born into the ...
* ''The Time of the Hero'' by Mario Vargas Llosa (Peru) * ''The Golden Notebook'' by Doris Lessing (Zimbabwe, England) * ''The Death of Artemio Cruz'' by Carlos Fuentes (Mexico) * ''The Alexandria Quartet'' by
Lawrence Durrell Lawrence George Durrell (; 27 February 1912 – 7 November 1990) was an expatriate British novelist, poet, dramatist, and travel writer. He was the eldest brother of naturalist and writer Gerald Durrell. Born in India to British colonial pa ...
– first volume published 1957 * ''Big Sur (novel), Big Sur'' by Jack Kerouac – the last of the Lost Generation at the end of the Beat Generation ''Genre fiction'' * ''The IPCRESS File'' by Len Deighton (England) – first of the Harry Palmer novels ''Non-fiction'' * ''Silent Spring'' by Rachel Carson (US) – the first major popular study on the deterioration of the environment 1963 * ''V.'' by Thomas Pynchon (US) * ''The Bell Jar'' by Sylvia Plath (US, England) * Hopscotch (Cortázar novel), Hopscotch by Julio Cortázar (Argentina) * ''One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (novel), One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest'' by Ken Kesey (US) * ''The Collector'' by John Fowles (England) * ''The Lowlife'' by Alexander Baron (England) * ''Cat's Cradle'' by Kurt Vonnegut (US) ''Genre fiction'' * ''Planet of the Apes (novel), Planet of the Apes'' by Pierre Boulle (France) * ''The Spy Who Came in from the Cold'' by John le Carré (England) * ''The Grifters (novel), The Grifters'' by Jim Thompson (writer), Jim Thompson ''Non-fiction'' * ''The Truce'' by Primo Levi 1964 * ''Herzog (novel), Herzog'' by
Saul Bellow Saul Bellow (born Solomon Bellows; June 10, 1915April 5, 2005) was a Canadian-American writer. For his literary work, Bellow was awarded the Pulitzer Prize, the 1976 Nobel Prize in Literature, and the National Medal of Arts. He is the only write ...
* ''A Single Man (novel), A Single Man'' by
Christopher Isherwood Christopher William Bradshaw Isherwood (26 August 1904 – 4 January 1986) was an Anglo-American novelist, playwright, screenwriter, autobiographer, and diarist. His best-known works include '' Goodbye to Berlin'' (1939), a semi-autobiographical ...
* ''Last Exit to Brooklyn'' by Hubert Selby (US) * ''The Spire'' by William Golding (England) * ''Nothing Like the Sun'' by Anthony Burgess * Atmaprakash by Sunil Gangopadhyay (India) ''Genre fiction'' * ''Charlie and the Chocolate Factory'' by Roald Dahl (UK) * ''The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch'' by Philip K. Dick (US) * ''Little Big Man (novel), Little Big Man'' by Thomas Berger (novelist), Thomas Berger (US) ''Non-fiction'' * ''Understanding Media'' by Marshall McLuhan (Canada) 1965 * ''The Magus (novel), The Magus'' by John Fowles * ''The Interpreters (novel), The Interpreters'' by Wole Soyinka (Nigeria) * ''Cosmicomics'' by Italo Calvino (Italy) * ''The Painted Bird'' by Jerzy Kosinski (Poland, US) * ''Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush'' by Hunter Davies (England) – the kitchen sink novel mutates into the swinging 1960s novel ''Genre fiction'' * ''The Cyberiad'' by Stanisław Lem ''Plays'' * ''Marat/Sade'' by Peter Weiss (Germany, Sweden) * ''Tango (play), Tango'' by Sławomir Mrożek (Poland) ''Poetry'' * ''Briggflatts'' by Basil Bunting ''Non-fiction and Quasi-fiction'' * ''The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby'' by Tom Wolfe (US) * ''The Autobiography of Malcolm X'' by Alex Haley (US) 1966 * ''A Man of the People'' by Chinua Achebe (Nigeria) * ''Alfie (play), Alfie'' by Bill Naughton (England) * ''The Comedians (novel), The Comedians'' by
Graham Greene Henry Graham Greene (2 October 1904 – 3 April 1991) was an English writer and journalist regarded by many as one of the leading novelists of the 20th century. Combining literary acclaim with widespread popularity, Greene acquired a re ...
* ''Wide Sargasso Sea'' by
Jean Rhys Jean Rhys, ( ; born Ella Gwendoline Rees Williams; 24 August 1890 – 14 May 1979) was a novelist who was born and grew up in the Caribbean island of Dominica. From the age of 16, she resided mainly in England, where she was sent for her educa ...
* ''Tremor of Intent'' by Anthony Burgess ''Genre fiction'' * ''Pavane (novel), Pavane'' by Keith Roberts (England) * ''The Anti-Death League'' by Kingsley Amis ''Non-fiction and Quasi-fiction'' * ''In Cold Blood'' by Truman Capote * ''Hell's Angels: The Strange and Terrible Saga of the Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs'' by Hunter S. Thompson (US) * ''Been Down So Long It Looks Like Up to Me'' by Richard Fariña (US) 1967 * ''One Hundred Years of Solitude'' by Gabriel García Márquez (Colombia) * ''The Crying of Lot 49'' by Thomas Pynchon * ''The Vendor of Sweets'' by R. K. Narayan (India) * ''Poor Cow'' by Nell Dunn (England) * ''A Grain of Wheat'' by Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o ''Non-fiction'' * ''In the First Circle'' by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn * ''The Medium is the Message by Marshall McLuhan'' and Quentin Fiore 1968 * ''Cocksure'' by Mordecai Richler (Canada) * ''Couples (novel), Couples'' by John Updike (US) * ''The Public Image'' by Muriel Spark * ''Lunar Caustic (novel), Lunar Caustic'' by
Malcolm Lowry Clarence Malcolm Lowry (; 28 July 1909 – 26 June 1957) was an English poet and novelist who is best known for his 1947 novel ''Under the Volcano'', which was voted No. 11 in the Modern Library's 100 Best Novels list.
– posthumous * ''The Abyss (Yourcenar novel), The Abyss'' by Marguerite Yourcenar ''Non-fiction and quasi-fiction'' * ''Cancer Ward'' by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn * ''The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test'' by Tom Wolfe * ''The Armies of the Night and Miami and the Siege of Chicago'' by Norman Mailer * ''Bomb Culture'' by Jeff Nuttall (England) * ''Slouching Towards Bethlehem'' by Joan Didion (US) * ''The Teachings of Don Juan'' by Carlos Castaneda (US) 1969 * ''Portnoy's Complaint'' by Philip Roth * ''The French Lieutenant's Woman'' by John Fowles * ''A Void'' by Georges Perec (France) * ''Passacaille (novel), Passacaille'' by Robert Pinget (France) * ''Dark as the Grave wherein my Friend is Laid'' by
Malcolm Lowry Clarence Malcolm Lowry (; 28 July 1909 – 26 June 1957) was an English poet and novelist who is best known for his 1947 novel ''Under the Volcano'', which was voted No. 11 in the Modern Library's 100 Best Novels list.
– posthumous ''Genre fiction'' * ''Barefoot in the Head'' by Brian Aldiss * ''The Final Programme'' by Michael Moorcock (England, US) * ''Slaughterhouse-Five'' by Kurt Vonnegut (US) * ''The Godfather'' by Mario Puzo (US) ''Non-fiction and Quasi-fiction'' * ''Papillon (book), Papillon'' by Henri Charrière (France) * ''The View Over Atlantis'' by John Michell (writer), John Michell (England) 1970 * ''Play It as It Lays'' by Joan Didion * ''Mr. Sammler's Planet'' by
Saul Bellow Saul Bellow (born Solomon Bellows; June 10, 1915April 5, 2005) was a Canadian-American writer. For his literary work, Bellow was awarded the Pulitzer Prize, the 1976 Nobel Prize in Literature, and the National Medal of Arts. He is the only write ...
* ''Being There (novel), Being There'' by Jerzy Kosiński * ''October Ferry to Gabriola'' by
Malcolm Lowry Clarence Malcolm Lowry (; 28 July 1909 – 26 June 1957) was an English poet and novelist who is best known for his 1947 novel ''Under the Volcano'', which was voted No. 11 in the Modern Library's 100 Best Novels list.
– posthumous * Aranyer Din Ratri (novel), Aranyer Din Ratri by Sunil Gangopadhyay ''Genre fiction'' * ''The Hot Rock (novel), The Hot Rock'' by Donald E. Westlake (US) * ''Deliverance (novel), Deliverance'' by James Dickey (US) ''Non-fiction and Quasi-fiction'' * ''The Female Eunuch'' by Germaine Greer (Australia, England) * ''Groupie (book), Groupie'' by Jenny Fabian (England) * ''Playpower'' by Richard Neville (writer), Richard Neville (Australia, England) * ''Revolt into Style'' by George Melly (England) * ''Soledad Brother'' by George Jackson (Black Panther), George Jackson (US) – prison letters * ''Soul on Ice (book), Soul on Ice'' by Eldridge Cleaver (US) 1971 * ''In a Free State'' by V. S. Naipaul (Trinidad, England) * ''M/F'' by Anthony Burgess * ''Our Gang'' by Philip Roth * ''The Dice Man'' by Luke Rhinehart (US) * ''Another Roadside Attraction'' by Tom Robbins (US) ''Genre fiction'' * ''The Day of the Jackal'' by Frederick Forsyth (England) ''Non-fiction and Quasi-fiction'' * ''The Happy Hooker'' by Xaviera Hollander (Indonesia, Netherlands) * ''Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas'' by Hunter S. Thompson 1972 * ''The Infernal Desire Machines of Doctor Hoffman'' by Angela Carter (England) * ''Invisible Cities'' by Italo Calvino * ''G. (novel), G'' by John Berger (England, France) * ''Tutunamayanlar, The Good for Nothing'' by Oğuz Atay (Turkey) ''Genre fiction'' * ''The Friends of Eddie Coyle'' by George V. Higgins (US) * ''Jonathan Livingston Seagull'' by Richard Bach (US) * ''The Odessa File'' by Frederick Forsyth ''Poetry'' * ''Crossing the Water and Winter Trees'' by Sylvia Plath 1973 * ''Gravity's Rainbow'' by Thomas Pynchon * ''Crash (J. G. Ballard novel), Crash'' by J. G. Ballard (England) * ''Season of Anomy'' by Wole Soyinka (Nigeria) * ''Life Is Elsewhere'' by Milan Kundera (
Czechoslovakia Czechoslovakia ( ; Czech language, Czech and , ''Česko-Slovensko'') was a landlocked country in Central Europe, created in 1918, when it declared its independence from Austria-Hungary. In 1938, after the Munich Agreement, the Sudetenland beca ...
, France) * ''Sweet Dreams (novel), Sweet Dreams'' by Michael Frayn (England) * ''Fear of Flying (novel), Fear of Flying'' by Erica Jong (US) * '' The Great American Novel'' by Philip Roth ''Genre fiction'' * ''Frankenstein Unbound'' by Brian Aldiss 1974 * ''If Beale Street Could Talk'' by James Baldwin (US) * ''The Conservationist'' by Nadine Gordimer (South Africa) * ''The Fan Man'' by William Kotzwinkle (US) * ''The Lost Honour of Katharina Blum'' by Heinrich Böll * I, the Supreme by Augusto Roa Bastos (Paraguay) * ''Napoleon Symphony'' by Anthony Burgess * ''Myra Breckinridge and Myron (novel), Myron'' by Gore Vidal – first of pair published in 1968 ''Genre fiction'' * ''Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy'' by John le Carré * ''Fletch (novel), Fletch'' by Gregory Mcdonald (US) ''Genre fiction'' * ''Jaws (novel), Jaws'' by Peter Benchley (US) ''Non-fiction and Quasi-fiction'' * ''All the President's Men by Bob Woodward'' and Carl Bernstein (US) ''Poetry'' * ''Mr. Cogito'' by Zbigniew Herbert (Poland) 1975 * ''Humboldt's Gift'' by
Saul Bellow Saul Bellow (born Solomon Bellows; June 10, 1915April 5, 2005) was a Canadian-American writer. For his literary work, Bellow was awarded the Pulitzer Prize, the 1976 Nobel Prize in Literature, and the National Medal of Arts. He is the only write ...
* ''The Deptford Trilogy'' by Robertson Davies – first volume published 1970 * ''Dead Babies (novel), Dead Babies'' by Martin Amis (England) * ''The Autumn of the Patriarch'' by Gabriel García Márquez * ''The History Man'' by Malcolm Bradbury (England) * ''The Periodic Table (short story collection), The Periodic Table'' by Primo Levi – short stories ''Genre fiction'' * ''Watership Down'' by Richard Adams (England) * ''The Choirboys (novel), The Choirboys'' by Joseph Wambaugh (US) * ''Shōgun (novel), Shōgun'' by James Clavell (England, US) * '''Salem's Lot'' by Stephen King (US) 1976 * ''Ragtime (novel), Ragtime'' by EL Doctorow (US) ''Genre fiction'' * ''Interview with the Vampire'' by Anne Rice (US) ''Non-fiction and quasi-fiction'' * ''Roots: The Saga of an American Family, Roots'' by Alex Haley *''Another Day of Life'' by Ryszard Kapuściński (Poland) ''Poetry'' * ''Christmas O Shiter Sanet Guchho (ক্রিসমাস ও শীতের সনেটগুচ্ছ)'' by Joy Goswami (West Bengal, India) ''Drama'' * ''Death and the King's Horseman'' by Wole Soyinka 1977 * ''The Engineer of Human Souls'' by Josef Škvorecký (
Czechoslovakia Czechoslovakia ( ; Czech language, Czech and , ''Česko-Slovensko'') was a landlocked country in Central Europe, created in 1918, when it declared its independence from Austria-Hungary. In 1938, after the Munich Agreement, the Sudetenland beca ...
) * ''Song of Solomon (novel), Song of Solomon'' by Toni Morrison (US) 1978 * ''Success (novel), Success'' by Martin Amis * ''The Sea, the Sea'' by Iris Murdoch * ''Lanark: A Life in Four Books'' by Alasdair Gray (Scotland) * ''Life A User's Manual'' by Georges Perec * ''The Book of Laughter and Forgetting'' by Milan Kundera * ''Jake's Thing'' by Kingsley Amis * ''The World According to Garp'' by John Irving (US) * ''1985 (Anthony Burgess novel), 1985'' by Anthony Burgess * ''Horatio Stubbs'' by Brian Aldiss – trilogy, first volume published in 1970 ''Non-fiction and Quasi-fiction'' *''The Emperor (book), The Emperor'' by Ryszard Kapuściński ''Genre fiction'' * ''Rumpole of the Bailey'' by John Mortimer (England) 1979 * ''A Bend in the River'' by V. S. Naipaul * ''The Unlimited Dream Company'' by J. G. Ballard * ''Sophie's Choice (novel), Sophie's Choice'' by William Styron (US) ''Non-fiction and Quasi-fiction'' * ''The White Album (book), The White Album'' by Joan Didion * ''The Right Stuff (book), The Right Stuff'' by Tom Wolfe (US) 1980 * ''The Name of the Rose'' by Umberto Eco * ''Pascali's Island (novel), Pascali's Island'' by Barry Unsworth (England) * ''Earthly Powers'' by Anthony Burgess 1981 * ''Midnight's Children'' by Salman Rushdie (India, UK) * ''The Comfort of Strangers'' by Ian McEwan (England) * ''The White Hotel'' by D. M. Thomas (England) * ''Chronicle of a Death Foretold'' by Gabriel García Márquez * ''What We Talk About When We Talk About Love'' by Raymond Carver (US) – short stories ''Genre fiction'' * ''The Red Dragon'' by Thomas Harris (US) * ''Gorky Park (novel), Gorky Park'' by Martin Cruz Smith (England, Russia) ''Non-fiction'' * ''Conversations with an Executioner'' by Kazimierz Moczarski (Poland) 1982 * ''Schindler's Ark'' by Thomas Keneally (Australia) * ''An Ice-Cream War'' by William Boyd (writer), William Boyd (Ghana, Scotland) * ''The Color Purple'' by Alice Walker (US) * ''A Wild Sheep Chase'' by Haruki Murakami ''Genre fiction'' * ''Prizzi's Honor (novel), Prizzi's Honor'' by Richard Condon * ''Limes inferior, Limes Inferior'' by Janusz A. Zajdel (Poland) 1983 * ''Waterland (novel), Waterland'' by Graham Swift (England) * ''Shame (Rushdie novel), Shame'' by Salman Rushdie * ''Erev'' by Eli Schechtman (USSR, Israel) ''Genre fiction'' * ''The Colour of Magic'' by Terry Pratchett (England) – first book of the ''Discworld'' series 1984 * ''Money (novel), Money'' by Martin Amis * ''Bright Lights, Big City (novel), Bright Lights, Big City'' by Jay McInerney (US) * ''The Unbearable Lightness of Being'' by Milan Kundera * ''Flaubert's Parrot'' by Julian Barnes (England) * ''Nights at the Circus'' by Angela Carter * ''Inside Mr. Enderby, Enderby'' by Anthony Burgess – tetralogy, first volume published in 1963 * ''The Witches of Eastwick'' by John Updike ''Non-fiction'' * ''Empire of the Sun (novel), Empire of the Sun'' by J. G. Ballard 1985 * Those Days (novel), ''Sei Somoy'' by Sunil Gangopadhyay (India) * ''White Noise (novel), White Noise'' by Don DeLillo (US) * ''Less than Zero (novel), Less than Zero'' by Bret Easton Ellis (US) * ''Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit'' by Jeanette Winterson (England) * ''The Accidental Tourist'' by Anne Tyler (US) * ''Hawksmoor (novel), Hawksmoor'' by Peter Ackroyd (England) * ''Illywhacker'' by Peter Carey (novelist), Peter Carey (Australia) * ''The Kingdom of the Wicked'' by Anthony Burgess * ''Genre fiction'' * ''L.A. Quartet'' by James Ellroy (US) – tetralogy, first volume published 1984 * ''The Handmaid's Tale'' by Margaret Atwood – (US) 1986 * ''Slaves of New York'' by Tama Janowitz (US) * ''The Old Devils'' by Kingsley Amis * ''An Artist of the Floating World'' by Kazuo Ishiguro (Japan, UK) ''Non-fiction'' * ''Decolonising the Mind: The Politics of Language in African Literature'' by Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o 1987 * ''The Satanic Verses'' by Salman Rushdie * ''The Bonfire of the Vanities'' by Tom Wolfe * ''Anthills of the Savannah'' by Chinua Achebe * ''The Alchemist (novel), The Alchemist'' by Paulo Coelho (Brasil) ''Genre fiction'' * ''Presumed Innocent (novel), Presumed Innocent'' by Scott Turow (US) 1988 * ''Mother London'' by Michael Moorcock * ''Libra (novel), Libra'' by Don DeLillo * ''Oscar and Lucinda'' by Peter Carey (novelist), Peter Carey (Australia) * ''Love in the Time of Cholera'' by Gabriel García Márquez ''Genre fiction'' * ''Sprawl trilogy, Sprawl'' by William Gibson (Canada, US) – trilogy, first volume published 1984 1989 * ''London Fields'' by Martin Amis * ''Foucault's Pendulum'' by Umberto Eco * ''The Remains of the Day'' by Kazuo Ishiguro * ''To the Ends of the Earth'' by William Golding – trilogy, first volume published 1980 * * * ''Ghumiyecho, Jhaupata? (book), Ghumiyecho, Jhaupata? (ঘুমিয়েছো, ঝাউপাতা?)'' by Joy Goswami * ''The Book of Evidence'' by John Banville (Ireland) * ''The Trick of It'' by Michael Frayn


1990s

*''The English Patient'' by Michael Ondaatje *Slam poetry 1990 * ''The New York Trilogy'' by Paul Auster (US) – first volume published 1985 * ''The Black Book (Pamuk novel), The Black Book'' by Orhan Pamuk (Turkey) * ''Restoration (Tremain novel), Restoration'' by Rose Tremain (England) * ''Possession (Byatt novel), Possession'' by A. S. Byatt (England) * ''The Buddha of Suburbia (novel), The Buddha of Suburbia'' by Hanif Kureishi (England) * ''Dirty Weekend (novel), Dirty Weekend'' by Helen Zahavi (England) ''Genre fiction'' * ''Devil in a Blue Dress'' by Walter Mosley (US) * ''Good Omens'' by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett 1991 * ''Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture'' by Douglas Coupland (Canada) 1992 * ''The Secret History'' by Donna Tartt (USA) 1993 * ''A Suitable Boy'' by Vikram Seth (India) 1994 * ''Blood of Elves'' by Andrzej Sapkowski (Poland) 1995 * ''The Moor's Last Sigh'' by Salman Rushdie (UK) 1996 * ''Infinite Jest'' by David Foster Wallace (US) * ''Prathama Alo'' by Sunil Gangopadhyay (India) 1997 * ''Underworld (DeLillo novel), Underworld'' by Don DeLillo (US) * ''American Pastoral'' by Philip Roth * ''Nightmare (Topčić novel), Nightmare'' by Zlatko Topčić * ''Into Thin Air'' by Jon Krakauer ''Genre fiction'' * ''Northern Lights (Pullman novel), Northern Lights'' by Philip Pullman (UK) – first in ''His Dark Materials'' trilogy * ''
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone ''Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone'' is a fantasy novel written by British author J. K. Rowling. It is the first novel in the ''Harry Potter'' series and was Rowling's debut novel. It follows Harry Potter, a young wizard who disco ...
'' by J. K. Rowling (UK) – first in series 1998 * ''About a Boy (novel)'' by Nick Hornby


See also

* American literature * Experimental literature * French literature of the 20th century * List of 20th-century writers * Literary modernism * Twentieth-century English literature * 20th-century music * 20th century in poetry * Electronic literature


References


External links


''Discovering Literature: 20th century''
at the British Library {{DEFAULTSORT:20th Century In Literature 20th-century literature, 20th-century overviews