List of years in literature
History of literature by era |
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This article gives a chronological list of years in literature (descending order), with notable publications listed with their respective years and a small selection of notable events. The time covered in individual years covers
Baroque and Modern literature, while Medieval literature
is resolved by century.
Note: List of years in poetry exists specifically for poetry.
See Table of years in literature for an overview of all "year in literature" pages.
Several attempts have been made to create a list of
Modern Library 100 Best Novels
. These attempts have been criticized for their anglophone bias and disregard of other literary traditions.
Ancient times
Middle Ages
- 10th century in literature – One Thousand and One Nights; The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter
- The Song of Roland; The Tale of Genji – Murasaki Shikibu
- The Secret History of the Mongols
- Johann Gutenberg prints the Vulgate Bible; Le Morte d'Arthur – Sir Thomas Malory; The Book of the City of Ladies – Christine de Pizan; Le Testament – François Villon
- The Wakefield Master; books printed in 1500 or before are considered incunabula
16th century
1500s
- Shin Maha Thilawuntha's Yazawin Kyaw
- 1503 in literature – Robin Hood and the Potter
- 1504 in literature – Jacopo Sannazaro's Arcadia; Beunans Meriasek
- 1505 in literature – Pietro Bembo's Gli Asolani
- 1506 in literature – William Dunbar's The Dance of the Sevin Deidly Synnis
- 1507 in literature – Matthias Ringmann's Cosmographiae Introductio
- 1508 in literature – John Lydgate's The Complaint of the Black Knight; Elia Levita's Bovo-Bukh; first printing of Garci Rodríguez de Montalvo's Amadís de Gaula
- The Praise of Folly; Luca Pacioli's Divina proportione
1510s
- 1510 in literature – Rodríguez de Montalvo's Las sergas de Esplandián
- The Praise of Folly; Wynkyn de Worde's The Demaudes Joyous
- 1512 in literature – Hakob Meghapart's Urbatagirk
- 1513 in literature – Meghapart's Parzatumar
- 1514 in literature – Julius Excluded from Heaven
- Ciolek's Missal
- Utopia
- 1517 in literature – Martin Luther's Ninety-five Theses, Gil Vicente's A Trilogia das Barcas
- Tantrakhyan; Erasmus's Colloquies
- 1519 in literature – Bergadis' Apokopos; Miller Atlas by Lopo Homem, Pedro Reinel and Jorge Reinel; The Abbreviacion of Statutis by John Rastell
1520s
- 1520 in literature – Complutensian Polyglot Bible, Yazawin Kyaw (part 2); John Heywood's Johan Johan The Husband
- 1522 in literature – Luther Bible, New Testament translation by Martin Luther; Mirabilis Liber
- 1523 in literature – Thomas More's Responsio ad Lutherum
- 1524 in literature – Birth of Luís de Camões and Pierre de Ronsard; I Modi (first edition) by Marcantonio Raimondi; Johann Walter's Eyn geystlich Gesangk Buchleyn; Erfurt Enchiridion; Cèllere Codex;
- 1525 in literature – Luther's Against the Murderous, Thieving Hordes of Peasants; Tyndale Bible
- 1526 in literature – Tronoša Chronicle
- 1527 in literature – Pietro Aretino's Sonetti Lussuriosi; I Modi (second edition), expanded by Pietro Aretino
- Baltissare Castiglione – The Book of the Courtier; Francisco Delicado's Portrait of Lozana: The Lusty Andalusian Woman
- 1529 in literature – A Proper Dialogue Between A Gentleman and a Husbandman
1530s
- Georg Rüxner)
- 1531 in literature – Collectanea satis copiosa, The Book of the Governor (Thomas Elyot), Huexotzinco Codex, The Praier and Complaynte of the Ploweman unto Christe (first printing), Discourses on Livy (Machiavelli); Emblemata
- 1532 in literature – The Prince (Machiavelli)
- 1533 in literature – Three Books of Occult Philosophy (Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa)
- Rabelais), Psychopannychia (Calvin)
- 1535 in literature – Christiad (Marco Girolamo Vida)
- 1536 in literature – Institutes of the Christian Religion (Calvin), Swenske songer eller wisor 1536
- 1537 in literature – Matthew Bible, De arte canendi (second volume, Heyden)
- 1538 in literature – Œuvres (Clément Marot)
- Kreutterbuch (Hieronymus Bock)
1540s
- 1540 in literature – De la pirotechnia (Biringuccio), Padmavat (Malik Muhammad Jayasi)
- Giraldi)
- 1542 in literature – Luca Landucci's diary ends; Andrew Boorde publishes Egipt speche, the earliest Romani language writing
- Copernicus)
- 1544 in literature – Cosmographia (Münster), Antwerp songbook
- Ars Magna (Gerolamo Cardano), A Proper Newe Booke of Cokerye
- Georg Bauer), Farnese Hours (Giulio Clovio)
- Les voyages aventureux du Capitaine Martin de Hoyarsal, habitant du çubiburu (Martin de Hoyarçabal)
- 1548 in literature – Se Wsi Testamenti (Mikael Agricola), Oll synnwyr pen Kembero ygyd (Gruffudd Hiraethog)
- 1549 in literature – Book of Common Prayer, The Complaynt of Scotland, Notes on Muscovite Affairs (Sigismund von Herberstein), Belfagor arcidiavolo (Machiavelli)
1550s
- Fengshen Yanyi (Xu Zhonglin), Abecedarium (Trubar), Liao-Fan's Four Lessons, Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects (Vasari), Svaramelakalanidhi(Ramamatya)
- 1551 in literature – Prutenic Tables (Erasmus Reinhold), Stoglav
- 1552 in literature – Gunamala (Sankardev), A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies (de las Casas), Historia general de las Indias (López de Gómara)
- )
- 1554 in literature – Lazarillo de Tormes
- 1555 in literature – Gosudarev Rodoslovets, Les Prophéties (Nostradamus), Meshari (Gjon Buzuku)
- 1556 in literature – De re metallica (Agricola)
- 1557 in literature – Mirat ul Memalik (Seydi Ali Reis), Physica speculatio (Alonso Gutiérrez), Tottel's Miscellany, The Whetstone of Witte (Records)
- 1558 in literature – Heptaméron (Marguerite de Navarre), The First Blast of the Trumpet Against the Monstruous Regiment of Women (Knox), Il Galateo (Della Casa)
- Elizabethan Book of Common Prayer, Magdeburg Centuries (first volume), The History of the Reformation in Scotland (completed in 1566) by John Knox
1560s
- 1560 in literature – Geneva Bible (first full edition), L'Amadigi (Tasso), De Gestis Meni de Saa (de Anchiata)
- 1561 in literature – Beware the Cat (Baldwin), Peresopnytsia Gospel, Gorboduc (Norton and Sackville); Tianyi Ge library founded
- 1562 in literature – The Tragical History of Romeus and Juliet (Arthur Brooke), The Five Orders of Architecture (da Vignola); Mrkšina crkva printing house founded
- 1563 in literature – Foxe's Book of Martyrs, De praestigiis daemonum (Weyer), Heidelberg Catechism
- Enchiridion of Dietrich Philips
- 1565 in literature – De Rerum Natura juxta Propria Principia (Telesio), Chess (Kochanowski), Shulchan Aruch (Karo)
- 1566 in literature – "The Palace of Pleasure" (William Painter), A Caveat or Warning for Common Cursitors (Harman), Table Talk (Luther)
- 1567 in literature – Welsh Bible (Salesbury), Horestes (Pickering), Isabella Whitney's first poems published, Lope de Rueda's works published; Red Lion theatre built
- Wawrzyniec Grzymala Goslicki), Plantin Polyglot, Fishing and Fishermen's Talk(Hektorovic)
- 1569 in literature – La Araucana, part 1 (Alonso de Ercilla), Thomissøn's hymnal, Florentine Codex
1570s
- 1570 in literature – Theatrum Orbis Terrarum (Ortelius), Doria Atlas, Lafreri atlases (approximate date)
- Giacomo di Grassi)
- 1572 in literature – Franciade (de Ronsard), Os Lusíadas (de Camões)
- Chaim Vital), Aminta(Tasso)
- 1574 in literature – Right of Magistrates (Beza), Exercicio quotidiano
- 1575 in literature – Arbatel de magia veterum, Terze rime (Veronica Franco)
- 1576 in literature – The Pattern of Painful Adventures, Discourse on Voluntary Servitude (La Boétie), The Princely Pleasures, at the Court at Kenilworth (Gascoigne)
- (Weyer)
- Compendium of Materia Medica (Li Shizhen), Euphues (Lyly), History of a Voyage to the Land of Brazil (Jean de Léry)
- 1579 in literature – Hanthawaddy Hsinbyushin Ayedawbon (Yazataman), Bible of Kralice, The Shepheardes Calender (Spenser)
1580s
- 1580 in literature – Essays (Montaigne), Laments (Kochanowski), Prashna Tantra (Neelakantha), Tarikh-i-Sher Shahi (Abbas Sarwani)
- 1581 in literature – Second Book of Discipline, Jerusalem Delivered (Tasso), Ostrog Bible
- 1582 in literature – Divers Voyages (Richard Hakluyt), The Monument of Matrones, Piae Cantiones (Finno)
- 1583 in literature – The Anatomie of Abuses (Stubbes), De Heptarchia Mystica (Dee), De Constantia (Lipsius)
- James VI of Scotland)
- 1585 in literature – La Galatea (Cervantes), The Good Huswifes Jewell (Dawson), The Seven Deadly Sins (Tarlton)
- 1586 in literature – De Beghinselen Der Weeghconst (Stevin)
- 1587 in literature – A discourse of the subtill practises of deuilles by witches and sorcerers (George Gifford), Collected Statutes of the Ming Dynasty (second edition), Historia von D. Johann Fausten, Anfitriões (de Camões)
- 1588 in literature – The Battle of Alcazar (date first performed; George Peele), The Misfortunes of Arthur (Hughes), Pandosto (Greene), Tamburlaine (Marlowe)
- 1589 in literature – The Passionate Shepherd to His Love (Christopher Marlowe), The Reason of State (Botero)
1590s
- Arcadia (Sidney), A Book to Burn (Li Zhi), Caigentan (Hong), Kao Pan Yu Shi (Tu Long), Vizsoly Bible
- 1591 in literature – The Taming of the Shrew (Shakespeare, approximate date), Astrophel and Stella (Sidney), Mateh Moshe, Postil of Jonas Bretkunas
- 1592 in literature – Journey to the West (Wu Cheng'en), Codex Huamantla, Pierce Penniless (Nashe), Doctor Faustus (Marlowe, approximate date)
- 1593 in literature – The Phoenix Nest, Brevis commentarius de Islandia (Jónsson), Jakub Wujek Bible
- 1594 in literature – The Unfortunate Traveller (Nashe), Theatrum artis scribendi (Hondius), Codex iconographicus monacensis 236, Satire Ménippée
- 1595 in literature – A Midsummer Night's Dream, (Shakespeare), Korjenic-Neoric Armorial, Muntakhab-ut-Tawarikh (?Abd al-Qadir Badayuni), Prophecy of the Popes (Wion)
- 1596 in literature – The Faerie Queene (Spenser, Books 4–6), The Blind Beggar of Alexandria (Chapman)
- 1597 in literature – Romeo and Juliet (Shakespeare), Essays (Francis Bacon), The Merchant of Venice (Shakespeare, approximate date), Eight sermons before the Sejm (Skarga), Apparatus ad omnium gentium historiam (Possevino), Mysterium Cosmographicum (Kepler)
- 1598 in literature – Golestan-e Honar (Ghoma), Henry IV, Part 2 (Shakespeare, approximate date)
- 1599 in literature – Henry V and Julius Caesar (Shakespeare), Guzmán de Alfarache (Alemán), Basilikon Doron (King James VI), Postil of Mikalojus Daukša, The Model of Poesy (Scott)
- 1600 in literature – As You Like It (Shakespeare), Englands Helicon (Flasket), Will Kemp's "Nine Days Wonder", Erofili (Chortatzis)
17th century
1600s
- 1601 in literature – Hamlet (Shakespeare, approximate date), Twelfth Night (Shakespeare), The Triumphs of Oriana (Morley), Leucippe and Clitophon (first printed)
- 1602 in literature – La Argentina (Centenera), Bahr al-Hayat (Muhammad Ghawth, approximate date), The City of the Sun (Campanella)
- 1603 in literature – Othello (Shakespeare, approximate date), Nippo Jisho, The Wonderfull Yeare (Dekker). First kabuki performances
- 1604 in literature – Altan Tobchi (Guush Luvsandanzan), Schilder-boeck (van Mander)
- 1605 in literature – Don Quixote de la Mancha (Part 1; Cervantes), Fastiginia (da Veiga), Mundus Alter et Idem (Hall), The Advancement of Learning (Bacon)
- 1606 in literature – King Lear and Macbeth (Shakespeare, approximate date), Ryukyu Shinto-ki
- 1607 in literature – L'Astrée (d'Urfé, first part), Atheism Conquered (Campanella), Tom a Lincoln (Johnson, second part)
- 1608 in literature – Somnium (Kepler), Journey from Bohemia to the Holy Land, by way of Venice and the Sea (Harant), Shoumei (Heinouchi)
- 1609 in literature – Shakespeare's sonnets published, Epicœne, or The Silent Woman (Jonson), Comentarios Reales de los Incas (de la Vega), Sancai Tuhui (Wang Qi)
1610s
- 1610 in literature – Muyejebo, Sidereus Nuncius (Galileo), True Reportory (Strachey)
- 1611 in literature – King James Bible, The Tempest (Shakespeare), Runa ABC (Bureus), Salve Deus Rex Judaeorum (Lanier)
- 1612 in literature – Malay Annals (oldest known version), The Beginning and Progress of the Muscovy War (Zólkiewski), Vocabolario degli Accademici della Crusca
- 1613 in literature – Novelas ejemplares (Cervantes), Dongui Bogam (Heo Jun), Jatakalankara (Ganesa), Soledades (de Góngora)
- 1614 in literature – Alma Academia Leidensis, Jibong yuseol (Yi), 1614 Low German Bible
- 1615 in literature – Don Quixote de la Mancha (second part, Cervantes), Zihui (Mei), De Christiana expeditione apud Sinas (Ricci)
- Koyo Gunkan (Kosaka), Krista Purana (Stephens), A Description of New England(Smith)
- Wamyo Ruijusho(large edition)
- 1618 in literature – The Dog in the Manger (Lope de Vega), Speculum Sophicum Rhodostauroticum
- 1619 in literature – Fuenteovejuna (Lope de Vega), The Maid's Tragedy (Beaumont and Fletcher)
1620s
- 1620 in literature – Novum Organum (Bacon), Septimana Philosophica (Maier), Haec-Vir, Stories Old and New and The Three Sui Quash the Demons' Revolt (Feng)
- 1621 in literature – The Anatomy of Melancholy (Burton), The Countess of Montgomery's Urania (Wroth), Wubei Zhi (Mao)
- 1622 in literature – Mourt's Relation (Winslow and Bradford), Palazzi di Genova (Rubens), La secchia rapita (Tapoti)
- 1623 in literature – First Folio (Shakespeare), Labyrinth of the World and Paradise of the Heart (Comenius), Zhifang Waiji
- 1624 in literature – Devotions upon Emergent Occasions (Donne), Emblemata of Zinne-werck (de Brune), Stories to Caution the World (Feng), De Veritate (Herbert)
- Pamietnik handlowca(Stefanski)
- 1626 in literature – New Atlantis (Bacon), El Buscón (de Quevedo), The Jews' Tragedy (Heminges, written)
- Diagrams and explanations of the wonderful machines of the Far West(Shreck and Wang)
- 1628 in literature – Institutes of the Lawes of England (Coke), The Lover's Melancholy (Ford)
- 1629 in literature – Janua linguarum reserata (Comenius), Alphabetum Ibericum sive Georgianum cum Oratione, Mélite (Corneille)
1630s
- 1630 in literature – Pathomachia
- 1631 in literature – The Swisser (Wilson)
- 1632 in literature – Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems (Galileo), Histriomastix (Prynne)
- 1633 in literature – Holy Sonnets (Donne)
- 1634 in literature – Somnium (Kepler), The Mysteryes of Nature and Art (Bate)
- 1635 in literature – Dijing Jingwulue (Liu Tong)
- Yesipov Chronicle
- 1637 in literature – Discourse on the Method (Descartes), Tiangong Kaiwu (Song)
- 1638 in literature – The Man in the Moone (Godwin), El Carnero (Freyle)
- 1639 in literature – Tesoro de la lengua guaraní, The Unnatural Combat (Massinger)
1640s
- On Yixing Tea Pot (Zhou Gaochi), A Supplement to the Journey to the West(Shen Yue)
- 1641 in literature – Leyen Spiegel, A Description of the Famous Kingdome of Macaria (Plattes), Flandria Illustrata (Sanderus)
- 1642 in literature – De Cive (Hobbes), Tohfatu'l-Ahbab (Muhammad Ali Kashmiri), Le Vite de’ Pittori, Scultori et Architetti (Baglione)
- 1643 in literature – Cazania lui Varlaam, Gero (Agerre), A History of Tibet by the Fifth Dalai Lama of Tibet, Shinra no Kiroku (Matsumae Kagehiro)
- 1644 in literature – Areopagitica and Of Education (Milton), Principles of Philosophy (Descartes)
- Dokkodo (Musashi), Epistolae Ho-Elianae (Howell), L'huomo di lettere(Bartoli)
- 1646 in literature – Estebanillo González, Gangraena (Edwardes), Pseudodoxia Epidemica (Browne)
- 1647 in literature – The Advice to Hartlib (Petty), Beaumont and Fletcher folios (first edition), The Siege of Sziget (Zrinski, written)
- 1648 in literature – Hesperides (Herrick), Image of the Virgin Mary Mother of God of Guadalupe, Padmavati (Alaol)
- 1649 in literature – Historia Lettica (Einhorn), Huei tlamahuiçoltica (de la Vega), Leabhar na nGenealach (Dubhaltach MacFhirbhisigh), Prasna Marga (Narayanan Nambutiri)
1650s
- Sho Shoken), The Tenth Muse Lately Sprung Up in America (Bradstreet), Il Conquisto di Granata (Graziani), Vrhobreznica Chronicle
- Inayat Allah Kamboh)
- 1652 in literature – Theatrum Chemicum Britannicum (Ashmole), Alcibiades the Schoolboy, Oedipus Aegyptiacus (Kircher)
- 1653 in literature – The Compleat Angler (Walton), Logopandecteision (Urquhart)
- 1654 in literature – Dasbodh (Ramdas), Appius and Virginia (Webster)
- 1655 in literature – Dabestan-e Mazaheb, De Corpore (Hobbes), Tarikh al-Sudan (Abd al-Sadi); Junius manuscript first published
- 1656 in literature – The Commonwealth of Oceana (Harrington), Mizan al-haqq (Kâtip Çelebi)
- 1657 in literature – Comical History of the States and Empires of the Moon (Cyrano de Bergerac), Lettres provinciales (Pascal), The Siege of Rhodes (Davenant),
- 1658 in literature – Heutelia, Ping Shan Leng Yan, The Garden of Cyrus (Browne)
- 1659 in literature – Shajara-i Tarakima (Abu al-Ghazi Bahadur), The Contention of Ajax and Ulysses (Shirley)
1660s
- 1660 in literature – Martyrs Mirror (van Braght), Critici sacri (Pearson); Samuel Pepys opens his diary
- 1661 in literature – The Faithful Friends (first printed), A Cure for a Cuckold (Fletcher, first printed), Putni tovaruš (Zrinska)
- L'école des femmes, The Princess of Montpensier (De La Fayette), Erdeniin Tobchi, Port-Royal Logic, Het Gulden Cabinet (de Bie); Traditional puppet play Punch and Judyfirst performed
- 1663 in literature – Eliot Indian Bible, The Playhouse to Be Let (Davenant); Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres founded; first Theatre Royal, Drury Lane founded
- 1664 in literature – Molière's Tartuffe, Technica Curiosa (Schott), Sylva, or A Discourse of Forest-Trees and the Propagation of Timber (Evelyn), Hudibras (Butler, second part)
- 1665 in literature – Contes et nouvelles en vers (De La Fontaine), Historia Eustachio Mariana (Kercher); Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society begins publication
- Margaret Cavendish's The Blazing World, Cuimre na nGenealach
- 1667 in literature – John Milton's Paradise Lost, China Illustrata (Kircher), Hatata (Zera Yacob)
- Description of Africa (Dapper), Een Bloemhof (Koerbagh), The Isle of Pines(Neville)
- 1669 in literature – Jean Racine's Britannicus, Letters of a Portuguese Nun (comte de Guilleragues)
1670s
- 1670 in literature – Le Bourgeois gentilhomme (Molière), Tractatus Theologico-Politicus (Spinoza), Pensées (Pascal)
- 1671 in literature – Samson Agonistes (Milton), Gartlic za cas kratiti (Frankopan), De Nieuwe en Onbekende Weereld (Montanus)
- 1672 in literature – Les Femmes Savantes (Molière), Loimologia (Hodges), The Lives of the Artists (Bellori)
- 1673 in literature – The Floating Island (Head), Lapponia (Schefferus)
- Jean de la Fontaine), Le Théâtre François (Chappuzeau), Jammers Minde(Leonora Christina)
- 1675 in literature – The Country Wife (Wycherley), History of the Sevarambians (Vairasse), Teutsche Academie (von Sandrart)
- 1676 in literature – The Southern Land, Known (de Foigny), Truth's Triumph (Tomkinson), The Man of Mode (Etherege)
- Ethics(Spinoza)
- 1678 in literature – The Pilgrim's Progress (John Bunyan), La Princesse de Clèves, Mowing-Devil
- Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio(Pu Songling, written in this year)
1680s
- 1680 in literature – The Orphan by Thomas Otway; Leabhar Cloinne Aodha Buidhe by Ruairí Ó hUiginn; The Life and Death of Mr Badman by John Bunyan. Death of Samuel Butler
- 1681 in literature – The History of King Lear by Nahum Tate; An Historical Relation of the Island Ceylon by Robert Knox; Absalom and Achitophel by John Dryden
- 1682 in literature – The Holy War by John Bunyan; Frame of Government of Pennsylvania by William Penn; Mac Flecknoe by John Dryden; Venice Preserv'd by Thomas Otway
- 1683 in literature – The London Jilt attributed to Alexander Oldys; Venus in the Cloister by the pseudonymous writer Abbé du Prat. Death of Izaak Walton
- Pavao Ritter Vitezovic; Bibliotheca antitrinitariorum by Christopher Sandius. Death of Pierre Corneille
- 1685 in literature – Bibliotheca Anatomica by Daniel Le Clerc and Jean-Jacques Manget; Cuneus Prophetarum by Pjetër Bogdani
- 1686 in literature – Conversations on the Plurality of Worlds by Bernard Le Bovier de Fontenelle
- 1687 in literature – Isaac Newton, Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica; John Dryden The Hind and the Panther
- 1688 in literature – Aphra Behn, Oroonoko. Death of John Bunyan
- 1689 in literature – John Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding. Death of Aphra Behn
1690s
- 1690 in literature – A Letter to a Friend (Browne), Dioclesian (Purcell), Amphitryon (Dryden)
- 1691 in literature – Athalie (Racine), Sarumino
- 1692 in literature – L'Impromptu de la garnison de Namur, Banmin chohoki
- 1693 in literature – The Old Bachelor and The Double Dealer (Congreve), The Carnal Prayer Mat (Li Yu), Some Thoughts Concerning Education (Locke), Wonders of the Invisible World (Mather)
- 1694 in literature – First complete edition of Dictionnaire de l'Académie française, Het Menselyk Bedryf ("The Book of Trades") (Luyken)
- 1695 in literature – Love for Love (Congreve), Khulasat-ut-Tawarikh (Sujan Rai), Guwen Guanzhi
- 1696 in literature – Love's Last Shift (Cibber), The Relapse (Vanbrugh), She Ventures and He Wins (Ariadne), Sri Charitropakhyan, The Inhumane Cardinal; or, Innocence Betrayed (Pix)
- 1697 in literature – Histoires ou contes du temps passé (Perrault), Belle-Belle ou Le Chevalier Fortuné (d'Aulnoy), Sabhasad Bakhar
- 1698 in literature – Short View of the Immorality and Profaneness of the English Stage (Collier), Tooke's Pantheon, Teague Land (Dunton), A New Dictionary of the Terms Ancient and Modern of the Canting Crew
- 1699 in literature – Les Aventures de Télémaque (Fénelon), Historia Histrionica (Wright), Kingo's hymnal. Death of Jean Racine
- 1700 in literature – The Way of the World – William Congreve. Death of John Dryden
18th century
1700s
- Pavao Ritter Vitezovic
- Matsuo Basho
- 1703 in literature – New Voyages to North America by Louis-Armand de Lom d'Arce de Lahontan, Baron de Lahontan; The Love Suicides at Sonezaki by Chikamatsu Monzaemon. Death of Samuel Pepys; Samuel Johnson
- 1704 in literature – A Tale of a Tub by Jonathan Swift; New Essays on Human Understanding by Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz; The Storm by Daniel Defoe. Death of John Locke
- 1705 in literature – Money and Trade Considered by John Law
- 1706 in literature – The Apparition of Mrs. Veal by Daniel Defoe; The Recruiting Officer by George Farquhar
- 1707 in literature – Arithmetica Universalis – Isaac Newton
- An Argument against Abolishing Christianity – Jonathan Swift
- Tatler, established by Richard Steele; The New Atalantis by Delarivier Manley; Turcaret by Alain-René Lesage
1710s
- 1710 in literature – Colley Cibber becomes manager of Drury Lane; The Statute of Anne was the first statute to provide for copyright regulated by the government and courts, rather than by private parties; Théodicée by Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz; Meditation Upon a Broomstick by Jonathan Swift; First publication of the newspaper The Examiner, edited by Jonathan Swift
- 1711 in literature – The Spectator is founded by Joseph Addison and Richard Steele; First print version of Jack the Giant Killer, published in two parts by J. White; The Courier for Hell by Chikamatsu Monzaemon; An Essay on Criticism by Alexander Pope
- 1712 in literature – Alexander Pope, The Rape of the Lock
- 1713 in literature – Birth of Laurence Sterne. First publication of the newspaper The Guardian, under publisher Richard Steele; First performance of Cato, a Tragedy by Joseph Addison; First printed version of Erotokritos by Vitsentzos Kornaros; Three Dialogues Between Hylas and Philonous by George Berkeley
- 1714 in literature – Bernard Mandeville, The Fable of the Bees
- Poet Laureate of Great Britain; Gil Blas by Alain-René Lesage; Divine Songs Attempted in Easy Language for the Use of Children by Isaac Watts; The Battles of Coxinga by Chikamatsu Monzaemon
- 1716 in literature – The Fifth Ode of the Fourth Book of Horace Imitated – Jane Brereton; Kangxi Dictionary, compiled by order of the Kangxi Emperor
- 1717 in literature – A Philosophical Inquiry Concerning Human Liberty – Anthony Collins; Three Hours After Marriage by John Gay, Alexander Pope and John Arbuthnot;
- 1718 in literature – Oedipus – Voltaire's first play
- 1719 in literature – Robinson Crusoe – Daniel Defoe
1720s
- 1720 in literature – Daniel Defoe, Memoirs of a Cavalier
- 1721 in literature – Montesquieu, Persian Letters
- 1722 in literature – Daniel Defoe, Moll Flanders
- La Henriade;
- A tour thro' the whole island of Great Britain by Daniel Defoe; A General History of the Pyrates by Captain Charles Johnson; La Fausse Suivante by Pierre de Marivaux
- 1725 in literature – Birth of Giacomo Casanova; the encyclopaedia Complete Classics Collection of Ancient China is completed, edited by Chen Menglei and Jiang Tingxi. First printed version of The Book of Abramelin; A Dissertation on Liberty and Necessity, Pleasure and Pain by Benjamin Franklin; Fantomina by Eliza Haywood; Mariamne by Augustin Nadal
- 1726 in literature – Jonathan Swift, Gulliver's Travels
- 1727 in literature – Eliza Haywood, Philidore and Placentia; Double Falsehood by Lewis Theobald; Conjugal Lewdness by Daniel Defoe
- 1728 in literature – Alexander Pope, The Dunciad
- 1729 in literature – Second Thoughts Are Best by Daniel Defoe; A Modest Proposal by Jonathan Swift; Hurlothrumbo by Samuel Johnson. Death of William Congreve
1730s
- 1730 in literature – The Game of Love and Chance – Pierre de Marivaux; Tom Thumb by Henry Fielding.
- Antoine François Prévost; Life of Sethos by Jean Terrasson
- 1732 in literature – The magazine Then Swänska Argus is first published in Sweden, written entirely by Olof von Dalin. The annual almanac Poor Richard's Almanack is first published, written by Benjamin Franklin. The London Magazine is first published, the second oldest literary periodical; Alciphron by George Berkeley; The Mock Doctor by Henry Fielding; The Triumph of Love by Pierre de Marivaux; Zaïre by Voltaire
- Essay on Man (to 1744) – Alexander Pope
- 1734 in literature – Copies of Voltaire's Letters on the English are burned, and a warrant is issued for the author's arrest. Le Paysan parvenu by Pierre de Marivaux; Chrononhotonthologos by Henry Carey; The Analyst by George Berkeley
- libel in the New York Weekly Journal, he is found not guilty by the jury determining that truth was a defense against charges of libel. História trágico-marítima by Bernardo Gomes de Brito; Systema Naturae by Carl Linnaeus
- 1736 in literature – Method of Fluxions – Isaac Newton
- A Faithful Narrative of the Surprising Work of God in the Conversion of Many Hundred Souls in Northampton by Jonathan Edwards; Les Fausses Confidences by Pierre de Marivaux
- 1738 in literature – Jewish Letters by Jean-Baptiste de Boyer, Marquis d'Argens; A Complete Collection of Genteel and Ingenious Conversation by Jonathan Swift; The Divine Legation of Moses by William Warburton
- 1739 in literature – A Treatise of Human Nature (to 1740) – David Hume
1740s
- Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villeneuve; Pamela; or, Virtue Rewarded – Samuel Richardson
- 1741 in literature – An Apology for the Life of Mrs. Shamela Andrews – Henry Fielding; Niels Klim's Underground Travels – Ludvig Holberg
- 1742 in literature – Joseph Andrews – Henry Fielding
- Servant of Two Masters by Carlo Goldonifirst performed
- 1744 in literature – The Female Spectator is launched by Eliza Haywood; The Harleian Miscellany by Samuel Johnson and William Oldys; A Little Pretty Pocket-Book by John Newbery; Tommy Thumb's Pretty Song Book; The Pleasures of the Imagination by Mark Akenside; Life of Mr Richard Savage by Samuel Johnson
- 1745 in literature – Description of the Kingdom of Georgia by Vakhushti of Kartli; Flora Svecica by Carl Linnaeus; Nowe Ateny by Benedykt Chmielowski; Suomalaisen Sana-Lugun Coetus by Daniel Juslenius. Death of Jonathan Swift
- Namiki Sosuke and Miyoshi Shoraku
- 1747 in literature – Clarissa (to 1748) – Samuel Richardson
- 1748 in literature – Fanny Hill – John Cleland; An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding – David Hume
- 1749 in literature – The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling – Henry Fielding
1750s
- 1750 in literature – The Rambler essays (to 1752) – Samuel Johnson; The Liar, I pettegolezzi delle donne, Il teatro comico, and Il vero amico by Carlo Goldoni; Discourse on the Arts and Sciences by Jean-Jacques Rousseau
- Encyclopédie, ou dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers– first published
- Fanny Burney
- 1753 in literature – The History of Sir Charles Grandison – Samuel Richardson; The Mistress of the Inn by Carlo Goldoni first performed
- The History of Great Britain (to 1762) – David Hume
- 1755 in literature – Letter to Chesterfield – Samuel Johnson; Miss Sara Sampson play by Gotthold Ephraim Lessing
- 1756 in literature – Gilbert White becomes curate of Selborne, Hampshire; Douglas by John Home; An Analysis of the Laws of England by William Blackstone; A Vindication of Natural Society by Edmund Burke; Versuch einer gründlichen Violinschule by Leopold Mozart; The Natural History of Aleppo by Alexander Russell; Essai sur les mœurs et l'esprit des nations by Voltaire
- 1757 in literature – Pierre-Augustin Caron changes his surname to Beaumarchais; A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful by Edmund Burke; Harris's List of Covent Garden Ladies by Samuel Derrick; Le Fils naturel by Denis Diderot
- 1759 in literature – Candide – Voltaire; The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman (to 1770) – Laurence Sterne
1760s
- 1760 in literature – The Life and Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves by Tobias Smollett; Polly Honeycombe by George Colman the Elder; The Boors by Carlo Goldoni; The Minor by Samuel Foote
- Julie, ou la nouvelle Héloïse – Jean-Jacques Rousseau
- Emile: or, On Education, The Social Contract – Jean-Jacques Rousseau
- 1763 in literature – James Boswell is introduced to Samuel Johnson; A Song to David by Christopher Smart; Three Hundred Tang Poems by Sun Zhu
- 1764 in literature – The Castle of Otranto – Horace Walpole
- 1765 in literature – Beginning of the Sturm und Drang movement; The serial novel The Fool of Quality by Henry Brooke; The History of Little Goody Two-Shoes attributed to Oliver Goldsmith; The Green Bird by Carlo Gozzi; Reliques of Ancient English Poetry by Thomas Percy
- 1766 in literature – The Vicar of Wakefield – Oliver Goldsmith
- Gotthold Lessing
- 1768 in literature – Poems – Thomas Gray; The Good-Natur'd Man by Oliver Goldsmith; False Delicacy by Hugh Kelly; An Account of Corsica by James Boswell; A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy by Laurence Sterne
- 1769 in literature – The History of Emily Montague – Frances Brooke; The History and Adventures of an Atom – Tobias Smollett
1770s
- 1770 in literature – Épître à l'Auteur du Livre des Trois Imposteurs – Voltaire
- 1771 in literature – Jacques the Fatalist (to 1773) – Denis Diderot. Death of Thomas Gray; Tobias Smollett
- 1772 in literature – Emilia Galotti by Gotthold Ephraim Lessing. The Marquis de Sade embarks on an orgy, as a result of which he is convicted in absentia of sodomy and poisoning and receives a death sentence; he escapes.
- Jacques the Fatalist and His Master – Denis Diderot
- 1774 in literature – The Sorrows of Young Werther – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. Death of Oliver Goldsmith
- 1775 in literature – The Rivals – Richard Brinsley Sheridan
- Common Sense – Thomas Paine; The Wealth of Nations – Adam Smith; United States Declaration of Independence – Thomas Jefferson
- 1777 in literature – The School for Scandal – Richard Brinsley Sheridan
- Fanny Burney. Death of Voltaire(b. 1694)
1780s
- 1780 in literature – Letters to a Philosophical Unbeliever – Joseph Priestley
- A Critique of Pure Reason – Immanuel Kant
- 1782 in literature – The Robbers – Friedrich Schiller; Les Liaisons dangereuses – Pierre Choderlos de Laclos. Death of Jean-Jacques Rousseau
- Prolegomena to any Future Metaphysics – Immanuel Kant
- Robert Bage; The Marriage of Figaro – Pierre Beaumarchais. Death of Denis Diderot; Samuel Johnson; Phillis Wheatley
- Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals – Immanuel Kant, Anton Reiser (to 1790) – Karl Philipp Moritz; The Task – William Cowper
- William Thomas Beckford
- 1787 in literature – Don Carlos – Friedrich Schiller; Paul et Virginie – Jacques-Henri Bernardin de Saint-Pierre
- Songs of Innocence – William Blake; The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire – Edward Gibbon– completed
1790s
- Tam O'Shanter – Robert Burns
- 1792 in literature – A Vindication of the Rights of Woman – Mary Wollstonecraft
- Songs of Experience – William Blake. Birth of John Neal
- 1794 in literature – The Age of Reason – Thomas Paine. Death of James Boswell
- Fanny Burney; Memoirs of My Life and Writings – Edward Gibbon; The Monk – Matthew Lewis. Death of Robert Burns
- l'Histoire de Juliette – Marquis de Sade; Kubla Khan – Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Death of Edmund Burke; Horace Walpole; Mary Wollstonecraft
- 1798 in literature – Lyrical Ballads – Samuel Taylor Coleridge and William Wordsworth; The Rime of the Ancient Mariner – Samuel Taylor Coleridge
- 1799 in literature – Arthur Mervyn – Charles Brockden Brown; Wallenstein – Friedrich Schiller
- 1800 in literature – Castle Rackrent – Maria Edgeworth; Hymns to the Night – Novalis; Mary Stuart – Friedrich Schiller; Glenfinlas – Walter Scott
19th century
1800s
- 1801 in literature – Atala – François-René de Chateaubriand; Belinda – Maria Edgeworth
- 1802 in literature – Delphine – Germaine de Staël; René – François-René de Chateaubriand. Birth of Victor Hugo. Death of Lydia Maria Child
- 1803 in literature – St. Clair of the Isles – Elizabeth Helme; Memoirs of Carwin the Biloquist- Charles Brockden Brown; Titan - Jean Paul; Thaddeus of Warsaw - Jane Porter
- Jerusalem The Emanation of the Giant Albion (poetry) – William Blake; William Tell – Friedrich Schiller. Death of Immanuel Kant; Joseph Priestley
- 1805 in literature – The Wonder of the Village – Elizabeth Meeke; Manuscript Found in Saragossa – Count Jan Nepomucen Potocki; Le Dernier Homme – Jean-Baptiste Cousin de Grainville
- 1806 in literature – Zofloya by Charlotte Dacre - Leonora by Maria Edgeworth - The Wild Irish Girl by Sydney, Lady Morgan
- Charles Lamb and Mary Lamb
- Goethe; Marmion – Walter Scott
- 1809 in literature – The Martyrs – François-René de Chateaubriand; Elective Affinities – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. Death of Thomas Paine
1810s
- 1810 in literature – The Houses of Osma and Almeria – Regina Maria Roche; Zastrozzi and St. Irvyne – Percy Bysshe Shelley
- 1811 in literature – Sense and Sensibility – Jane Austen; Childe Harold's Pilgrimage – Lord Byron – completed
- The Brothers Grimm
- 1813 in literature – Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen; Queen Mab – Percy Bysshe Shelley
- Sir Walter Scott; The Dog of Montarges – play by René-Charles Guilbert de Pixérécourt. Death of Marquis de Sade
- 1815 in literature – Emma – Jane Austen; The Pastor's Fireside – Jane Porter; The White Doe of Rylstone – William Wordsworth
- 1816 in literature – Adolphe – Benjamin Constant; The Sandman – E. T. A. Hoffmann; Alastor – Percy Bysshe Shelley
- 1818 in literature – Frankenstein – Mary Shelley; Julian and Maddalo – Percy Bysshe Shelley; Ozymandias – Percy Bysshe Shelley; The Revolt of Islam – Percy Bysshe Shelley. Death of Matthew Lewis
1820s
- 1820 in literature – Ruslan and Ludmila – Alexander Pushkin; To a Skylark – Percy Bysshe Shelley; The Cloud – Percy Bysshe Shelley; Prometheus Unbound – Percy Bysshe Shelley
- Adonaïs – Percy Bysshe Shelley
- 1822 in literature – The Vision of Judgment – Lord Byron; Logan – John Neal. Death of Percy Bysshe Shelley
- 1823 in literature – The Pioneers – James Fenimore Cooper; Woe from Wit – Alexander Griboyedov; Twas the Night Before Christmas – Clement Clarke Moore; The Fountain of Bakhchisaray – Alexander Pushkin; Ourika – Claire de Duras; Seventy-Six — John Neal
- 1824 in literature – Our Village – Mary Russell Mitford. Death of Lord Byron
- 1825 in literature – Boris Godunov – Alexander Pushkin; The Betrothed – Alessandro Manzoni; Brother Jonathan – John Neal
- Jane C. Loudon. Death of William Blake
- The Birds of America – John James Audubon; The Betrothed – Alessandro Manzoni; Rachel Dyer – John Neal
- 1829 in literature – The Misfortunes of Elphin – Thomas Love Peacock
1830s
- The Book of Mormon – Joseph Smith
- 1831 in literature – The Hunchback of Notre-Dame – Victor Hugo; La Peau de chagrin – Honoré de Balzac
- Aleksandr Pushkin; Eugénie Grandet – Honoré de Balzac
- 1834 in literature – Sartor Resartus – Thomas Carlyle; Helen – Maria Edgeworth; The Queen of Spades, The Bronze Horseman – Alexander Pushkin; Pan Tadeusz – Adam Mickiewicz
- De la démocratie en Amérique – Alexis de Tocqueville; The Unparalleled Adventure of One Hans Pfaall – Edgar Allan Poe
- The Nose – Nikolai Gogol
- 1837 in literature – The Little Mermaid – Hans Christian Andersen; The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club – Charles Dickens; Death of the Poet – Mikhail Lermontov
- De Leeuw van Vlaanderen – Hendrik Conscience
- 1839 in literature – The Voyage of the Beagle – Charles Darwin; Nicholas Nickleby – Charles Dickens; The Charterhouse of Parma – Stendhal
1840s
- Fanny Burney
- The Deerslayer – James Fenimore Cooper; Demon – Mikhail Lermontov; The Murders in the Rue Morgue – Edgar Allan Poe; The King of the Golden River – John Ruskin
- 1842 in literature – Dead Souls – Nikolai Gogol
- Thomas Babington Macaulay. Death of Robert Southey
- Alexandre Dumas, père; The Snow Queen – Hans Christian Andersen
- Alexandre Dumas, père; Stages on Life's Way – Søren Kierkegaard; The Raven – Edgar Allan Poe; Facundo – Domingo Faustino Sarmiento
- 1846 in literature – Cousin Bette – Honoré de Balzac; Poor Folk and The Double – Fyodor Dostoevsky. Birth of Kate Greenaway
- Alexandre Dumas, père; Agnes Grey – Anne Brontë; The Children of the New Forest – Frederick Marryat; Wuthering Heights – Emily Brontë; Jane Eyre – Charlotte Brontë; Evangeline – Henry Wadsworth Longfellow; Tancred – Benjamin Disraeli
- Alexandre Dumas, fils; Yeast – Charles Kingsley. Death of François-René de Chateaubriand, Branwell Brontë, Emily Brontë
- The Oregon Trail – Francis Parkman; Annabel Lee – Edgar Allan Poe; Shirley – Charlotte Brontë. Birth of August Strindberg. Death of Anne Brontë, Edgar Allan Poe
1850s
- David Copperfield – Charles Dickens, Household Words edited by Charles Dickens begins publication; Christmas-Eve and Easter-Day – Robert Browning. Death of William Wordsworth; Honoré de Balzac
- 1851 in literature – Moby-Dick – Herman Melville; Cranford – Elizabeth Gaskell; Lavengro – George Borrow; The House of the Seven Gables – Nathaniel Hawthorne; A Wonder-Book for Girls and Boys – Nathaniel Hawthorne. Death of Mary Shelley; James Fenimore Cooper
- 1852 in literature – Uncle Tom's Cabin – Harriet Beecher Stowe; A Sportsman's Sketches – Ivan Turgenev. Death of Nikolai Gogol
- 1853 in literature – Ruth – Elizabeth Gaskell; Bleak House by Charles Dickens is the first English novel to feature a detective; The Heir of Redclyffe – Charlotte Mary Yonge; The Scholar Gipsy – Matthew Arnold; Bartleby, the Scrivener – Herman Melville; Villette – Charlotte Brontë. Death of Amelia Opie
- 1854 in literature – Walden – Henry David Thoreau; The Newcomes – William Makepeace Thackeray. Death of Gabriele Rossetti; Charlotte Brontë; Søren Kierkegaard
- Božena Nemcová; Westward Ho! – Charles Kingsley; The Song of Hiawatha – Henry Wadsworth Longfellow; Leaves of Grass – Walt Whitman; A Month in the Country – Ivan Turgenev. Death of Dorothy Wordsworth; Charlotte Brontë
- Mrs. Craik. Death of Heinrich Heine
- Tom Brown's Schooldays – Thomas Hughes; The Hasheesh Eater – Fitz Hugh Ludlow; The Professor – Charlotte Brontë
- 1858 in literature – Home of the Gentry – Ivan Turgenev; Phantastes – George MacDonald
- Thomas de Quincey
1860s
- 1860 in literature – Max Havelaar – Multatuli; The Mill on the Floss – George Eliot; The Woman in White – Wilkie Collins; First Love – Ivan Turgenev
- 1862 in literature – Les Misérables – Victor Hugo; Fathers and Sons – Ivan Turgenev; Salammbô – Gustave Flaubert; The House of the Dead – Fyodor Dostoevsky. Death of Henry David Thoreau
- What Is To Be Done? – Nikolay Chernyshevsky; Romola – George Eliot; The Notting Hill Mystery – Charles Warren Adams; Sylvia's Lovers – Elizabeth Gaskell; The House by the Churchyard – Sheridan Le Fanu; Hard Cash – Charles Reade; The Water-Babies, A Fairy Tale for a Land Baby – Charles Kingsley. Death of William Makepeace Thackeray
- 1864 in literature – Uncle Silas – Sheridan Le Fanu; Journey to the Center of the Earth – Jules Verne; Notes from Underground – Fyodor Dostoevsky; María – Jorge Isaacs. Death of Nathaniel Hawthorne, John Clare
- 1865 in literature – Alice's Adventures in Wonderland – Lewis Carroll; Our Mutual Friend – Charles Dickens; From the Earth to the Moon – Jules Verne. Death of Elizabeth Gaskell
- 1866 in literature – Crime and Punishment – Fyodor Dostoevsky; Poems and Ballads – Algernon Charles Swinburne
- 1867 in literature – The Gambler – Fyodor Dostoevsky; Peer Gynt – Henrik Ibsen; Das Kapital – Karl Marx. Death of Charles Baudelaire
- Aleksandr Ostrovsky
- The Idiot – Fyodor Dostoevsky; The Brick Moon – Edward Everett Hale; The Man Who Laughs – Victor Hugo
1870s
- Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea – Jules Verne; Venus in Furs – Leopold von Sacher-Masoch; Lothair – Benjamin Disraeli. Death of Charles Dickens
- 1872 in literature – The Birth of Tragedy – Friedrich Nietzsche; In a Glass Darkly – Sheridan Le Fanu; The Princess and the Goblin – George MacDonald; Erewhon – Samuel Butler – José Hernández's Martín Fierro; Demons – Fyodor Dostoevsky
- Jules Amédée Barbey d'Aurevilly; Far from the Madding Crowd – Thomas Hardy
- 1875 in literature – The Way We Live Now – Anthony Trollope; Beauchamp's Career – George Meredith. Death of Hans Christian Andersen
- 1876 in literature – The Adventures of Tom Sawyer – Mark Twain; The Shadow of the Sword – Robert Buchanan; The Story of Sigurd the Volsung and the Fall of the Niblungs – William Morris; An Ancient Tale – Józef Ignacy Kraszewski. Death of John Neal; George Sand
- 1877 in literature – Under the Lilacs – Louisa May Alcott; Anna Karenina – Leo Tolstoy; L'Assommoir – Émile Zola; Black Beauty – Anna Sewell; Povídky malostranské ("Tales of the Lesser Quarter") – Jan Neruda
- 1878 in literature – H.M.S. Pinafore – Gilbert and Sullivan; Daisy Miller – Henry James. Death of Anna Sewell
1880s
- Ben-Hur – Lew Wallace; Workers in the Dawn – George Gissing; Nana – Émile Zola; The Brothers Karamazov – Fyodor Dostoevsky. Birth of Andrei Bely
- Uncle Remus: His Songs and His Sayings – Joel Chandler Harris; The Black Robe – Wilkie Collins; Ghosts – Henrik Ibsen. Death of Fyodor Dostoevsky; Thomas Carlyle; Benjamin Disraeli
- 1882 in literature – The Prince and the Pauper – Mark Twain; The Naval War of 1812 – Theodore Roosevelt
- 1883 in literature – Treasure Island – Robert Louis Stevenson; The Adventures of Pinocchio – Carlo Collodi; The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood – Howard Pyle. Death of Karl Marx;
- The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn – Mark Twain; With Fire and Sword – Henryk Sienkiewicz; The Wild Duck – Henrik Ibsen; Flatland – Edwin Abbott Abbott
- Boleslaw Prus; The Bostonians – Henry James; The Death of Ivan Ilyich – Leo Tolstoy; Rosmersholm – Henrik Ibsen; A Romance of Two Worlds – Marie Corelli. Death of Emily Dickinson
- Noli me tangere – José Rizal
- 1888 in literature – The Man Who Would Be King – Rudyard Kipling; Looking Backward – Edward Bellamy; Robert Elsmere – Mary Augusta Ward; Miss Julie – August Strindberg. Death of Louisa May Alcott; Matthew Arnold
- Gabriele d'Annunzio; Three Men in a Boat – Jerome K. Jerome; A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court – Mark Twain; The Kreutzer Sonata – Leo Tolstoy. Death of Gerard Manley Hopkins; Wilkie Collins; Robert Browning
1890s
- 1890 in literature – Hedda Gabler – Henrik Ibsen; Hunger – Knut Hamsun; Original German performance of Spring Awakening - Frank Wedekind; An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge – Ambrose Bierce;
- 1891 in literature – Tales of Soldiers and Civilians – Ambrose Bierce; Diary of a Pilgrimage – Jerome K. Jerome; Tess of the d'Urbervilles – Thomas Hardy; The Picture of Dorian Gray – Oscar Wilde. Death of Herman Melville, Arthur Rimbaud
- Children of the Ghetto – Israel Zangwill; Gunga Din – Rudyard Kipling; Chitra – Rabindranath Tagore. Death of Walt Whitman
- Boleslaw Prus. Death of Guy de Maupassant
- Will Harben. Death of Robert Louis Stevenson, Christina Rossetti
- Alexandre Dumas, fils
- 1897 in literature – Captains Courageous – Rudyard Kipling; Uncle Vanya – Anton Chekhov; Dracula – Bram Stoker; Divagations – Stéphane Mallarmé; The Beetle – Richard Marsh; The Invisible Man – H. G. Wells. Death of Harriet Jacobs
- 1898 in literature – Paris – Émile Zola; The War of the Worlds – H. G. Wells; The Turn of the Screw – Henry James; To Damascus – August Strindberg. Death of Lewis Carroll, Stéphane Mallarmé
- 1899 in literature – The School and Society – John Dewey; The Lady with the Dog – Anton Chekhov; The Awakening – Kate Chopin; Heart of Darkness – Joseph Conrad; The Yellow Wallpaper – Charlotte Perkins Gilman; The Interpretation of Dreams – Sigmund Freud; When We Dead Awaken – Henrik Ibsen. First printed edition of Alpamysh; Dom Casmurro – Machado de Assis
- 1900 in literature – L. Frank Baum's The Wonderful Wizard of Oz; Joseph Conrad's Lord Jim; Theodore Dreiser's Sister Carrie. Death of Oscar Wilde
20th century
1900s
- 1901 in literature – Thomas Mann's Buddenbrooks; M. P. Shiel's The Purple Cloud; Anton Chekhov's Three Sisters; Rudyard Kipling's Kim; August Strindberg's A Dream Play; Stanislaw Wyspianski's The Wedding. Death of Kate Greenaway, Charlotte Mary Yonge
- 1902 in literature – André Gide's The Immoralist; Maxim Gorky's The Lower Depths; Henry James's The Wings of the Dove; Arthur Conan Doyle's The Hound of the Baskervilles; Beatrix Potter's The Tale of Peter Rabbit; J. M. Barrie's The Little White Bird; Leo Tolstoy's The Power of Darkness. Death of Émile Zola, Bret Harte
- W. E. Henley
- 1904 in literature – Joseph Conrad's Nostromo; E. M. Forster's Where Angels Fear to Tread; Henry James's The Golden Bowl; M. R. James's Ghost Stories of an Antiquary; Jack London's The Sea-Wolf; William Henry Hudson's Green Mansions; Wyladyslaw Reymont's The Peasants; Anton Chekhov's play The Cherry Orchard first performed. Death of Anton Chekhov
- 1905 in literature – Jack London's White Fang; Arthur Conan Doyle's The Return of Sherlock Holmes; Edith Nesbit's The Railway Children, Rokeya Sakhawat Hussain's Sultana's Dream; Baroness Orczy's The Scarlet Pimpernel. Death of Jules Verne
- The Mother; Upton Sinclair's The Jungle; Lope K. Santos' Banaag at Sikat. Death of Paul Laurence Dunbar, Henrik Ibsen
- 1907 in literature – Arnold Bennett's The City of Pleasure; Selma Lagerlöf's The Wonderful Adventures of Nils; Robert Hugh Benson's Lord of the World; August Strindberg's The Ghost Sonata; Pedro Alcantara Monteclaro's Maragtas. Death of Alfred Jarry, Sully Prudhomme
- 1908 in literature – Leonid Andreyev's The Seven Who Were Hanged; E. M. Forster's A Room with a View; Lucy Maud Montgomery's Anne of Green Gables; Anatole France's L'île des Pingouins (Penguin Island); Kenneth Grahame's The Wind in the Willows; Baroness Orczy's The Elusive Pimpernel; Colette's The Tendrils of the Vine. Death of Joel Chandler Harris, Machado de Assis
- The Song of Songs; H. G. Wells' Tono-Bungay. Death of John Millington Synge, Algernon Charles Swinburne
1910s
- 1910 in literature – E. M. Forster's Howards End; Hanns Heinz Ewers's The Sorcerer's Apprentice; Rabindranath Tagore's Raja. Death of Leo Tolstoy, Mark Twain
- 1911 in literature – Joseph Conrad's Under Western Eyes; Gaston Leroux's The Phantom of the Opera; Frances Hodgson Burnett's The Secret Garden; Ambrose Bierce's The Devil's Dictionary; Edith Wharton's Ethan Frome; Hugo Gernsback's Ralph 124C 41+; Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition published. Death of Joseph Pulitzer
- The Lost World. Death of Bram Stoker
- 1913 in literature – Andrei Bely's Petersburg; Alain-Fournier's Le Grand Meaulnes; D. H. Lawrence's Sons and Lovers; George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion; Edgar Rice Burroughs's The Return of Tarzan; Guillaume Apollinaire's Alcools
- 1914 in literature – Heinrich Mann's The Loyal Subject; Stephen Leacock's Arcadian Adventures with the Idle Rich; James Joyce's Dubliners. Disappearance of Ambrose Bierce in Mexico
- 1915 in literature – Franz Kafka's The Metamorphosis; Charlotte Perkins Gilman's Herland; Russell Thorndike's Doctor Syn: A Tale of the Romney Marsh. Death of Rupert Brooke
- 1916 in literature – Albert Einstein's Relativity; W. H. Davies' Leisure; James Joyce's A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. Death of Henry James, Jack London
- 1917 in literature – T. S. Eliot's The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock; Aleister Crowley's Moonchild; Edgar Rice Burroughs's A Princess of Mars
- 1918 in literature – Booth Tarkington's The Magnificent Ambersons; Thomas Mann's Reflections of a Nonpolitical Man; Alexander Blok's The Twelve; Lytton Strachey's Eminent Victorians; Norman Lindsay's The Magic Pudding; Jack London's The Red One. Death of Wilfred Owen
- 1919 in literature – W. Somerset Maugham's The Moon and Sixpence; Johnston McCulley's The Curse of Capistrano; H. P. Lovecraft's Dagon; Daisy Ashford's The Young Visiters. Death of Rosa Luxemburg, L. Frank Baum, Andrew Carnegie.
1920s
- 1920 in literature – F. Scott Fitzgerald's This Side of Paradise; D. H. Lawrence's Women in Love; Sinclair Lewis's Main Street; Edith Wharton's The Age of Innocence; Hugh Lofting's The Story of Doctor Dolittle; Yevgeny Zamyatin's We; Sigmund Freud's Beyond the Pleasure Principle; Karel Capek's R.U.R.; Agatha Christie's The Mysterious Affair at Styles; H. P. Lovecraft's The Cats of Ulthar. Death of William Heinemann, Olive Schreiner
- 1921 in literature – Luigi Pirandello's play, Six Characters in Search of an Author; Langston Hughes's poem "The Negro Speaks of Rivers" in The Crisis. Death of Alexander Blok
- 1922 in literature – James Joyce's Ulysses; T. S. Eliot's The Waste Land; Hermann Hesse's Siddhartha; E. R. Eddison's The Worm Ouroboros; Rainer Maria Rilke's Duino Elegies and Sonnets to Orpheus; Karel Capek's The Makropulos Affair; John Galsworthy begins writing The Forsyte Saga; Agatha Christie's The Secret Adversary. Death of Marcel Proust (In Search of Lost Time completed)
- 1923 in literature – Kahlil Gibran's The Prophet; Dorothy L. Sayers' Whose Body? (Lord Peter Wimsey makes his first appearance in print); Jaroslav Hašek's The Good Soldier Švejk; Agatha Christie's The Murder on the Links. Death of Katherine Mansfield
- 1924 in literature – Yevgeny Zamyatin's We; Thomas Mann's Der Zauberberg (The Magic Mountain); E. M. Forster's A Passage to India; Herman Melville's Billy Budd, Foretopman; Lord Dunsany's The King of Elfland's Daughter; José Eustasio Rivera's The Vortex; Agatha Christie's The Man in the Brown Suit and Poirot Investigates. Death of Franz Kafka, Joseph Conrad, Marie Corelli, Anatole France, Frances Hodgson Burnett
- Sergey Esenin, Amy Lowell
- 1926 in literature – A. A. Milne's Winnie-the-Pooh; Ernest Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises; Sean O'Casey's play The Plough and the Stars; Franz Kafka's Das Schloß (The Castle); Agatha Christie's The Murder of Roger Ackroyd; Ricardo Güiraldes' Don Segundo Sombra. Death of J. M. Dent, Rudolf Christoph Eucken, Rainer Maria Rilke
- The Bridge of San Luis Rey; Agatha Christie's The Big Four; François Mauriac's Thérèse Desqueyroux; H. P. Lovecraft's The Colour Out of Space. Death of Jerome K. Jerome
- Gypsy Ballads; Agatha Christie's The Mystery of the Blue Train; Andrei Platonov's Chevengur; Valerian Pidmohylny's The City. Death of Thomas Hardy
- Faber and Faber
1930s
- The Man With the Flower in His Mouth becomes the first broadcast television drama; Sigmund Freud's Civilization and Its Discontents; Agatha Christie's The Murder at the Vicarage, Giant's Bread, and The Mysterious Mr Quin. Death of D. H. Lawrence, Robert Bridges
- Khalil Gibran
- 1932 in literature – Aldous Huxley's Brave New World; Louis-Ferdinand Céline's Voyage au Bout de la Nuit (Journey to the End of the Night); Hermann Hesse's Journey to the East; William Faulkner's Light in August; Lewis Grassic Gibbon's Sunset Song; Agatha Christie's Peril at End House and The Thirteen Problems. Death of Lytton Strachey, Hart Crane, Sol Plaatje
- Lost Horizon; Vera Brittain's Testament of Youth; John Cowper Powys A Glastonbury Romance; Eugene O'Neill's Ah, Wilderness!; Agatha Christie's Lord Edgware Dies and The Hound of Death; Lao She's Cat Country; Lion Feuchtwanger's The Oppermanns. Death of John Galsworthy, Ring Lardner, George Moore
- 1934 in literature – F. Scott Fitzgerald's Tender Is the Night; Robert Graves's I, Claudius; Henry Miller's Tropic of Cancer; Agatha Christie's Murder on the Orient Express, Unfinished Portrait, Why Didn't They Ask Evans?, Three Act Tragedy, The Listerdale Mystery, and Parker Pyne Investigates; Irving Stone's Lust for Life; P.L. Travers' Mary Poppins; Dashiell Hammett's The Thin Man; James Hilton's Goodbye, Mr. Chips; Nikolai Ostrovsky's How the Steel Was Tempered; James M. Cain's The Postman Always Rings Twice; H. P. Lovecraft completes Supernatural Horror in Literature (1925–34); E. E. Smith's Triplanetary. Death of Andrei Bely, Wallace Thurman
- 1935 in literature – Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little House on the Prairie; Russell Thorndike's Doctor Syn Returns; Agatha Christie's Death in the Clouds. First paperback published by Penguin Books. Death of Charlotte Perkins Gilman, T. E. Lawrence, Fernando Pessoa
- The Shadow Over Innsmouth and The Shadow Out of Time. Killing of Federico García Lorca, death of Maxim Gorky
- 1937 in literature – John Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men; J. R. R. Tolkien's The Hobbit, or There and Back Again; Georges Bernanos's Journal d'un Curé de Campagne (The Diary of a Country Priest); Olaf Stapledon's Star Maker; Lao She's Rickshaw Boy; Agatha Christie's Dumb Witness, Death on the Nile, and Murder in the Mews. Death of H. P. Lovecraft, John Drinkwater, Antonio Gramsci, J. M. Barrie, Edith Wharton
- Alamut; C. L. R. James's The Black Jacobins, Agatha Christie's Appointment with Death and Hercule Poirot's Christmas. Death of Karel Čapek, James Weldon Johnson, Osip Mandelstam, Thomas Wolfe
- 1939 in literature – James Joyce's Finnegans Wake; Konstantine Gamsakhurdia's The Right Hand of the Grand Master; John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath; Robert L. May's Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer; Raymond Chandler's The Big Sleep; Flora Thompson's Lark Rise; T. S. Eliot's Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats; Ludwig Bemelmans's Madeline; Nathanael West's The Day of the Locust; Richard Llewellyn's How Green Was My Valley; Russell Thorndike's Courageous Exploits of Doctor Syn; Agatha Christie's Murder Is Easy, And Then There Were None, and The Regatta Mystery; Nathalie Sarraute's Tropisms; Stefan Zweig's Beware of Pity. Death of Sigmund Freud, W. B. Yeats
1940s
- 1940 in literature – Anna Akhmatova's Requiem; Arthur Koestler's Darkness at Noon; Graham Greene's The Power and the Glory; Ernest Hemingway's For Whom the Bell Tolls; Eric Knight's Lassie Come-Home; Carson McCullers's The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter; Richard Wright's Native Son; Olaf Stapledon's Sirius; John Cowper Powys's Owen Glendower; Agatha Christie's Sad Cypress and One, Two, Buckle My Shoe; Adolfo Bioy Casares's The Invention of Morel; Mikhail Sholokhov's And Quiet Flows the Don. Death of F. Scott Fitzgerald
- 1941 in literature – Virginia Woolf's Between the Acts; Margret and H.A. Rey's Curious George; Agatha Christie's Evil Under the Sun and N or M?; H. P. Lovecraft's The Case of Charles Dexter Ward. Death of James Joyce, Virginia Woolf
- The Famous Five; Robert Musil's The Man Without Qualities; Agatha Christie's The Body in the Library, Five Little Pigs. and The Moving Finger. Death of Stefan Zweig
- 1943 in literature – Jean-Paul Sartre's Anti-Semite and Jew and Being and Nothingness; Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead; T. S. Eliot's Four Quartets published together for the first time; Hermann Hesse's Das Glasperlenspiel (The Glass Bead Game); Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's The Little Prince; Jean Genet's Our Lady of the Flowers; Colette's Gigi; H. P. Lovecraft's The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath. Death of Beatrix Potter
- 1944 in literature – Jean-Paul Sartre's No Exit; Ivan Bunin's Dark Avenues; Jean Genet's Our Lady of the Flowers; John Hersey's A Bell for Adano; Tennessee Williams's The Glass Menagerie; Russell Thorndike's The Shadow of Doctor Syn; Agatha Christie's Towards Zero, Absent in the Spring, and Death Comes as the End. Death of Jean Giraudoux, Arthur Quiller-Couch, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
- The Railway Series, Evelyn Waugh's Brideshead Revisited; Flora Thompson's Lark Rise to Candleford; John Steinbeck's Cannery Row; Agatha Christie's Sparkling Cyanide; Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn sentenced to eight years in a labour camp for criticism of Joseph Stalin. Death of Paul Valéry, Theodore Dreiser
- Zorba the Greek; George Orwell's Critical Essays; E. E. Smith's The Skylark of Space; Agatha Christie's The Hollow; Mervyn Peake's Titus Groan. Death of Countee Cullen, H. G. Wells
- A Streetcar Named Desire; Boris Vian's Froth on the Daydream and Autumn in Peking; Malcolm Lowry's Under the Volcano; Jean Genet's Querelle of Brest and The Maids; Arthur Miller's All My Sons; Agatha Christie's The Labours of Hercules; 1st Tony Awards are awarded. Death of Hugh Lofting, Manuel Machado, Maxwell Perkins
- 1948 in literature – Graham Greene's The Heart of the Matter; Norman Mailer's The Naked and the Dead; Agatha Christie's Taken at the Flood, The Rose and the Yew Tree, and The Witness for the Prosecution and Other Stories; Dazai Osamu's No Longer Human. Death of Zelda Fitzgerald, Claude McKay
- The Emigrants; Agatha Christie's Crooked House; Simone de Beauvoir's The Second Sex; Yukio Mishima's Confessions of a Mask. Death of Maurice Maeterlinck, Sigrid Undset, Hallie Quinn Brown
1950s
- 1950 in literature – Ray Bradbury's The Martian Chronicles; Eugène Ionesco's The Bald Soprano; C. S. Lewis's The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe; Isaac Asimov's I, Robot; Agatha Christie's A Murder Is Announced and Three Blind Mice and Other Stories; Mervyn Peake's Gormenghast; Pablo Neruda's Canto General. Death of George Orwell, George Bernard Shaw
- Foundation; Agatha Christie's They Came to Baghdad and The Under Dog and Other Stories; Kalki Krishnamurty's Ponniyin Selvan. Death of Sinclair Lewis, André Gide
- 1952 in literature – Ernest Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea; E. B. White's Charlotte's Web; Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man; Mary Norton's The Borrowers; Flannery O'Connor's Wise Blood; Agatha Christie's Mrs McGinty's Dead, They Do It with Mirrors, The Mousetrap and A Daughter's a Daughter. Death of Knut Hamsun
- 1953 in literature – Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot and The Unnamable; Ian Fleming's Casino Royale (First James Bond novel); Saul Bellow's The Adventures of Augie March; Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451; L. P. Hartley's The Go-Between; George Lamming's In the Castle of My Skin; Leon Uris's Battle Cry; Arthur Miller's play The Crucible first performed; J. D. Salinger's Nine Stories; Agatha Christie's After the Funeral and A Pocket Full of Rye. Death of Hilaire Belloc, Dylan Thomas, Eugene O'Neill
- Bonjour tristesse; Dr. Seuss' Horton Hears a Who!; Winston Churchill's The Second World War – completed; Agatha Christie's Destination Unknown. Death of Colette
- 1955 in literature – Juan Rulfo's Pedro Páramo; Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita; Tennessee Williams's Cat on a Hot Tin Roof; Beverly Cleary's Beezus and Ramona; Patricia Highsmith's The Talented Mr. Ripley; Flannery O'Connor's A Good Man Is Hard to Find; Arthur Miller's A View from the Bridge; Alistair MacLean's HMS Ulysses; Agatha Christie's Hickory Dickory Dock. Death of Thomas Mann, Dale Carnegie
- 1956 in literature – Grace Metalious's Peyton Place; Friedrich Dürrenmatt's The Visit; Eugene O'Neill's Long Day's Journey into Night; Allen Ginsberg's Howl and Other Poems; Fred Gipson's Old Yeller; Agatha Christie's Dead Man's Folly and The Burden. Death of H. L. Mencken, Walter de la Mare
- 1957 in literature – Jack Kerouac's On the Road; Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged; Vladimir Nabokov's Pnin; Patrick White's Voss; Ted Hughes's The Hawk in the Rain, John Cheever's The Wapshot Chronicle; Boris Pasternak's Doctor Zhivago; Dr. Seuss' The Cat in the Hat and How the Grinch Stole Christmas!; Max Frisch's Homo Faber; Tennessee Williams' Orpheus Descending; Jean Genet's The Balcony; Harold Pinter's The Birthday Party; Harold Pinter's The Room; Robert A. Heinlein's The Door into Summer; Agatha Christie's 4.50 from Paddington. Death of Oliver St. John Gogarty, Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa
- 1958 in literature – Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart; Brendan Behan's Borstal Boy; Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa's Il Gattopardo (The Leopard); Leon Uris's Exodus; Terry Southern's Candy; Jack Kerouac's The Dharma Bums; Michael Bond's A Bear Called Paddington; R. K. Narayan's The Guide; Harold Pinter's play The Birthday Party first performed; Jean Genet's The Blacks; Josef Skvorecky's The Cowards; Agatha Christie's Ordeal by Innocence. Death of Cyril M. Kornbluth, Juan Ramón Jiménez, Roger Martin du Gard
- Billiards at Half-past Nine; Eugène Ionesco's Rhinocéros (Rhinoceros); André Schwarz-Bart's The Last of the Just; Terry Southern's The Magic Christian; Alain Robbe-Grillet's In the Labyrinth; Walter M. Miller Jr.'s A Canticle for Leibowitz; Tennessee Williams' Sweet Bird of Youth; John Arden's Serjeant Musgrave's Dance; Raymond Queneau's Zazie in the Metro; Agatha Christie's Cat Among the Pigeons; Mervyn Peake's Titus Alone. Death of Edwin Muir, Raymond Chandler
1960s
- Lady Chatterley trial
- 1961 in literature – Joseph Heller's Catch-22; V. S. Naipaul's A House for Mr Biswas; Richard Yates's Revolutionary Road; Walker Percy's The Moviegoer; Muriel Spark's The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie; Robert A. Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land; Stanislaw Lem's Solaris; J. D. Salinger's Franny and Zooey; Jean Genet's The Screens; Roald Dahl's James and the Giant Peach; Agatha Christie's The Pale Horse and Double Sin and Other Stories. Death of Ernest Hemingway, Frantz Fanon, Dashiell Hammett, James Thurber
- 1962 in literature – Ken Kesey's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest; Anthony Burgess's A Clockwork Orange, Vladimir Nabokov's Pale Fire; Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich; Doris Lessing's The Golden Notebook; Jorge Luis Borges's Labyrinths; Philip K. Dick's The Man in the High Castle; Carlos Fuentes's The Death of Artemio Cruz; Madeleine L'Engle's A Wrinkle in Time; Thomas Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions; Stan and Jan Berenstain's The Big Honey Hunt (first Berenstain Bears book); Mercè Rodoreda's The Time of the Doves; Ray Bradbury's Something Wicked This Way Comes; Agatha Christie's The Mirror Crack'd from Side to Side. Death of Hermann Hesse, William Faulkner, E. E. Cummings
- The Spy Who Came In From the Cold; Václav Havel's The Garden Party; Norman Bridwell's Clifford the Big Red Dog; Agatha Christie's The Clocks; Julio Cortazar's Hopscotch. Death of Aldous Huxley, Robert Frost, Clifford Odets, Sylvia Plath, William Carlos Williams, C. S. Lewis; John Cowper Powys
- 1964 in literature – Marshall McLuhan's Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man, Thomas Berger's Little Big Man; Leonard Cohen's Flowers for Hitler; Roald Dahl's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory; Hubert Selby Jr.'s Last Exit to Brooklyn; Brian Friel's play Philadelphia, Here I Come! first performed; Philip Larkin's The Whitsun Weddings; Harold Pinter's The Homecoming; Gore Vidal's Julian; Shel Silverstein's The Giving Tree; Agatha Christie's A Caribbean Mystery. Death of Brendan Behan, Ian Fleming, Seán O'Casey, Nella Larsen. Refusal of Nobel Prize by Jean-Paul Sartre
- 1965 in literature – Alex Haley's The Autobiography of Malcolm X, Saul Bellow's Herzog; Norman Mailer's An American Dream; John Fowles's The Magus; John McGahern's The Dark; Jerzy Kosinski's The Painted Bird; Frank Herbert's Dune; Harlan Ellison's "Repent, Harlequin!" Said the Ticktockman; Václav Havel's The Memorandum; Agatha Christie's At Bertram's Hotel and Surprise! Surprise!. Death of T. S. Eliot, W. Somerset Maugham
- Brian O'Nolan, Evelyn Waugh
- The Medium is the Massage: An Inventory of Effects; William Manchester's The Death of a President; Robert K. Massie's Nicholas and Alexandra; Allan W. Eckert's Wild Season; Roger Zelazny's Lord of Light; Harlan Ellison's Dangerous Visions; Harlan Ellison's I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream; S. E. Hinton's The Outsiders; Agatha Christie's Endless Night. Death of Victor Gollancz, Langston Hughes, Carson McCullers, John Masefield, Dorothy Parker, Siegfried Sassoon, Alice B. Toklas, Jean Toomer
- 1968 in literature – Philip K. Dick's Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?; Tom Wolfe's The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test; Arthur Hailey's Airport; Albert Cohen's Belle du Seigneur; Judith Kerr's The Tiger Who Came to Tea; Carlos Castaneda's The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge; Ursula K. Le Guin's A Wizard of Earthsea; Samuel R. Delany's Nova; Agatha Christie's By the Pricking of My Thumbs; Marguerite Yourcenar's The Abyss; Haddis Alemayehu's Love to the Grave. Death of John Steinbeck, Edna Ferber, Upton Sinclair, Enid Blyton, Mervyn Peake
- I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings; John Fowles's The French Lieutenant's Woman; Harlan Ellison's A Boy and His Dog; Agatha Christie's Hallowe'en Party; Sam Greenlee's The Spook Who Sat By the Door. Death of Jack Kerouac, B. Traven, Leonard Woolf
1970s
- Fantastic Mr. Fox; Terry Southern's Blue Movie; Jim Bouton's Ball Four; Ted Hughes's Crow; Nina Bawden's The Birds on the Trees; Maurice Sendak's In the Night Kitchen; Larry Niven's Ringworld; Agatha Christie's Passenger to Frankfurt; Annette Tison and Talus Taylor's Barbapapa; Roger Zelazny's Nine Princes in Amber. Death of Máirtín Ó Cadhain; Erich Maria Remarque;
- 1971 in literature – Frederick Forsyth's The Day of the Jackal; Carlos Castaneda's A Separate Reality: Further Conversations with Don Juan; Dr. Seuss' The Lorax; Xaviera Hollander's The Happy Hooker: My Own Story; Rosamunde Pilcher's The End of Summer; Roger Hargreaves's Mr. Men; Agatha Christie's Nemesis and The Golden Ball and Other Stories. Death of Ogden Nash, Stevie Smith
- Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas; Ira Levin's The Stepford Wives; Richard Adams's Watership Down; Arkady and Boris Strugatsky's Roadside Picnic; Isaac Asimov's The Gods Themselves; Agatha Christie's Elephants Can Remember. Death of Ezra Pound, L. P. Hartley
- Demon Seed; Agatha Christie's Postern of Fate. Death of W. H. Auden, J. R. R. Tolkien, B. S. Johnson
- 1974 in literature – Carl Bernstein & Bob Woodward's All the President's Men; Stephen King's Carrie; Peter Benchley's Jaws; Erica Jong's Fear of Flying; Jill Murphy's The Worst Witch; James Herbert's The Rats; Agatha Christie's Poirot's Early Cases. Death of Edmund Blunden, Georgette Heyer, William Gardner Smith
- 1976 in literature – Anne Rice's Interview with the Vampire; Richard Yates's The Easter Parade; Mildred D. Taylor's Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry; Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein's The Final Days; Samuel R. Delany's Triton; Alex Haley's Roots: The Saga of an American Family; Agatha Christie's Sleeping Murder; Marc Brown's Arthur's Nose (first Arthur book). Death of Agatha Christie, André Malraux
- 1977 in literature – Iris Murdoch's The Sea, the Sea; Toni Morrison's Song of Solomon; Stephen King's The Shining; J. R. R. Tolkien's The Silmarillion; Frederick Pohl's Gateway; Diana Wynne Jones' Charmed Life; Shirley Hughes's Dogger; Patrick Leigh Fermor's A Time of Gifts; Terry Brooks' The Sword of Shannara; Michael Moorcock's The Condition of Muzak. Death of Anaïs Nin, Vladimir Nabokov, Dennis Wheatley, Terence Rattigan
- 1978 in literature – John Irving's The World According to Garp; J. G. Farrell's The Singapore Grip; Judi Barrett's Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs; John Cheever's The Stories of John Cheever; Stephen King's The Stand; Harold Pinter's Betrayal; Ken Follett's Eye of the Needle; Octavia Butler's Kindred; Roy Heath's The Murderer, Dambudzo Marechera's The House of Hunger, Raymond Briggs's The Snowman, Roger Hargreaves's Timbuctoo. Death of F. R. Leavis, Hugh MacDiarmid, Georgi Markov
- The Little Vampire); William Styron's Sophie's Choice; Norman Mailer's The Executioner's Song; Jeffrey Archer's Kane and Abel; Peter Shaffer's play Amadeus first performed; Flora Thompson's Heatherley; Arthur C. Clarke's The Fountains of Paradise; Ken Follett's Triple; Agatha Christie's Miss Marple's Final Cases and Two Other Stories, Rosemary Wells's Max & Ruby. Death of J. G. Farrell, Jean Rhys
1980s
- 1980 in literature – John le Carré's Smiley's People; Robert Ludlum's Jason Bourne trilogy; J. M. Coetzee's Waiting for the Barbarians; William Maxwell's So Long, See You Tomorrow; Anthony Burgess's Earthly Powers; Umberto Eco's Il nome della rosa (The Name of the Rose); John Kennedy Toole's A Confederacy of Dunces; Gay Talese's Thy Neighbor's Wife; Brian Friel's play Translations first performed; Ken Follett's The Key to Rebecca; Robert Munsch's The Paper Bag Princess. Death of Jean-Paul Sartre, Alejo Carpentier, Henry Miller, Katherine Anne Porter, C. P. Snow, Kenneth Tynan
- 1981 in literature – Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children; Thomas Harris's Red Dragon; Roger Hargreaves's Little Miss. Death of Nelson Algren, Gwendolyn B. Bennett, Christy Brown, Eugenio Montale, William Saroyan, Philip Toynbee
- The Gunslinger; David Eddings' The Belgariad; Ken Follett's The Man from St. Petersburg. Death of Louis Aragon, Philip K. Dick, Ayn Rand
- 1983 in literature – J. M. Coetzee's Life & Times of Michael K; Salman Rushdie's Shame; Terry Pratchett's Discworld; Parker Brothers and Random House publish the first Care Bears books; Ken Follett's On Wings of Eagles; Norman Mailer's Ancient Evenings; Stephen King's Pet Sematary; Dean Koontz's Phantoms; Lynley Dodd's Hairy Maclary from Donaldson's Dairy; Palanca Awardee's Luha ng Buwaya. Death of Arthur Koestler, Nikolaus Pevsner, Mikey Smith, Rebecca West, Tennessee Williams
- 1984 in literature – Milan Kundera's The Unbearable Lightness of Being; José Saramago's O Ano da Morte de Ricardo Reis (The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis); Richard Harris' play Stepping Out first performed; Don DeLillo's White Noise; Julian Barnes's Flaubert's Parrot; Tom Clancy's The Hunt for Red October; Milorad Pavic's Dictionary of the Khazars; Antonio Tabucchi's Indian Nocturne; Glen Cook's The Black Company. Death of John Betjeman, Truman Capote, Michel Foucault, Chester Himes, Alexander Trocchi
- 1985 in literature – Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale; Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian Gabriel García Márquez's El amor en los tiempos del cólera (Love in the Time of Cholera); Patrick Süskind's Perfume; Carlos Fuentes's The Old Gringo; Chris Van Allsburg's The Polar Express; Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game; Ken Follett's Lie Down with Lions. Death of Italo Calvino, Heinrich Böll, Basil Bunting, Geoffrey Grigson, Philip Larkin, Robert Graves
- 1986 in literature – Thomas Bernhard's Extinction; Caryl Churchill's A Mouthful of Birds; Stephen King's It; Brian Lumley's Necroscope; Tony Ross' I Want My Potty; Clive Barker's The Hellbound Heart; Carl Sagan's Contact; Brian Jacques' Redwall; Diana Wynne Jones' Howl's Moving Castle, Robert Munsch's Love You Forever. Death of Jorge Luis Borges, Simone de Beauvoir, Jean Genet, Bessie Head, Christopher Isherwood, Juan Rulfo, Jaroslav Seifert
- 1987 in literature – Toni Morrison's Beloved; Alfred Uhry's play Driving Miss Daisy first performed; Haruki Murakami's Noruwei no mori (Norwegian Wood); Tom Clancy's Patriot Games; Robert Hughes' The Fatal Shore; Martin Handford's Where's Wally?; Stephen King's Misery; Dean Koontz's Watchers. Death of Jean Anouilh, James Baldwin, Primo Levi, Marguerite Yourcenar
- The Swimming Pool Library; Grazyna Miller's Curriculum, Umberto Eco's Il pendolo di Foucault (Foucault's Pendulum). Death of Raymond Carver, Marghanita Laski, Alan Paton, Roger Hargreaves, Sacheverell Sitwell
- 1989 in literature – Kazuo Ishiguro's The Remains of the Day; John Banville's The Book of Evidence; Amy Tan's The Joy Luck Club; Michael Rosen's We're Going on a Bear Hunt; Ken Follett's The Pillars of the Earth; David McKee's Elmer. Death of Samuel Beckett, Thomas Bernhard, Daphne du Maurier, C. L. R. James, Georges Simenon
1990s
- 1990 in literature – John McGahern's Amongst Women; W. G. Sebald's Vertigo; Raphael Patai's The Hebrew Goddess; Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman's Good Omens; Robert Jordan's The Eye of the World; Maeve Binchy's Circle of Friends; Brian Friel's play Dancing at Lughnasa first performed. Death of Roald Dahl, Dodie Smith, Malcolm Forbes, Alberto Moravia, Walker Percy, Anya Seton, Patrick White
- 1992 in literature – Harry Mulisch's De Ontdekking van de Hemel (The Discovery of Heaven); Salman Rushdie's Imaginary Homelands; Michael Ondaatje's The English Patient; Cormac McCarthy's All the Pretty Horses; Jim Cartwright's play The Rise and Fall of Little Voice; Michael Connelly's The Black Echo; Barry Unsworth's Sacred Hunger; Dean Koontz's Hideaway; R. L. Stine's Goosebumps. Death of Alex Haley, Angela Carter, George MacBeth, Isaac Asimov, Iceberg Slim, Richard Yates, Audre Lorde
- 1994 in literature – Herta Müller's Herztier (The Land of Green Plums); Carol Shields's The Stone Diaries; Terry Goodkind's Wizard's First Rule; Antonio Tabucchi's Pereira Maintains. Death of Elias Canetti, James Clavell, Ralph Ellison, Eugène Ionesco
- 1995 in literature – James Redfield's The Celestine Prophecy; José Saramago's Ensaio sobre a cegueira (Blindness); Haruki Murakami's Nejimaki-dori kuronikuru (The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle); Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials; Samuel R. Delany's Hogg; Dean Koontz's Intensity; Ken Follett's A Place Called Freedom; Bernard Cornwell's The Winter King. Death of Gerald Durrell, Kingsley Amis, Olga Ivinskaya (mistress of Boris Pasternak), Patricia Highsmith, Stephen Spender, Toni Cade Bambara
- Orange Prize for Fiction awarded; David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest; Frank McCourt's Angela's Ashes; George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire; Chuck Palahniuk's Fight Club; Tim Lahaye, Jerry B. Jenkins's Left Behind; Ken Follett's The Third Twin. Death of Erma Bombeck, Joseph Brodsky, Marguerite Duras, Timothy Leary, Carl Sagan
- Underworld; Arundhati Roy's The God of Small Things; Charles Frazier's Cold Mountain; Patrick Marber's play Closer first performed; Agatha Christie's While the Light Lasts and Other Stories and The Harlequin Tea Set. Death of Allen Ginsberg, William S. Burroughs, James Dickey, James A. Michener, P. H. Newby, Kathy Acker
- 1998 in literature – Orhan Pamuk's Benim Adim Kirmizi (My Name Is Red); Michael Cunningham's The Hours; Julian Barnes's England, England; Alice McDermott's Charming Billy; Ian McEwan's Amsterdam; Beryl Bainbridge's Master Georgie; Michel Houellebecq's Les Particules élémentaires (Atomised); Michael Connelly's Blood Work; Bret Easton Ellis's Glamorama; Louis Sachar's Holes; Diana Wynne Jones' Dark Lord of Derkholm; Ken Follett's The Hammer of Eden. Death of Carlos Castaneda, Octavio Paz, Lawrence Sanders, Benjamin Spock, Dorothy West, Grace Paley, Ted Hughes, Rumer Godden
- Disgrace; Joanne Harris's Chocolat; Ha Jin's Waiting; Colm Tóibín's The Blackwater Lightship; Julia Donaldson's The Gruffalo; Neil Gaiman's Stardust; Steven Erikson's Gardens of the Moon. Death of Iris Murdoch, Sarah Kane, Joseph Heller, Mario Puzo, John F. Kennedy Jr.
21st century
2000s
- Sally Amis (daughter of Sir Kingsley and sister of Martin), Gwendolyn Brooks, Penelope Fitzgerald, Charles M. Schulz
- Jackdaws; Stephen Hawking's The Universe in a Nutshell. Death of Douglas Adams, Ken Kesey, Robert Ludlum, R. K. Narayan, W. G. Sebald, Auberon Waugh (son of Evelyn Waugh)
- 2002 in literature – Orhan Pamuk's Kar (Snow); Julia Glass' Three Junes; Haruki Murakami's Umibe no Kafuka (Kafka on the Shore); Jonathan Safran Foer's Everything Is Illuminated; Jeffrey Eugenides's Middlesex; Neil Gaiman's Coraline; Ken Follett's Hornet Flight. Death of Camilo José Cela, John B. Keane, Spike Milligan, Chaim Potok
- 2003 in literature – Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code; Shirley Hazzard's The Great Fire; Per Petterson's Ut og stjæle hester (Out Stealing Horses); Khaled Hosseini's The Kite Runner; Dean Koontz's Odd Thomas; Christopher Paolini's Eragon; Kate DiCamillo's The Tale of Despereaux; Jonathan Stroud's The Amulet of Samarkand. Death of Roberto Bolaño, Howard Fast, Edward Said
- Kitty and the Midnight Hour. Death of Saul Bellow, John Fowles, Elizabeth Janeway, Arthur Miller, Claude Simon, Hunter S. Thompson, Yvonne Vera, August Wilson
- The Boy in the Striped Pajamas; Joe Abercrombie's The Blade Itself; Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o's Wizard of the Crow. Death of Peter Benchley, Octavia E. Butler, Betty Friedan, Naguib Mahfouz, John McGahern, Muriel Spark, Mickey Spillane, Wendy Wasserstein
- Kalahandi. Death of Norman Mailer, Kurt Vonnegut
- 2008 in literature – Aravind Adiga's The White Tiger; Suzanne Collins' The Hunger Games; Neil Gaiman's The Graveyard Book. Death of Aimé Césaire, Michael Crichton, Arthur C. Clarke, David Foster Wallace, Robert Giroux, Roy Heath, Harold Pinter, Alain Robbe-Grillet, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Studs Terkel, Margaret Truman
- 2009 in literature – Haruki Murakami's Ichi-kyu-hachi-yon (1Q84); Colm Tóibín's Brooklyn; Reki Kawahara's Sword Art Online; James Dashner's The Maze Runner; Lev Grossman's The Magicians. Death of J. G. Ballard, Philip José Farmer, Frank McCourt, Tayeb Salih, Budd Schulberg, John Updike
2010s
- 2010 in literature – Edmund de Waal's The Hare with Amber Eyes; Emma Donoghue's Room; Brandon Sanderson's The Way of Kings; Ken Follett's Fall of Giants; 1970 Lost Man Booker Prize awarded. Death of Louis Auchincloss, Beryl Bainbridge, Ruth Cohn, Miguel Delibes, Philippa Foot, Martin Gardner, Tony Judt, Frank Kermode, David Markson, Tomás Eloy Martínez, Harry Mulisch, J. D. Salinger, José Saramago, Erich Segal, Alan Sillitoe, Howard Zinn
- Agota Kristof, Arnošt Lustig, Anne McCaffrey, Gonzalo Rojas, Joanna Russ, Ernesto Sabato, Moacyr Scliar, Tomás Segovia, Jorge Semprún, Christa Wolf
- 2012 in literature – John Grisham's The Racketeer; Gillian Flynn's Gone Girl; Henry Lewis, Jonathan Sayer, and Henry Shields' The Play That Goes Wrong; Zadie Smith's NW; R. J. Palacio's Wonder; Ken Follett's Winter of the World. Death of Maeve Binchy, Carlos Fuentes, Adrienne Rich, Gore Vidal
- 2013 in literature – Dan Brown's Inferno; Kevin Kwan's Crazy Rich Asians; Donna Tartt's The Goldfinch. Death of Seamus Heaney, Chinua Achebe, Iain Banks, Tom Clancy, Bryan Forbes, Oscar Hijuelos, Elmore Leonard, Doris Lessing, Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, Colin Wilson
- 2014 in literature – Stephen King's Mr. Mercedes; Ken Follett's Edge of Eternity; Marlon James' A Brief History of Seven Killings. Death of Nadine Gordimer, Sam Greenlee, P. D. James, Gabriel García Márquez
- 2015 in literature – Paul Beatty's The Sellout; Paula Hawkins's The Girl on the Train; Hanya Yanagihara's A Little Life. Death of André Brink, Assia Djebar, Günter Grass, Terry Pratchett
- 2016 in literature – Colson Whitehead's The Underground Railroad; John Preston's A Very English Scandal. Death of Yves Bonnefoy, E. R. Braithwaite, Anita Brookner, Leonard Cohen, Umberto Eco, Harper Lee, William Trevor
- 2017 in literature – George Saunders' Lincoln in the Bardo; Jesmyn Ward's Sing, Unburied, Sing; Jez Butterworth's The Ferryman; Ken Follett's A Column of Fire. Death of Peter Abrahams, Brian Aldiss, John Berger, Kate Millett
- 2018 in literature – Anna Burns' Milkman; Sigrid Nunez's The Friend; Paula Hawkins' Into the Water. Death of Stephen Hawking, V. S. Naipaul, Philip Roth, Claribel Alegría, Harlan Ellison, William Goldman
- Bernard Dadié
2020s
- 2020 in literature – Hilary Mantel's The Mirror and the Light; Jenny Offill's Weather, Maggie O'Farrell's Hamnet; Douglas Stuart's Shuggie Bain. Death of Kamau Brathwaite, Stanley Crouch, Harold Evans, Naomi Long Madgett, John le Carré, Alison Lurie
- 2021 in literature – Stephen King's Billy Summers; Damon Galgut's The Promise; Wole Soyinka's Chronicles from the Land of the Happiest People on Earth. Death of Nawal El Saadawi, Joan Didion, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Keri Hulme, Jill Murphy, Anthony Thwaite
- 2022 in literature – Isabel Allende's Violeta; Shehan Karunatilaka's The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida. Death of Raymond Briggs, George Lamming, Hilary Mantel
- 2023 in literature – Bret Easton Ellis's The Shards. Death of Fay Weldon, Ama Ata Aidoo, Martin Amis, Edward Baugh, Pete Brown, A. S. Byatt, Robert Gottlieb, Milan Kundera, Louise Meriwether, Micere Githae Mugo, Benjamin Zephaniah
- 2024 in literature - Stephen King's You Like It Darker
References
- ^ Charles Osborne, The Life and Crimes of Agatha Christie, London, 1982.