Old Books To Read From Its Earliest Year To The 21st Century

The development of LITERATURE from the earliest year to the 21st century with the name of the authors

 

Literature as art originated over the years and has since been developing. Its impact are highly felt especially in the spread of literacy.

Moreover, several attempts have been made to create a list of world literature in line of its development. Among these attempts are the great books project including the book series Great Books of the Western World, now containing 60 volumes.  As far back as In 1998 Modern Library , an American publishing company, polled its editorial board to find the best 100 novels of the 20th century:Modern Library 100 Best Novels. 

These attempts have been criticized for their restriction to anglophone and disregard of other literary traditions.

21st century

2020 in literature - Hilary Mantel's The Mirror and the Light '- Jenny Offil's Weather

2019 in literature – Michel Houellebecq's

Serotonin ; Bernadine Evaristo's Girl, Woman, Other ; Death of John Burningham , Judith Kerr

2018 in literature – Anna Burns' Milkman; Sigrid Nunez' The Friend ; Paula Hawkins' Into the Water ; Death of Stephen Hawking , Philip Roth

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

2016 in literature – Colson Whitehead's The Underground Railroad ; John Preston's A Very English Scandal

2015 in literature – Paula Hawkins' The Girl on the Train; Marlon James' A Brief History of Seven Killings; Hanya Yanagihara’s “A Little Life ”

2014 in literature – Stephen King's Mr. Mercedes ; Ken Follett's Edge of Eternity

2013 in literature – Dan Brown's Inferno ; Kevin Kwan's Crazy Rich Asians ; Donna Tartt's The Goldfinch ; Death of Seamus Heaney

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

2011 in literature – E. L. James' Fifty Shades of Grey ; Alexis Jenni's L'Art français de la guerre ; Alan Hollinghurst's The Stranger's Child ; Hisham Matar's Anatomy of a Disappearance ; Téa Obreht's The Tiger's Wife ; Death of Patrick Leigh Fermor , Édouard Glissant , Josephine Hart, Václav Havel , Christopher Hitchens ,

Russell Hoban , Brian Jacques, Diana Wynne Jones , Dick King-Smith , Agota Kristof , Arnošt Lustig , Anne McCaffrey , Gonzalo Rojas ,

Joanna Russ , Ernesto Sabato , Moacyr Scliar,

Tomás Segovia, Jorge Semprún , Christa Wolf

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

2000s

2009 in literature – Haruki Murakami's Ichi-kyū-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 , Budd Schulberg ,

John Updike

2008 in literature – Aravind Adiga's The White Tiger ; Suzanne Collins' The Hunger Games ; Neil Gaiman's The Graveyard Book ; Death of

Michael Crichton, Arthur C. Clarke , David Foster Wallace , Robert Giroux , Harold Pinter ,

Alain Robbe-Grillet , Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn ,

Studs Terkel , Margaret Truman

2007 in literature – Nick Stafford's play version of Michael Morpurgo's novel War Horse first performed; Dennis Johnson's Tree of Smoke ; Naomi Klein's The Shock Doctrine ; Junot Díaz's The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao ; Stieg Larsson's The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets' Nest ; Jeff Kinney's Diary of a Wimpy Kid ; Patrick Rothfuss ' The Name of the Wind ; Christopher Hitchens' God Is Not Great ; Ken Follett's World Without End ; Dr Tapan's

Kalahandi ; Death of Norman Mailer , Kurt Vonnegut

2006 in literature – Richard Dawkins's The God Delusion; Kiran Desai's The Inheritance of Loss ; Roberto Saviano's Gormorra ( Gomorrah ); Gerbrand Bakker's Boven is het stil ( The Twin ); Cormac McCarthy's The Road ; Stieg Larsson's

The Girl Who Played With Fire ; John Boyne's

The Boy in the Striped Pajamas; Joe Abercrombie's The Blade Itself ; Death of Peter Benchley , Betty Friedan , Naguib Mahfouz ,

John McGahern , Muriel Spark, Mickey Spillane ,

Wendy Wasserstein

2005 in literature – Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go ; John Banville's The Sea ; Rick Riordan's

The Lightning Thief ; Chuck Palahniuk's

Haunted ; Carol Aebersold and Chanda Bell's

The Elf on the Shelf ; Stieg Larsson's The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo; Stephanie Meyer's

Twilight ; Carrie Vaughn's Kitty and the Midnight Hour ; Death of John Fowles, Elizabeth Janeway , Arthur Miller , Claude Simon

2004 in literature – Philip Roth's The Plot Against America; Lily Tuck's The News from Paraguay ; José Saramago's Ensaio sobre a Lucidez ( Seeing ); Colm Tóibín's The Master; Alan Hollinghurst's The Line of Beauty ; Lawrence Lessig's Free Culture; Roberto Bolaño's 2666 ; David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas ; Alan Bennett's play The History Boys first performed; Susanna Clarke's Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell; Ken Follett's Whiteout ; Death of

Janet Frame, Stieg Larsson, Czesław Miłosz ,

Françoise Sagan , Hubert Selby, Jr. , Susan Sontag

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 ,

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 ,

Chaim Potok

2001 in literature – Tahar Ben Jelloun's Cette aveuglante absence de lumière ( This Blinding Absence of Light ); Neil Gaiman's American Gods ; Yann Martel's Life of Pi ; Jonathan Franzen's The Corrections ; W. G. Sebald's

Austerlitz ; Ian McEwan's Atonement; Ann Brashare's The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants ; Brian Jacques' Castaways of the Flying Dutchman ; Ken Follett's Jackdaws; Stephen Hawking's Universe in a Nutshell ; Death of

Douglas Adams , Ken Kesey , Robert Ludlum ,

W. G. Sebald, Auberon Waugh (son of Evelyn Waugh )

2000 in literature – Zadie Smith's White Teeth ; Michael Chabon's The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay ; Naomi Klein's No Logo; Mario Vargas Llosa's The Feast of the Goat ; Dan Brown's Angels & Demons; Maeve Binchy's

Scarlet Feather ; Ken Follett's Code to Zero ; Death of Sally Amis (daughter of Sir Kingsley and sister of Martin ), Charles M. Schulz

20th century

1990s

1999 in literature – J. M. Coetzee's 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.

1998 in literature – Orhan Pamuk's Benim Adım Kırmızı ( 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

1997 in literature – J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter ; Don DeLillo's Underworld; Dav Pilkey's

Captain Underpants ; 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 William S. Burroughs , James Dickey , James A. Michener, P. H. Newby

1996 in literature – Inaugural International Dublin Literary Award and 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

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 ; Death of Kingsley Amis, Olga Ivinskaya (mistress of Boris Pasternak)

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 ; Francesca Simon's Horrid Henry; Antonio Tabucchi's Pereira Maintains ; Death of Elias Canetti , James Clavell , Ralph Ellison , Eugène Ionesco

1993 in literature – Irvine Welsh's

Trainspotting ; E. Annie Proulx' The Shipping News ; Sebastian Faulks's Birdsong ; Richard Paul Evans's The Christmas Box ; Ken Follett's

A Dangerous Fortune ; Death of Kōbō Abe ,

Anthony Burgess , William Golding, William L. Shirer

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 Richard Yates

1991 in literature – José Saramago's O Evangelho Segundo Jesus Cristo ( The Gospel According to Jesus Christ ); Norman Rush's

Mating ; Bret Easton Ellis's American Psycho; Josephine Hart's Damage; Rohinton Mistry's

Such a Long Journey ; P. J. O'Rourke's

Parliament of Whores ; Jacqueline Wilson's The Story of Tracy Beaker ; Henning Mankell's

Mördare utan ansikte ( Faceless Killers – first in the Wallander series); Diana Gabaldon's

Outlander ; Koji Suzuki's Ring; Ken Follett's

Night Over Water ; Agatha Christie's Problem at Pollensa Bay and Other Stories; Death of

Graham Greene, Isaac Bashevis Singer

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 , Malcolm Forbes , Alberto Moravia ,

Walker Percy , Anya Seton , Patrick White

1980s

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

1988 in literature – Salman Rushdie's The Satanic Verses; Noam Chomsky's

Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media; Stephen Hawking's A Brief History of Time ; Roald Dahl's Matilda ; Peter Carey's Oscar and Lucinda ; Alan Hollinghurst's

The Swimming Pool Library; Grazyna Miller's

Curriculum , Umberto Eco's Il pendolo di Foucault ( Foucault's Pendulum )

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 Primo Levi

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; Brian Jacques'

Redwall ; Diana Wynne Jones' Howl's Moving Castle ; Death of Jorge Luis Borges , Simone de Beauvoir , Jean Genet , Christopher Isherwood,

Juan Rulfo , Jaroslav Seifert

1985 in literature – Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale; 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

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 Pavić's

Dictionary of the Khazars ; Antonio Tabucchi's

Indian Nocturne ; Glen Cook's The Black Company ; Death of Truman Capote, Michel Foucault

1983 in literature – J. M. Coetzee's Life & Times of Michael K ; Salman Rushdie's Shame ; Terry Pratchett's Discworld ; 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

1982 in literature – José Saramago's

Memorial do Convento ( Baltasar and Blimunda ); Alice Walker's The Color Purple ; Primo Levi's Se non ora, quando? ( If Not Now, When? ); L. Ron Hubbard's Battlefield Earth ; Isabel Allende's La casa de los espíritus ( The House of the Spirits ); Charles Bukowski's Ham on Rye ; Roald Dahl's The BFG ; Tom Stoppard's

The Real Thing; Fernando Pessoa's The Book of Disquiet ; Stephen King's The Gunslinger ; David Eddings' The Belgariad; Ken Follett's The Man from St. Petersburg ; Death of Philip K. Dick

1981 in literature – Salman Rushdie's

Midnight's Children; Thomas Harris's Red Dragon ; Death of Christy Brown

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 ; Death of

Jean-Paul Sartre

1970s

Main article: 1970s in literature

1979 in literature – Douglas Adams's The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy; Italo Calvino's

Se una notte d'inverno un viaggiatore ( If on a winter's night a traveler ); V.S. Naipaul's A Bend in the River , Milan Kundera's Kniha smíchu a zapomnění ( The Book of Laughter and Forgetting); Angela Sommer-Bodenburg's Der kleine Vampir ( 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; Death of J. G. Farrell

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

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 ; Death of Vladimir Nabokov

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 ; Death of Agatha Christie

1975 in literature – James Clavell's Shōgun ; Stephen King's 'Salem's Lot ; Jorge Luis Borges's The Book of Sand ; Samuel R. Delany's Dhalgren ; E. L. Doctorow's Ragtime; Carlos Fuentes' Terra Nostra; James Herbert's

The Fog ; Diana Wynne Jones' Cart and Cwidder ; Agatha Christie's Curtain ; Death of P. G. Wodehouse

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

1973 in literature – Thomas Pynchon's

Gravity's Rainbow; J. G. Ballard's Crash; J. G. Farrell's The Siege of Krishnapur ; Gore Vidal's

Burr ; Peter Shaffer's play Equus first performed; Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's The Gulag Archipelago ; John Bellairs' The House with a Clock in Its Walls ; Kurt Vonnegut's Breakfast of Champions ; Nina Bawden's Carrie's War ; Arthur C. Clarke's Rendezvous with Rama; Dean Koontz's Demon Seed ; Agatha Christie's

Postern of Fate; Death of W. H. Auden, J. R. R. Tolkien

1972 in literature – Richard Bach's Jonathan Livingston Seagull ; Hunter S. Thompson's 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

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

1970 in literature – Muriel Spark's The Driver's Seat ; Judith Kerr's Mog the Forgetful Cat ; J. G. Farrell's Troubles ; Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye ; James Dickey's Deliverance ; Roald Dahl's

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 ; Death of Máirtín Ó Cadhain; Erich Maria Remarque ;

1960s

1969 in literature – Inaugural Booker Prize awarded to P. H. Newby's Something to Answer For; Mario Puzo's The Godfather ; Philip Roth's Portnoy's Complaint ; Eric Carle's The Very Hungry Caterpillar; Kurt Vonnegut's

Slaughterhouse-Five ; Vladimir Nabokov's Ada or Ardor: A Family Chronicle ; Maya Angelou's 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 ; Death of Jack Kerouac

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

1967 in literature – Gabriel García Márquez's

Cien años de soledad ( One Hundred Years of Solitude ); Vladimir Nabokov's Speak, Memory: An Autobiography Revisited; Bernard Malamud's The Fixer ; Flann O'Brien's The Third Policeman ; Milan Kundera's Žert ( The Joke ); Marshall McLuhan and Quentin Fiore's 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 Siegfried Sassoon

1966 in literature – Mikhail Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita ; Thomas Pynchon's The Crying of Lot 49; Jean Rhys's Wide Sargasso Sea ; Truman Capote's In Cold Blood ; Leonard Cohen's Beautiful Losers ; Larry McMurtry's The Last Picture Show; Tom Stoppard's play

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead first performed; Death of Frank O'Connor , Brian O'Nolan , Evelyn Waugh ; Basil Buntings'

Briggflatts ; The Witch's Daughter by Nina Bawden ; Babel-17 by Samuel R. Delany; Agatha Christie's Third Girl

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 Kosiński'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

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 ; Refusal of Nobel Prize by Jean-Paul Sartre

1963 in literature – Thomas Pynchon's V. ; Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar ; Kurt Vonnegut's

Cat's Cradle ; Pierre Boulle's La Planete des Singes ( Planet of the Apes ); Maurice Sendak's

Where the Wild Things Are ; John le Carré's 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

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

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 ; Stanisław 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

1960 in literature – William L. Shirer's The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich ; Harper Lee's

To Kill a Mockingbird ; Dr. Seuss' One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish and Green Eggs and Ham ; Edna O'Brien's The Country Girls ; John Updike's Rabbit, Run ; Agatha Christie's The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding ; Death of

Albert Camus , Boris Pasternak , Nevil Shute ,

Richard Wright ; Lady Chatterley trial

1950s

1959 in literature – William S. Burroughs's

Naked Lunch; Günter Grass's The Tin Drum ; Heinrich Böll's 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 Raymond Chandler

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

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

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

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

1954 in literature – J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings; William Golding's Lord of the Flies ; Aldous Huxley's The Doors of Perception ; Kingsley Amis's Lucky Jim; Christy Brown's My Left Foot ; William Soutar's Diaries of a Dying Man; Françoise Sagan's Bonjour tristesse ; Dr. Seuss' Horton Hears A Who! ; Winston Churchill's The Second World War – completed; Agatha Christie's Destination Unknown

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 ; 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

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

1951 in literature – J. D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye ; Graham Greene's The End of the Affair; Marguerite Yourcenar's Memoirs of Hadrian ; John Cowper Powys 's Porius: A Romance of the Dark Ages ; Samuel Beckett's

Molloy and Malone Dies ; Isaac Asimov's

Foundation ; Agatha Christie's They Came to Baghdad and The Under Dog and Other Stories

Kalki Krishnamurty's Ponniyin Selvan

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

1940s

1949 in literature – George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four ; Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman ; Enid Blyton's Noddy Goes to Toyland ; Jean Genet's The Thief's Journal ; Vilhelm Moberg's The Emigrants; Agatha Christie's Crooked House ; Simone de Beauvoir's The Second Sex ; Yukio Mishima's

Confessions of a Mask

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

1947 in literature – Anne Frank's The Diary of a Young Girl ; Thomas Mann's Doctor Faustus ; Albert Camus's La Peste ; Tennessee Williams's

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.

1946 in literature – Eugene O'Neill's The Iceman Cometh ; Nikos Kazantzakis's 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 H. G. Wells

1945 in literature – George Orwell's Animal Farm ; Bertrand Russell's A History of Western Philosophy And Its Connection with Political and Social Circumstances from the Earliest Times to the Present Day ; Astrid Lindgren's

Pippi Longstocking; The Rev W. Awdry's 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

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

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

1942 in literature – Albert Camus's Le Mythe de Sisyphe ( The Myth of Sisyphus ) and

L'Étranger ( The Stranger ); Edith Hamilton's

Mythology ; Enid Blyton's 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

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

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; Death of F. Scott Fitzgerald

1930s

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 ; Death of Sigmund Freud , W. B. Yeats

1938 in literature – Jean-Paul Sartre's La Nausée ; Graham Greene's Brighton Rock ; Evelyn Waugh's Scoop ; Henry Miller's Tropic of Capricorn ; T. H. White's The Sword in the Stone ; Vladimir Bartol's Alamut ; Agatha Christie's Appointment with Death and Hercule Poirot's Christmas

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 ( Diary of a Country Priest ); Olaf Stapledon's Star Maker ; Agatha Christie's Dumb Witness , Death on the Nile , and Murder in the Mews

1936 in literature – William Faulkner's

Absalom, Absalom! ; Margaret Mitchell's Gone with the Wind ; Daphne du Maurier's Jamaica Inn ; First issue of Life magazine ; John Dos Passos's U.S.A trilogy ; Karel Capek's War with the Newts; Munro Leaf's The Story of Ferdinand ; Russell Thorndike's Doctor Syn on the High Seas and Further Adventures of Doctor Syn ; Agatha Christie's The A.B.C. Murders ,

Murder in Mesopotamia , and Cards on the Table ; H. P. Lovecraft's At the Mountains of Madness , The Shadow Over Innsmouth and The Shadow Out of Time ; Killing of Federico García Lorca

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 Fernando Pessoa

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

1933 in literature – André Malraux's La Condition Humaine ( Man's Fate); Gertrude Stein's The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas ; James Hilton's 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; Death of George Moore

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

1931 in literature – Ilf and Petrov's The Little Golden Calf ; Pearl S. Buck's The Good Earth ; Georges Simenon's The Strange Case of Peter the Lett (first Jules Maigret novel); Agatha Christie's The Sittaford Mystery ; The Floating Admiral (collaborative novel by 13 writers of the Detection Club : Victor Whitechurch , G. D. H. Cole and Margaret Cole , Henry Wade,

Agatha Christie, John Rhode, Milward Kennedy , Dorothy L. Sayers, Ronald Knox,

Freeman Wills Crofts , Edgar Jepson ,

Clemence Dane and Anthony Berkeley . Prologue written by G. K. Chesterton.); [1] H. P. Lovecraft's The Whisperer in Darkness

1930 in literature – William Faulkner's As I Lay Dying ; Dashiell Hammett's The Maltese Falcon; Andrei Platonov's The Foundation Pit ; Carolyn Keene's The Secret of the Old Clock (first in the

Nancy Drew stories); Vladimir Nabokov's The Defence ; Olaf Stapledon's Last and First Men ; Luigi Pirandello's 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

1920s

1929 in literature – William Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury ; Ernest Hemingway's A Farewell to Arms ; Alfred Döblin's Berlin Alexanderplatz ; Erich Maria Remarque's All Quiet on the Western Front ; Robert Graves's

Goodbye to All That ; John Cowper Powys's

Wolf Solent ; Rómulo Gallegos' Doña Bárbara ; Agatha Christie's The Seven Dials Mystery and

Partners in Crime ; Virginia Woolf's A Room of One's Own ; Establishment of Faber and Faber;

1928 in literature – D. H. Lawrence's Lady Chatterley's Lover; Siegfried Sassoon's

Memoirs of a Fox-Hunting Man; Bertholt Brecht's The Threepenny Opera ; Ilf and Petrov's

The Twelve Chairs ; Federico Garcia Lorca's

Gypsy Ballads; Agatha Christie's The Mystery of the Blue Train ; Death of Thomas Hardy

1927 in literature – Final instalment of Marcel Proust's In Search of Lost Time ; Hermann Hesse's Steppenwolf ; Virginia Woolf's To the Lighthouse ; Arthur Conan Doyle's The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes ; Sinclair Lewis's

Elmer Gantry ; Yuri Olesha's Envy ; Sigrid Undset's The Snake Pit ; Martin Heidegger's

Being and Time ; Thornton Wilder's 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

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

1925 in literature – F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby; W. Somerset Maugham's The Painted Veil ; Virginia Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway ; Franz Kafka's Der Prozeß ( The Trial); Mikhail Bulgakov's Heart of a Dog ; André Gide's The Counterfeiters ; John Dos Passos's Manhattan Transfer ; Agatha Christie's The Secret of Chimneys ; Death of Sergey Esenin;

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

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

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 Death of Marcel Proust ( In Search of Lost Time completed); 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

1921 in literature – Luigi Pirandello's play, Six Characters in Search of an Author

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 (novel) ; 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

1910s

1919 in literature – W. Somerset Maugham's

The Moon and Sixpence ; The Curse of Capistrano - Johnston McCulley; H. P. Lovecraft's Dagon

1918 in literature – Booth Tarkington's The Magnificent Ambersons ; 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

1917 in literature – T. S. Eliot's The Lovesong of J. Alfred Prufrock ; Aleister Crowley's

Moonchild ; Edgar Rice Burroughs's A Princess of Mars

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

1915 in literature – Franz Kafka's The Metamorphosis ; Charlotte Perkins Gilman's

Herland ; Death of Rupert Brooke ; Doctor Syn: A Tale of the Romney Marsh – Russell Thorndike

1914 in literature – Stephen Leacock's

Arcadian Adventures with the Idle Rich ; James Joyce's Dubliners; Disappearance of Ambrose Bierce in Mexico

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

1912 in literature – Thomas Mann's Death in Venice ; Edgar Rice Burroughs's Tarzan of the Apes ; Arthur Conan Doyle's The Lost World; George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion

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+; 11th edition of

Encyclopædia Britannica published

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

1900s

1909 in literature – Hermann Sudermann's

The Song of Songs

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

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

1906 in literature – Alfred Noyes' The Highwayman ; Maxim Gorky's The Mother; Upton Sinclair's The Jungle ; Lope K. Santos'

Banaag at Sikat ; Death of Henrik Ibsen

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

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; Wyładysław Reymont's The Peasants; Anton Chekhov's play The Cherry Orchard first performed; Death of Anton Chekhov

1903 in literature – Henry James's The Ambassadors ; Jack London's The Call of the Wild ; W. E. B. Du Bois's The Souls of Black Folk; Bram Stoker's The Jewel of Seven Stars

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

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; Stanisław Wyspiański's The Wedding

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

19th century

Main article: 19th century in literature

1890s

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

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

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

1896 in literature – The Island of Doctor Moreau – H. G. Wells; The Well at the World's End – William Morris ; Shapes in the Fire – M.P. Shiel ; The Seagull – Anton Chekhov ; Inferno (Strindberg) – August Strindberg

1895 in literature – The Time Machine – H. G. Wells ; Almayer's Folly – Joseph Conrad ;

Pharaoh – Bolesław Prus ; Jude the Obscure –

Thomas Hardy ; The Three Impostors – Arthur Machen ; Quo Vadis – Henryk Sienkiewicz; The Importance of Being Earnest – Oscar Wilde

1894 in literature – The Jungle Book –

Rudyard Kipling; The Prisoner of Zenda –

Anthony Hope ; Pan – Knut Hamsun; The Great God Pan – Arthur Machen; Studies of Death: Romantic Tales – Eric Stenbock ; Land of the Changing Sun – Will Harben

1893 in literature – The New Woman –

Bolesław Prus

1892 in literature – The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes – Arthur Conan Doyle; Children of the Ghetto – Israel Zangwill; Gunga Din – Rudyard Kipling ; Chitra – Rabindranath Tagore

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

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 ;

1880s

1889 in literature – Thus Spoke Zarathustra –

Friedrich Nietzsche; The Doll – Bolesław Prus ;

The Child of Pleasure – 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

1888 in literature – The Man Who Would Be King – Rudyard Kipling; Looking Backward –

Edward Bellamy ; Robert Elsmere – Mary Augusta Ward; Miss Julie – August Strindberg

1887 in literature – She – Henry Rider Haggard; A Study in Scarlet – Arthur Conan Doyle (first Sherlock Holmes novel); Thelma –

Marie Corelli ; The Father – August Strindberg ;

Noli me tangere – José Rizal

1886 in literature – L'Œuvre (The Masterpiece) – Émile Zola; Little Lord Fauntleroy – Frances Hodgson Burnett ; Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde –

Robert Louis Stevenson ; The Outpost –

Bolesław Prus ; The Bostonians – Henry James ; The Death of Ivan Ilyich – Leo Tolstoy;

Rosmersholm – Henrik Ibsen ; A Romance of Two Worlds – Marie Corelli

1885 in literature – King Solomon's Mines –

Henry Rider Haggard; Marius the Epicurean –

Walter Pater ; Alfred, Lord Tennyson completes

Idylls of the King; Germinal – Émile Zola ;

George A. Moore – The Mummer's Wife ; The Mikado – Gilbert and Sullivan ; Bel Ami – Guy de Maupassant;

1884 in literature – Miss Bretherton – Mary Augusta Ward; The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn – Mark Twain; With Fire and Sword –

Henryk Sienkiewicz ; The Wild Duck – Henrik Ibsen ; Flatland – Edwin Abbott Abbott

1883 in literature – Treasure Island – Robert Louis Stevenson ; The Adventures of Pinocchio – Carlo Collodi ; The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood – Howard Pyle

1882 in literature – The Prince and the Pauper – Mark Twain ; The Naval War of 1812 –

Theodore Roosevelt

1881 in literature – The Portrait of a Lady –

Henry James ; Uncle Remus: His Songs and His Sayings – Joel Chandler Harris ; The Black Robe – Wilkie Collins ; Ghosts (play) – Henrik Ibsen

1880 in literature – Ben-Hur – Lew Wallace ;

Workers in the Dawn – George Gissing; Nana –

Émile Zola ; The Brothers Karamazov – Fyodor Dostoevsky ; Birth of Andrei Bely

1870s

1879 in literature – The Red Room – August Strindberg ; A Doll's House – Henrik Ibsen

1878 in literature – H.M.S. Pinafore – Gilbert and Sullivan

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 Little Quarter") – Jan Neruda ;

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

1875 in literature – The Way We Live Now –

Anthony Trollope ; Beauchamp's Career –

George Meredith

1874 in literature – Les Diaboliques – Jules Amédée Barbey d'Aurevilly ; Far from the Madding Crowd – Thomas Hardy

1873 in literature – Around the World in 80 Days – Jules Verne ; The Poison Tree – Bankim Chatterjee ; Red Cotton Night-Cap Country –

Robert Browning

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

1871 in literature – Middlemarch – George Eliot ; Through the Looking-Glass – Lewis Carroll ; Le bateau ivre – Arthur Rimbaud ; The Coming Race – Edward Bulwer-Lytton

1870 in literature – Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea – Jules Verne ; Venus in Furs –

Leopold von Sacher-Masoch ; Lothair –

Benjamin Disraeli

1860s

1869 in literature – War and Peace – Leo Tolstoy ; L'Education Sentimentale – Gustave Flaubert ; Les Chants de Maldoror – Comte de Lautréamont; Lorna Doone – R. D. Blackmore;

The Idiot – Fyodor Dostoevsky ; The Brick Moon – Edward Everett Hale ; The Man Who Laughs – Victor Hugo

1868 in literature – Little Women – Louisa May Alcott ; The Luck of Roaring Camp – Bret Harte ; The Moonstone – Wilkie Collins ; Enough Stupidity in Every Wise Man – Aleksandr Ostrovsky

1867 in literature – The Gambler – Fyodor Dostoevsky ; Peer Gynt – Henrik Ibsen ; Das Kapital – Karl Marx

1866 in literature – Crime and Punishment –

Fyodor Dostoevsky ; Poems and Ballads –

Algernon Charles Swinburne

1865 in literature – Alice's Adventures in Wonderland – Lewis Carroll; Our Mutual Friend – Charles Dickens; From the Earth to the Moon – Jules Verne

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

1863 in literature – Captain Fracasse –

Théophile Gautier ; Five Weeks in a Balloon -

Jules Verne ; Aurora Floyd – Mary Elizabeth Braddon ; 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

1862 in literature – Les Misérables – Victor Hugo ; Fathers and Sons – Ivan Turgenev ;

Salammbô – Gustave Flaubert; The House of the Dead – Fyodor Dostoevsky

1861 in literature – Silas Marner – George Eliot ; Framley Parsonage – Anthony Trollope ;

Great Expectations – Charles Dickens; East Lynne – Mrs Henry Wood ; The Forest of Anykščiai – Antanas Baranauskas

1860 in literature – Max Havelaar – Multatuli ;

The Mill on the Floss – George Eliot; The Woman in White – Wilkie Collins ; First Love –

Ivan Turgenev

1850s

1859 in literature – A Tale of Two Cities –

Charles Dickens; The Ordeal of Richard Feverel – George Meredith ; Oblomov – Ivan Goncharov ; On the Origin of Species – Charles Darwin; La Légende des siècles – Victor Hugo;

The Storm (play) – Aleksandr Ostrovsky ; A Bitter Fate – Aleksey Pisemsky

1858 in literature – Home of the Gentry – Ivan Turgenev ; Phantastes – George MacDonald

1857 in literature – Madame Bovary – Gustave Flaubert ; Little Dorrit – Charles Dickens ; Les Fleurs du mal – Charles Baudelaire ; The Virginians – William Makepeace Thackeray ;

Tom Brown's Schooldays – Thomas Hughes ;

The Hasheesh Eater – Fitz Hugh Ludlow ; The Professor – Charlotte Brontë

1856 in literature – The Daisy Chain –

Charlotte Mary Yonge; Aurora Leigh –

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

1855 in literature – North and South –

Elizabeth Gaskell ; Babička ( The Grandmother ) – Božena Němcová; Westward Ho! – Charles Kingsley; The Song of Hiawatha – Henry Wadsworth Longfellow ; Leaves of Grass –

Walt Whitman ; A Month in the Country – Ivan Turgenev

1854 in literature – Walden – Henry David Thoreau ; The Newcomes – William Makepeace Thackeray

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

1852 in literature – Uncle Tom's Cabin –

Harriet Beecher Stowe ; A Sportsman's Sketches – Ivan Turgenev

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

1850 in literature – The Scarlet Letter –

Nathaniel Hawthorne ; David Copperfield –

Charles Dickens, Household Words edited by

Charles Dickens begins publication; Christmas-Eve and Easter-Day – Robert Browning

1840s

1849 in literature – David Copperfield –

Charles Dickens, published as a serial in installments; The Oregon Trail – Francis Parkman ; Annabel Lee – Edgar Allan Poe ;

Shirley – Charlotte Brontë

1848 in literature – The Tenant of Wildfell Hall – Anne Brontë; Vanity Fair – William Makepeace Thackeray; The Lady of the Camellias – Alexandre Dumas, fils ; Yeast –

Charles Kingsley

1847 in literature – The Vicomte de Bragelonne – 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

1846 in literature – Cousin Bette – Honoré de Balzac ; Poor Folk and The Double – Fyodor Dostoevsky

1845 in literature – The Count of Monte Cristo – Alexandre Dumas, père ; Twenty Years After – Alexandre Dumas, père ; La Reine Margot –

Alexandre Dumas, père ; Stages on Life's Way – Søren Kierkegaard ; The Raven – Edgar Allan Poe ; Facundo – Domingo Faustino Sarmiento

1844 in literature – The Three Musketeers –

Alexandre Dumas, père ; The Snow Queen –

Hans Christian Andersen

1843 in literature – A Christmas Carol –

Charles Dickens; Windsor Castle – William Harrison Ainsworth ; Either/Or – Søren Kierkegaard ; Repetition (Kierkegaard) – Søren Kierkegaard ; The Ugly Duckling – Hans Christian Andersen ; Critical and Historical Essays – Thomas Babington Macaulay

1842 in literature – Dead Souls – Nikolai Gogol

1841 in literature – 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

1840 in literature – A Hero of Our Time –

Mikhail Lermontov; Two Years Before the Mast – Richard Henry Dana, Jr. ; Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque – Edgar Allan Poe ;

Kobzar – Taras Hryhorovych Shevchenko ; The Arabian Nights – Edward William Lane publishes an English version

1830s

1839 in literature – The Voyage of the Beagle – Charles Darwin; Nicholas Nickleby – Charles Dickens ; The Little Mermaid – Hans Christian Andersen ; The Charterhouse of Parma –

Stendhal

1838 in literature – Oliver Twist – Charles Dickens ; The Birds of America – John James Audubon ; The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket – Edgar Allan Poe ; De Leeuw van Vlaanderen – Hendrik Conscience

1837 in literature – The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club – Charles Dickens; Death of the Poet – Mikhail Lermontov

1836 in literature – Máj – Karel Hynek Mácha;

The Captain's Daughter – Alexander Pushkin ;

The Government Inspector and The Nose –

Nikolai Gogol

1835 in literature – Le Père Goriot – Honoré de Balzac; Taras Bulba – Nikolai Gogol ; De la démocratie en Amérique – Alexis de Tocqueville ; The Unparalleled Adventure of One Hans Pfaall – Edgar Allan Poe

1834 in literature – Sartor Resartus – Thomas Carlyle ; Helen – Maria Edgeworth; The Queen of Spades , The Bronze Horseman – Alexander Pushkin ; Pan Tadeusz – Adam Mickiewicz

1833 in literature – Gamiani – Alfred de Musset ; Eugene Onegin – Aleksandr Pushkin ;

Eugénie Grandet – Honoré de Balzac

1832 in literature – Eugene Onegin –

Alexander Pushkin ; Evenings on a Farm Near Dikanka – Nikolai Gogol ; The Siege of Malta –

Walter Scott ; Bizarro – Walter Scott ; Vom Kriege – Carl von Clausewitz; Wacousta –

John Richardson; Indiana and Valentine –

George Sand

1831 in literature – The Hunchback of Notre-Dame – Victor Hugo; La Peau de chagrin –

Honoré de Balzac

1830 in literature – The Red and the Black –

Stendhal ; The Book of Mormon – Joseph Smith

1820s

1829 in literature – The Misfortunes of Elphin – Thomas Love Peacock

1828 in literature – The Birds of America –

John James Audubon ; The Betrothed –

Alessandro Manzoni

1827 in literature – Book of Songs (poetry) –

Heinrich Heine ; The Mummy! – Jane C. Loudon

1826 in literature – The Last of the Mohicans – James Fenimore Cooper ; Cinq-Mars –

Alfred de Vigny ; The Last Man – Mary Shelley;

Roger Dodsworth – Mary Shelley

1825 in literature – Boris Godunov –

Alexander Pushkin ; The Betrothed –

Alessandro Manzoni

1824 in literature – Our Village – Mary Russell Mitford

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

1822 in literature – The Vision of Judgment –

Lord Byron

1821 in literature – Confessions of an English Opium Eater – Thomas De Quincey ; Music, When Soft Voices Die – Percy Bysshe Shelley;

Adonaïs – Percy Bysshe Shelley

1820 in literature – Ruslan and Ludmila –

Alexander Pushkin ; To a Skylark – Percy Bysshe Shelley; The Cloud – Percy Bysshe Shelley; Prometheus Unbound – Percy Bysshe Shelley

1810s

1819 in literature – Ivanhoe – Walter Scott ;

The Sketch Book – Washington Irving; Ode to a Nightingale – John Keats; Ode to the West Wind – Percy Bysshe Shelley; The Masque of Anarchy – Percy Bysshe Shelley; The Cenci –

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

1817 in literature – Persuasion – Jane Austen;

Northanger Abbey – Jane Austen; Rob Roy –

Sir Walter Scott ; Harrington and Ormond –

Maria Edgeworth

1816 in literature – Adolphe – Benjamin Constant ; The Sandman – E. T. A. Hoffmann ;

Alastor – Percy Bysshe Shelley

1815 in literature – Emma – Jane Austen; The Pastor's Fireside – Jane Porter ; The White Doe of Rylstone – William Wordsworth

1814 in literature – Mansfield Park – Jane Austen; Waverley – Sir Walter Scott ; The Dog of Montargis play by René Charles Guilbert de Pixérécourt

1813 in literature – Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen; Queen Mab – Percy Bysshe Shelley

1812 in literature – The Milesian Chief –

Charles Robert Maturin ; The Swiss Family Robinson – Johann David Wyss ; Grimms' Fairy Tales – The Brothers Grimm

1811 in literature – Sense and Sensibility –

Jane Austen; Childe Harold's Pilgrimage – Lord Byron – completed

1810 in literature – The Houses of Osma and Almeria – Regina Maria Roche ; Zastrozzi and

St. Irvyne – Percy Bysshe Shelley

1800s

1809 in literature – The Martyrs – François-René de Chateaubriand ; Elective Affinities –

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe ; Death of

Thomas Paine

1808 in literature – Faust – Goethe

1807 in literature – Tales from Shakespeare –

Charles Lamb and Mary Lamb

1806 in literature – Zofloya by Charlotte Dacre - Leonora by Maria Edgeworth - The Wild Irish Girl by Sydney, Lady Morgan

1804 in literature – Jerusalem The Emanation of the Giant Albion (poetry) – William Blake ;

William Tell – Friedrich Schiller

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

1802 in literature – Delphine – Germaine de Staël ; René – François-René de Chateaubriand

1801 in literature – Atala – François-René de Chateaubriand ; Belinda – Maria Edgeworth

1800 in literature – Castle Rackrent – Maria Edgeworth ; Hymns to the Night – Novalis;

Mary Stuart – Friedrich Schiller ; Glenfinlas –

Walter Scott

18th century

Main article: 18th century in literature

1790s

1799 in literature – Arthur Mervyn – Charles Brockden Brown ; Wallenstein – Friedrich Schiller

1798 in literature – Lyrical Ballads – Samuel Taylor Coleridge and William Wordsworth; The Rime of the Ancient Mariner – Samuel Taylor Coleridge

1797 in literature – l'Histoire de Juliette –

Marquis de Sade ; Kubla Khan – Samuel Taylor Coleridge

1796 in literature – Camilla – Fanny Burney;

Memoirs of My Life and Writings – Edward Gibbon

1795 in literature – Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship (to 1796) – Goethe ; The Mysteries of Udolpho – Ann Radcliffe

1794 in literature – The Age of Reason –

Thomas Paine

1793 in literature – Songs of Experience –

William Blake ; Birth of John Neal

1792 in literature – A Vindication of the Rights of Woman – Mary Wollstonecraft

1791 in literature – Justine – Marquis de Sade ; The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. –

James Boswell ; Dream of the Red Chamber –

Cao Xueqin

1790 in literature – Reflections on the Revolution in France – Edmund Burke ; Tam O'Shanter – Robert Burns

1780s

1789 in literature – Songs of Innocence –

William Blake ; The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire – Edward Gibbon – completed

1788 in literature – Memoirs – Saint-Simon

1787 in literature – Don Carlos – Friedrich Schiller ; Paul et Virginie – Jacques-Henri Bernardin de Saint-Pierre

1786 in literature – Poems Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect – Robert Burns

1785 in literature – 120 Days of Sodom –

Marquis de Sade ; Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals – Immanuel Kant , Anton Reiser (to 1790) – Karl Philipp Moritz; The Task – William Cowper

1784 in literature – Barham Downs – Robert Bage ; The Marriage of Figaro – Pierre Beaumarchais ; Death of – Samuel Johnson and Denis Diderot

1783 in literature – Prolegomena to any Future Metaphysics – Immanuel Kant

1782 in literature – The Robbers – Friedrich Schiller Les Liaisons Dangereuses – Pierre Choderlos de Laclos

1781 in literature – A Critique of Pure Reason – Immanuel Kant

1780 in literature – Letters to a Philosophical Unbeliever – Joseph Priestley

1770s

1779 in literature – Nathan the Wise –

Gotthold Lessing ; Fables and Parables –

Ignacy Krasicki

1778 in literature – Evelina – Fanny Burney; death of Voltaire (b. 1694)

1777 in literature – The School for Scandal –

Richard Brinsley Sheridan

1776 in literature – Common Sense – Thomas Paine ; The Wealth of Nations – Adam Smith

1775 in literature – The Rivals – Richard Sheridan

1774 in literature – The Sorrows of Young Werther – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

1773 in literature – Der Messias (from 1748) – Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock; Jacques the Fatalist and His Master – Denis Diderot

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.

1771 in literature – Jacques the Fatalist (to 1773) – Denis Diderot

1770 in literature – Épître à l'Auteur du Livre des Trois Imposteurs – Voltaire

1760s

1769 in literature – The History of Emily Montague – Frances Brooke ; The History and Adventures of an Atom – Tobias Smollett

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

1767 in literature – Minna von Barnhelm –

Gotthold Lessing

1766 in literature – The Vicar of Wakefield –

Oliver Goldsmith

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

1764 in literature – The Castle of Otranto –

Horace Walpole

1763 in literature – James Boswell is introduced to Samuel Johnson ; A Song to David by Christopher Smart ; Three Hundred Tang Poems by Sun Zhu

1762 in literature – Emile: or, On Education ,

The Social Contract – Jean-Jacques Rousseau

1761 in literature – Julie, ou la nouvelle Héloïse – Jean-Jacques Rousseau

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

1750s

1759 in literature – Candide – Voltaire; The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman (to 1770) – Laurence Sterne

1758 in literature – Voltaire buys his estate at Ferney; The Idler by Samuel Johnson; Le Père de famille by Denis Diderot

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

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

1755 in literature – Letter to Chesterfield –

Samuel Johnson; Miss Sara Sampson play by

Gotthold Ephraim Lessing

1754 in literature – The History of Great Britain (to 1762) – David Hume

1753 in literature – The History of Sir Charles Grandison – Samuel Richardson; The Mistress of the Inn by Carlo Goldoni first performed

1752 in literature – Micromégas – Voltaire; Birth of Fanny Burney

1751 in literature – Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard – Thomas Gray ; Encyclopédie, ou dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers – first published

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

1740s

1749 in literature – The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling – Henry Fielding

1748 in literature – Fanny Hill – John Cleland ;

An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding –

David Hume

1747 in literature – Clarissa (to 1748) –

Samuel Richardson

1746 in literature – Voltaire is elected to the

French Academy; Den Danske Vitruvius by

Lauritz de Thurah; Le Préjugé vaincu by Pierre de Marivaux ; Sugawara Denju Tenarai Kagami by Takeda Izumo I , Takeda Izumo II , Namiki Sōsuke and Miyoshi Shōraku

1745 in literature – Death of Jonathan Swift;

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

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

1743 in literature – The Life and Death of Jonathan Wild, the Great – Henry Fielding ;

Servant of Two Masters by Carlo Goldoni first performed

1742 in literature – Joseph Andrews – Henry Fielding

1741 in literature – An Apology for the Life of Mrs. Shamela Andrews – Henry Fielding ; Niels Klim's Underground Travels – Ludvig Holberg

1740 in literature – Institutions de physique –

Émilie du Châtelet ; Beauty and the Beast –

Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villeneuve ;

Pamela; or, Virtue Rewarded – Samuel Richardson

1730s

1739 in literature – A Treatise of Human Nature (to 1740) – David Hume

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

1737 in literature – Leonidas – Richard Glover ; Birth of Thomas Paine , free thinker and revolutionary (died 1809); The Historical Register for the Year 1736 by Henry Fielding ;

The Golden Rump attributed to Henry Fielding; The newspaper The News Letter of Belfast is first published. It is the oldest English language general daily newspaper still in publication. ; 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

1736 in literature – Method of Fluxions –

Isaac Newton

1735 in literature – At the end of the trial of

John Peter Zenger for seditious 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

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

1733 in literature – Letters Concerning the English Nation – Voltaire ; Memoirs of the Twentieth Century – Samuel Madden ; Essay on Man (to 1744) – Alexander Pope

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 magazine 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

1731 in literature – Insel Felsenburg (to 1743) – Johann Gottfried Schnabel ; The magazine

The Gentleman's Magazine is first published in

London , its publisher was Edward Cave who coined the term "magazine" for a periodical.; The newspaper Hollandsche Spectator is first published in Amsterdam , the publisher was the journalist Justus van Effen. ; La Vie de Marianne by Pierre de Marivaux ; Manon Lescaut by Antoine François Prévost ; Life of Sethos by Jean Terrasson

1730 in literature – The Game of Love and Chance – Pierre de Marivaux ; Tom Thumb by

Henry Fielding .

1720s

1729 in literature – Death of William Congreve ; Second Thoughts Are Best by Daniel Defoe ; A Modest Proposal by Jonathan Swift;

Hurlothrumbo by Samuel Johnson

1728 in literature – Alexander Pope , The Dunciad

1727 in literature – Eliza Haywood , Philidore and Placentia ; Double Falsehood by Lewis Theobald ; Conjugal Lewdness by Daniel Defoe

1726 in literature – Jonathan Swift, Gulliver's Travels

1725 in literature – Birth of Giacomo Casanova ; the encyclopaedia Gujin Tushu Jicheng 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

1724 in literature – The Reform'd Coquet by

Mary Davys ; Roxana: The Fortunate Mistress and 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

1723 in literature – Births of Richard Price and Adam Smith ; deaths of Susanna Centlivre and Marianna Alcoforado ; – Voltaire , La Henriade ;

1722 in literature – Daniel Defoe , Moll Flanders

1721 in literature – Montesquieu , Persian Letters

1720 in literature – Daniel Defoe , Memoirs of a Cavalier

1710s

1719 in literature – Robinson Crusoe – Daniel Defoe

1718 in literature – Oedipus – Voltaire's first play

1717 in literature – A Philosophical Inquiry Concerning Human Liberty – Anthony Collins ;

Three Hours After Marriage by John Gay ,

Alexander Pope and John Arbuthnot ;

1716 in literature – The Fifth Ode of the Fourth Book of Horace Imitated – Jane Brereton;

Kangxi Dictionary, compiled by order of the

Kangxi Emperor

1715 in literature – Nicholas Rowe becomes

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

1714 in literature – Bernard Mandeville , The Fable of the Bees

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

1712 in literature – Alexander Pope , The Rape of the Lock

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

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

1700s

Main article: 1700s in literature

1709 in literature – Ode à Sainte-Geneviève –

Voltaire 's first published work; First publication of the magazine Tatler , established by Richard Steele ; The New Atalantis by Delarivier Manley ;

Turcaret by Alain-René Lesage

1708 in literature – An Argument against Abolishing Christianity – Jonathan Swift

1707 in literature – Arithmetica Universalis –

Isaac Newton

1706 in literature – The Apparition of Mrs. Veal by Daniel Defoe ; The Recruiting Officer by

George Farquhar

1705 in literature – Money and Trade Considered by John Law

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

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

1702 in literature – The Narrow Road to the Interior – Matsuo Bashō

1701 in literature – A Discourse of the Contests and Dissensions Between the Nobles and the Commons in Athens and Rome –

Jonathan Swift ; The Ladies' Defence by Mary Chudleigh ; Stemmatografia by Pavao Ritter Vitezović

1700 in literature – The Way of the World –

William Congreve

17th century

Main article: 17th century in literature

1690s

1699 in literature – Les Aventures de Télémaque (Fénelon), Historia Histrionica (Wright), Kingo's hymnal

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

1697 in literature – Histoires ou contes du temps passé (Perrault), Belle-Belle ou Le Chevalier Fortuné (d'Aulnoy), Sabhasad Bakhar

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)

1695 in literature – Love for Love (Congreve),

Khulasat-ut-Tawarikh (Sujan Rai), Guwen Guanzhi

1694 in literature – First complete edition of

Dictionnaire de l'Académie française ), Het Menselyk Bedryf ("The Book of Trades") (Luyken)

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)

1692 in literature – L'Impromptu de la garnison de Namur, Banmin chōhōki

1691 in literature – Athalie (Racine), Sarumino

1690 in literature – A Letter to a Friend (Browne), Dioclesian (Purcell), Amphitryon (Dryden)

1680s

1689 in literature – John Locke , An Essay Concerning Human Understanding

1688 in literature – Aphra Behn , Oroonoko

1687 in literature – Isaac Newton,

Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica ;

John Dryden The Hind and the Panther

1686 in literature – Conversations on the Plurality of Worlds by Bernard Le Bovier de Fontenelle

1685 in literature – Bibliotheca Anatomica by

Daniel Le Clerc and Jean-Jacques Manget;

Cuneus Prophetarum by Pjetër Bogdani

1684 in literature – Love-Letters Between a Nobleman and His Sister attributed to Aphra Behn ; Letters Writ by a Turkish Spy attributed to Giovanni Paolo Marana ; Sodom, or the Quintessence of Debauchery attributed to John Wilmot, 2nd Earl of Rochester ; Odiljenje sigetsko by Pavao Ritter Vitezović ; Bibliotheca antitrinitariorum by Christopher Sandius

1683 in literature – The London Jilt attributed to Alexander Oldys; Venus in the Cloister by the pseudonymous writer Abbé du Prat

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

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

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

1670s

1679 in literature – Beaumont and Fletcher folios (second volume), Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio (Pu Songling, written in this year)

1678 in literature – The Pilgrim's Progress ( John Bunyan), La Princesse de Clèves,

Mowing-Devil

1677 in literature – Phèdre (Racine), Ethics (Spinoza)

1676 in literature – The Southern Land, Known (de Foigny), Truth's Triumph (Tomkinson), The Man of Mode (Etherege)

1675 in literature – Gyuwon Sahwa , The Country Wife (Wycherley), History of the Sevarambians (Vairasse), Teutsche Academie (von Sandrart)

1674 in literature – Nouveaux contes ( Jean de la Fontaine), Le Théâtre François (Chappuzeau), Jammers Minde (Leonora Christina)

1673 in literature – The Floating Island (Head),

Lapponia (Schefferus)

1672 in literature – Les Femmes Savantes (Molière), Loimologia (Hodges), The Lives of the Artists (Bellori)

1671 in literature – Samson Agonistes (Milton), Gartlic za čas kratiti (Frankopan), De Nieuwe en Onbekende Weereld (Montanus)

1670 in literature – Le Bourgeois gentilhomme (Molière), Tractatus Theologico-Politicus (Spinoza), Pensées (Pascal)

1660s

1669 in literature – Jean Racine 's Britannicus,

Letters of a Portuguese Nun (comte de Guilleragues)

1668 in literature – Hans Jakob Christoffel von Grimmelshausen 's Simplicius Simplicissimus , Bibliotheca Fratrum Polonorum quos Unitarios vocant , Description of Africa (Dapper), Een Bloemhof (Koerbagh), The Isle of Pines (Neville)

1667 in literature – John Milton 's Paradise Lost , China Illustrata (Kircher), Hatata (Zera Yacob)

1666 in literature – Gottfried Leibniz's De Arte Combinatoria ('On the Art of Combination') ;

Margaret Cavendish's The Blazing World,

Cuimre na nGenealach

1665 in literature – Contes et nouvelles en vers (De La Fontaine), Historia Eustachio Mariana (Kercher); Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society begins publication

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)

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

1662 in literature – Molière 's 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 Judy first performed

1661 in literature – The Faithful Friends (first printed), A Cure for a Cuckold (Fletcher, first printed), Putni tovaruš (Zrinska)

1660 in literature – Martyrs Mirror (van Braght), Critici sacri (Pearson); Samuel Pepys opens his diary

1650s

1659 in literature – Shajara-i Tarākima (Abu al-Ghazi Bahadur), The Contention of Ajax and Ulysses (Shirley)

1658 in literature – Heutelia , Ping Shan Leng Yan , The Garden of Cyrus (Browne)

1657 in literature – Comical History of the States and Empires of the Moon ( Cyrano de Bergerac ), Lettres provinciales (Pascal), The Siege of Rhodes (Davenant),

1656 in literature – The Commonwealth of Oceana (Harrington), Mizan al-haqq ( Kâtip Çelebi )

1655 in literature – Dabestan-e Mazaheb , De Corpore (Hobbes), Tarikh al-Sudan (Abd al-Sadi); Junius manuscript first published

1654 in literature – Dasbodh (Ramdas), Appius and Virginia (Webster)

1653 in literature – The Compleat Angler (Walton), Logopandecteision (Urquhart)

1652 in literature – Theatrum Chemicum Britannicum (Ashmole), Alcibiades the Schoolboy , Oedipus Aegyptiacus (Kircher)

1651 in literature – Thomas Hobbes 's

Leviathan , The Dancing Master (Playford),

Abagar (Filip Stanislavov), Bahar-i Danish (Inayat Allah Kamboh)

1650 in literature – Chūzan Seikan (Shō Shōken), The Tenth Muse Lately Sprung Up in America (Bradstreet), Il Conquisto di Granata (Graziani), Vrhobreznica Chronicle

1640s

1649 in literature – Historia Lettica (Einhorn),

Huei tlamahuiçoltica (de la Vega), Leabhar na nGenealach (Dubhaltach MacFhirbhisigh),

Prasna Marga (Narayanan Nambutiri)

1648 in literature – Hesperides (Herrick),

Image of the Virgin Mary Mother of God of Guadalupe , Padmavati (Alaol)

1647 in literature – The Advice to Hartlib (Petty), Beaumont and Fletcher folios (first edition), The Siege of Sziget (Zrinski, written)

1646 in literature – Estebanillo González ,

Gangraena (Edwardes), Pseudodoxia Epidemica (Browne)

1645 in literature – The Book of Five Rings and Dokkōdō (Musashi), Epistolae Ho-Elianae (Howell), L'huomo di lettere (Bartoli)

1644 in literature – Areopagitica and Of Education (Milton), Principles of Philosophy (Descartes)

1643 in literature – Cazania lui Varlaam, Gero (Agerre), A History of Tibet by the Fifth Dalai Lama of Tibet , Shinra no Kiroku (Matsumae Kagehiro)

1642 in literature – De Cive (Hobbes),

Tohfatu'l-Ahbab (Muhammad Ali Kashmiri), Le Vite de’ Pittori, Scultori et Architetti (Baglione)

1641 in literature – Leyen Spiegel, A Description of the Famous Kingdome of Macaria (Plattes), Flandria Illustrata (Sanderus)

1640 in literature – Meditations on First Philosophy (Descartes), Arte da Lingoa Canarim (Stephens), Augustinus (Jansen), Bay Psalm Book, On Yixing Tea Pot (Zhou Gaochi),

A Supplement to the Journey to the West (Shen Yue)

1630s

1639 in literature – Tesoro de la lengua guaraní , The Unnatural Combat (Massinger)

1638 in literature – The Man in the Moone (Godwin), El Carnero (Freyle)

1637 in literature – Discourse on the Method (Descartes), Tiangong Kaiwu (Song)

1636 in literature – the Annals of the Four Masters are completed, Pentamerone (Basile),

Yesipov Chronicle

1635 in literature – Dijing Jingwulue (Liu Tong)

1634 in literature – Somnium (Kepler), The Mysteryes of Nature and Art (Bate)

1633 in literature – Holy Sonnets (Donne)

1632 in literature – Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems (Galileo),

Histriomastix (Prynne)

1631 in literature – The Swisser (Wilson)

1630 in literature – Pathomachia

1620s

1629 in literature – Janua linguarum reserata (Comenius), Alphabetum Ibericum sive Georgianum cum Oratione , Mélite (Corneille)

1628 in literature – Institutes of the Lawes of England (Coke), The Lover's Melancholy (Ford)

1627 in literature – Stories to Awaken the World (Feng), Los Sueños (de Quevedo),

Diagrams and explanations of the wonderful machines of the Far West (Shreck and Wang)

1626 in literature – New Atlantis (Bacon), El Buscón (de Quevedo), The Jews' Tragedy (Heminges, written)

1625 in literature – De jure belli ac pacis (Grotius), Musaeum Hermeticum (Jennis),

Pamiętnik handlowca (Stefanski)

1624 in literature – Devotions upon Emergent Occasions (Donne), Emblemata of Zinne-werck (de Brune), Stories to Caution the World (Feng), De Veritate (Herbert)

1623 in literature – First Folio (Shakespeare),

Labyrinth of the World and Paradise of the Heart (Comenius), Zhifang Waiji

1622 in literature – Mourt's Relation (Winslow and Bradford), Palazzi di Genova (Rubens), La secchia rapita (Tapoti)

1621 in literature – The Anatomy of Melancholy (Burton), The Countess of Montgomery's Urania (Wroth), Wubei Zhi (Mao)

1620 in literature – Novum Organum (Bacon),

Septimana Philosophica (Maier), Haec-Vir ,

Stories Old and New and The Three Sui Quash the Demons' Revolt (Feng)

1610s

1619 in literature – Fuenteovejuna (Lope de Vega), The Maid's Tragedy (Beaumont and Fletcher)

1618 in literature – The Dog in the Manger (Lope de Vega), Speculum Sophicum Rhodostauroticum

1617 in literature – Dhola Maru , Wamyō Ruijushō (large edition)

1616 in literature – Chess or the King's Game (Augustus the Younger), Kōyō Gunkan (Kōsaka), Krista Purana (Stephens), A Description of New England (Smith)

1615 in literature – Don Quixote de la Mancha (second part, Cervantes), Zihui (Mei), De Christiana expeditione apud Sinas (Ricci)

1614 in literature – Alma Academia Leidensis ,

Jibong yuseol (Yi), 1614 Low German Bible

1613 in literature – Novelas ejemplares (Cervantes), Dongui Bogam (Heo Jun),

Jatakalankara (Ganesa), Soledades (de Góngora)

1612 in literature – Malay Annals (oldest known version), The Beginning and Progress of the Muscovy War (Żółkiewski), Vocabolario degli Accademici della Crusca

1611 in literature – King James Bible , The Tempest (Shakespeare), Runa ABC (Bureus),

Salve Deus Rex Judaeorum (Lanier)

1610 in literature – Muyejebo , Sidereus Nuncius (Galileo), True Reportory (Strachey)

1600s

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)

1608 in literature – Somnium (Kepler),

Journey from Bohemia to the Holy Land, by way of Venice and the Sea (Harant), Shoumei (Heinouchi)

1607 in literature – L'Astrée (d'Urfé, first part),

Atheism Conquered (Campanella), Tom a Lincoln ' (Johnson, second part)

1606 in literature – King Lear and Macbeth (Shakespeare, approximate date), Ryūkyū Shintō-ki

1605 in literature – Don Quixote de la Mancha (Part 1; Cervantes), Fastiginia (da Veiga),

Mundus Alter et Idem (Hall), The Advancement of Learning (Bacon)

1604 in literature – Othello (Shakespeare, approximate date), Altan Tobchi (Guush Luvsandanzan), Schilder-boeck (van Mander)

1603 in literature – Nippo Jisho , The Wonderfull Yeare (Dekker); first kabuki performances

1602 in literature – La Argentina (Centenera),

Bahr al-Hayat (Muhammad Ghawth, approximate date), The City of the Sun (Campanella)

1601 in literature – Hamlet (Shakespeare, approximate date), Twelfth Night (Shakespeare), The Triumphs of Oriana (Morley), Leucippe and Clitophon (first printed)

1600 in literature – As You Like It (Shakespeare), Englands Helicon (Flasket), Will Kemp 's "Nine Days Wonder", Erofili (Chortatzis)

16th century

Main article: 16th century in literature

1590s

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)

1598 in literature – Golestan-e Honar (Ghoma), Henry IV, Part 2 (Shakespeare, approximate date)

1597 in literature – 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)

1596 in literature – The Faerie Queene (Spenser, Books 4–6), The Blind Beggar of Alexandria (Chapman)

1595 in literature – A Midsummer Night's Dream , Romeo and Juliet (Shakespeare),

Korjenić-Neorić Armorial , Muntakhab-ut-Tawarikh (ʽAbd al-Qadir Badayuni), Prophecy of the Popes (Wion)

1594 in literature – The Unfortunate Traveller (Nashe), Theatrum artis scribendi (Hondius),

Codex iconographicus monacensis 236, Satire Ménippée

1593 in literature – The Phoenix Nest , Brevis commentarius de Islandia (Jónsson), Jakub Wujek Bible

1592 in literature – Journey to the West (Wu Cheng'en), Codex Huamantla , Pierce Penniless (Nashe), Doctor Faustus (Marlowe, approximate date)

1591 in literature – The Taming of the Shrew (Shakespeare, approximate date), Astrophel and Stella (Sidney), Mateh Moshe , Postil of Jonas Bretkūnas

1590 in literature – Tamburlaine (Marlowe, both parts published); Arcadia (Sidney), A Book to Burn (Li Zhi), Caigentan (Hong), Kao Pan Yu Shi (Tu Long), Vizsoly Bible

1580s

1589 in literature – The Passionate Shepherd to His Love ( Christopher Marlowe ), The Reason of State (Botero)

1588 in literature – The Battle of Alcazar (date first performed; George Peele ), The Misfortunes of Arthur (Hughes), Pandosto (Greene), Tamburlaine (Marlowe)

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)

1586 in literature – Historie of the Reformatioun of Religioun within the Realms of Scotland ( John Knox ), De Beghinselen Der Weeghconst (Stevin)

1585 in literature – La Galatea (Cervantes),

The Good Huswifes Jewell (Dawson), The Seven Deadly Sins (Tarlton)

1584 in literature – Campaspe , Sapho and Phao (Lyly), Jixiao Xinshu (second edition),

Guðbrandsbiblía , Some Reulis and Cautelis to be observit and eschewit in Scottis poesie (James VI of Scotland)

1583 in literature – The Anatomy of Abuses (Stubbes), De Heptarchia Mystica (Dee), De Constantia (Lipsius)

1582 in literature – Divers Voyages (Hakluyt),

The Monument of Matrones , Piae Cantiones (Finno)

1581 in literature – Second Book of Discipline ,

Jerusalem Delivered (Tasso), Ostrog Bible

1580 in literature – Essays (Montaigne),

Laments (Kochanowski), Prasna Tantra (Neelakantha), Tarikh-i-Sher Shahi (Abbas Sarwani)

1570s

1579 in literature – Hanthawaddy Hsinbyushin Ayedawbon (Yazataman), Bible of Kralice, The Shepheardes Calender (Spenser)

1578 in literature – Compendium of Materia Medica (Li Shizhen), Euphues (Lyly), History of a Voyage to the Land of Brazil (Jean de Léry)

1577 in literature – The Interior Castle (Teresa of Ávila), The Lives of the Saints (Skarga),

Pseudomonarchia Daemonum (Weyer)

1576 in literature – The Pattern of Painful Adventures , Discourse on Voluntary Servitude (La Boétie), The Princely Pleasures, at the Court at Kenilworth (Gascoigne)

1575 in literature – Arbatel de magia veterum,

Terze rime ( Veronica Franco)

1574 in literature – Right of Magistrates (Beza), Exercicio quotidiano

1573 in literature – Etz Chaim (Chaim Vital),

Aminta (Tasso)

1572 in literature – Franciade (de Ronsard),

Os Lusíadas (de Camões)

1571 in literature – Arte de la lengua mexicana y castellana and Vocabulario en lengua castellana y mexicana (de Molina), The Books of Homilies (third volume), Ragione di adoprar sicuramente l'Arme, si da offesa come da difesa ( Giacomo di Grassi)

1570 in literature – Theatrum Orbis Terrarum (Ortelius), Doria Atlas, Lafreri atlases (approximate date)

1560s

1569 in literature – La Araucana , part 1 ( Alonso de Ercilla ), Thomissøn's hymnal ,

Florentine Codex

1568 in literature – Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects ( Giorgio Vasari ), Bannatyne Manuscript , De optimo senatore ( Wawrzyniec Grzymała Goślicki ),

Plantin Polyglot, Fishing and Fishermen's Talk (Hektorović)

1567 in literature – Welsh Bible (Salesbury),

Horestes (Pickering), Isabella Whitney 's first poems published, Lope de Rueda 's works published; Red Lion theatre built

1566 in literature – " The Palace of Pleasure " ( William Painter), A Caveat or Warning for Common Cursitors (Harman),

Table Talk (Luther)

1565 in literature – De natura juxta propria principia (Telesio), Chess (Kochanowski),

Shulchan Aruch (Karo)

1564 in literature – Anatomes totius (Vesalius), Ausbund, Enchiridion of Dietrich Philips

1563 in literature – Foxe's Book of Martyrs , De praestigiis daemonum (Weyer), Heidelberg Catechism

1562 in literature – The Tragical History of Romeus and Juliet ( Arthur Brooke ), The Five Orders of Architecture (da Vignola); Mrkšina crkva printing house founded

1561 in literature – Beware the Cat (Baldwin),

Peresopnytsia Gospel , Gorboduc (Norton and Sackville); Tianyi Ge library founded

1560 in literature – Geneva Bible (first full edition), L'Amadigi (Tasso), De Gestis Meni de Saa (de Anchiata)

1550s

1559 in literature – Elizabethan Book of Common Prayer , Magdeburg Centuries (first volume)

1558 in literature – Heptaméron ( Marguerite de Navarre ), The First Blast of the Trumpet Against the Monstruous Regiment of Women (Knox), Il Galateo (Della Casa)

1557 in literature – Mirat ul Memalik ( Seydi Ali Reis ), Physica speculatio (Alonso Gutiérrez),

Tottel's Miscellany , The Whetstone of Witte (Records)

1556 in literature – De re metallica (Agricola)

1555 in literature – Gosudarev Rodoslovets ,

Les Prophéties (Nostradamus), Meshari ( Gjon Buzuku )

1554 in literature – Lazarillo de Tormes

1553 in literature – Christianismi Restitutio (Servetus), Observations ( Pierre Belon),

Scepter of Judah ( Solomon ibn Verga )

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)

1551 in literature – Prutenic Tables (Erasmus Reinhold), Stoglav

1550 in literature – Fengshen Yanyi ( Xu Zhonglin ), Abecedarium (Trubar) , Liao-Fan's Four Lessons , Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects (Vasari),

Svaramelakalanidhi (Ramamatya)

1540s

1549 in literature – Book of Common Prayer ,

The Complaynt of Scotland, Notes on Muscovite Affairs (Sigismund von Herberstein ), Belfagor arcidiavolo (Machiavelli)

1548 in literature – Se Wsi Testamenti (Mikael Agricola), Oll synnwyr pen Kembero ygyd (Gruffudd Hiraethog)

1547 in literature – Arte para aprender la lengua mexicana (Andrés de Olmos),

Catechism of Martynas Mažvydas , Les voyages aventureux du Capitaine Martin de Hoyarsal, habitant du çubiburu (Martin de Hoyarçabal)

1546 in literature – De Natura Fossilium (Georg Bauer), Farnese Hours (Giulio Clovio)

1545 in literature – Toxophilus (Roger Ascham), Ars Magna (Gerolamo Cardano), A Proper Newe Booke of Cokerye

1544 in literature – Cosmographia (Münster),

Antwerp songbook

1543 in literature – Abckiria (Mikael Agricola),

De humani corporis fabrica (Vesalius), De revolutionibus orbium coelestium (Copernicus)

1542 in literature – Luca Landucci 's diary ends, earliest Romani-language writing

1541 in literature – Orbecche (Giraldi), '

1540 in literature – De la pirotechnia (Biringuccio), Padmavat (Malik Muhammad Jayasi)

1530s

1539 in literature – Great Bible, Kreutterbuch (Hieronymus Bock)

1538 in literature – Œuvres (Clément Marot)

1537 in literature – Matthew Bible , De arte canendi (second volume, Heyden)

1536 in literature – Institutes of the Christian Religion (Calvin), Swenske songer eller wisor 1536

1535 in literature – Christiad (Marco Girolamo Vida)

1534 in literature – Luther Bible translation by

Martin Luther , Gargantua (Rabelais),

Psychopannychia (Calvin)

1533 in literature – Three Books of Occult Philosophy (Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa)

1532 in literature – The Prince (Machiavelli)

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

1530 in literature – Amadis of Greece (Feliciano de Silva), Thurnierbuch (Georg Rüxner)

1520s

1529 in literature – ' A Proper Dialogue Between A Gentleman and a Husbandman

1528 in literature – Baltissare Castiglione –

The Book of the Courtier; Francisco Delicado's

Portrait of Lozana: The Lusty Andalusian Woman

1527 in literature – Pietro Aretino 's Sonetti Lussuriosi

1526 in literature – Tronoša Chronicle

1525 in literature – Luther's Against the Murderous, Thieving Hordes of Peasants;

Tyndale Bible

1524 in literature – Birth of Luís de Camões and Pierre de Ronsard ; I Modi ; Johann Walter's Eyn geystlich Gesangk Buchleyn ; Erfurt Enchiridion ; Cèllere Codex

1523 in literature – Thomas More's Responsio ad Lutherum

1522 in literature – Luther Bible , New Testament translation by Martin Luther ;

Mirabilis Liber

1521 in literature – Reis' Kitab-ı Bahriye,

Goražde Psalter; Henry VIII's Defence of the Seven Sacraments

1520 in literature – Complutensian Polyglot Bible , Yazawin Kyaw (part 2); John Heywood's

Johan Johan The Husband

1510s

1519 in literature – Bergadis' Apokopos

1518 in literature – Tantrakhyan

1517 in literature – Martin Luther's Ninety-five Theses , Gil Vicente's A Trilogia das Barcas

1516 in literature – Ariosto – Orlando Furioso ;

Thomas More – Utopia

1515 in literature – Ciołek's Missal

1514 in literature – Julius Excluded from Heaven

1513 in literature – Meghapart's Parzatumar

1512 in literature – Meghapart's Urbatagirk

1511 in literature – Erasmus – The Praise of Folly ; Wynkyn de Worde 's The Demaũdes Joyous

1510 in literature – Rodríguez de Montalvo's

Las sergas de Esplandián

1500s

1509 in literature – Erasmus's The Praise of Folly ; Luca Pacioli's Divina proportione

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 Matthias Ringmann's Cosmographiae Introductio

1507 in literature – Matthias Ringmann's

Cosmographiae Introductio

1506 in literature – William Dunbar's The Dance of the Sevin Deidly Synnis

1505 in literature – Bembo's Gli Asolani

1504 in literature – Sannazaro's Arcadia ;

Beunans Meriasek

1503 in literature – Robin Hood and the Potter

1502 in literature – Shin Maha Thilawuntha's

Yazawin Kyaw

1501 in literature – Marko Marulić – Judita

1500 in literature – The Second Shepherds' Play by The Wakefield Master; books printed in 1500 or before are considered incunabula

Middle Ages

Further information: Medieval literature

15th century in literature – 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

14th century in literature – The Divine Comedy – Dante Alighieri ; The Decameron – Giovanni Boccaccio ; Canterbury Tales – Geoffrey Chaucer; The Tale of the Heike (1371); Sir Gawain and the Green Knight – The Pearl Poet ;

Romance of the Three Kingdoms – Luo Guanzhong; Water Margin – Shi Nai'an

13th century in literature – Theologus Autodidactus ; Gesta Romanorum – Ibn al-Nafis ; The Travels of Marco Polo – Marco Polo ; Golden Legend ; Poetic Edda ; The Secret History of the Mongols

12th century in literature – Hayy ibn Yaqdhan – Ibn Tufail ; Tristan and Iseult ; Táin Bó Cúailnge; Cantar de mio Cid

11th century in literature – The Song of Roland ; The Tale of Genji – Murasaki Shikibu

10th century in literature – One Thousand and One Nights ; The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter

6th to 9th centuries in literature – The Quran ;

Book of Kells ; Nihon Shoki; Beowulf ; The Pillow Book – Sei Shōnagon; Book of Dede Korkut ; Wenyuan Yinghua ; Taiping Guangji ;

Great Tang Records on the Western Regions ;

Miscellaneous Morsels from Youyang

Ancient times

Ancient literature – Epic of Gilgamesh ; The Vedas ; The Bible ; Homer's Odyssey and Illiad ;

Virgil's Aeneid ; Aeschylus ' Oresteia; Sophocles '

Oedipus Cycle , Antigone ; The Mahabharata ; The Ramayana ; Confucius' Analects , Great Learning and Spring and Autumn Annals; A New Account of the Tales of the World; Soushen Ji ;