List of years in literature

This page indexes the individual "year in literature" pages. Each year is annotated with a significant event as a reference point.

2000s - 1990s - 1980s - 1970s - 1960s - 1950s - 1940s - 1930s - 1920s - 1910s - 1900s - 1890s - 1880s - 1870s - 1860s - 1850s - 1840s - 1830s - 1820s - 1810s - 1800s - 1790s - 1780s - 1770s - 1760s - 1750s - 1740s - 1730s - 1720s - 1710s - Pre 1710s

2000s

• 2004 in literature -
• 2003 in literature - The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
• 2002 in literature - Atonement - Ian McEwan
• 2001 in literature - Austerlitz - W.G. Sebald
• 2000 in literature - Final original Peanuts comic strip is published, and creator Charles Schulz dies soon after

1990s

• 1999 in literature - Chocolat - Joanne Harris
• 1998 in literature - A Man in Full - Tom Wolfe
• 1997 in literature - Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone - J. K. Rowling
• 1996 in literature - Angela's Ashes - Frank McCourt
• 1995 in literature - The Celestine Prophecy - James Redfield
• 1994 in literature - The Stone Diaries - Carol Shields
• 1993 in literature - The Emigrants - W.G. Sebald
• 1992 in literature - The English Patient - Michael Ondaatje
• 1991 in literature - Such a Long Journey - Rohinton Mistry
• 1990 in literature - Vertigo - W.G. Sebald

1980s

• 1989 in literature - The Satanic Verses - Salman Rushdie
• 1988 in literature - Oscar and Lucinda - Peter Carey
• 1987 in literature - Beloved - Toni Morrison
• 1986 in literature - Extinction - Thomas Bernhard
• 1985 in literature - The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood
• 1984 in literature - White Noise - Don DeLillo
• 1983 in literature - The Loser - Thomas Bernhard
• 1982 in literature - The Color Purple - Alice Walker
• 1981 in literature - Ill Seen Ill Said - Samuel Beckett
• 1980 in literature - Company - Samuel Beckett

1970s

• 1979 in literature - Kane and Abel - Jeffrey Archer
• 1978 in literature - The World According to Garp - John Irving
• 1977 in literature - The Sea, The Sea - Iris Murdoch
• 1976 in literature - Triton - Samuel R. Delany
• 1975 in literature - Humboldt's Gift - Saul Bellow
• 1974 in literature - Carrie - Stephen King
• 1973 in literature - Burr - Gore Vidal
• 1972 in literature - Jonathan Livingston Seagull - Richard Bach
• 1971 in literature - The End of Summer - Rosamunde Pilcher
• 1970 in literature - Deliverance - James Dickey

1960s

• 1969 in literature - Portnoy's Complaint - Philip Roth
• 1968 in literature - Airport - Arthur Hailey
• 1967 in literature - Wild Season - Allan W. Eckert
• 1966 in literature - The Master and Margarita - Mikhail Bulgakov
• 1965 in literature - Herzog - Saul Bellow
• 1964 in literature - Little Big Man - Thomas Berger
• 1963 in literature - Planet of the Apes (La Planete des Singes) - Pierre Boulle
• 1962 in literature - Pale Fire - Vladimir Nabokov
• 1961 in literature - Catch-22 - Joseph Heller
• 1960 in literature - To Kill A Mockingbird - Harper Lee

1950s

• 1959 in literature - Hawaii - James A. Michener
• 1958 in literature - Masters of Deceit - J. Edgar Hoover
• 1957 in literature - Pnin - Vladimir Nabokov
• 1956 in literature - Les racines du ciel - Romain Gary
• 1955 in literature - Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
• 1954 in literature - Lord of the Flies - William G. Golding
• 1953 in literature - The Unnamable - Samuel Beckett
• 1952 in literature - Waiting for Godot - Samuel Beckett
• 1951 in literature - The Catcher in the Rye - J.D. Salinger
• 1950 in literature - The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe - C. S. Lewis

1940s

• 1949 in literature - Nineteen Eighty-Four - George Orwell
• 1948 in literature - Doktor Faustus - Thomas Mann
• 1947 in literature - The Diary of Anne Frank
• 1946 in literature - The Iceman Cometh - Eugene O'Neill
• 1945 in literature - The Death of Virgil - Hermann Broch
• 1944 in literature - Our Lady of the Flowers - Jean Genet
• 1943 in literature - The Fountainhead - Ayn Rand
• 1942 in literature - The Stranger - Albert Camus
• 1941 in literature - The Screwtape Letters - C.S. Lewis
• 1940 in literature - Native Son - Richard Wright

1930s

• 1939 in literature - Finnegans Wake - James Joyce
• 1938 in literature - Nausea - Jean-Paul Sartre
• 1937 in literature - Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
• 1936 in literature - Life magazine is first published
• 1935 in literature - Treasure of the Sierra Madre - B. Traven
• 1934 in literature - I, Claudius - Robert Graves
• 1933 in literature - God's Little Acre - Erskine Caldwell
• 1932 in literature - Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
• 1931 in literature - The Good Earth - Pearl S. Buck
• 1930 in literature - The Man Without Qualities - Robert Musil

1920s

• 1929 in literature - Berlin Alexanderplatz - Alfred Döblin
• 1928 in literature - Lady Chatterley's Lover - D.H. Lawrence
• 1927 in literature - A la recherche du temps perdu (final installment) - Marcel Proust
• 1926 in literature - The Sun Also Rises - Ernest Hemingway
• 1925 in literature - The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald
• 1924 in literature - Billy Budd, Foretopman - Herman Melville
• 1923 in literature - Duino Elegies - Rainer Maria Rilke
• 1922 in literature - Ulysses - James Joyce
• 1921 in literature - The Mistress of Husaby - Sigrid Undset
• 1920 in literature - The Age of Innocence - Edith Wharton

1910s

• 1919 in literature - In the Penal Colony - Franz Kafka
• 1918 in literature - First Pulitzer Prizes awarded
• 1917 in literature - Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man - James Joyce
• 1916 in literature - Relativity - Albert Einstein
• 1915 in literature - The Metamorphosis - Franz Kafka
• 1914 in literature - Mending Wall - Robert Frost
• 1913 in literature - Tarzan of the Apes - Edgar Rice Burroughs
• 1912 in literature - Death in Venice - Thomas Mann
• 1911 in literature - Encyclopædia Britannica published
• 1910 in literature - Howards End - E. M. Forster

1900s

• 1909 in literature - Balthazar - Anatole France
• 1908 in literature - Anne of Green Gables - Lucy Maude Montgomery
• 1907 in literature - The City of Pleasure - Arnold Bennett
• 1906 in literature - The House of Souls - Arthur Machen
• 1905 in literature - White Fang - Jack London
• 1904 in literature - Nostromo - Joseph Conrad
• 1903 in literature - The Souls of Black Folk - W. E. B. DuBois
• 1902 in literature - The Virginian - Owen Wister
• 1901 in literature - Buddenbrooks - Thomas Mann
• 1900 in literature - Sister Carrie - Theodore Dreiser

1890s

• 1899 in literature - The School and Society - John Dewey
• 1898 in literature - Paris - Emile Zola
• 1897 in literature - Captains Courageous - Rudyard Kipling
• 1896 in literature - The Well at the World's End - William Morris
• 1895 in literature - Almayer's Folly - Joseph Conrad
• 1894 in literature - The Prisoner of Zenda - Anthony Hope
• 1893 in literature - The Picture of Dorian Gray - Oscar Wilde
• 1892 in literature - The Master Builder - Henrik Ibsen
• 1891 in literature - Diary of a Pilgrimage - Jerome K. Jerome
• 1890 in literature - Hedda Gabler - Henrik Ibsen

1880s

• 1889 in literature - Thus Spoke Zarathustra - Friedrich Nietzsche
• 1888 in literature - Confessions of a Young Man - George A. Moore
• 1887 in literature - Thelma - Marie Corelli
• 1886 in literature - Little Lord Fauntleroy - Frances Hodgson Burnett
• 1885 in literature - Marius the Epicurean - Walter Pater
• 1884 in literature - Miss Bretherton - Mary Augusta Ward
• 1883 in literature - Une Vie - Guy de Maupassant
• 1882 in literature - The Naval War of 1812 - Theodore Roosevelt
• 1881 in literature - The Black Robe - Wilkie Collins
• 1880 in literature - Workers in the Dawn - George Gissing

1870s

• 1879 in literature - The Red Room - August Strindberg
• 1878 in literature - Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
• 1877 in literature - Under the Lilacs - Louisa May Alcott
• 1876 in literature - The Shadow of the Sword - Robert Buchanan
• 1875 in literature - The Goldsmith's Wife - William Harrison Ainsworth
• 1874 in literature - Les Diaboliques - Jules Amédée Barbey d'Aurevilly
• 1873 in literature - The Poison Tree - Bankim Chatterjee
• 1872 in literature - The Birth of Tragedy - Friedrich Nietzsche
• 1871 in literature - Middlemarch - George Eliot
• 1870 in literature - 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea - Jules Verne

1860s

• 1869 in literature - War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
• 1868 in literature - Little Women - Louisa May Alcott
• 1867 in literature - Cometh Up as a Flower - Rhoda Broughton
• 1866 in literature - Surry of Eagle's-Nest - John Esten Cooke
• 1865 in literature - Alice's Adventures in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
• 1864 in literature - Renee Mauperin - Edmond de Goncourt
• 1863 in literature - Capitan Fracassa - Theophile Gautier
• 1862 in literature - Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
• 1861 in literature - Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
• 1860 in literature - The Fall of the Alamo - R.M. Potter

1850s

• 1859 in literature - A Tale of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
• 1858 in literature - A House of Gentlefolk - Ivan Turgenev
• 1857 in literature - Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
• 1856 in literature - The Daisy Chain - Charlotte Mary Yonge
• 1855 in literature - Westward Ho! - Charles Kingsley
• 1854 in literature - The Newcomers - William Makepeace Thackeray
• 1853 in literature - The Countess de Charny - Alexandre Dumas, père
• 1852 in literature - Uncle Tom's Cabin - Harriet Beecher Stowe
• 1851 in literature - Moby Dick - Herman Melville
• 1850 in literature - The Arabian Nights - Sir Richard Burton

1840s

• 1849 in literature - The Oregon Trail - Francis Parkman
• 1848 in literature - The Tenant of Wildfell Hall - Anne Bronte
• 1847 in literature - Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
• 1846 in literature - The Children of the Night - Edward George Bulwer-Lytton
• 1845 in literature - The Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas, père
• 1844 in literature - Les Paysans - Honore de Balzac
• 1843 in literature - Windsor Castle - William Harrison Ainsworth
• 1842 in literature - Dead Souls - Nikolai Gogol
• 1841 in literature - The Bronze Horseman - Alexander Pushkin
• 1840 in literature - Two Years Before the Mast - Richard Henry Dana, Jr.

1830s

• 1839 in literature - The Voyage of the Beagle - Charles Darwin
• 1838 in literature - Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
• 1837 in literature - Live and Let Live - Catharine Maria Sedgwick
• 1836 in literature - Poems - Oliver Wendell Holmes
• 1835 in literature - Mademoiselle de Maupin - Theophile Gautier
• 1834 in literature - Sartor Resartus - Thomas Carlyle
• 1833 in literature - Gamiani - Alfred de Musset
• 1832 in literature - Faust (Part Two) - Goethe
• 1831 in literature - The Hunchback of Notre Dame - Victor Hugo
• 1830 in literature - The Red and the Black - Stendhal

1820s

• 1829 in literature - The Misfortunes of Elphin - Thomas Love Peacock
• 1828 in literature - The Birds of America - John James Audubon
• 1827 in literature - Book of Songs (poetry) - Heinrich Heine
• 1826 in literature - Cinq-Mars - Alfred de Vigny
• 1825 in literature - The Betrothed - Alessandro Manzoni
• 1824 in literature - Our Village - Mary Russell Mitford
• 1823 in literature - Posthumous Poems - Percy Bysshe Shelley
• 1822 in literature - Trilby - Charles Nodier
• 1821 in literature - Confessions of an English Opium Eater - Thomas De Quincey
• 1820 in literature - Ivanhoe - Sir Walter Scott

1810s

• 1819 in literature - The Sketch Book - Washington Irving
• 1818 in literature - Frankenstein - Mary Shelly
• 1817 in literature - Ormond and Harrington - Maria Edgeworth
• 1816 in literature - Adolphe - Benjamin Constant
• 1815 in literature - The Pastor's Fireside - Jane Porter
• 1814 in literature - The Wanderer - Fanny Burney
• 1813 in literature - The Swiss Family Robinson - Johann David Wyss
• 1812 in literature - The Milesian Chief - Charles Robert Maturin
• 1811 in literature - Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
• 1810 in literature - The Houses of Osma and Almeria - Regina Maria Roche

1800s

• 1809 in literature - The Martyrs - François-René de Chateaubriand
• 1808 in literature - Faust (Part One) - Goethe
• 1807 in literature - Tales from Shakespeare - Charles Lamb & Mary Lamb
• 1806 in literature - The Earthquake in Chile - Heinrich von Kleist
• 1805 in literature - The Wonder of the Village - Mary Meeke
• 1804 in literature - Jerusalem (poetry) - William Blake
• 1803 in literature - St. Clair of the Isles - Elisabeth Helme
• 1802 in literature - René - François-René de Chateaubriand
• 1801 in literature - The Wizard and the Sword - Henry Summersett
• 1800 in literature - Hymns to the Night - Novalis

1790s

• 1799 in literature -
• 1798 in literature - Lyrical Ballads - Samuel Taylor Coleridge and William Wordsworth
• 1797 in literature -
• 1796 in literature -
• 1795 in literature - Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship (to 1796) - Goethe
• 1794 in literature -
• 1793 in literature -
• 1792 in literature -
• 1791 in literature -
• 1790 in literature - Reflections on the Revolution in France - Edmund Burke

1780s

• 1789 in literature - Songs of Innocence - William Blake
• 1788 in literature -
• 1787 in literature - Don Carlos - Friedrich Schiller
• 1786 in literature -
• 1785 in literature - Anton Reiser (to 1790) - Karl Philipp Moritz
• 1784 in literature -
• 1783 in literature -
• 1782 in literature - The Robbers - Friedrich Schiller
• 1781 in literature -
• 1780 in literature -

1770s

• 1779 in literature - Nathan the Wise - Gotthold Lessing
• 1778 in literature -
• 1777 in literature -
• 1776 in literature - Common Sense - Thomas Paine
• 1775 in literature -
• 1774 in literature - The Sorrows of Young Werther - Goethe
• 1773 in literature - Der Messias (from 1749) - Klopstock
• 1772 in literature -
• 1771 in literature - Jacques le fataliste et son maître (to 1773) - Diderot
• 1770 in literature -

1760s

• 1769 in literature -
• 1768 in literature -
• 1767 in literature -
• 1766 in literature -
• 1765 in literature -
• 1764 in literature -
• 1763 in literature -
• 1762 in literature - Émile - Jean-Jacques Rousseau
• 1761 in literature - Candide - Voltaire
• 1760 in literature - Tristram Shandy (to 1770) - Laurence Sterne

1750s

• 1759 in literature -
• 1758 in literature -
• 1757 in literature -
• 1756 in literature -
• 1755 in literature -
• 1754 in literature -
• 1753 in literature -
• 1752 in literature -
• 1751 in literature -
• 1750 in literature -

1740s

• 1749 in literature - Tom Jones - Henry Fielding
• 1748 in literature -
• 1747 in literature - Clarissa (to 1748) - Samuel Richardson
• 1746 in literature -
• 1745 in literature -
• 1744 in literature -
• 1743 in literature -
• 1742 in literature -
• 1741 in literature -
• 1740 in literature -

1730s

• 1739 in literature -
• 1738 in literature -
• 1737 in literature -
• 1736 in literature -
• 1735 in literature -
• 1734 in literature -
• 1733 in literature -
• 1732 in literature -
• 1731 in literature -
• 1730 in literature -

1720s

• 1729 in literature -
• 1728 in literature -
• 1727 in literature -
• 1726 in literature - Gulliver's Travels - Jonathan Swift
• 1725 in literature -
• 1724 in literature - Henrik and Pernille - Ludvig Holberg
• 1723 in literature -
• 1722 in literature -
• 1721 in literature - First English Dictionary Published.
• 1720 in literature -

1710s

• 1719 in literature - Robinson Crusoe - Daniel Defoe
• 1718 in literature
• 1717 in literature
• 1716 in literature
• 1715 in literature
• 1714 in literature
• 1713 in literature
• 1712 in literature
• 1711 in literature
• 1710 in literature

1700s

• 1709 in literature
• 1708 in literature
• 1707 in literature
• 1706 in literature
• 1705 in literature
• 1704 in literature
• 1703 in literature
• 1702 in literature
• 1701 in literature
• 1700 in literature

Pre 1710s

• 1700s in literature
• 17th century in literature
• 16th century in literature
• 15th century in literature
• 14th century in literature - Canterbury Tales - Geoffrey Chaucer
• 13th century in literature
• Pre 13th century in literature - Religious, philosophical texts written.