List of years in literature

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This page gives a chronological list of years in literature (descending order), with notable publications listed with their respective years and a small selection of notable events. The time covered in individual years covers Renaissance, Baroque and Modern literature, while Medieval literature is resolved by century.

Note: List of years in poetry exists specifically for poetry.

See Table of years in literature for an overview of all "year in literature" pages.

21st century

Main article: 21st century in literature

Several attempts have been made to create a list of world literature. Among these are the great books project including the book series Great Books of the Western World, now containing 60 volumes. 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 anglophone bias and disregard of other literary traditions.

2010s

2016 in literature -
2015 in literature - Paula Hawkins' The Girl on the Train
2014 in literature - Stephen King's Mr. Mercedes
2013 in literature - Dan Brown's Inferno; Donna Tartt's The Goldfinch
2012 in literature - John Grisham's The Racketeer
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 - Haruki Murakami's Ichi-kyū-hachi-yon (1Q84 [Book 3]); Edmund de Waal's The Hare with Amber Eyes; Emma Donoghue's Room; Brandon Sanderson's The Way of Kings; 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 [Books 1 and 2]); Colm Tóibín's Brooklyn; Reki Kawahara's Sword Art Online; 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 - J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (final book in the Harry Potter series); 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; Patrick Rothfuss' The Name of the Wind; Death of Norman Mailer, Kurt Vonnegut
2006 in literature - Richard Dawkins's The God Delusion; 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; 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; 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; 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; Susanna Clarke's Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell; 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; 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; Jonathan Stroud's The Amulet of Samarkand; Death of Edward Said, Howard Fast
2002 in literature - Orhan Pamuk's Kar (Snow); 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; 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; Death of Douglas Adams, Ken Kesey, Robert Ludlum, 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; Death of Sally Amis (daughter of Sir Kingsley and brother of Martin), Charles M. Schulz

20th century

Main article: 20th century in literature

1990s

1999 in literature - J. M. Coetzee's Disgrace; Joanne Harris's Chocolat; Colm Tóibín's The Blackwater Lightship; 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); Julian Barnes's England, England; 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; Death of Carlos Castaneda, Octavio Paz, Lawrence Sanders, Benjamin Spock
1997 in literature - J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone; Don DeLillo's Underworld; Arundhati Roy's The God of Small Things; Death of William S. Burroughs, James Dickey, James A. Michener, P. H. Newby
1996 in literature - Inaugural International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award and Orange Prize for Fiction awarded; David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest; Frank McCourt's Angela's Ashes; Chuck Palahniuk's Fight Club; Tim Lahaye, Jerry B. Jenkins's Left Behind; 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 Northern Lights; Samuel R. Delany's Hogg; Dean Koontz's Intensity; 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; Antonio Tabucchi's Pereira Maintains; Death of Elias Canetti, James Clavell, Ralph Ellison, Eugène Ionesco
1993 in literature - Irvine Welsh's Trainspotting; Sebastian Faulks's Birdsong; Richard Paul Evans's The Christmas Box; 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; Michael Connelly's The Black Echo; Barry Unsworth's Sacred Hunger; Dean Koontz's Hideaway; Death of Richard Yates
1991 in literature - José Saramago's O Evangelho Segundo Jesus Cristo (The Gospel According to Jesus Christ); 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; Henning Mankell's Mördare utan ansikte (Faceless Killers - first in the Wallander series); Koji Suzuki's Ring; 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; 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; 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; 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; Tom Wolfe's The Bonfire of the Vanities; Haruki Murakami's Noruwei no mori (Norwegian Wood); Tom Clancy's Patriot Games; Robert Hughes' The Fatal Shore; Stephen King's Misery; Dean Koontz's Watchers; Death of Primo Levi
1986 in literature - Thomas Bernhard's Extinction; Robert Ludlum's The Bourne Supremacy; Caryl Churchill's A Mouthful of Birds; Stephen King's It; Brian Lumley's Necroscope; Clive Barker's The Hellbound Heart; 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; Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game; 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); Don DeLillo's White Noise; Julian Barnes's Flaubert's Parrot; 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 The Colour of Magic (first Discworld novel); Ken Follett's On Wings of Eagles; Norman Mailer's Ancient Evenings; Stephen King's Pet Sematary; Dean Koontz's Phantoms; 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?); Isabel Allende's La casa de los espíritus (The House of the Spirits); Charles Bukowski's Ham on Rye; Fernando Pessoa's The Book of Disquiet; Stephen King's The Gunslinger; The Belgariad; 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; J. M. Coetzee's Waiting for the Barbarians; 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; 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); William Styron's Sophie's Choice; Norman Mailer's The Executioner's Song; Jeffrey Archer's Kane and Abel; Flora Thompson's Heatherley; Arthur C. Clarke's The Fountains of Paradise; Death of J. G. Farrell
1978 in literature - John Irving's The World According to Garp; J. G. Farrell's The Singapore Grip; Stephen King's The Stand; Harold Pinter's Betrayal
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; 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
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; 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; James Herbert's The Rats
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; Kurt Vonnegut's Breakfast of Champions; Nina Bawden's Carrie's War; Arthur C. Clarke's Rendezvous with Rama; Dean Koontz's Demon Seed; 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; Arkady and Boris Strugatsky's Roadside Picnic; Isaac Asimov's The Gods Themselves; 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; Xaviera Hollander's The Happy Hooker: My Own Story; Rosamunde Pilcher's The End of Summer
1970 in literature; Muriel Spark's The Driver's Seat; J. G. Farrell's Troubles; Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye; James Dickey's Deliverance; 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; 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; 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; Amado V. Hernandez's Mga Ibong Mandragit; 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; 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; 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; 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; 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
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"; 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; 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; 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; Thomas Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions; Mercè Rodoreda's The Time of the Doves; Ray Bradbury's Something Wicked This Way Comes'; 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; 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; 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; Edna O'Brien's The Country Girls; John Updike's Rabbit, Run; 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; Death of Raymond Chandler
1958 in literature - Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart; Daniil Andreyev's Roza Mira; 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; Claude Simon's The Grass; R. K. Narayan's The Guide; Harold Pinter's play The Birthday Party first performed; Jean Genet's The Blacks (play); Josef Skvorecky's The Cowards
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, 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; 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
1955 in literature - Juan Rulfo's Pedro Páramo; Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita; Tennessee Williams's Cat on a Hot Tin Roof; J. R. R. Tolkien's The Return of the King; Flannery O'Connor's A Good Man Is Hard to Find; A View from the Bridge - Arthur Miller; Death of Thomas Mann HMS Ulysses-Alistair MacLean
1954 in literature - William Golding's Lord of the Flies; J. R. R. Tolkien's The Fellowship of the Ring; J. R. R. Tolkien's The Two Towers; 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
1953 in literature - Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot & 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
1952 in literature - Ernest Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea; E. B. White's Charlotte's Web; Flannery O'Connor's Wise Blood; 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 & Malone Dies; Isaac Asimov's Foundation
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; Death of George Orwell, George Bernard Shaw

1940s

1949 in literature - George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four; Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman; Jean Genet's The Thief's Journal; Vilhelm Moberg's The Emigrants
1948 in literature - Graham Greene's The Heart of the Matter; Norman Mailer's The Naked and the Dead
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; Malcolm Lowry's Under the Volcano; Jean Genet's Querelle of Brest and The Maids; Arthur Miller's All My Sons
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; 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; Evelyn Waugh's Brideshead Revisited; Flora Thompson's Lark Rise to Candleford; John Steinbeck's Cannery Row; Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn sentenced to eight years in a labour camp for criticism of 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"
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
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 Five on a Treasure Island (first in The Famous Five series); Robert Musil's The Man Without Qualities; Death of Stefan Zweig
1941 in literature - Virginia Woolf's Between the Acts; 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; Carson McCullers's The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter; Richard Wright's Native Son; Olaf Stapledon's Sirius; John Cowper Powys's Owen Glendower; 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; Raymond Chandler's The Big Sleep; Flora Thompson's Lark Rise; Nathanael West's The Day of the Locust; Richard Llewellyn's How Green Was My Valley; 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
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
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; Killing of Federico García Lorca
1935 in literature - Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little House on the Prairie; 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; Irving Stone's Lust for Life; 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!; 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
1931 in literature - Ilf and Petrov's The Little Golden Calf; Pearl S. Buck's The Good Earth; Georges Simenon's first Maigret novel
1930 in literature - William Faulkner's As I Lay Dying; Dashiell Hammett's The Maltese Falcon; Andrei Platonov's The Foundation Pit; 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; 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; Establishment of Faber and Faber; John Cowper Powys's Wolf Solent; Rómulo Gallegos' Doña Bárbara
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; 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
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)
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; 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; Death of Franz Kafka, Joseph Conrad
1923 in literature - Kahlil Gibran's The Prophet; Lord Peter Wimsey makes his first appearance in print; Jaroslav Hašek's The Good Soldier Švejk
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 & Sonnets to Orpheus; Karel Capek's The Makropulos Affair; John Galsworthy begins writing The Forsyte Saga
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; Yevgeny Zamyatin's We (novel); Sigmund Freud's Beyond the Pleasure Principle; Karel Capek's R.U.R.

1910s

1919 in literature - W. Somerset Maugham's The Moon and Sixpence
1918 in literature - Booth Tarkington's The Magnificent Ambersons; Alexander Blok's The Twelve; Lytton Strachey's Eminent Victorians; 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; 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
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; 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; 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 - L. Frank Baum's The Road to Oz; 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
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 - 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; Rokeya Sakhawat Hussain's Sultana's Dream
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

18th century

Main article: 18th century in literature

1790s

1799 in literature - Arthur Mervyn - Charles Brockden Brown; Wallenstein trilogy completed - 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
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; 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 - Goethe
1773 in literature - Der Messias (from 1748) - 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) - 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
1768 in literature - Poems - Thomas Gray
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
1764 in literature - The Castle of Otranto - Horace Walpole
1763 in literature - James Boswell is introduced to Samuel Johnson
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 - Tristram Shandy (to 1770) - Laurence Sterne

1750s

1759 in literature - Candide - Voltaire
1758 in literature - Voltaire buys his estate at Ferney
1757 in literature - Pierre-Augustin Caron changes his surname to Beaumarchais
1756 in literature - Gilbert White becomes curate of Selborne, Hampshire
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 - Rambler essays (to 1752) - Samuel Johnson

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
1745 in literature - Death of Jonathan Swift
1744 in literature - The Female Spectator is launched by Eliza Haywood
1743 in literature - The Life 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 - Shamela - Henry Fielding; Niels Klim's Underground Travels - Ludvig Holberg
1740 in literature - Institutions de physique – Émilie du Châtelet

1730s

1739 in literature - A Treatise of Human Nature (to 1740) - David Hume
1738 in literature - Leonidas - Richard Glover
1737 in literature - Birth of Thomas Paine, free thinker and revolutionary (died 1809)
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..

1734 in literature - Copies of Voltaire's Lettres philosophiques sur les Anglais are burned, and a warrant is issued for the author's arrest.
1733 in literature - Letters Concerning the English Nation - Voltaire; Memoirs of the Twentieth Century - Samuel Madden
1732 in literature - Essay on Man (to 1744) - Alexander Pope
1731 in literature - Insel Felsenburg (to 1743) - Johann Gottfried Schnabel
1730 in literature - Le Jeu de l'Amour et du Hasard - Pierre de Marivaux

1720s

1729 in literature - Death of William Congreve
1728 in literature - Alexander Pope, The Dunciad
1727 in literature - Eliza Haywood, Philidore and Placentia
1726 in literature - Jonathan Swift, Gulliver's Travels
1725 in literature - Birth of Giacomo Casanova
1724 in literature - Voltaire, La Henriade
1723 in literature - Births of Richard Price and Adam Smith; deaths of Susannah Centlivre and Marianna Alcoforado
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 - Oedipe - Voltaire's first play
1717 in literature - A Philosophical Inquiry Concerning Human Liberty - Anthony Collins
1716 in literature - The Fifth Ode of the Fourth Book of Horace Imitated - Jane Brereton
1715 in literature - Nicholas Rowe becomes Poet Laureate of Great Britain
1714 in literature - Bernard de Mandeville, The Fable of the Bees
1713 in literature - Birth of Laurence Sterne
1712 in literature - Alexander Pope, The Rape of the Lock
1711 in literature - The Spectator is founded by Addison and Steele
1710 in literature - Colley Cibber becomes manager of Drury Lane

1700s

Main article: 1700s in literature

1709 in literature - Ode à Sainte-Geneviève - Voltaire's first published work
1708 in literature - An Argument against Abolishing Christianity - Jonathan Swift
1707 in literature - Arithmetica Universalis - Isaac Newton
1706 in literature - An Essay at Removing National Prejudices Against a Union with Scotland - Daniel Defoe
1705 in literature - Nouveaux essais sur l'entendement humain ("New Essays on Human Understanding") - Gottfried Leibniz
1704 in literature - A Tale of a Tub - Jonathan Swift
1703 in literature - The Storm (Daniel Defoe) - Daniel Defoe (released 1704)
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
1700 in literature - The Way of the World - William Congreve

17th century

Main article: 17th century in literature

1690s

1699 in literature - Death of Jean Racine
1698 in literature - Short View of the Immorality and Profaneness of the English Stage - Jeremy Collier
1697 in literature - Histoires ou contes du temps passé - Charles Perrault
1696 in literature
1695 in literature
1694 in literature - Feb 20th, birth of Voltaire
1693 in literature
1692 in literature
1691 in literature - Athalie - Jean Racine
1690 in literature

1680s

1689 in literature - John Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding
1688 in literature - Aphra Behn, Oroonoko
1687 in literature - Isaac Newton, Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica; John Dryden The Hind and the Panther
1686 in literature
1685 in literature
1684 in literature
1683 in literature
1682 in literature
1681 in literature
1680 in literature

1670s

1679 in literature
1678 in literature - The Pilgrim's Progress - John Bunyan
1677 in literature - Phèdre - Jean Racine
1676 in literature
1675 in literature
1674 in literature Nouveaux contes - Jean de la Fontaine
1673 in literature - Death of Molière (b. 1622), D'Artagnan, soldier, inspiration for Dumas' character
1672 in literature - Les Femmes Savantes - Molière
1671 in literature - Samson Agonistes - John Milton

1670 in literature - Le Bourgeois gentilhomme - Molière

1660s

1669 in literature - Jean Racine's Britannicus
1668 in literature - Hans Jakob Christoffel von Grimmelshausen's Simplicius Simplicissimus; birth of Alain-René Lesage
1667 in literature - John Milton's Paradise Lost
1666 in literature - Gottfried Leibniz's De Arte Combinatoria ('On the Art of Combination'); Margaret Cavendish's The Blazing World
1665 in literature - Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society begins publication
1664 in literature - Molière's Tartuffe
1663 in literature
1662 in literature - Molière's L'école des femmes
1661 in literature
1660 in literature - Samuel Pepys opens his diary

1650s

1659 in literature
1658 in literature
1657 in literature - Comical History of the States and Empires of the Moon - Cyrano de Bergerac
1656 in literature
1655 in literature
1654 in literature
1653 in literature
1652 in literature
1651 in literature - Thomas Hobbes's Leviathan
1650 in literature Death of René Descartes, philosopher (born 1596)

1640s

1649 in literature
1648 in literature
1647 in literature
1646 in literature
1645 in literature
1644 in literature
1643 in literature
1642 in literature
1641 in literature
1640 in literature - René Descartes completes Meditations on First Philosophy: "I think therefore I am"

1630s

1639 in literature - Birth of Jean Racine
1638 in literature - The Man in the Moone - Francis Godwin
1637 in literature
1636 in literature - the Annals of the Four Masters are completed
1635 in literature
1634 in literature - Somnium by Johannes Kepler is published
1633 in literature
1632 in literature
1631 in literature
1630 in literature

1620s

1629 in literature
1628 in literature
1627 in literature - New Atlantis - Sir Francis Bacon
1626 in literature
1625 in literature - De jure belli ac pacis - Hugo Grotius
1624 in literature
1623 in literature
1622 in literature - Birth of Molière (d. 1673)
1621 in literature
1620 in literature - Novum Organum – Francis Bacon

1610s

1619 in literature - Fuenteovejuna by Lope de Vega first performed
1618 in literature - The Dog in the Manger (play) by Lope de Vega first performed
1617 in literature
1616 in literature - Death of William Shakespeare, dramatist and poet (b. 1564), Miguel de Cervantes, Spanish writer (b.1547)
1615 in literature - Don Quixote de la Mancha (Part 2) - Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
1614 in literature
1613 in literature - Henry VIII - William Shakespeare
1612 in literature - The Malay Annals
1611 in literature - The Tempest - William Shakespeare
1610 in literature

1600s

1609 in literature - Astronomia nova - Johannes Kepler
1608 in literature - Somnium - Johannes Kepler
1607 in literature
1606 in literature
1605 in literature - King Lear - William Shakespeare; Don Quixote de la Mancha (Part 1) Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
1604 in literature - William Shakespeare - Hamlet
1603 in literature - Measure for Measure, Othello, Macbeth - William Shakespeare
1602 in literature
1601 in literature - William Shakespeare - Twelfth Night
1600 in literature - William Shakespeare - Henry IV, Part 2, The Merchant of Venice, Henry V, A Midsummer Night's Dream, and Much Ado About Nothing published

16th century

Main article: 16th century in literature

1590s

1599 in literature - William Shakespeare - Henry V, Julius Caesar
1598 in literature - William Shakespeare - Henry IV, Part 1 and Love's Labor's Lost published
1597 in literature - Francis Bacon - Essays
1596 in literature - Edmund Spenser - The Faerie Queene, Books 4-6

1595 in literature - William Shakespeare - Richard II, Romeo and Juliet
1594 in literature - Thomas Nashe - The Unfortunate Traveller
1593 in literature - Death of Christopher Marlowe, dramatist and poet (born 1564)
1592 in literature - Wu Cheng'en - Journey to the West
1591 in literature
1590 in literature - Christopher Marlowe - Tamburlaine (both parts published); Edmund Spenser - The Faerie Queene, Books 1-3; Sir Philip Sidney - Arcadia

1580s

1589 in literature - The Passionate Shepherd to His Love - Christopher Marlowe
1588 in literature - The Battle of Alcazar (date first performed) - George Peele
1587 in literature - A discourse of the subtill practises of deuilles by witches and sorcerers - George Gifford
1586 in literature - Historie of the Reformatioun of Religioun within the Realms of Scotland - John Knox
1585 in literature - La Galatea - Miguel de Cervantes
1584 in literature - Campaspe, Sapho and Phao - John Lyly
1583 in literature - The Anatomy of Abuses - Philip Stubbes
1582 in literature - Divers Voyages - Richard Hakluyt
1581 in literature - Second Book of Discipline
1580 in literature - Os Lusíadas - Luís Vaz de Camões

1570s

1579 in literature
1578 in literature
1577 in literature
1576 in literature
1575 in literature
1574 in literature
1573 in literature
1572 in literature
1571 in literature
1570 in literature Abraham Ortelius - Theatrum Orbis Terrarum (the first modern atlas)

1560s

1569 in literature – La Araucana, part 1 - Alonso de Ercilla
1568 in literature - Giorgio Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects; Wawrzyniec Grzymała Goślicki - De optimo senatore
1567 in literature - William Salesbury - New Testament (first Welsh language version); Magdeburg Centuries
1566 in literature - William Painter - The Palace of Pleasure
1565 in literature - Bernardino Telesio - De natura juxta propria principia
1564 in literature – Birth of William Shakespeare dramatist and poet (d.1616); Christopher Marlowe, dramatist and poet (d. 1593)
1563 in literature – Foxe's Book of Martyrs - John Foxe
1562 in literature – Arthur Brooke - The Tragical History of Romeus and Juliet
1561 in literature - John Calvin - Institutes of the Christian Religion
1560 in literature – Geneva Bible (first full edition)

1550s

1559 in literature – Elizabethan Book of Common Prayer of the Church of England, which remains in use until the mid-17th century and is the first English Prayer Book in America
1558 in literature
1557 in literature
1556 in literature
1554 in literature
1553 in literature
1552 in literature
1551 in literature
1550 in literature - Xu Zhonglin - Fengshen Yanyi

1540s

1549 in literature – Nicolaus Copernicus - De revolutionibus orbium coelestium
1548 in literature
1547 in literature – Birth of Miguel de Cervantes
1546 in literature
1545 in literature
1544 in literature
1543 in literature
1542 in literature
1541 in literature
1540 in literature

1530s

1539 in literature
1538 in literature
1537 in literature
1536 in literature
1535 in literature
1534 in literature – Luther Bible translation by Martin Luther
1533 in literature
1532 in literature – Niccolò Machiavelli - The Prince; François Rabelais - Pantagruel
1531 in literature
1530 in literature

1520s

1529 in literature
1528 in literature – Baltissare Castiglione - The Book of the Courtier
1527 in literature
1526 in literature
1525 in literature
1524 in literature – Birth of Luís de Camões and Pierre de Ronsard
1523 in literature
1522 in literature – Luther Bible New Testament translation by Martin Luther
1521 in literature
1520 in literature

1510s

1519 in literature
1518 in literature
1517 in literature
1516 in literature – Ariosto - Orlando Furioso; Thomas More - Utopia
1515 in literature
1514 in literature
1513 in literature
1512 in literature
1511 in literature – Erasmus - The Praise of Folly
1510 in literature

1500s

1509 in literature
1508 in literature
1507 in literature
1506 in literature
1505 in literature
1504 in literature
1503 in literature
1502 in literature
1501 in literature – Marko Marulić - Judita
1500 in literature – The Second Shepherds' Play by The Wakefield Master

Middle Ages

Further information: Medieval literature

15th century in literature – Johann Gutenberg prints the Vulgate Bible; – Sir Thomas Malory – Le Morte d'Arthur;
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
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
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 – Book of Kells; Nihon Shoki; Beowulf; The Pillow Book – Sei Shōnagon

Ancient times

Ancient literature

Lists of years by topic

List of years

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