American Literature: An Essential Reading List
So, you want to bone up on your classic American literature but don’t know where to start? Wonder no more! Here is a list of the essential works of some of America’s finest writers. Included in this list are novels, plays, and short stories. The list is organized chronologically by the birth date of the author.
Washington Irving (1783–1859)
Rip Van Winkle
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow
The Alhambra
The Adventures of Captain Bonneville
James Fenimore Cooper (1789–1851)
The Last of the Mohicans
The Deerslayer
The Pathfinder
Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804–1864)
The Scarlet Letter
The House of Seven Gables
Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1849)
The Fall of the House of Usher
A Cask of Amontillado
The Tell-Tale Heart
The Pit and the Pendulum
Ligeia
The Murders in the Rue Morgue
Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811–1896)
Uncle Tom’s Cabin
Frederick Douglass (1817–1882)
Life of an American Slave
Herman Melville (1819–1891)
Moby Dick
Bartleby the Scrivener
Louisa May Alcott (1832–1888)
Little Women
Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) (1835–1910)
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court
The Innocents Abroad
The Prince and the Pauper
Henry James (1843–1916)
The American
The Europeans
The Portrait of a Lady
The Turn of the Screw
Kate Chopin (1851–1904)
The Awakening
O. Henry (William Sydney Porter) (1862–1910)
Cabbages and Kings
The Heart of the West
Options
Roads of Destiny
The Voice of the City
Whirligigs
Edith Wharton (1862–1937)
The Age of Innocence
The House of Mirth
Ethan Fromme
Stephen Crane (1871–1900)
The Red Badge of Courage
Maggie: A Girl of the Streets
Theodore Dreiser (1871–1845)
An American Tragedy
Sister Carrie
Willa Cather (1873–1947)
Alexander’s Bridge
My Antonia
Death Comes to the Archbishop
O Pioneers!
The Professor’s House
The Song of the Lark
Gertrude Stein (1874–1946)
Tender Buttons
Three Lives
The Making of Americans
The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas
Portraits and Prayers
Edgar Rice Burroughs (1875–1950)
Tarzan of the Apes
The Gods of Mars
The Land That Time Forgot
The Warlord of Mars
Jack London (1876–1916)
The Call of the Wild
Upton Sinclair (1878–1968)
The Jungle
Sinclair Lewis (1885–1951)
Main Street
Babbitt
Dodsworth
Arrowsmith
Eugene O’Neill (1888–1953)
Beyond the Horizon (Play)
Long Day’s Journey into Night (Play)
Mourning Becomes Electra (Play)
The Iceman Cometh (Play)
Desire Under the Elms (Play)
The Hairy Ape (Play)
Raymond Chandler (1888–1959)
The Big Sleep
Farewell, My Lovely
The Long Goodbye
Henry Miller (1891–1980)
Tropic of Cancer
Tropic of Capricorn
Pearl S. Buck (1892–1973)
The Good Earth
The Proud Heart
Command the Morning
The Living Reed
Dashiell Hammett (1894–1962)
Red Harvest
The Maltese Falcon
The Glass Key
The Thin Man
F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896–1940)
The Great Gatsby
Tender Is the Night
William Faulkner (1897–1962)
The Sound and the Fury
As I Lay Dying
Thornton Wilder (1897–1975)
The Bridge of San Luis Rey
Our Town (Play)
Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961)
The Sun Also Rises
A Farewell to Arms
The Old Man and the Sea
Thomas Wolfe (1900–1938)
Look Homeward, Angel
You Can’t Go Home Again
Margaret Mitchell (1900–1949)
Gone with the Wind
John Steinbeck (1902–1968)
The Grapes of Wrath
Of Mice and Men
Zora Neale Hurston (1903–1960)
Their Eyes Were Watching God
Robert Penn Warren (1905–1989)
All the King’s Men
Richard Wright (1908–1960)
Native Son
Black Boy
Tennessee Williams (1911–1983)
The Glass Menagerie (Play)
A Streetcar Named Desire (Play)
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (Play)
The Rose Tattoo (Play)
Suddenly Last Summer (Play)
The Night of the Iguana (Play)
John Hersey (1914–1993)
A Bell for Adano
Hiroshima
The War Lover
White Lotus
William Burroughs (1914–1997)
Naked Lunch
Ralph Ellison (1914–1994)
Invisible Man
Saul Bellow (1915–2005)
The Adventures of Augie March
Herzog
Mr. Sammler’s Planet
Arthur Miller (1915–2005)
All My Sons (Play)
Death of a Salesman (Play)
The Crucible (Play)
After the Fall (Play)
A View from the Bridge (Play)
The Price (Play)
Herman Wouk (1915– )
The Caine Mutiny
Marjorie Morningstar
Youngblood Hawke
Don’t Stop the Carnival
J. D. Salinger (1919– )
Catcher in the Rye
Franny and Zooey
Ray Bradbury (1920– )
The Martian Chronicles
Fahrenheit 451
James Jones (1921–1977)
From Here to Eternity
Some Came Running
The Pistol
The Thin Red Line
Jack Kerouac (1922–1969)
On the Road
About On the Road
The Subterraneans
Kurt Vonnegut (1922– )
Slaughterhouse-Five
Breakfast of Champions
Joseph Heller (1923–1999)
Catch-22
Norman Mailer (1923– )
The Naked and the Dead
The Armies of the Night
Truman Capote (1924–1984)
Other Voices, Other Rooms
In Cold Blood
Breakfast at Tiffany’s
Flannery O’Connor (1925–1964)
Wise Blood
Gore Vidal (1925– )
Williwaw
The City and the Pillar
A Search for the King
The Judgment of Paris
Visit to a Small Planet
The Best Man
William Styron (1925–2006)
The Confessions of Nat Turner
Lie Down in Darkness
Harper Lee (1926– )
To Kill a Mockingbird
Edward Albee (1928– )
The Zoo Story (Play)
Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (Play)
A Delicate Balance (Play)
Tiny Alice (Play)
Seascape (Play)
Three Tall Women (Play)
Ursula LeGuin (1929– )
The Lathe of Heaven
Dancing at the Edge of the World
The Dispossessed
Lorraine Hansberry (1930–1965)
A Raisin in the Sun (Play)
E. L. Doctorow (1931– )
The Book of Daniel
Ragtime
Toni Morrison (1931– )
Beloved
The Bluest Eye
Song of Solomon
Tom Wolfe (1931– )
The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test
The Right Stuff
Sylvia Plath (1932–1963)
The Bell Jar
John Updike (1932– )
The Rabbit Series
Rabbit Run
Rabbit Redux
Rabbit is Rich
Rabbit at Rest
The Centaur
Cormac McCarthy (1933– )
The Road
Outer Dark
Child of God
Blood Meridian; or, the Evening Redness in the West
All the Pretty Horses
Philip Roth (1933– )
Portnoy’s Complaint
The Great American Novel
American Pastoral
John Kennedy Toole (1937–1969)
A Confederacy of Dunces
Joyce Carol Oates (1938– )
Them
Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?
Alice Walker (1944– )
The Color Purple
August Wilson (1945– )
The Piano Lesson
Fences
David Mamet (1947– )
Glengarry Glen Ross (Play)
Speed the Plow (Play)
Tony Kushner (1956– )
Angels in America (Play)
This is, of course, just the tip of the iceberg! Be sure to also check out our Quick Guide American Poetry: An Essential Reading List. Happy reading!
From The Complete Idiot’s Guide to English Literature by Jay Stevenson, Ph.D.
