List of years in literature

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.

History of literature by era
Bronze Age
Ancient Egyptian Akkadian Sumerian
Classical
Avestan Chinese Greek Hebrew Latin Tamil Pali Prakrit Sanskrit Syriac
Early Medieval
Matter of Rome Matter of France Matter of Britain Armenian Byzantine Old English Georgian German Japanese Kannada Middle Persian Turkish
Medieval
Old Bulgarian Middle English Arabic Persian Armenian Byzantine Castilian Catalan Dutch French Georgian German Bengali Hindi Old Irish Italian Japanese Korean Malayalam Nepal Bhasa Norse Russian Serbian Telugu Turkish Welsh
Early Modern
Renaissance Baroque
Modern by century
18th 19th 20th 21st
Literature portal

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

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

Several attempts have been made to create a list of 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.