History of literature by era
Ancient (corpora)
Bronze Age Sumerian Ancient Egyptian Akkadian Ugarit Hittite Classical Classical Chinese Aramaic Ancient Greek Ancient Hebrew Classical Latin Ancient Meitei Syriac Prakrit Tamil Sangam Classical Sanskrit
Early Medieval
Telugu Kannada New Persian Pali Armenian Byzantine Greek Welsh Old English Georgian Old German Japanese Old Turkic Arabic Norse Bulgarian
Medieval by century
10th 11th 12th 13th 14th
Early Modern by century
15th 16th 17th
Modern by century
18th 19th
Contemporary by century
20th 21st
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This article 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.

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.

Ancient times

• Ancient literature – Epic of Gilgamesh; The Vedas; The Bible;Torah; Homer's Odyssey and Iliad; Virgil's Aeneid; Aeschylus' Oresteia; Sophocles' Oedipus Cycle, Antigone; The Mahabharata; Valmiki's Ramayana; Panchatantra; Confucius' Analects, Great Learning and Spring and Autumn Annals; A New Account of the Tales of the World; Soushen Ji; Epic of King Gesar; Kalidasa's Shakuntala

Middle Ages

• 6th to 9th centuries in literature – The Quran; Book of Kells; Nihon Shoki; Beowulf; The Pillow Book – Sei Shonagon; Book of Dede Korkut; Wenyuan Yinghua; Taiping Guangji; Great Tang Records on the Western Regions; Miscellaneous Morsels from Youyang
• 10th century in literature – One Thousand and One Nights; The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter
• 11th century in literature – The Song of Roland; The Tale of Genji – Murasaki Shikibu
• 12th century in literature – Hayy ibn Yaqdhan – Ibn Tufail; Tristan and Iseult; Táin Bó Cúailnge; Cantar de mio Cid
• 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
• 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
• 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
• 1500 in literature – The Second Shepherds' Play by The Wakefield Master; books printed in 1500 or before are considered incunabula

16th century

17th century

18th century

19th century

20th century

21st century

References