A.S. Byatt Books in Order
A.S. Byatt has written 29 books, published between 1965 and 2021. The first book is Degrees of Freedom (1965) and the newest is Medusa's Ankles (2021). Publication order is the reading order below.
- Books
- 29
- Published
- 1965–2021
- Pages on record
- 6,982 in 24 of 29 books
- Reading time
- 116–175 hours
Reading time is an estimate, not a recorded figure: 6,982 pages at 300 words a page, read at 200–300 words a minute, covering the 24 of 29 titles with a page count on record.
A.S. Byatt was the professional name of Dame Antonia Susan Duffy (1936-2023), an English novelist, critic, poet and short-story writer whose books have been translated into more than thirty languages. Degrees of Freedom (1965) opens a catalogue of 29 titles. The Virgin in the Garden (1978) and Still Life (1985) belong to the Frederica Quartet, built around Frederica Potter, and Possession (1990) sits at the centre of the fiction. Criticism runs alongside the novels in Unruly Times (1973) and Passions of the Mind (1990), and Medusa's Ankles (2021) is the last dated entry.
How many A.S. Byatt books are there?
A.S. Byatt has 29 books, released between 1965 and 2021. 4 of them belong to the Frederica Quartet series.
A.S. Byatt Books in Publication Order
The table lists all 29 A.S. Byatt books in the order they were published, with the release year, the page count where one is on record, and how many independent book listings confirm each title. Catalogue data as of September 2026.
- 1Degrees of Freedom1965 · 358 pages · confirmed 2/419653582/4
- 2The Game1967 · 285 pages · confirmed 2/419672852/4
- 3Unruly Times1973 · confirmed 2/41973–2/4
- 419784282/4
- 519853842/4
- 6Sugar and Other Stories1987 · 248 pages · confirmed 2/419872482/4
- 7Passions of the Mind1990 · 332 pages · confirmed 2/419903322/4
- 8Possession1990 · 555 pages · confirmed 2/419905552/4
- 9The Matisse Stories1991 · 134 pages · confirmed 2/419911342/4
- 10Angels and Insects1992 · 337 pages · confirmed 2/419923372/4
- 11The Shadow of the Sun1994 · confirmed 2/41994–2/4
- 12The Djinn in the Nightingale's Eye1994 · 274 pages · confirmed 2/419942742/4
- 13Imagining Characters1995 · 268 pages · confirmed 2/419952682/4
- 141996–2/4
- 15Cold1998 · 240 pages · confirmed 2/419982402/4
- 16On Histories and Stories2000 · 208 pages · confirmed 2/420002082/4
- 17The Biographer's Tale2000 · 320 pages · confirmed 2/420003202/4
- 18Portraits in Fiction2001 · 101 pages · confirmed 2/420011012/4
- 19Writers on Artists2001 · 352 pages · confirmed 2/420013522/4
- 2020024292/4
- 21Little Black Book of Stories2003 · 240 pages · confirmed 2/420032402/4
- 22The Children's Book2009 · 688 pages · confirmed 2/420096882/4
- 23Raw Material2011 · 46 pages · confirmed 2/42011462/4
- 24A Stone Woman2011 · 58 pages · confirmed 2/42011582/4
- 25The Thing in the Forest2011 · 52 pages · confirmed 2/42011522/4
- 26Ragnarok2011 · confirmed 2/42011–2/4
- 27Peacock & Vine2016 · 181 pages · confirmed 2/420161812/4
- 28Memory2018 · confirmed 2/42018–2/4
- 29Medusa's Ankles2021 · 464 pages · confirmed 2/420214642/4
A.S. Byatt books grouped by series
Each title below is a row in the publication-order table above. None of these groups has a reading-order page of its own on this site.
Frederica Quartet in order
4 booksStandalone books
25 books25 A.S. Byatt titles here are not listed as part of any series.
Do you have to read A.S. Byatt books in order?
You only need to read A.S. Byatt books in order within the Frederica Quartet series, which holds 4 of the 29 A.S. Byatt books listed here. The numbered table above gives every book in publication order.
Where to start with A.S. Byatt
Start with Degrees of Freedom (1965), the earliest published title.
What is the newest A.S. Byatt book?
Medusa's Ankles (2021) is the newest A.S. Byatt book released so far.
Is there a new A.S. Byatt book coming?
No next A.S. Byatt book is announced in the catalogue, which is a gap in the listings it merges rather than a sign that the run has ended.
Awards A.S. Byatt has won
Wikidata records 4 awards and 3 nominations for A.S. Byatt. Each row states whether the title won or was shortlisted, and the year the award was given.
- James Tait Black Memorial Prize2010Won
- O. Henry Award2003Won
- Mythopoeic Fantasy Award for Adult Literature1998Wonfor The Djinn in the Nightingale's Eye: Five Fairy Stories
- Booker Prize1990Wonfor Possession
- Booker Prize2009Shortlistedfor The Children's Book
- Mythopoeic Fantasy Award for Adult Literature2000Shortlistedfor Elementals: Stories of Fire and Ice
- World Fantasy Award for Best Novella1999Shortlistedfor Cold
A.S. Byatt at a glance
- Died
- A.S. Byatt died in 2023, according to Wikidata.
- Last book
- The newest book credited to A.S. Byatt on record dates from 2021.
- Release pace
- A.S. Byatt books have appeared about one every 2 years on average.
- Length
- 6,982 pages across the 24 of 29 books with a recorded length, a median of 280 pages each.
- Busiest decade
- Most A.S. Byatt books, 9 of 29, were published in the 1990s.
What the A.S. Byatt books are about
23 of the 29 A.S. Byatt books carry subject tags in Open Library's catalogue. The subjects below are the ones that recur across them, most frequent first: history and criticism is tagged on 5 of 23. The subjects are cataloguers’ headings, not a plot summary.
- History and criticism 5 of 23 books
- Short stories 5 of 23 books
- England 4 of 23 books
- Frederica Potter (Fictitious character) 4 of 23 books
- Criticism and interpretation 3 of 23 books
- English literature 3 of 23 books
- Women authors 3 of 23 books
- Appreciation 2 of 23 books
- Fantasy 2 of 23 books
- English fiction 2 of 23 books
- Historical fiction 2 of 23 books