Ben Elton Books in Order
Ben Elton has written 22 books, published between 1984 and 2025. The first book is Bachelor Boys (1984) and the newest is What Have I Done? (2025). Publication order is the reading order below.
- Books
- 22
- Published
- 1984–2025
- Confirmed
- 22 of 22 titles
- Pages on record
- 6,860 in 20 of 22 books
- Reading time
- 114–172 hours
Reading time is an estimate, not a recorded figure: 6,860 pages at 300 words a page, read at 200–300 words a minute, covering the 20 of 22 titles with a page count on record.
Ben Elton is a British comedian and writer whose 22 catalogued books run from Bachelor Boys (1984) to What Have I Done? (2025). The novels turn satirical, comic, dystopian and criminal by turns: Stark (1989), Gridlock (1991), This Other Eden (1993), Popcorn (1996), Blast from the Past (1998) and Inconceivable (1999) among them, with plays including Gasping (1990) and Silly Cow (1998) beside them. Elton co-wrote the sitcoms The Young Ones, Blackadder and Mr. Bean, and wrote Filthy, Rich & Catflap, The Thin Blue Line and Upstart Crow alone. Left-wing political satire marked his stand-up during the alternative comedy movement of the 1980s. Elton was born in 1959, and had sixteen novels and an autobiography in print as of 2025.
How many Ben Elton books are there?
Ben Elton has 22 books, released between 1984 and 2025.
Ben Elton Books in Publication Order
The table lists all 22 Ben Elton 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.
- 119841283/4
- 219894963/4
- 319901183/4
- 419914483/4
- 519934003/4
- 61996583/4
- 71998463/4
- 81998–3/4
- 919983043/4
- 1019992773/4
- 1120013823/4
- 1220023793/4
- 1320044593/4
- 1420054193/4
- 1520064273/4
- 1620073663/4
- 1720094803/4
- 1820125213/4
- 1920144003/4
- 2020153843/4
- 2120183683/4
- 222025–3/4
Ben Elton 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.
Ben Elton Standalone Novels
16 books16 titles published under this heading without a numbered place in a series.
Standalone Plays
4 books4 titles published under this heading without a numbered place in a series.
Ben Elton Non-Fiction
2 books2 titles published under this heading without a numbered place in a series.
Ben Elton Books in Chronological Order
By publication date, the Ben Elton books run from Bachelor Boys (1984) to What Have I Done? (2025), the sequence in the table above. No separate story order is recorded for Ben Elton in the book listings this catalogue merges, so publication order is the only order on record.
Do you have to read Ben Elton books in order?
No. No source lists any of the 22 Ben Elton books here as part of a series. The numbered table above gives them by publication date.
Where to start with Ben Elton
Start with Bachelor Boys (1984), the earliest published title.
What is the newest Ben Elton book?
What Have I Done? (2025) is the newest Ben Elton book released so far.
Is there a new Ben Elton book coming?
No next Ben Elton book is announced in the catalogue, which is a gap in the listings it merges rather than a sign that the run has ended.
Ben Elton at a glance
- Still publishing
- Ben Elton published a book as recently as 2025.
- Release pace
- Ben Elton books have appeared about one every 2 years on average.
- Length
- 6,860 pages across the 20 of 22 books with a recorded length, a median of 383 pages each.
- Busiest decade
- Most Ben Elton books, 8 of 22, were published in the 1990s.
What the Ben Elton books are about
20 of the 22 Ben Elton books carry subject tags in Open Library's catalogue. The subjects below are the ones that recur across them, most frequent first: humor is tagged on 6 of 20. The subjects are cataloguers’ headings, not a plot summary.
- Humor 6 of 20 books
- Thrillers 4 of 20 books
- Drama 3 of 20 books
- England 3 of 20 books
- Historical fiction 2 of 20 books
- Mystery & detective 2 of 20 books
- Satire 2 of 20 books
- Suspense 2 of 20 books