List of novellas

This is a dynamic list and may never be able to satisfy particular standards for completeness. You can help by adding missing items with reliable sources.

Novellas are works of prose fiction longer than a short story but shorter than a novel. ^[1] Several novellas have been recognized as among the best examples of the literary form. Publishers and literary award societies typically consider a novella's word count to be between 17,000 and 40,000 words. ^{[2] [3]}

Major novellas

Certain novellas have been recognized as the best examples of the literary form, through their appearance on multiple best-of lists. ^{[4] [5] [6] [7] [8]}

Novellas appearing on multiple best-of lists

Author	Title	Published	References
Albert Camus	The Stranger	1942	[4] [5] [6] [9] [10]
Truman Capote	Breakfast at Tiffany's	1958	[4] [5] [9] [10]
Joseph Conrad	Heart of Darkness	1899	[5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [11]
Charles Dickens	A Christmas Carol	1843	[4] [5] [7] [9] [11]
Ernest Hemingway	The Old Man and the Sea	1952	[4] [6] [7] [8] [9] [11] [10]
Franz Kafka	The Metamorphosis	1915	[4] [5] [7] [8] [9] [11] [10]
Richard Matheson	I Am Legend	1954	[6] [7] [9] [11]
Herman Melville	Billy Budd	1924	[5] [8]
George Orwell	Animal Farm	1945	[4] [5] [7] [8] [9] [11] [10]
Philip Roth	Goodbye, Columbus	1959	[6] [8]
John Steinbeck	Of Mice and Men	1937	[4] [7] [9] [11] [10]
Robert Louis Stevenson	Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde	1886	[4] [5] [9] [10]
Edith Wharton	Ethan Frome	1911	[5] [6] [9] [10]

Other notable novellas

Additionally, several novellas have been included on at least one best-of list.

Other notable novellas

Author	Title	Published	Reference
Julian Barnes	The Sense of an Ending	2011	[6]
Saul Bellow	Seize the Day	1956	[8]
Kate Chopin	The Awakening	1899	[12] [9] [10] "Novellas by women, about women" . Retrieved 5 November 2016.
Paulo Coelho	The Alchemist	1988	[6]
Maryse Condé	I, Tituba: Black Witch of Salem	1986	[12]
Don DeLillo	Pafko at the Wall	2001	[6]
Fyodor Dostoyevsky	The Gambler	1867	[8]
Joseph von Eichendorff	Memoirs of a Good-for-Nothing	1826	[13]
George Eliot	Silas Marner	1861
Nora Ephron	Heartburn	1983	[12]
Penelope Fitzgerald	The Bookshop	1978	[12]
Gabriel García Márquez	Chronicle of a Death Foretold	1981	[8] [9] [10]
Gabriel García Márquez	No One Writes to the Colonel	1961	[8]
Graham Greene	The Tenth Man	1985	[6]
M. K. Indira	Phaniyamma	1977	[12]
Shirley Jackson	We Have Always Lived in the Castle	1962	[12] [10]
Henry James	The Aspern Papers	1888	[8]
Henry James	Daisy Miller	1879	[8]
Henry James	The Turn of the Screw	1898	[8] [9] [11] [10]
Tove Jansson	The Summer Book	1972	[12]
Sarah Orne Jewett	The Country of the Pointed Firs	1896	[12]
James Joyce	" The Dead "	1914	[8]
Daniel Keyes	Flowers for Algernon	1959	[4]
Stephen King	Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption	1982	[7] [9]
Andrew Krivak	The Sojourn	2011	[6]
Nella Larsen	Passing	1929	[5] [14] [10]
Nella Larsen	Quicksand	1928	[12]
Doris Lessing	The Fifth Child	1988	[12] [9] [10]
Janet Lewis	The Wife of Martin Guerre	1941	[12]
Johannes Linnankoski	The Fugitives	1908	[15]
Penelope Lively	The Photograph	2003	[6]
H.P. Lovecraft	The Shadow Over Innsmouth	1931	[6]
H.P. Lovecraft	At the Mountains of Madness	1931	[6] [9] [11]
David Malouf	Fly Away Peter	1982	[6]
Thomas Mann	Death in Venice	1912	[8]
Steve Martin	Shopgirl	2000	[6] [9] [10]
Valerie Martin	Property	2003	[12]
Carson McCullers	The Member of the Wedding	1946	[12]
Herman Melville	Bartleby, the Scrivener	1853	[8] [10]
Iris Murdoch	Something Special	1957	[6]
Joyce Carol Oates	Black Water	1992	[6]
Yōko Ogawa	The Housekeeper and the Professor	2003	[12]
Stewart O'Nan	Last Night at the Lobster	2007	[6]
Charles Portis	True Grit	1968
Annie Proulx	Brokeback Mountain	1997	[6]
Thomas Pynchon	The Crying of Lot 49	1966	[6]
Jean Rhys	Wide Sargasso Sea	1966	[12] [9] [10]
Francoise Sagan	Bonjour, Tristesse	1954	[12]
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn	One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich	1962	[8] [9] [10]
Muriel Spark	The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie	1961	[12] [9] [10]
John Steinbeck	The Pearl	1947	[5] [16] [9]
Leo Tolstoy	The Death of Ivan Ilyich	1886	[8] [17] [9]
Justin Torres	We the Animals	2011	[6]
Voltaire	Candide	1759	[6]
Velma Wallis	Two Old Women	1993	[12]
H. G. Wells	The Time Machine	1895	[6] [9] [10]
Edith Wharton	Bunner Sisters	1916	[12]
Edith Wharton	Madame de Treymes	1907	[12]
Banana Yoshimoto	Kitchen	1988	[6]

References

1. "Novella". Merriam Webster Dictionary . Retrieved 20 May 2016. a short novel: a story that is longer than a short story but shorter than a novel
2. "Differences Between a Short Story, Novelette, Novella, & a Novel". Owlcation.
3. "What's the definition of a "novella," "novelette," etc.?". Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America . Archived from the original on 19 March 2009.
4. "Top 10 Novellas". The Novella Award. Archived from the original on 5 June 2016. Retrieved 18 May 2016.
5. "These Amazing Classic Books Are So Short You Have No Excuse Not To Read Them". The Huffington Post . 6 December 2013. Retrieved 22 May 2016.
6. Carswell, Beth (2012). "The Best Novellas: Literature's Middle Child". AbeBooks. Archived from the original on 30 August 2016. Retrieved 18 May 2016.
7. Thorsson, Johann (18 June 2012). "The World's Best Novellas". On Books & Writing. Retrieved 18 May 2016.
8. Haber, Gordon (29 June 2015). "The 20 Best Novellas Ever Published In The History Of Humankind". Thought Catalog. Retrieved 18 May 2016.
9. "Hickey, Greg (7 July 2022). "The 93 Best Novellas". Greg Hickey Writes. Retrieved 9 October 2022.
10. "Preston, Teresa (20 December 2016). "100 Must-Read Novellas". Book Riot. Retrieved 9 October 2022.
11. Thorsson, Johann (30 November 2012). "The Top 10 Novellas of All Time". Book Riot. Retrieved 9 October 2022.
12. "Novellas by women, about women" . Retrieved 5 November 2016.
13. "Reviewed Work: Memoirs of a Good-for-Nothing. / From the German of Joseph Von Eichendorff by Charles Godfrey Leland". The American Art Journal. 5 (10): 152–155. 28 June 1866. JSTOR   25306236.
14. Rottenberg, Catherine (2003). "Passing : Race, Identification, and Desire". Criticism. 45 (4): 435–52. doi:10.1353/crt.2004.0025.
15. Britannica: Johannes Linnankoski – Finnish author
16. Benson, Jackson J. (1990). The Short Novels of John Steinbeck: Critical Essays With a Checklist to Steinbeck Criticism . Duke University Press. pp.  143–. ISBN   9780822309949 . Retrieved 30 January 2013.
17. "Grey, Orrin (17 September 2021). "The Best Novellas Every Book Lover Should Read". Early Bird Books. Retrieved 9 October 2022.