A book series is a sequence of books having certain characteristics in common that are formally identified together as a group. Book series can be organized in different ways, such as written by the same author, or marketed as a group by their publisher.

Publishers' reprint series

Reprint series of public domain fiction (and sometimes nonfiction) books appeared as early as the 18th century, with the series ''The Poets of Great Britain Complete from Chaucer to Churchill'' (founded by British publisher John Bell in 1777). In 1841 the German Tauchnitz publishing firm launched the ''Collection of British and American Authors'', a reprint series of inexpensive paperbound editions of both public domain and copyrighted fiction and nonfiction works. This book series was unique for paying living authors of the works published even though copyright protection did not exist between nations in the 19th century. Later British reprint series were to include the ''Routledge's Railway Library'' (

George Routledge George Routledge (23 September 1812 – 13 December 1888) was a British book publisher and the founder of the publishing house Routledge. Early life He was born in Brampton, Cumberland on 23 September 1812. Career Routledge gained his early e ...

, 1848–99), the '' Oxford World's Classics'' ( Oxford University Press, from 1901), the '' Everyman's Library'' ( J. M. Dent, from 1906), the '' Penguin Classics'' ( Penguin Books, from 1945) and the ''

Penguin English Library The Penguin English Library is an imprint of Penguin Books. The series was first created in 1963 as a 'sister series' to the Penguin Classics series, providing critical editions of English classics; at that point in time, the Classics label was re ...

'' (from 1963). Reprint series were also published in the United States, including the ''

Modern Library The Modern Library is an American book publishing imprint and formerly the parent company of Random House. Founded in 1917 by Albert Boni and Horace Liveright as an imprint of their publishing company Boni & Liveright, Modern Library became an ...

'' ( Boni & Liveright, from 1917), in Germany, including the ''Universal-Bibliothek'' ( Reclam, from 1867), and in most other countries of the world.

Fiction books

A novel sequence is a set or series of

novel A novel is a relatively long work of narrative fiction, typically written in prose and published as a book. The present English word for a long work of prose fiction derives from the for "new", "news", or "short story of something new", itsel ...

s which share common themes, characters, or settings, but where each novel has its own title and free-standing storyline, and can thus be read independently or out of sequence. A novel sequence contains story arcs or themes that cross over several books, rather than simply sharing one or more characters. Fictional series typically share a common

setting Setting may refer to: * A location (geography) where something is set * Set construction in theatrical scenery * Setting (narrative), the place and time in a work of narrative, especially fiction * Setting up to fail a manipulative technique to eng ...

, story arc, set of characters or timeline. They are common in genre fiction, particularly crime fiction, adventure fiction, and

speculative fiction Speculative fiction is a term that has been used with a variety of (sometimes contradictory) meanings. The broadest interpretation is as a category of fiction encompassing genres with elements that do not exist in reality, recorded history, na ...

, as well as in children's literature. Some works in a series can stand alone—they can be read in any order, as each book makes few, if any, reference to past events, and the characters seldom, if ever, change. Many of these series books may be published in a numbered series. Examples of such series are works like The Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew, and

Nick Carter Nick or Nicholas Carter may refer to: Athletes * Nick Carter (athlete) (1902–1997), track and field athlete from United States, who competed in the 1928 Summer Olympics * Nick Carter (baseball) (1879–1961), Major League Baseball pitcher for t ...

Some series do have their characters go through changes, and make references to past events. Typically such series are published in the order of their internal chronology, so that the next book published follows the previous book. How much these changes matter will vary from series to series (and reader to reader). For some, it may be minor—characters might get engaged, change jobs, etc., but it does not affect the main storyline. Examples of this type include Tony Hillerman's Jim Chee and Joe Leaphorn books. In other series, the changes are major and the books must be read in order to be fully enjoyed. Examples of this type include the

Harry Potter ''Harry Potter'' is a series of seven fantasy literature, fantasy novels written by British author J. K. Rowling. The novels chronicle the lives of a young Magician (fantasy), wizard, Harry Potter (character), Harry Potter, and his friends ...

series. There are some book series that are not really proper series, but more of a single work so large that it must be published over two or more books. Examples of this type include '' The Lord of the Rings'' volumes or the '' Dark Tower'' series by Stephen King. Some authors make it difficult to list their books in a numerical order when they do not release each work in its 'proper' order by the story's internal chronology. They might 'jump' back in time to early adventures of the characters, writing works that must be placed before or between previously published works. Thus, the books in a series are sometimes enumerated according to the internal chronology rather than in publication order, depending on the intended purpose for the list. Examples of this series include works from the '' Chronicles of Narnia'', where the fifth book published, '' The Horse and His Boy'', is actually set during the time of the first book, and the sixth book published, '' The Magician's Nephew'' is actually set long before the first book. This was done intentionally by C. S. Lewis, a scholar of medieval literature. Medieval literature did not always tell a story chronologically.

Definitions

There is no useful, formal demarcation between novel sequences and multi-part novels. Novels that are related may or may not fall into a clear sequence. It is also debatable whether a trilogy is long enough and whether its parts are discrete enough to qualify as a novel sequence. For example, the

Barchester Barsetshire is a fictional English county created by Anthony Trollope in the series of novels known as the Chronicles of Barsetshire. The county town and cathedral city is Barchester. Other towns in the novels include Silverbridge, Hogglestock an ...

novels of

Anthony Trollope Anthony Trollope (; 24 April 1815 – 6 December 1882) was an English novelist and civil servant of the Victorian era. Among his best-known works is a series of novels collectively known as the '' Chronicles of Barsetshire'', which revolves ar ...

are only loosely related, although they contain a recurring cast of characters; his political novels about the Pallisers have a tighter connection and dynamic. A strict definition might exclude both.

History

The novel sequence was a product of the nineteenth century, with

James Fenimore Cooper James Fenimore Cooper (September 15, 1789 – September 14, 1851) was an American writer of the first half of the 19th century, whose historical romances depicting colonist and Indigenous characters from the 17th to the 19th centuries brought h ...

's works appearing in the 1820s, and

's Barchester books in the 1850s. In French literature, Honoré de Balzac's ambitious '' La Comédie humaine,'' a set of nearly 100 novels, novellas and short stories with some recurring characters, started to come together during the 1830s. Émile Zola's '' Rougon-Macquart'' cycle is a family saga, a format that later became a popular fictional form, going beyond the conventional three-volume novel. A ''roman-fleuve'' (French, literally "river-novel") is an extended sequence of novels of which the whole acts as a commentary for a society or an epoch, and which continually deals with a central character, community or a saga within a family. The river metaphor implies a steady, broad dynamic lending itself to a perspective. Each volume makes up a complete novel by itself, but the entire cycle exhibits unifying characteristics. The metaphor of the roman-fleuve was coined by Romain Rolland to describe his 10-volume cycle ''

Jean-Christophe ''Jean-Christophe'' (1904‒1912) is the novel in 10 volumes by Romain Rolland for which he received the Prix Femina in 1905 and the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1915. It was translated into English by Gilbert Cannan. The first four volumes ar ...

''. In the preface to the seventh volume, ''Dans la maison'' (1908/1909) he wrote: "When you see a man, do you ask yourself whether he is a novel or a poem? ... Jean-Christophe has always seemed to me to flow like a river; I have said as much from the first pages." The term has subsequently been applied to other French novel sequences, particularly of the years between the world wars, notably: *

Marcel Proust Valentin Louis Georges Eugène Marcel Proust (; ; 10 July 1871 – 18 November 1922) was a French novelist, critic, and essayist who wrote the monumental novel ''In Search of Lost Time'' (''À la recherche du temps perdu''; with the previous Eng ...

, '' À la recherche du temps perdu'' (1908–22) * Georges Duhamel, ''

Vie et aventures de Salavin Vie (IPA: /'vi.e/), is a district (or ''quarter''), of Oradea, a city in Bihor County, Bihor, Romania. The name means ''vineyard'' in Romanian language, Romanian. Geography Vie is situated in the hills overlooking Oradea, in the northern part o ...

'' (1920–32) and '' Chronique des Pasquier'' (1933–45) * Roger Martin du Gard, '' The Thibaults'' (1922–40) * Jules Romains, '' Les Hommes de bonne volonté'' (1932–47) * Louis Aragon, ''

Cycle du monde réel Cycle, cycles, or cyclic may refer to: Anthropology and social sciences * Cyclic history, a theory of history * Cyclical theory, a theory of American political history associated with Arthur Schlesinger, Sr. * Social cycle, various cycles in soc ...

'' (1933–51) *

Jacques Chardonne Jacques Chardonne (born ''Jacques Boutelleau''; 2 January 1884, in Barbezieux-Saint-Hilaire, Charente – 29 May 1968, in La Frette-sur-Seine) is the pseudonym of French writer Jacques Boutelleau. He was a member of the so-called Groupe de Barbe ...

, '' Les Destinées sentimentales'' (1934–36) The 19th-century predecessors may be distinguished as being rather "family sagas", as their stories are from the perspective of a single family, rather than society as a whole.

's '' À la recherche du temps perdu'' has come to be regarded as a definitive ''roman fleuve''. Today, however, its seven volumes are generally considered to be a single novel. Proust's work was immensely influential, particularly on British novelists of the middle of the twentieth century who did not favour modernism. Some of those follow the example of Anthony Powell, a Proust disciple, but consciously adapting the technique to depict social change, rather than change in high society. This was a step beyond the realist novels of Arnold Bennett (the ''

Clayhanger The ''Clayhanger'' Family is a series of novels by Arnold Bennett, published between 1910 and 1918. Though the series is commonly referred to as a "trilogy", and the first three novels were published in a single volume, as ''The Clayhanger Famil ...

'' books) or

John Galsworthy John Galsworthy (; 14 August 1867 – 31 January 1933) was an English novelist and playwright. Notable works include ''The Forsyte Saga'' (1906–1921) and its sequels, ''A Modern Comedy'' and ''End of the Chapter''. He won the Nobel Prize i ...

Twentieth century

The twenty-novel Aubrey-Maturin series by the English author Patrick O'Brian has been called perhaps the best-loved ''roman fleuve'' of the twentieth century: " nepic of two heroic yet believably realistic men that would in some ways define a generation".

Development of the novel sequence

Although sequences of genre fiction are sometimes not considered to be ''romans-fleuves'', novel sequences are particularly common in science fiction and epic fantasy genres. The introduction of the preconstructed novel sequence is often attributed to

E. E. Doc Smith Edward Elmer Smith (May 2, 1890 – August 31, 1965), publishing as E. E. Smith, Ph.D. and later as E. E. "Doc" Smith, was an American food engineer (specializing in doughnut and pastry mixes) and science-fiction author, best known for the '' ...

, with his '' Lensman'' books. Such sequences, from contemporary authors, tend to be more clearly defined than earlier examples. Authors are now more likely to announce an overall series title, or write in round numbers such as 12 volumes. These characteristics are not those of the classical model forms, and become more like the franchises of the film industry.

Other examples

Jacques Abeille Jacques Abeille (March 17, 1942 – January 23, 2022) was a French writer. Influenced by the surrealist movement, in which he participated in the 1960s and 1970s, he is best known for the novel cycle set in an imaginary universe that started ...

's ''Le Cycle des contrées'' * Louis Aragon's ''

Cycle du Monde Réel Cycle, cycles, or cyclic may refer to: Anthropology and social sciences * Cyclic history, a theory of history * Cyclical theory, a theory of American political history associated with Arthur Schlesinger, Sr. * Social cycle, various cycles in soc ...

'' * Hirohiko Araki's '' JoJo's Bizarre Adventure'' *

A. S. Byatt Dame Antonia Susan Duffy ( Drabble; born 24 August 1936), known professionally by her former marriage name as A. S. Byatt ( ), is an English critic, novelist, poet and short story writer. Her books have been widely translated, into more than t ...

's "Frederica Potter" quartet *

's '' Les Destinées sentimentales'' *

's ''

Leatherstocking Tales The ''Leatherstocking Tales'' is a series of five novels by American writer James Fenimore Cooper, set in the eighteenth-century era of development in the primarily former Iroquois areas in central New York. Each novel features Natty Bumppo, ...

'' *

John Crowley John Crowley may refer to: *John Crowley (Irish revolutionary) (1891-1942), Irish revolutionary and hunger striker *John Crowley (author) (born 1942), American author *John Crowley (baseball) (1862–1896), American Major League catcher *John Crowl ...

's '' Ægypt'' Cycle * Lawrence Durrell's '' Alexandria Quartet'' and other sequences * Ford Madox Ford's '' Parade's End'' *

C. S. Forester Cecil Louis Troughton Smith (27 August 1899 – 2 April 1966), known by his pen name Cecil Scott "C. S." Forester, was an English novelist known for writing tales of naval warfare, such as the 12-book Horatio Hornblower series depicting a Roya ...

's "

Horatio Hornblower Horatio Hornblower is a fictional officer in the British Royal Navy during the Napoleonic Wars, the protagonist of a series of novels and stories by C. S. Forester. He later became the subject of films, radio and television programmes, an ...

" series *

's '' The Forsyte Saga'' * Carolyn Keene's " Nancy Drew Mystery Stories" *

Doris Lessing Doris May Lessing (; 22 October 1919 – 17 November 2013) was a British-Zimbabwean novelist. She was born to British parents in Iran, where she lived until 1925. Her family then moved to Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), where she remain ...

's ''Children of Violence'' * Naguib Mahfouz's '' The Cairo Trilogy'' * Thomas Mann's '' Joseph and His Brothers'' * Roger Martin du Gard's '' Les Thibault'' * Yukio Mishima's '' The Sea of Fertility'' *

Anaïs Nin Angela Anaïs Juana Antolina Rosa Edelmira Nin y Culmell (February 11, 1903 – January 14, 1977; , ) was a French-born American diarist, essayist, novelist, and writer of short stories and erotica. Born to Cuban parents in France, Nin was the d ...

's '' Cities of the Interior'' *

Benito Pérez Galdós Benito Pérez Galdós (May 10, 1843 – January 4, 1920) was a Spanish Spanish Realist literature, realist novelist. He was the leading literary figure in 19th-century Spain, and some scholars consider him second only to Miguel de Cervantes ...

's '' Episodios nacionales'' * Anthony Powell's '' A Dance to the Music of Time'' *

Dorothy Richardson Dorothy Miller Richardson (17 May 1873 – 17 June 1957) was a British author and journalist. Author of ''Pilgrimage'', a sequence of 13 semi-autobiographical novels published between 1915 and 1967—though Richardson saw them as chapters of o ...

's '' Pilgrimage'' * Romain Rolland's ''

'' * John Roman Baker's "The Nick & Greg Books" * Philip Roth's "Zuckerman" novels * Paul Scott's '' Raj Quartet'' * C. P. Snow's ''

Strangers and Brothers ''Strangers and Brothers'' is a series of novels by C. P. Snow, published between 1940 and 1970. They deal with – among other things – questions of political and personal integrity, and the mechanics of exercising power. Plot All eleven ...

'' *

's ''

Chronicles of Barsetshire The ''Chronicles of Barsetshire'' is a series of six novels by English author Anthony Trollope, published between 1855 and 1867. They are set in the fictional English county of Barsetshire and its cathedral town of Barchester. The novels concer ...

'' and Palliser novels *

John Updike John Hoyer Updike (March 18, 1932 – January 27, 2009) was an American novelist, poet, short-story writer, art critic, and literary critic. One of only four writers to win the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction more than once (the others being Booth ...

's " Rabbit Angstrom" books * Henry Williamson's ''

Chronicles of Ancient Sunlight Chronicles may refer to: * ''Books of Chronicles'', in the Bible * Chronicle, chronological histories * ''The Chronicles of Narnia'', a novel series by C. S. Lewis * ''Holinshed's Chronicles'', the collected works of Raphael Holinshed * ''The Idhu ...

'' *

A. N. Wilson Andrew Norman Wilson (born 27 October 1950)"A. N. Wilson"
''Encyclopædia Britannica''.

's '' Lampitt Papers''

Publishers' nonfiction series

Notable nonfiction book series for the general public have included: * Architecture: '' Pevsner Architectural Guides'' * Biography: '' The Republic of Letters''; ''Great Lives'' * History: '' History of the Great War'' * Science: '' New Naturalist Library'' * Self Instruction: '' Teach Yourself'' * Sport: '' Badminton Library'' * Travel: '' Murray's Handbooks for Travellers''; ''

Blue Guides The Blue Guides are a series of detailed and authoritative travel guidebooks focused on art, architecture, and (where relevant) archaeology along with the history and context necessary to understand them. A modicum of practical travel informa ...

Academic and scholarly publications

In scholarly and academic publishing, scientific and non-fiction books that are released serially (in successive parts) once a year, or less often, are also called a series. (Publications that are released more often than once a year are known as periodicals.) The connection among books belonging to such a series can be by discipline, focus, approach, type of work, or geographic location. Examples of such series include the "Antwerp Working Papers in Linguistics", "Early English Manuscripts in Facsimile", "Garland Reference Library", "Canterbury Tales Project", " Early English Text Society", and "

Cambridge Companions to Music The Cambridge Companions to Music form a book series published by Cambridge University Press Cambridge University Press is the university press of the University of Cambridge. Granted letters patent by Henry VIII of England, King Henry VIII ...

Compared with editorial collection

Book series can be compared with editorial collection, a type of serial publication which is common in the Romance-speaking world, especially in France. Although the two are similar in many ways, book series and editorial collection differ because books in a series generally have a common subject, character, or universe; in other words, a set of volumes that are related to each other by certain thematic element. While books in a collection do not necessarily have a common subject, or a specific order, but with a certain affinity in the content of books (collections on art, on religion, on science...), as well as in the

format Format may refer to: Printing and visual media * Text formatting, the typesetting of text elements * Paper formats, or paper size standards * Newspaper format, the size of the paper page Computing * File format, particular way that informatio ...

, spine and

page layout In graphic design, page layout is the arrangement of visual elements on a page. It generally involves organizational principles of composition to achieve specific communication objectives. The high-level page layout involves deciding on the ov ...

, even

grammage Grammage and basis weight, in the pulp and paper industry, are the area density of a paper product, that is, its mass per unit of area. Two ways of expressing grammage are commonly used: * Expressed in grams (g) per square meter (g/m2), regardle ...

, number of pages and style of typeface.

References

External links

PublishingHistory.com
- List of hardback and paperback book series with titles listed in each series
A Series of Series
- List of hardback publisher’s book series with detailed historical commentary on each
FantasticFiction.com

FictFact.com

FictionDB.com

OrderOfBooks.com

StopYoureKillingMe.com

Vintage Series Books for Girls . . . and a Few for Boys

BookSeriesFinder.com
{{Authority control

Publishers' reprint series

Fiction books

Definitions

History

Twentieth century

Development of the novel sequence

Other examples

Publishers' nonfiction series

Academic and scholarly publications

Compared with editorial collection

See also

References

Further reading

External links