# List of book titles taken from literature

Many authors will use quotations from literature as the title for their works. This may be done as a conscious allusion to the themes of the older work or simply because the phrase seems memorable. The following is a partial list of book titles taken from literature. It does not include phrases altered for parody.
| Work | Author | Literary reference |
| Absalom, Absalom! | William Faulkner | Bible: 2 Samuel 19:4 |
| An Acceptable Time | Madeleine L'Engle | Bible: Psalm 66:13 |
| A che punto è la notte (literally, "At which point is the night") | Carlo Fruttero and Franco Lucentini | Bible: Isaiah 21:11 |
| After Many a Summer Dies the Swan | Aldous Huxley | Alfred, Lord Tennyson, "Tithonus" |
| Ah, Wilderness! | Eugene O'Neill | Edward FitzGerald (trans.), Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam |
| Alien Corn (play) | Sidney Howard | John Keats, "Ode to a Nightingale" |
| "The Alien Corn" (short story) | W. Somerset Maugham | John Keats, "Ode to a Nightingale" |
| All the King's Men | Robert Penn Warren | Anon., "Humpty Dumpty" |
| All Passion Spent | Vita Sackville-West | John Milton, Samson Agonistes |
| Alone on a Wide, Wide Sea | Michael Morpurgo | Samuel Taylor Coleridge, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner |
| Anglo-Saxon Attitudes | Angus Wilson | Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking-Glass |
| Antic Hay | Aldous Huxley | Christopher Marlowe, Edward II |
| Arms and the Man | George Bernard Shaw | Virgil, Aeneid |
| As I Lay Dying | William Faulkner | Homer, Odyssey |
| Beautiful World, Where Are You | Sally Rooney | Friedrich Schiller, "The Gods of Greece" |
| Behold the Man | Michael Moorcock | Bible: John 19:5 |
| Beneath the Bleeding | Val McDermid | T. S. Eliot, East Coker |
| Beyond the Mexique Bay | Aldous Huxley | Andrew Marvell, "Bermudas" |
| Blithe Spirit | Noël Coward | Percy Bysshe Shelley, "To a Skylark" |
| Blood's a Rover | James Ellroy | A. E. Housman, A Shropshire Lad, Poem IV ("Reveille") |
| Blue Remembered Earth | Alastair Reynolds | A. E. Housman, A Shropshire Lad, Poem XL |
| Blue Remembered Hills | Rosemary Sutcliff | A. E. Housman, A Shropshire Lad, Poem XL |
| Bonjour Tristesse | Françoise Sagan | Paul Éluard, "À Peine Défigurée" |
| Brandy of the Damned | Colin Wilson | George Bernard Shaw, Man and Superman |
| Burning Bright | Tracy Chevalier | William Blake, "The Tyger" |
| Burning Bright | John Steinbeck | William Blake, "The Tyger" |
| Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee | Dee Brown | Stephen Vincent Benét, "American Names" |
| Butter In a Lordly Dish | Agatha Christie | Bible: Judges 5:25 |
| By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept | Elizabeth Smart | Bible: Psalm 137:1 |
| Cabbages and Kings | O. Henry | Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking-Glass ("The Walrus and the Carpenter") |
| Captains Courageous | Rudyard Kipling | traditional "The ballad of Mary Ambree" |
| Carrion Comfort | Dan Simmons | Gerard Manley Hopkins, "Carrion Comfort" |
| A Catskill Eagle | Robert B. Parker | Herman Melville, Moby-Dick |
| The Children of Men | P. D. James | Bible: Psalm 90:3 |
| Clouds of Witness | Dorothy L. Sayers | Bible: Hebrews 12:1 |
| A Confederacy of Dunces | John Kennedy Toole | Jonathan Swift, Thoughts on Various Subjects, Moral and Diverting |
| Consider the Lilies | Iain Crichton Smith | Bible: Matthew 6:28 |
| Consider Phlebas | Iain M. Banks | T. S. Eliot, The Waste Land |
| Cover Her Face | P. D. James | John Webster, The Duchess of Malfi |
| The Cricket on the Hearth | Charles Dickens | John Milton, Il Penseroso |
| The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time | Mark Haddon | Arthur Conan Doyle, "The Adventure of Silver Blaze" |
| The Daffodil Sky | H. E. Bates | Alfred, Lord Tennyson, "Maud" |
| Dance Dance Dance | Haruki Murakami | W. H. Auden, "Death's Echo" |
| A Darkling Plain | Philip Reeve | Matthew Arnold, "Dover Beach" |
| Darkness Visible | William Golding | John Milton, Paradise Lost |
| Darkness Visible | Walton Hannah | John Milton, Paradise Lost |
| Darkness Visible: A Study of Vergil's Aeneid | W. R. Johnson | John Milton, Paradise Lost |
| Darkness Visible | William Styron | John Milton, Paradise Lost |
| Death Be Not Proud | John Gunther | John Donne, Holy Sonnets X |
| The Doors of Perception | Aldous Huxley | William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell |
| Down to a Sunless Sea | Lin Carter | Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Kubla Khan |
| Down to a Sunless Sea | David Graham | Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Kubla Khan |
| Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead | Olga Tokarczuk | William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell |
| "Dulce et Decorum est" | Wilfred Owen | Horace, Odes iii 2.13 |
| Dying of the Light | George R. R. Martin | Dylan Thomas, "Do not go gentle into that good night" |
| East Is East | T. C. Boyle | Rudyard Kipling, "The Ballad of East and West" |
| East of Eden | John Steinbeck | Bible: Genesis 4:16 |
| Ego Dominus Tuus | W. B. Yeats | Dante, La Vita Nuova |
| Endless Night | Agatha Christie | William Blake, "Auguries of Innocence" |
| England's Green | Zuffar Kunial | William Blake, "And did those feet in ancient time" |
| Everything is Illuminated | Jonathan Safran Foer | Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being |
| An Evil Cradling | Brian Keenan | Quran 13:18 (trans. Arthur John Arberry) |
| Except the Lord | Joyce Cary | Bible: Psalm 127:1 |
| Eyeless in Gaza | Aldous Huxley | John Milton, Samson Agonistes |
| Fair Stood the Wind for France | H. E. Bates | Michael Drayton, Ballad of Agincourt |
| Fame Is the Spur | Howard Spring | John Milton, "Lycidas" |
| A Fanatic Heart | Edna O'Brien | W. B. Yeats, "Remorse for Intemperate Speech" |
| Far From the Madding Crowd | Thomas Hardy | Thomas Gray, Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard |
| The Far-Distant Oxus | Katharine Hull and Pamela Whitlock | Matthew Arnold, Sohrab and Rustum |
| A Farewell to Arms | Ernest Hemingway | George Peele, "A Farewell to Arms (To Queen Elizabeth)" |
| Fear and Trembling | Søren Kierkegaard | Bible: Philippians 2:12 |
| Fearful Symmetry | Northrop Frye | William Blake, "The Tyger" |
| The Female of the Species | H. C. McNeile | Rudyard Kipling, "The Female of the Species" |
| For a Breath I Tarry | Roger Zelazny | A. E. Housman, A Shropshire Lad, Poem XXXII |
| For Whom the Bell Tolls | Ernest Hemingway | John Donne, Meditation XVII |
| Frequent Hearses | Edmund Crispin | Alexander Pope, "Elegy to the Memory of an Unfortunate Lady" |
| From Here to Eternity | James Jones | Rudyard Kipling, "Gentlemen-Rankers" |
| The Getting of Wisdom | Henry Handel Richardson | Bible: Proverbs 4:7 |
| A Glass of Blessings | Barbara Pym | George Herbert, "The Pulley" |
| The Glory and the Dream | William Manchester | William Wordsworth, "Ode: Intimations of Immortality" |
| The Gods Themselves | Isaac Asimov | Friedrich Schiller, The Maid of Orleans |
| The Golden Apples of the Sun | Ray Bradbury | W. B. Yeats, "The Song of the Wandering Angus" |
| The Golden Bowl | Henry James | Bible: Ecclesiastes 12:6 |
| Gone with the Wind | Margaret Mitchell | Ernest Dowson, "Non sum qualis eram bonae sub regno Cynara" |
| The Grapes of Wrath | John Steinbeck | Julia Ward Howe, "Battle Hymn of the Republic" |
| Great Work of Time | John Crowley | Andrew Marvell, "An Horatian Ode upon Cromwell's Return from Ireland" |
| The Green Bay Tree | Louis Bromfield | Bible: Psalm 37:35 |
| A Handful of Dust | Evelyn Waugh | T. S. Eliot, The Waste Land |
| Happy Families Are All Alike | Peter Taylor | Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina |
| Have His Carcase | Dorothy L. Sayers | Homer, Iliad (trans. William Cowper) |
| The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things | JT LeRoy | Bible: Jeremiah 17:9 |
| The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter | Carson McCullers | William Sharp, "The Lonely Hunter" |
| His Dark Materials | Philip Pullman | John Milton, Paradise Lost |
| Horseman, Pass By | Larry McMurtry | W. B. Yeats, "Under Ben Bulben" |
| The House of Mirth | Edith Wharton | Bible: Ecclesiastes 7:4 |
| How Doth the Little Crocodile? | Anthony and Peter Shaffer | Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland ("How Doth the Little Crocodile") |
| How Sleep the Brave | H. E. Bates | William Collins, "How Sleep the Brave" |
| How Sleep the Brave | John Briley | William Collins, "How Sleep the Brave" |
| How Sleep the Brave | James H. Hunter | William Collins, "How Sleep the Brave" |
| Human Voices | Penelope Fitzgerald | T. S. Eliot, "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" |
| I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings | Maya Angelou | Paul Laurence Dunbar, "Sympathy" |
| I Sing the Body Electric! | Ray Bradbury | Walt Whitman, "I Sing the Body Electric" |
| I Will Fear No Evil | Robert A. Heinlein | Bible: Psalm 23:4 |
| If I Forget Thee Jerusalem | William Faulkner | Bible: Psalm 137:5 |
| If Not Now, When? | Primo Levi | Pirkei Avot 1:13 |
| In Death Ground | David Weber and Steve White | Sun Tzu, The Art of War |
| In a Dry Season | Peter Robinson | T. S. Eliot, "Gerontion" |
| In Dubious Battle | John Steinbeck | John Milton, Paradise Lost |
| In the Forests of the Night | Amelia Atwater-Rhodes | William Blake, "The Tyger" |
| In a Glass Darkly | Sheridan Le Fanu | Bible: 1 Corinthians 13:12 |
| An Instant in the Wind | André Brink | Hart Crane, "The Broken Tower" |
| It's a Battlefield | Graham Greene | Alexander William Kinglake, The Invasion of the Crimea, Vol. 6 |
| Jacob Have I Loved | Katherine Paterson | Bible: Romans 9:13 |
| Jesting Pilate | Aldous Huxley | Francis Bacon, Of Truth |
| The Kingdom of God Is Within You | Leo Tolstoy | Bible: Luke 17:21 |
| The Last Enemy | Richard Hillary | Bible: 1 Corinthians 15:26 |
| The Last Temptation | Val McDermid | T. S. Eliot, Murder in the Cathedral |
| The Lathe of Heaven | Ursula K. Le Guin | Zhuangzi, Book XXIII, paragraph 7 |
| Let Us Now Praise Famous Men | James Agee | Bible: Ecclesiasticus 44:1 |
| Lilies of the Field | William Edmund Barrett | Bible: Matthew 6:28 |
| This Lime Tree Bower | Conor McPherson | Samuel Taylor Coleridge, "This Lime-Tree Bower My Prison" |
| The Line of Beauty | Alan Hollinghurst | William Hogarth, The Analysis of Beauty |
| Little Boy Lost | Marghanita Laski | William Blake, "The Little Boy Lost"/"A Little Boy Lost" |
| The Little Foxes | Lillian Hellman | Bible: Song of Songs 2:15 |
| Little Hands Clapping | Dan Rhodes | Robert Browning, "The Pied Piper of Hamelin" |
| A Little Learning | Evelyn Waugh | Alexander Pope, An Essay on Criticism |
| The Longest Journey | E. M. Forster | Percy Bysshe Shelley, Epipsychidion |
| Look Homeward, Angel | Thomas Wolfe | John Milton, "Lycidas" |
| Look to Windward | Iain M. Banks | T. S. Eliot, The Waste Land |
| The Magic Mountain | Thomas Mann | Friedrich Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy |
| A Man's Reach | Elmer L. Andersen | Robert Browning, "Andrea del Sarto" |
| The Man Within | Graham Greene | Thomas Browne, Religio Medici |
| Many Waters | Madeleine L'Engle | Bible: Song of Songs 8:7 |
| A Many-Splendoured Thing | Han Suyin | Francis Thompson, "The Kingdom of God" |
| The Mermaids Singing | Val McDermid | T. S. Eliot, "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" |
| The Millstone | Margaret Drabble | Bible: Matthew 18:6 |
| The Mirror Crack'd from Side to Side | Agatha Christie | Alfred, Lord Tennyson, "The Lady of Shalott" |
| Moab Is My Washpot | Stephen Fry | Bible: Psalm 60:8 |
| The Monkey's Raincoat | Robert Crais | Matsuo Bashō, Sarumino |
| Monstrous Regiment | Terry Pratchett | John Knox, The First Blast of the Trumpet Against the Monstrous Regiment of Women |
| A Monstrous Regiment of Women | Laurie R. King | John Knox, The First Blast of the Trumpet Against the Monstrous Regiment of Women |
| The Moon by Night | Madeleine L'Engle | Bible: Psalm 121:6 |
| Mother Night | Kurt Vonnegut | Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Faust, Part One |
| The Moving Finger | Agatha Christie | Edward FitzGerald (trans.), Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam |
| The Moving Toyshop | Edmund Crispin | Alexander Pope, The Rape of the Lock |
| Mr Standfast | John Buchan | John Bunyan, The Pilgrim's Progress |
| Nectar in a Sieve | Kamala Markandaya | Samuel Taylor Coleridge, "Work without Hope" |
| The Needle's Eye | Margaret Drabble | Bible: Matthew 19:24 |
| Nine Coaches Waiting | Mary Stewart | Cyril Tourneur, The Revenger's Tragedy |
| No Country for Old Men | Cormac McCarthy | W. B. Yeats, "Sailing to Byzantium" |
| No Highway | Nevil Shute | John Masefield, The Wanderer |
| No Longer at Ease | Chinua Achebe | T. S. Eliot, Journey of the Magi |
| Noli Me Tangere | José Rizal | Bible: John 20:17 |
| Not Honour More | Joyce Cary | Richard Lovelace, "To Lucasta, Going to the Warres" |
| Now Sleeps the Crimson Petal | H. E. Bates | Alfred, Lord Tennyson, "Now Sleeps the Crimson Petal" |
| Number the Stars | Lois Lowry | Bible: Psalm 147:4 |
| O Jerusalem! | Dominique Lapierre and Larry Collins | Bible: Psalm 137:5 |
| O Pioneers! | Willa Cather | Walt Whitman, "Pioneers! O Pioneers!" |
| Of Human Bondage | W. Somerset Maugham | Baruch Spinoza, Ethics |
| Of Mice and Men | John Steinbeck | Robert Burns, "To a Mouse" |
| Oh! To be in England | H. E. Bates | Robert Browning, "Home Thoughts From Abroad" |
| "'Oh, Whistle, and I'll Come to You, My Lad'" | M. R. James | Robert Burns, "Oh, whistle and I'll come to you, my lad" |
| The Other Side of Silence | André Brink | George Eliot, Middlemarch |
| Out of Africa | Karen Blixen | Pliny the Elder, Historia Naturalis, 8, 6. |
| The Painted Veil | W. Somerset Maugham | Percy Bysshe Shelley, "Lift Not The Painted Veil Which Those Who Live" |
| Pale Kings and Princes | Robert B. Parker | John Keats, "La Belle Dame sans Merci" |
| The Parliament of Man | Paul Kennedy | Alfred, Lord Tennyson, "Locksley Hall" |
| Paths of Glory | Humphrey Cobb | Thomas Gray, Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard |
| A Passage to India | E. M. Forster | Walt Whitman, "Passage to India" |
| Poison Tree | Amelia Atwater-Rhodes | William Blake, "A Poison Tree" |
| The Poison Tree | Erin Kelly | William Blake, "A Poison Tree" |
| Postern of Fate | Agatha Christie | James Elroy Flecker, "The Gates of Damascus" |
| Precious Bane | Mary Webb | John Milton, Paradise Lost |
| The Proper Study | Isaac Asimov | Alexander Pope, An Essay on Man |
| Quo Vadis | Henryk Sienkiewicz | Bible: John 13:36 (Vulgate translation) |
| Recalled to Life | Reginald Hill | Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities |
| Recalled to Life | Robert Silverberg | Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities |
| Ring of Bright Water | Gavin Maxwell | Kathleen Raine, "The Marriage of Psyche" |
| The Road Less Traveled | M. Scott Peck | Robert Frost, "The Road Not Taken" |
| A Scanner Darkly | Philip K. Dick | Bible: 1 Corinthians 13:12 |
| Seven Pillars of Wisdom | T. E. Lawrence | Bible: Proverbs 9:1 |
| "Shall not Perish" | William Faulkner | Abraham Lincoln, Gettysburg Address |
| The Sick Rose | Erin Kelly | William Blake, "The Sick Rose" |
| The Skull Beneath the Skin | P. D. James | T. S. Eliot, "Whispers of Immortality" |
| The Soldier's Art | | Robert Browning, "Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came" |
| Some Buried Caesar | Rex Stout | Edward FitzGerald (trans.), Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam |
| Specimen Days | Michael Cunningham | Walt Whitman's prosework |
| The Stars' Tennis Balls | Stephen Fry | John Webster, The Duchess of Malfi |
| Stranger in a Strange Land | Robert A. Heinlein | Bible: Exodus 2:22 |
| "Such, Such Were the Joys" | George Orwell | William Blake, "The Echoing Green" |
| A Summer Bird-Cage | Margaret Drabble | John Webster, The White Devil |
| The Sun Also Rises | Ernest Hemingway | Bible: Ecclesiastes 1:5 |
| Surprised by Joy | C. S. Lewis | William Wordsworth, "Surprised by Joy" |
| A Swiftly Tilting Planet | Madeleine L'Engle | Conrad Aiken, "Morning Song of Senlin" |
| Taming a Sea Horse | Robert B. Parker | Robert Browning, "My Last Duchess" |
| Tender Is the Night | F. Scott Fitzgerald | John Keats, "Ode to a Nightingale'" |
| Terrible Swift Sword | Bruce Catton | Julia Ward Howe, "Battle Hymn of the Republic" |
| That Good Night | N. J. Crisp | Dylan Thomas, "Do not go gentle into that good night" |
| That Hideous Strength | C. S. Lewis | David Lyndsay, Ane Dialog |
| Things Fall Apart | Chinua Achebe | W. B. Yeats, "The Second Coming" |
| This Side of Paradise | F. Scott Fitzgerald | Rupert Brooke, "Tiare Tahiti" |
| Those Barren Leaves | Aldous Huxley | William Wordsworth, "The Tables Turned" |
| Thrones, Dominations | Dorothy L. Sayers | John Milton, Paradise Lost |
| Tiger! Tiger! (alternative title of The Stars My Destination) | Alfred Bester | William Blake, "The Tyger" |
| "Tiger! Tiger!" | Rudyard Kipling | William Blake, "The Tyger" |
| Time and Chance | Kim Campbell | Bible: Ecclesiastes 9:11 |
| Time and Chance: an Autobiography | L. Sprague de Camp | Bible: Ecclesiastes 9:11 |
| Time and Chance | Sharon Kay Penman | Bible: Ecclesiastes 9:11 |
| Time and Chance | Alma Timms | Bible: Ecclesiastes 9:11 |
| A Time of Gifts | Patrick Leigh Fermor | Louis MacNeice, "Twelfth Night" |
| Time of our Darkness | Stephen Gray | Lawrence Binyon, "For the Fallen" |
| A Time to Kill | John Grisham | Bible: Ecclesiastes 3:3 |
| Time To Murder And Create | Lawrence Block | T. S. Eliot, "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" |
| Tirra Lirra by the River | Jessica Anderson | Alfred, Lord Tennyson, "The Lady of Shalott" |
| To a God Unknown | John Steinbeck | Rigveda Book X |
| To Sail Beyond the Sunset | Robert A. Heinlein | Alfred, Lord Tennyson, "Ulysses" |
| To Say Nothing of the Dog | Connie Willis | Jerome K. Jerome, Three Men in a Boat |
| To Your Scattered Bodies Go | Philip José Farmer | John Donne, Holy Sonnets VIII |
| The Torment of Others | Val McDermid | T. S. Eliot, The Dry Salvages |
| Unweaving the Rainbow | Richard Dawkins | John Keats, "Lamia" |
| Vanity Fair | William Makepeace Thackeray | John Bunyan, The Pilgrim's Progress |
| Vile Bodies | Evelyn Waugh | Bible: Philippians 3:21 |
| The Violent Bear It Away | Flannery O'Connor | Bible: Matthew 11:12 (Douay translation) |
| The Vorpal Blade | Colin Forbes | Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking-Glass ("Jabberwocky") |
| The Wages of Sin | David A. McIntee | Bible: Romans 6:23 |
| Waiting for the Barbarians | J. M. Coetzee | Constantine P. Cavafy, "Waiting for the Barbarians" |
| Wandering Recollections of a Somewhat Busy Life | John Neal | Horace Greeley, Recollections of a Busy Life |
| The Waste Land | T. S. Eliot | Jessie Weston, From Ritual to Romance |
| The Way of All Flesh | Samuel Butler | Bible: Joshua 23:14 (as rephrased in John Wesley's Explanatory Notes) |
| The Way Through the Woods | Colin Dexter | Rudyard Kipling, "The Way Through the Woods" |
| The Wealth of Nations | Adam Smith | Bible: Isaiah 61:6 |
| What's Become of Waring | Anthony Powell | Robert Browning, "Waring" |
| When the Green Woods Laugh | H. E. Bates | William Blake, "Laughing Song" |
| Where Angels Fear to Tread | E. M. Forster | Alexander Pope, An Essay on Criticism |
| The Widening Gyre | Robert B. Parker | W. B. Yeats, "The Second Coming" |
| Wildfire at Midnight | Mary Stewart | Cyril Tourneur, The Revenger's Tragedy |
| The Wind's Twelve Quarters | Ursula K. Le Guin | A. E. Housman, A Shropshire Lad, Poem XXXII |
| The Wings of the Dove | Henry James | Bible: Psalm 55:6 |
| The Wives of Bath | Susan Swan | Geoffrey Chaucer, The Wife of Bath's Prologue and Tale |
| The World, the Flesh and the Devil | Mary Elizabeth Braddon | Book of Common Prayer |
| The Yellow Meads of Asphodel | H. E. Bates | Alexander Pope, "Ode on St. Cecilia's Day" |