Homepage

Accessibility links

  • Skip to content
  • Accessibility Help
BBC Account
Notifications
  • Home
  • News
  • Sport
  • Weather
  • iPlayer
  • Sounds
  • Bitesize
  • CBeebies
  • CBBC
  • Food
  • Home
  • News
  • Sport
  • Reel
  • Worklife
  • Travel
  • Future
  • Culture
  • TV
  • Weather
  • Sounds
More menu
Search BBC Search BBC
  • Home
  • News
  • Sport
  • Weather
  • iPlayer
  • Sounds
  • Bitesize
  • CBeebies
  • CBBC
  • Food
  • Home
  • News
  • Sport
  • Reel
  • Worklife
  • Travel
  • Future
  • Culture
  • TV
  • Weather
  • Sounds
Close menu

Home

Film

Art

Books

Music

TV

Style

Identities

Designed

The Collection

Loading

Literature

(Credit:Illustration (c) Quentin Blake, 1997)
The 100 greatest children's books

The dark side of Roald Dahl

By Hephzibah Anderson

Colette (Credit: Alamy)
Books

The most beloved French writer ever

By John Self
Indian myths (Credit: British Museum)
Books

Retelling India’s ancient myths

By Akanksha Singh
Arthur C Clarke illustration (Credit: João Fazenda)
Books

The fiction that predicted space travel

By Hephzibah Anderson
George RR Martin has provided fans with a veritable storm of swords to obsess over (Credit: Alamy)
Game of Thrones

Literature’s long obsession with swords

By Quinn Hargitai
Imru’ al-Qais, an exiled poet-king, is credited as the originator of the ‘ruin poetry’ form – one of his poems is said to hang in the Kaaba at Mecca (Credit: The British Library)
Literature

The ancient poems that explain today

By Paul Cooper
Chained library at Hereford Cathedral
Books

The ancient books under lock and key

Culture
Frankenstein (Credit: Rebecca Hendin)
Stories that shaped the world

The story that defines our fears

By Rebecca Laurence
Invisible Man (Credit: Rebecca Hendin)
Stories that shaped the world

The ultimate US novel about race

By Kenneth W Warren
(Credit: Rebecca Hendin)
Stories that shaped the world

He took us on a tour of Hell

By Christian Blauvelt
Book of Songs (Credit: Rebecca Hendin)
Stories that shaped the world

The poems that shaped Chinese thought

By Martin Kern
(Credit: Rebecca Hendin)
Stories that shaped the world

The novel that redefined Latin America

By Felipe Restrepo Pombo
(Credit: Howard Timberlake)
Stories that shaped the world

The 100 stories that shaped the world

Culture
Stories that shaped the world (Credit: Howard Timberlake)
Stories that shaped the world

The 10 stories that shaped the world

Culture
(Credit: Alamy)
Stories that shaped the world

The 100 world-shaping tales: who voted?

Culture
(Credit: Rebecca Hendin)
Stories that shaped the world

The ancient ‘viral memes’ still with us

By Nilanjana S Roy

Explore the BBC

  • Home
  • News
  • Sport
  • Weather
  • iPlayer
  • Sounds
  • Bitesize
  • CBeebies
  • CBBC
  • Food
  • Home
  • News
  • Sport
  • Reel
  • Worklife
  • Travel
  • Future
  • Culture
  • TV
  • Weather
  • Sounds
  • Terms of Use
  • About the BBC
  • Privacy Policy
  • Privacy Policy
  • Cookies
  • Cookies
  • Accessibility Help
  • Parental Guidance
  • Contact the BBC
  • Make an editorial complaint
  • BBC emails for you
  • Advertise with us
Copyright © 2023 BBC. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Read about our approach to external linking.