List of anonymously published works

Works predating the Common Era

Ancient Mesopotamian works

• Debate between bird and fish
• Enûma Eliš
• Hurrian hymn to Nikkal
• Inscriptions at Tell Abu Salabikh
• * Instructions of Shuruppak, attributed to the historically debatable Shuruppak
• Kesh Temple Hymn
• Sumerian city laments
• * Lament for Ur
• * Lament for Sumer and Ur
• * Lament for Nippur
• * Lament for Eridu
• * Lament for Uruk
• Sumerian creation myth

  Ancient Egyptian works

• Ancient Egyptian funerary texts
• * Coffin Texts
• * New Kingdom funerary texts
• ** Book of the Dead
• ** Amduat
• ** Spell of the Twelve Caves
• ** The Book of Gates
• ** Book of the Netherworld
• ** Book of Caverns
• ** Book of the Earth
• ** Litany of Re
• ** Book of the Heavens
• * Pyramid Texts
• Ancient Egyptian medical papyri

  Other works

• I Ching
• The Aesop Romance

  Early classics

• Cantar de Mio Cid
• Beowulf
• De Dubiis Nominibus
• Dresden Codex
• Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
• The Second Shepherds' Play
• "Enchiriadis" texts
• * Scolica enchiriadis
• * Musica enchiriadis
• The Battle of Maldon
• Diaries of Court Ladies of Old Japan
• Gesta Hungarorum
• The Secret History of the Mongols
• St. Erkenwald
• Corpus Hermeticum
• Poetic Edda
• The Lady of Escalot

• 15th century

• The Book of Dede Korkut
• The pasquinades glued to the Talking Statues of Rome. They still appear from time to time.
• The Key of Solomon
• The Skibby Chronicle
• La Farce de maître Pierre Pathelin
• Hypnerotomachia Poliphili, published anonymously at the time, now considered likely to have been written by Francesco Colonna
• The Voynich manuscript

  16th century

• Narrative of Some Things of New Spain and of the Great City of Temestitan
• Lazarillo de Tormes
• Chilam Balam

  17th century

• Actio Curiosa
• Theophrastus redivivus
• The entire catalog of Pierre Marteau
• All works published after 1788 by Sylvain Maréchal

  18th century

• An Essay on the Principle of Population by T.R. Malthus, originally published anonymously
• Anti-Machiavel by Frederick the Great, originally published anonymously
• Dream of the Red Chamber by Cao Xueqin, originally published anonymously
• The Sorrows of Yamba by Hannah More, originally published anonymously
• Common Sense by Thomas Paine, originally published anonymously
• The Federalist Papers, by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay; originally published under the pseudonym "Publius"
• The Animated Skeleton
• The Cavern of Death

  19th century

• Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, originally published anonymously
• A Brief Inquiry into the Natural Rights of Man
• A Strange Manuscript Found in a Copper Cylinder by James De Mille, originally published anonymously.
• by Henry Adams, originally published anonymously.
• Elizabeth and Her German Garden by Elizabeth von Arnim, originally published anonymously.
• Fantasmagoriana by Jean-Baptiste Benoît Eyriès, published anonymously.
• Keep Cool by John Neal, published under the pseudonym "Somebody, M.D.C. &c. &c. &c."
• Might is Right, published under the pseudonym "Ragnar Redbeard". The most commonly claimed authors are Arthur Desmond or Jack London.
• Romance of Lust, originally published anonymously but variously attributed to Edward Sellon or William Simpson Potter
• Supernatural Religion: An Inquiry into the Reality of Divine Revelation by Walter Richard Cassels, originally published anonymously.
• Tales of the Dead, translated by Sarah Elizabeth Utterson, published anonymously.
• Tamerlane and Other Poems, the first published collection of poems by Edgar Allan Poe, originally published anonymously.
• The Log-Cabin Lady
• The Princess Ilsée
• The String of Pearls
• The Way of a Pilgrim
• The Great Organ in the Boston Music Hall
• Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation by Robert Chambers, as only revealed after his death

  20th century

• The Autobiography of a Flea erotic novel published in 1901.
• The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man, the story of a young biracial man, was published anonymously in 1912 by James Weldon Johnson who revealed himself as the author in 1927.
• Demian by Hermann Hesse, originally published under the pseudonym "Emil Sinclair"
• Go Ask Alice, now known to have been written by Beatrice Sparks.
• The Occult Technology of Power
• A Woman in Berlin, an anonymous diary detailing experiences of a German woman as Germany is defeated in World War II.
• Primary Colors, published anonymously. Journalist Joe Klein was immediately suspected as the author. He originally denied it, but admitted authorship within six months.

  21st century

• "Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System", published under the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto
• Bourbon Kid, an ongoing supernatural horror series first published in 2000
• The Bride Stripped Bare, an erotic novel published in 2003; soon after, the author was revealed as the Australian writer Nikki Gemmell.
• Through Our Enemies' Eyes: Osama Bin Laden, Radical Islam and the Future of America and Imperial Hubris: Why the West is Losing the War on Terror – both revealed to have been written by former CIA employee Michael Scheuer.
• Recipes for Disaster – An Anarchist Cookbook published by the CrimethInc collective.
• My Immortal – A work of fiction settled in the Harry Potter universe involving goth subculture which has become a cult phenomenon.
• Rolling Thunder – eleven issues of "an anarchist journal of dangerous living" published the CrimethInc collective.
• Diary of an Oxygen Thief – A Dutch novel about the independent art, literature, and music scene in Brooklyn, New York.
• –. A speculative novel about President Barack Obama's 2012 re-election campaign. The publishers, Simon & Schuster, claim that the book was written by someone who was "in the room" with the President.
• The Incest Diary
• A Warning – A book written by an anonymous Trump senior official that expands upon I Am Part of the Resistance Inside the Trump Administration from the New York Times.