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 | 2 Samuel |
| A che punto è la notte | Carlo Fruttero and Franco Lucentini | Isaiah |
| After Many a Summer Dies the Swan | Aldous Huxley | Tithonus, Alfred, Lord Tennyson |
| Ah, Wilderness! | Eugene O'Neill | Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, trans. Edward FitzGerald |
| Alien Corn | Sidney Howard | Ode to a Nightingale, John Keats |
| The Alien Corn | W. Somerset Maugham | Ode to a Nightingale, John Keats |
| All Passion Spent | Vita Sackville-West | Samson Agonistes, John Milton |
| All the King's Men | Robert Penn Warren | Humpty Dumpty |
| Alone on a Wide, Wide Sea | Michael Morpurgo | The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Samuel Taylor Coleridge |
| An Acceptable Time | Madeleine L'Engle | Psalms |
| Antic Hay | Aldous Huxley | Edward II, Christopher Marlowe |
| An Evil Cradling | Brian Keenan | Qur'an 13:18, Arthur John Arberry translation |
| Arms and the Man | George Bernard Shaw | The Aeneid, Virgil |
| As I Lay Dying | William Faulkner | The Odyssey, Homer |
| A Time to Kill | John Grisham | Ecclesiastes |
| Behold the Man | Michael Moorcock | John |
| Beneath the Bleeding | Val McDermid | East Coker, T. S. Eliot |
| Beyond the Mexique Bay | Aldous Huxley | Bermudas, Andrew Marvell |
| Blithe Spirit | Noël Coward | To a Skylark, Percy Bysshe Shelley |
| Blood's a Rover | James Ellroy | Reveille, A. E. Housman |
| Blue Remembered Earth | Alastair Reynolds | A Shropshire Lad, Poem XL, A. E. Housman |
| Blue Remembered Hills | Rosemary Sutcliff | A Shropshire Lad, Poem XL, A. E. Housman |
| Bonjour Tristesse | Françoise Sagan | À Peine Défigurée, Paul Éluard |
| Brandy of the Damned | Colin Wilson | Man and Superman, George Bernard Shaw |
| Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee | Dee Brown | American Names, Stephen Vincent Benét |
| Butter In a Lordly Dish | Agatha Christie | Judges |
| By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept | Elizabeth Smart | Psalms |
| Cabbages and Kings | O. Henry | The Walrus and the Carpenter, Lewis Carroll |
| Carrion Comfort | Dan Simmons | Carrion Comfort, Gerard Manley Hopkins |
| A Catskill Eagle | Robert B. Parker | Moby-Dick, Herman Melville |
| The Children of Men | P. D. James | Psalm 90:3 |
| Clouds of Witness | Dorothy L. Sayers | Hebrews |
| A Confederacy of Dunces | John Kennedy Toole | Thoughts on Various Subjects, Moral and Diverting, Jonathan Swift |
| Consider Phlebas | Iain M. Banks | The Waste Land, T. S. Eliot |
| Consider the Lilies | Iain Crichton Smith | Matthew |
| Cover Her Face | P. D. James | The Duchess of Malfi, John Webster |
| The Cricket on the Hearth | Charles Dickens | Il Penseroso, John Milton |
| The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time | Mark Haddon | The Adventure of Silver Blaze, Arthur Conan Doyle |
| The Daffodil Sky | H. E. Bates | Maud, Alfred, Lord Tennyson |
| Dance Dance Dance | Haruki Murakami | Death's Echo, W.H. Auden |
| A Darkling Plain | Philip Reeve | Dover Beach, Matthew Arnold |
| Death Be Not Proud | John Gunther | Holy Sonnets X, John Donne |
| The Doors of Perception | Aldous Huxley | The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, William Blake |
| Down to a Sunless Sea | David Graham | Kubla Khan, Samuel Taylor Coleridge |
| Dulce et Decorum Est | Wilfred Owen | Odes iii 2.13, Horace |
| Dying of the Light | George R. R. Martin | Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night, Dylan Thomas |
| East of Eden | John Steinbeck | Genesis |
| Ego Dominus Tuus | William Butler Yeats | La Vita Nuova, Dante |
| Endless Night | Agatha Christie | Auguries of Innocence, William Blake |
| Everything is Illuminated | Jonathan Safran Foer | The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Milan Kundera |
| Eyeless in Gaza | Aldous Huxley | Samson Agonistes, John Milton |
| Fair Stood the Wind for France | H. E. Bates | Ballad of Agincourt, Michael Drayton |
| Fame Is the Spur | Howard Spring | Lycidas, John Milton |
| A Fanatic Heart | Edna O'Brien | Remorse for Intemperate Speech, William Butler Yeats |
| The Far-Distant Oxus | Katharine Hull and Pamela Whitlock | Sohrab and Rustum, Matthew Arnold |
| A Farewell to Arms | Ernest Hemingway | A Farewell to Arms , George Peele |
| Far From the Madding Crowd | Thomas Hardy | Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard, Thomas Gray |
| Fear and Trembling | Søren Kierkegaard | ' |
| For a Breath I Tarry | Roger Zelazny | A Shropshire Lad, A. E. Housman |
| For Whom the Bell Tolls | Ernest Hemingway | Meditation XVII, John Donne |
| Frequent Hearses | Edmund Crispin | Elegy to the Memory of an Unfortunate Lady, Alexander Pope |
| From Here to Eternity | James Jones | Gentlemen-Rankers, Rudyard Kipling |
| A Glass of Blessings | Barbara Pym | The Pulley, George Herbert |
| The Glory and the Dream | William Manchester | William Wordsworth, |
| The Golden Apples of the Sun | Ray Bradbury | The Song of the Wandering Angus, W. B. Yeats |
| The Golden Bowl | Henry James | Ecclesiastes |
| Gone with the Wind | Margaret Mitchell | Non sum qualis eram bonae sub regno Cynarae, Ernest Dowson |
| The Grapes of Wrath | John Steinbeck | The Battle Hymn of the Republic, Julia Ward Howe |
| Great Work of Time | John Crowley | Horatian Ode upon Cromwell's Return from Ireland, Andrew Marvell |
| The Green Bay Tree | Louis Bromfield | Psalms |
| A Handful of Dust | Evelyn Waugh | The Waste Land, T. S. Eliot |
| Have His Carcase | Dorothy L. Sayers | The Iliad, Homer |
| The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter | Carson McCullers | The Lonely Hunter, William Sharp |
| The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things | JT LeRoy | Jeremiah |
| His Dark Materials | Philip Pullman | Paradise Lost, John Milton |
| The House of Mirth | Edith Wharton | Ecclesiastes |
| How Sleep the Brave | H. E. Bates | How Sleep the Brave, William Collins |
| How Sleep the Brave | James H. Hunter | How Sleep the Brave, William Collins |
| How Sleep the Brave | John Briley | How Sleep the Brave, William Collins |
| I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings | Maya Angelou | Sympathy, Paul Laurence Dunbar |
| I Sing the Body Electric | Ray Bradbury | Leaves of Grass, Walt Whitman |
| I Will Fear No Evil | Robert A. Heinlein | Psalms |
| If I Forget Thee Jerusalem | William Faulkner | Psalms |
| If Not Now, When? | Primo Levi | Pirkei Avot 1:13 |
| In a Dry Season | Peter Robinson | Gerontion, by T. S. Eliot |
| In a Glass Darkly | Sheridan Le Fanu | I Corinthians |
| In Death Ground | David Weber & Steve White | The Art of War, Sun Tzu |
| In Dubious Battle | John Steinbeck | Paradise Lost, John Milton |
| An Instant in the Wind | André Brink | The Broken Tower, Hart Crane |
| It's a Battlefield | Graham Greene | The Invasion of the Crimea, Vol. 6, Alexander William Kinglake |
| Jacob Have I Loved | Katherine Paterson | Romans |
| O Jerusalem! | Dominique Lapierre and Larry Collins | Psalms |
| Jesting Pilate | Aldous Huxley | Of Truth, Francis Bacon |
| The Last Enemy | Richard Hillary | I Corinthians |
| The Last Temptation | Val McDermid | Murder in the Cathedral, T. S. Eliot |
| The Lathe of Heaven | Ursula K. Le Guin | Zhuangzi, Book XXIII, paragraph 7 |
| Let Us Now Praise Famous Men | James Agee | Ecclesiasticus |
| Lilies of the Field | William Edmund Barrett | Matthew |
| This Lime Tree Bower | Conor McPherson | This Lime-Tree Bower My Prison, Samuel Taylor Coleridge |
| The Line of Beauty | Alan Hollinghurst | The Analysis of Beauty, William Hogarth |
| The Little Foxes | Lillian Hellman | Song of Songs |
| Little Hands Clapping | Dan Rhodes | Pied Piper of Hamelin, Robert Browning |
| Look Homeward, Angel | Thomas Wolfe | Lycidas, John Milton |
| Look to Windward | Iain M. Banks | The Waste Land, T. S. Eliot |
| The Man Within | Graham Greene | Religio Medici, Thomas Browne |
| Many Waters | Madeleine L'Engle | Song of Songs |
| A Many-Splendoured Thing | Han Suyin | The Kingdom of God, Francis Thompson |
| The Mermaids Singing | Val McDermid | The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, T. S. Eliot |
| The Millstone | Margaret Drabble | Matthew |
| The Mirror Crack'd from Side to Side | Agatha Christie | The Lady of Shalott, Alfred, Lord Tennyson |
| Moab Is My Washpot | Stephen Fry | Psalms |
| The Monkey's Raincoat | Robert Crais | The Monkey's Raincoat, Matsuo Bashō |
| A Monstrous Regiment of Women | Laurie R. King | The First Blast of the Trumpet Against the Monstrous Regiment of Women, John Knox |
| The Moon by Night | Madeleine L'Engle | ' |
| Mother Night | Kurt Vonnegut | Faust Part One, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe |
| The Moving Finger | Agatha Christie | Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, trans. Edward FitzGerald |
| The Moving Toyshop | Edmund Crispin | The Rape of the Lock, Alexander Pope |
| Mr Standfast | John Buchan | Pilgrim's Progress, John Bunyan |
| Nectar in a Sieve | Kamala Markandaya | Work Without Hope, Samuel Coleridge |
| The Needle's Eye | Margaret Drabble | Matthew |
| Nine Coaches Waiting | Mary Stewart | The Revenger's Tragedy, Cyril Tourneur |
| No Country for Old Men | Cormac McCarthy | Sailing to Byzantium, William Butler Yeats |
| No Highway | Nevil Shute | The Wanderer, John Masefield |
| Noli Me Tangere | José Rizal | ' |
| No Longer at Ease | Chinua Achebe | The Journey of the Magi, T. S. Eliot |
| Now Sleeps the Crimson Petal | H. E. Bates | Now Sleeps the Crimson Petal, Alfred, Lord Tennyson |
| Number the Stars | Lois Lowry | Psalms |
| Of Human Bondage | W. Somerset Maugham | Ethics, Baruch Spinoza |
| Of Mice and Men | John Steinbeck | To a Mouse, Robert Burns |
| Oh! To be in England | H. E. Bates | Home Thoughts From Abroad, Robert Browning |
| The Other Side of Silence | André Brink | Middlemarch, George Eliot |
| The Painted Veil | W. Somerset Maugham | Lift Not The Painted Veil Which Those Who Live, sonnet by Percy Bysshe Shelley |
| Pale Kings and Princes | Robert B. Parker | La Belle Dame sans Merci, John Keats |
| The Parliament of Man | Paul Kennedy | Locksley Hall, Alfred Lord Tennyson |
| Paths of Glory | Humphrey Cobb | Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard, Thomas Gray |
| A Passage to India | E. M. Forster | Leaves of Grass, Walt Whitman |
| O Pioneers! | Willa Cather | Pioneers! O Pioneers!, Walt Whitman |
| Postern of Fate | Agatha Christie | Gates of Damascus, James Elroy Flecker |
| Precious Bane | Mary Webb | Paradise Lost, John Milton |
| The Proper Study | Isaac Asimov | An Essay on Man, Alexander Pope |
| Quo Vadis | Henryk Sienkiewicz | ' |
| Recalled to Life | Reginald Hill | A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens |
| Recalled to Life | Robert Silverberg | A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens |
| Ring of Bright Water | Gavin Maxwell | The Marriage of Psyche, Kathleen Raine |
| The Road Less Traveled | M. Scott Peck | The Road Not Taken, Robert Frost |
| A Scanner Darkly | Philip K. Dick | I Corinthians |
| Shall not Perish | William Faulkner | Gettysburg Address, Abraham Lincoln |
| The Skull Beneath the Skin | P. D. James | Whispers of Immortality, T. S. Eliot |
| The Soldier's Art | Anthony Powell | Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came, Robert Browning |
| Some Buried Caesar | Rex Stout | Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, trans. Edward FitzGerald |
| Specimen Days | Michael Cunningham | Walt Whitmans prosework |
| The Stars' Tennis Balls | Stephen Fry | The Duchess of Malfi, John Webster |
| Stranger in a Strange Land | Robert A. Heinlein | ' |
| Such, Such Were the Joys | George Orwell | The Echoing Green, William Blake |
| A Summer Bird-Cage | Margaret Drabble | The White Devil, John Webster |
| The Sun Also Rises | Ernest Hemingway | Ecclesiastes |
| Surprised by Joy | C. S. Lewis | Surprised by Joy, William Wordsworth |
| A Swiftly Tilting Planet | Madeleine L'Engle | Morning Song of Senlin, Conrad Aiken |
| Taming a Sea Horse | Robert B. Parker | My Last Duchess, Robert Browning |
| Tender Is the Night | F. Scott Fitzgerald | Ode to a Nightingale, John Keats |
| Terrible Swift Sword | Bruce Catton | The Battle Hymn of the Republic, Julia Ward Howe |
| That Good Night | NJ Crisp | Do not go gentle into that good night, Dylan Thomas |
| That Hideous Strength | C. S. Lewis | Ane Dialog, David Lyndsay |
| Things Fall Apart | Chinua Achebe | The Second Coming, William Butler Yeats |
| This Side of Paradise | F. Scott Fitzgerald | Tiare Tahiti, Rupert Brooke |
| Those Barren Leaves | Aldous Huxley | The Tables Turned, William Wordsworth |
| Thrones, Dominations | Dorothy L. Sayers | Paradise Lost, John Milton |
| Tiger! Tiger! - alternative title of The Stars My Destination | Alfred Bester | The Tyger, William Blake |
| Tiger! Tiger! | Rudyard Kipling short story | The Tyger, William Blake |
| A Time of Gifts | Patrick Leigh Fermor | Twelfth night, Louis MacNeice |
| Time of our Darkness | Stephen Gray | For the Fallen, Laurence Binyon |
| Time To Murder And Create | Lawrence Block | The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, T. S. Eliot |
| Tirra Lirra by the River | Jessica Anderson | The Lady of Shalott, Alfred, Lord Tennyson |
| To a God Unknown | John Steinbeck | Rig Veda Book X |
| To Sail Beyond the Sunset | Robert A. Heinlein | Ulysses, Alfred, Lord Tennyson |
| To Say Nothing of the Dog | Connie Willis | Three Men in a Boat, Jerome K. Jerome |
| To Your Scattered Bodies Go | Philip José Farmer | Holy Sonnets VIII, John Donne |
| The Torment of Others | Val McDermid | The Dry Salvages, T. S. Eliot |
| Unweaving the Rainbow | Richard Dawkins | Lamia, John Keats |
| Vanity Fair | William Makepeace Thackeray | The Pilgrim's Progress, John Bunyan |
| Vile Bodies | Evelyn Waugh | ' |
| The Violent Bear It Away | Flannery O'Connor | Matthew |
| Waiting for the Barbarians | J.M. Coetzee | Waiting for the Barbarians, Constantine P. Cavafy |
| Wandering Recollections of a Somewhat Busy Life | John Neal | Recollections of a Busy Life, Horace Greeley |
| The Waste Land | T. S. Eliot | From Ritual to Romance, Jessie L. Weston |
| The Way of All Flesh | Samuel Butler | ' |
| The Way Through the Woods | Colin Dexter | The Way Through the Woods, Rudyard Kipling |
| The Wealth of Nations | Adam Smith | ' |
| What's Become of Waring | Anthony Powell | Waring from Dramatic Lyrics, Robert Browning |
| When the Green Woods Laugh | H. E. Bates | Songs of Innocence and of Experience, William Blake |
| Where Angels Fear to Tread | E. M. Forster | Essay on Criticism, Alexander Pope |
| The Widening Gyre | Robert B. Parker | The Second Coming, William Butler Yeats |
| Wildfire at Midnight | Mary Stewart | The Revenger's Tragedy, Cyril Tourneur |
| The Wind's Twelve Quarters | Ursula Le Guin | A Shropshire Lad, A. E. Housman |
| The Wings of the Dove | Henry James | ' |
| The Wives of Bath | Susan Swan | The Wife of Bath's Prologue and Tale, Geoffrey Chaucer |
| The World, the Flesh and the Devil | Mary Elizabeth Braddon | Book of Common Prayer |
| The Yellow Meads of Asphodel | H. E. Bates | Ode on St. Cecilia's Day'', Alexander Pope |