James Herriot Books in Order: All Creatures Great & Small Guide

If you’re looking for the James Herriot books in order, the tricky part is that the books were published differently in the UK and the United States.

James Herriot’s Yorkshire vet stories began as shorter UK volumes, but American readers often know them through the larger All Creatures Great and Small editions. Then there are children’s picture books, animal collections, companion books, and biographies about the real man behind the pen name.

Below, I’ve separated the main memoirs from the extra books so the different editions make more sense.

Jump to:

• All Creatures Great and Small Books: U.S. Editions
• Original UK James Herriot Books
• All Creatures Great and Small Books vs TV Series
• James Herriot Picture Books
• James Herriot Collections and Companion Books
• Books About James Herriot
• Who Was James Herriot?

All Creatures Great and Small Books: U.S. Editions

The U.S. editions are the simplest way to read the main James Herriot memoirs. This is the order I’d use for most readers, especially if you’re coming from All Creatures Great and Small and want the main books without sorting through every shorter UK volume.

The first three books collect the shorter early UK volumes, while the final two books were published the same way on both sides of the Atlantic.

1. All Creatures Great and Small (1972)
2. All Things Bright and Beautiful (1974)
3. All Things Wise and Wonderful (1977)
4. The Lord God Made Them All (1981)
5. Every Living Thing (1992)

All Creatures Great and Small combines If Only They Could Talk and It Shouldn’t Happen to a Vet, plus some material from Let Sleeping Vets Lie. All Things Bright and Beautiful continues with more of Let Sleeping Vets Lie and Vet in Harness. All Things Wise and Wonderful combines Vets Might Fly and Vet in a Spin.

Original UK James Herriot Books

The original UK editions split the early Herriot stories into shorter books. This list is useful if you’re collecting the UK editions or want to see how the books first appeared.

1. If Only They Could Talk (1970)
2. It Shouldn’t Happen to a Vet (1972)
3. Let Sleeping Vets Lie (1973)
4. Vet in Harness (1974)
5. Vets Might Fly (1976)
6. Vet in a Spin (1977)
7. The Lord God Made Them All (1981)
8. Every Living Thing (1992)

The UK and U.S. lists can look like two different series, but they’re really two publication formats for the same core memoirs.

All Creatures Great and Small Books vs TV Series

If you found James Herriot through All Creatures Great and Small on TV, the U.S. editions above are the easiest place to start. The show is based on Herriot’s stories, but the books don’t line up like a season-by-season adaptation.

The first U.S. book shares its title with the show, but the books cover more than one season’s worth of people, animals, and country vet stories. The show draws from Herriot’s world rather than matching one book to one season.

If the TV series brought you here, I’d use the U.S. list first. If you want the original publication history, use the UK list instead.

James Herriot Picture Books

James Herriot’s children’s books adapt some of his animal stories into illustrated picture books. They’re separate from the main memoir reading order, but they’re worth listing because there aren’t very many of them.

1. Moses the Kitten (1984)
2. Only One Woof (1985)
3. The Christmas Day Kitten (1986)
4. Bonny’s Big Day (1987)
5. Blossom Comes Home (1988)
6. The Market Square Dog (1989)
7. Oscar, Cat-About-Town (1990)
8. Smudge’s Day Out (1991)
9. Smudge, the Little Lost Lamb (1991)
10. James Herriot’s Treasury for Children (1992)

James Herriot’s Treasury for Children collects several of the picture-book stories in one volume, so it can be a better choice than tracking down each individual book.

James Herriot Collections and Companion Books

These books are not required before you read the main memoirs. Most are themed collections, excerpt collections, or companion books for readers who want more Herriot after finishing the main series.

1. Animal Stories, Tame and Wild (1979)
2. James Herriot’s Yorkshire (1979)
3. The Best of James Herriot (1983)
4. Horse and Pony Stories (1986)
5. James Herriot’s Dog Stories (1986)
6. James Herriot’s Favorite Dog Stories (1996)
7. Greatest Cat Stories (1989)
8. James Herriot Story Book (1992)
9. James Herriot’s Cat Stories (1994)
10. Seven Yorkshire Tales (1995)
11. James Herriot’s Yorkshire Stories (1995)
12. James Herriot’s Yorkshire Village (1995)
13. James Herriot’s Animal Stories (1997)
14. Yorkshire Stories (1998)
15. James Herriot’s Yorkshire Revisited (1999)
16. James Herriot’s Treasury of Inspirational Stories for Children (2005)
17. The Wonderful World of James Herriot (2023)

The Wonderful World of James Herriot is a curated collection of classic Herriot stories with family insight, so it fits best here rather than in the main reading order.

Books About James Herriot

These are books about James Herriot, not books by him. I’d save them for after the memoirs unless you’re specifically interested in Alf Wight’s real life.

• The Real James Herriot: A Memoir of My Father
• James Herriot: The Life of a Country Vet
• The Yorkshire Vet: In the Footsteps of Herriot

Who Was James Herriot?

James Herriot was the pen name of James Alfred Wight, a British veterinary surgeon and author. He drew from his own life as a country vet, then shaped those experiences into warm, funny, semi-autobiographical stories set around the Yorkshire Dales. Wight died on February 23, 1995.

Before becoming an author, Wight worked as a veterinarian and served in the Royal Air Force. He had wanted to write for years, but his veterinary stories are the ones that finally found their shape.

The pen name helped separate the author from the practicing vet. Readers knew him as James Herriot, but the stories came from Alf Wight’s life, his patients, the farmers he visited, and the rural world he knew so well.

All Creatures Great and Small has also been adapted for screen more than once, which is why many readers find the books after watching the TV series.

Looking for similar books in order?

If you want more authors and reading-order guides like this one, start with my Books in Order index.

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