Toni Morrison Books in Order: Complete Book List

By T.L. BransonHistorical Fiction

Toni Morrison books in order begin with The Bluest Eye, her 1970 debut, and span novels, essays, lectures, children’s books, editorial projects, drama, poetry, and short fiction. Morrison wrote eleven novels, and each one can be read on its own, although publication order is the simplest way to follow the development of her work.

Morrison was a novelist, editor, professor, and literary critic whose writing explores memory, family, race, community, slavery, and its consequences. The lists below distinguish the works Morrison authored from books she edited and interview collections assembled by other editors.

Jump to:

Toni Morrison Novels

All eleven Toni Morrison novels stand alone, so you don’t have to read them in order. Still, I recommend publication order if you plan to read more than one. It lets you see how her treatment of history, memory, family, and Black American life changed across her career.

  1. The Bluest Eye (1970)
  2. Sula (1973)
  3. Song of Solomon (1977)
  4. Tar Baby (1981)
  5. Beloved (1987)
  6. Jazz (1992)
  7. Paradise (1998)
  8. Love (2003)
  9. A Mercy (2008)
  10. Home (2012)
  11. God Help the Child (2015)

Toni Morrison’s first three novels were The Bluest Eye (1970), Sula (1973), and Song of Solomon (1977). If you’re reading her for the first time, I’d start with The Bluest Eye to follow publication order or Beloved if you want to begin with her best-known novel.

Beloved, Jazz, and Paradise are often grouped as a loose historical or conceptual trilogy. They don’t continue one plot or follow the same characters, but they examine different periods of Black American history. My advice is to read those three in publication order.

Toni Morrison Nonfiction Books

Morrison’s nonfiction includes literary criticism, lectures, speeches, and essay collections. I think it’s important to keep these separate from books she edited, because her role was very different in each group.

  1. Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination (1992)
  2. The Nobel Lecture in Literature, 1993 (1994)
  3. The Dancing Mind (1996)
  4. What Moves at the Margin: Selected Nonfiction (2008)
  5. The Origin of Others (2017)
  6. The Source of Self-Regard: Selected Essays, Speeches, and Meditations (2019)
  7. Language as Liberation: Reflections on the American Canon (2026)

When readers ask about Morrison’s last book, the distinction matters. God Help the Child was her final novel. The Source of Self-Regard was her final major authored collection published during her lifetime, while Language as Liberation is a posthumous collection of lectures from her years at Princeton.

Toni Morrison Edited and Companion Books

Selected Books Edited by Toni Morrison

Before and alongside her career as a novelist, Morrison edited important work by Black writers and public figures. These books belong in her bibliography, but Morrison wasn’t their primary author. The list below covers the most significant published projects associated with her editorial work.

  1. To Die for the People: The Writings of Huey P. Newton (1972)
  2. The Black Book (1974)
  3. Race-ing Justice, En-gendering Power (1992)
  4. Deep Sightings and Rescue Missions (1996)
  5. Birth of a Nation’hood: Gaze, Script, and Spectacle in the O.J. Simpson Case (1997)
  6. James Baldwin: Early Novels & Stories (1998)
  7. James Baldwin: Collected Essays (1998)
  8. Those Bones Are Not My Child (1999)
  9. Burn This Book: PEN Writers Speak Out on the Power of the Word (2009)

To Die for the People was written by Huey P. Newton, while Deep Sightings and Rescue Missions and Those Bones Are Not My Child are works by Toni Cade Bambara. Morrison edited both 1998 Library of America volumes listed above. The Black Book has more complicated credits: Middleton A. Harris is the named editor, while Morrison played a major role in shaping the original Random House project.

Toni Morrison Interview and Companion Books

These books preserve Morrison’s interviews, lectures, conversations, and quotations, but they aren’t all conventional books written from beginning to end by Morrison. I recommend treating them as companion volumes rather than adding them to her main nonfiction list.

  1. Conversations with Toni Morrison (1994)
  2. Goodness and the Literary Imagination (2019)
  3. The Measure of Our Lives: A Gathering of Wisdom (2019)
  4. Toni Morrison: The Last Interview and Other Conversations (2020)

Conversations with Toni Morrison and Toni Morrison: The Last Interview are edited interview collections. The Measure of Our Lives gathers quotations from Morrison’s previously published work, while Goodness and the Literary Imagination combines her lecture and interview with essays by other contributors.

Toni Morrison Children’s Books

Morrison wrote one children’s nonfiction book on her own and nine children’s books with her son, Slade Morrison. The three Who’s Got Game? books form Morrison’s only named children’s series.

Children’s Book Written by Toni Morrison

  1. Remember: The Journey to School Integration (2004)

Picture Books with Slade Morrison

  1. The Big Box (1999)
  2. The Book of Mean People (2002)
  3. Peeny Butter Fudge (2009)
  4. The Tortoise or the Hare (2010)
  5. Little Cloud and Lady Wind (2010)
  6. Please, Louise (2014)

Who’s Got Game? Books

  1. The Ant or the Grasshopper? (2003)
  2. The Lion or the Mouse? (2003)
  3. Poppy or the Snake? (2004)

Toni Morrison Children’s Collections

  1. Who’s Got Game? Three Fables (2007)
  2. A Toni Morrison Treasury (2023)

Who’s Got Game? Three Fables collects the three books in that series. A Toni Morrison Treasury gathers eight previously published children’s books in one volume, so I think it’s a useful option for families even though it doesn’t contain a new story.

Toni Morrison Short Fiction, Poetry, and Drama

Toni Morrison Short Fiction

Recitatif is Toni Morrison’s only published short story. It first appeared in the 1983 anthology Confirmation. The linked edition is the 2022 standalone publication, which includes an introduction by Zadie Smith.

  1. Recitatif (1983) (Short Story)

Toni Morrison Poetry

Five Poems is a limited-edition artist book that pairs five poems by Morrison with silhouettes by Kara Walker. It wasn’t issued as a conventional trade book, but it is a distinct creative work rather than a reprint or excerpt.

  1. Five Poems (2002) (Poetry Collection)

Toni Morrison Drama and Libretto

Morrison’s dramatic work includes a performed but unpublished play, an opera libretto, and a published theatrical collaboration. All three are substantial creative works, although only Desdemona has a conventional book edition.

  1. Dreaming Emmett (1986) (Unpublished Play)
  2. Margaret Garner (2005) (Opera Libretto)
  3. Desdemona (2012) (Play)

The year for Dreaming Emmett reflects its first performance, while the year for Margaret Garner reflects the opera’s premiere. Morrison wrote the libretto for Margaret Garner, with music by Richard Danielpour. Desdemona was created with director Peter Sellars and musician Rokia Traoré.

Toni Morrison Adaptations

Beloved was adapted into a 1998 feature film directed by Jonathan Demme and starring Oprah Winfrey, Danny Glover, and Thandiwe Newton.

  1. Beloved (1998)

About Toni Morrison

Toni Morrison was born Chloe Ardelia Wofford on February 18, 1931, in Lorain, Ohio. She studied English at Howard University and earned a master’s degree in English from Cornell University. Her early reading included writers such as Jane Austen, Gustave Flaubert, and Leo Tolstoy.

After teaching at Texas Southern University and Howard University, Morrison accepted an editorial position at L.W. Singer, a textbook division of Random House, in Syracuse in 1965. She moved to New York City in 1968 to work in Random House’s trade department, where she helped publish influential Black writers and thinkers.

Morrison later taught at several universities and joined the Princeton University faculty in 1989. Her fiction examines memory, family, community, race, slavery, and the lasting effects of history through intimate, character-driven stories.

In 1993, Morrison became the first Black woman to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature. Beloved had won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1988. Morrison died on August 5, 2019, at the age of 88.

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.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *