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Young Adult books published before 1960

Often librarians are asked for adult books published before 1950 or 1960 that Young Adults might enjoy. The following is a short list of some suggestions but there are others, just ask a librarian.

Books published before 1950

Austen, Jane

Popular for over one hundred years, these books depict a time long gone but still relevant today, as proved by their numerous film and television adaptations.

Chandler, Raymond

Los Angeles in the 1940s and 50s, when the streets were really mean. Chandler is one of the best writers of American detective fiction and Sam Spade, his hard-bitten hero, is one of its most memorable Private Eyes.

Daly, Maureen

Seventeenth summer (1942)
In the summer before she goes away to college a young woman has her first kiss, her first love and her first parting.

Doyle, Arthur Conan

The Sherlock Holmes mysteries (1890s)
Sherlock Holmes has made many trips to stage and screen since he first appeared in 1888. He is one of the most famous fictional detectives of all time, and the stories featuring his amazing skills are still intriguing.

Gibbons, Stella

Cold comfort farm (1932)
A satire on rural romances, this is the amusing story of Flora, forced to venture into the country to stay with distant relatives. She finds them all deeply in need of a make-over and she is just the girl for the job.

Godden, Rumer

The greengage summer (1958)
A young girl's awakening in the heat of a summer spent in the South of France.

Black Sheep coverHeyer, Georgette

Well-written historical romances mostly set in the Regency period, from 1811 to 1820, notable for their attention to detail and their use of language.

Le Fanu, Joseph Sheridan

Victorian ghost stories, often featuring the connection between the supernatural and the ghosts and demons that inhabit our minds.

London, Jack

Adventure stories based on London's experiences of panning for gold in Alaska.

Mitford, Nancy

Aristocratic young English women search for love, mostly in the wrong places, while battling their mad parents and delinquent younger siblings.

Orwell, George

Animal farm (1945)
A fable of revolution among animals, based on events in the Russian revolution and suggesting that all power corrupts.

Poe, Edgar Allan

A pioneer of detective, horror and science fiction, he is most famous for his short stories and his poetry.

Shelley, Mary

coverFrankenstein (1818)
One of the most famous horror stories in the English language — the story of a scientist who gives life to a dead body, discovering the secret of life itself.

Smith, Dodie

I capture the castle (1948)
Centering on a teenage girl whose poor family has moved into a rented castle, the story tells of her growth as she learns about love and helps her father rediscover his creativity as a writer.

Steinbeck, John

The red pony (1937)
A series of four short stories dealing with Jody, a young boy growing up on his father's ranch in California.

The pearl (1947)
When his baby is stung by a scorpion pearl-fisher Kino sets out to find a pearl to pay for the doctor. He finds a huge pearl but his troubles are far from over.

Stevenson, Robert Louis

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1886)
A tale of split personality that came to Stevenson in a dream, possibly while he was under the influence of laudanum, focussing on the split between good and evil.

CoverStoker, Bram

Dracula (1897)
The ultimate vampire novel - first published in 1897, translated into 44 languages and adapted countless times for film.

Twain, Mark

The adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884)
When Huck escapes from his abusive father and floats away down the Mississippi River, taking an escaped slave with him, he falls into many adventures on the way.

The adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876)
Not generally acknowledged as the masterpiece that The adventures of Huckleberry Finn is, this is still worth reading for its humour and its vivid picture of childhood.

Webster, Jean

Daddy long-legs (1912)
A romantic novel about a young woman from an orphanage.

Williams, Eric

The wooden horse (1949)
The story of the author's clever escape from Stalag-Luft III, a German prison camp. Every day prisoners were allowed to exercise by vaulting over a hollow wooden horse, which concealed a man digging a tunnel under the prison camp wall.

Books published before 1960

Fleming, Ian

Austen Powers had nothing on James Bond, special agent for British intelligence. He is a cynical, cold tough guy with the latest gadgets, a luxurious lifestyle and a fatal attraction for the ladies (usually fatal to them that is). These are some of the most successful spy books ever.

The James Bond books:

coverGolding, William

Lord of the flies (1958)
A group of English public schoolboys find themselves alone on a desert island and become savages, eventually turning on each other.

Hemingway, Ernest

The old man and the sea (1952)
Winner of the 1954 Pulitzer Prize, this is the story of an old fisherman who chases a marlin for three days, with the theme that a man can be destroyed but not defeated.

White, T. H.

The once and future king (1958)
A wonderful depiction of the legend of King Arthur, from his childhood through the formation of the Round Table, the search for the Holy Grail and the ultimate disaster that befell him.

Wodehouse, P. G.

Best known for his stories about Bertie Wooster and his valet Jeeves, Wodehouse is considered a master of English humour and a big influence on many later writers.

Wyndham, John

Day of the Triffids (1951)
A double disaster befalls England; first triffids, plants raised for their oil but also mobile, carnivorous and lethal to people, get loose and proliferate. Then most people living in the world lose their sight simultaneously.
Kraken wakes (1953)
Submerged alien visitors are possibly evil but possibly not. An effective science fiction/horror story.
The chrysalids (1955)
A post-disaster story of genetic mutation, following a young telepathic mutant through various changes as he ages from 10 to 20.
The Midwich cuckoos (1957)
Aliens impregnate all 62 women of child-bearing age in an English village. When the babies are born they begin to control the humans, turning very nasty when threatened.

For older teen readers

CoverFrame, Janet

Owls do cry (1960)
Hailed as the first important novel to come out of New Zealand this autobiographical story probes the memory of its mentally disturbed heroine.

Lee, Harper

To kill a mockingbird (1960)
Covering three years of a child's life in a small Southern town in the Depression, years in which unexpected events change things for ever.

Jack Kerouac

On the road (1957)
The journeys of a group of young travellers criss-crossing America, searching for something to replace their parents' dreams.

McCullers, Carson

The heart is a lonely hunter (1940)
A deaf mute becomes the confidante to a number of disturbed individuals, one of them a lonely young girl.

The member of the wedding (1946)
A young girl in a small southern town feels completely isolated from other people, finally coming to the realisation that to be human is to be alone.

Salinger, J. D.

The catcher in the rye (1951)
A depressed young man plays truant from school and goes to New York for the weekend, but the 'phoneys' he despises pop up everywhere.

Waterhouse, Keith

Billy Liar (1960)
While working in an undertaker's a young man fantasises about living a life of glamour and adventure.

Wright, Richard

Native son (1940)
The story of an African-American man growing up in the slums of Chicago who accidentally kills a rich white woman.