Author Guide · Literary Fiction
Books Written by
By the age of eighteen, Edward P. Jones had lived at eighteen different addresses in Washington, D.C., with his mother, who could not read or write, and his sister. He became the first in his family to go to college, then spent about two decades at a tax magazine in Arlington, Virginia. In January 2002 the magazine let him go; he had already started writing the novel he had carried in his head for some ten years. The Known World, about a Black former slave who comes to own slaves himself, won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2004. He has published only three books, all of them set in the places he knew or imagined in full. This guide covers his 3 key books, in order, and where to begin.
By Lisanne Swart · 3 key books · 1992–2006 · Updated October 2026
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Quick answer
Edward P. Jones has published three books: the story collections Lost in the City (1992) and All Aunt Hagar’s Children (2006), and one novel, The Known World (2003), which won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. Start with Lost in the City; its fourteen Washington stories are the ground the second collection returns to, and the shortest way into how he builds a world.
Where to Start with Edward P. Jones
If you want his defining book
→ The Known World (2003) — the Pulitzer-winning novel of slavery in antebellum Virginia.
If you want short stories
→ Lost in the City (1992) — fourteen stories of Black Washington from the 1950s on.
If you want to go back to the same streets
→ All Aunt Hagar’s Children (2006) — fourteen more stories, with minor characters from the first collection.
3 Edward P. Jones Books, in Order
Lost in the City
Fourteen stories set in the African American neighbourhoods of Washington, D.C., from roughly the 1950s onward, loosely patterned on James Joyce’s Dubliners. A girl keeps pigeons, a grocer accidentally kills a young girl, and in “Marie” an elderly woman fights the Social Security bureaucracy. It was a finalist for the 1992 National Book Award.
The Known World
Henry Townsend, a Black farmer, bootmaker and former slave in the fictional Manchester County, Virginia, comes to own slaves himself under the guidance of the powerful white planter William Robbins. After Henry’s death his widow, Caldonia, struggles to hold the plantation together as the order he built starts to come apart. It also won the National Book Critics Circle Award and the 2005 International Dublin Literary Award, was a National Book Award finalist, and in 2024 The New York Times ranked it fourth among the 100 best books of the 21st century.
All Aunt Hagar’s Children
Fourteen stories, several first published in The New Yorker, in which Jones brings back minor characters from Lost in the City. They follow Black Southerners who moved north to Washington expecting the values of the South to carry them, and find them fading within two generations. It was a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award.
In What Order to Read Edward P. Jones
With only three books, reading in publication order is easy and makes sense. The two story collections belong together: All Aunt Hagar’s Children picks up minor characters from Lost in the City, so reading the first collection before the second lets you recognise the names and streets.
The Known World stands apart in time and place, in Virginia before the Civil War, and can be read first or last. If you want the novel’s scale first, start there; if you want to get used to his patient, far-ranging narrator in shorter form, start with the stories.
A reading path
1. Lost in the City (1992)
2. The Known World (2003)
3. All Aunt Hagar’s Children (2006)
The years · 1950–2026
Quick facts about Edward P. Jones
- Known for
- Edward P. Jones is known for The Known World, his Pulitzer-winning novel about a Black slaveholder in antebellum Virginia, and for his stories of ordinary Black lives in Washington, D.C.
- 1950
- Born in Washington, D.C.
- 2003
- The Known World
- 2010
- Joins the faculty of George Washington University
- 2026
- The Paris Review’s Hadada Award
- Born
- 5 October 1950, Washington, D.C.
- Education
- College of the Holy Cross; MFA, University of Virginia
- Worked
- About two decades at Tax Notes, a tax trade magazine, until January 2002
- Teaches
- Professor of English at George Washington University, since 2010
- Prizes
- Pulitzer Prize for Fiction (2004); MacArthur Fellowship (2004); PEN/Hemingway Award; PEN/Malamud Award
- Honours
- Member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters; The Paris Review’s Hadada Award (2026)
The red mark is 2003: The Known World, the novel that won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.
How Edward P. Jones Writes: A Whole World in His Head
Jones works out his fiction in his head long before he types it. He first read about Black slave owners in a footnote in college and carried The Known World for about ten years before writing it down, then began writing it over Christmas 2001, setting himself about five pages a day, and kept going after losing his job that January. He bought some fifty books on slavery and read few of them: “Making it up is much easier for me.” Manchester County, where the novel is set, is invented.
His narrators range freely through time. A sentence about a character can jump decades ahead to say how that person will die, or what will become of a house, so that the reader sees a whole community at once rather than one plot line. He writes mainly in the third person and gives minor figures the same attention as the main ones.
The stories work on a smaller map. Both collections are set in Washington, D.C., among working people rather than the city’s politicians, and All Aunt Hagar’s Children reuses figures from Lost in the City, so the two books read as one connected place. Jones told The Paris Review that all the places he writes about are real.
Frequently asked questions about Edward P. Jones’s books
How many books has Edward P. Jones written?
Three: two collections of short stories, Lost in the City (1992) and All Aunt Hagar’s Children (2006), and one novel, The Known World (2003).
What are Edward P. Jones’s books in order?
Lost in the City (1992), The Known World (2003) and All Aunt Hagar’s Children (2006).
Where should I start with Edward P. Jones?
With Lost in the City, his first collection of fourteen Washington stories, which also prepares you for the characters who return in All Aunt Hagar’s Children. If you would rather begin with his best-known work, start with The Known World.
What is Edward P. Jones’s most famous book?
The Known World (2003). It won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2004, the National Book Critics Circle Award and the 2005 International Dublin Literary Award, and in 2024 The New York Times placed it fourth on its list of the 100 best books of the 21st century.
Is The Known World based on a true story?
Not directly. Free Black people did own slaves in the antebellum South, and Jones first read about it in a college footnote, but Henry Townsend and Manchester County, Virginia, are invented. Jones has said he read little of the research he bought: “Making it up is much easier for me.”
Are Lost in the City and All Aunt Hagar’s Children connected?
Yes. In All Aunt Hagar’s Children Jones brings back minor characters from Lost in the City. Both collections have fourteen stories and are set among Black families in Washington, D.C.
What prizes has Edward P. Jones won?
For Lost in the City, the PEN/Hemingway Award and a National Book Award shortlisting; for The Known World, the 2004 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, the National Book Critics Circle Award and the 2005 International Dublin Literary Award. He also received a MacArthur Fellowship in 2004, the PEN/Malamud Award and two Lannan Literary Awards.
Will Edward P. Jones write another novel?
He has published one novel and two story collections, and no new book since 2006. He teaches creative writing as a professor of English at George Washington University.
Is Edward P. Jones still alive?
Yes. He was born on 5 October 1950 in Washington, D.C. In 2025 The Paris Review named him the recipient of its 2026 Hadada Award for lifetime achievement.
Footnotes
- Edward P. Jones — Britannica
- Edward P. Jones — Lannan Foundation
- Edward P. Jones will receive our 2026 Hadada Award — The Paris Review
- The Worlds of Edward P. Jones — GW Magazine
- The Known World — Dublin Literary Award
- The Art of Fiction No. 222 — The Paris Review
Bibliography last verified 9 October 2026. Where sources give different first-publication years, this page uses the year in library catalogues or the publisher’s own record.
This list was not put together by a machine.
The notes are all mine,
and the books are all his.
Lisanne x
Written by Lisanne Swart, who has curated reading lists and author guides at lisanneswart.com since 2021.
See more on her personal bookshelf.
“Until I can read a story physically, with the eyes, it doesn’t seem to exist for me.”
— Edward P. Jones, The Paris Review, The Art of Fiction No. 222 (2013)
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