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On 21 September 1917 the French military arrested two young American ambulance volunteers on suspicion of espionage. One of them, Edward Estlin Cummings, a 22-year-old Harvard graduate from Cambridge, Massachusetts, spent the rest of that autumn in a detention camp at La Ferté-Macé in Normandy, and turned it into his first book, The Enormous Room (1922). A year later came his first collection of poems. Over the next four decades he wrote about 2,900 poems, broke words apart on the page, put punctuation where nobody expected it, and still wrote sonnets and rhymed love poems. He also painted all his life. This guide covers his 13 key books, in order, and where to begin.
By Lisanne Swart · 13 key books · 1922–1963 · Updated October 2026
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Quick answer
E.E. Cummings published ten collections of new poems in his lifetime, from Tulips and Chimneys (1923) to 95 Poems (1958), plus 73 Poems (1963) after his death. His best-known prose book is The Enormous Room (1922), about his internment in France in 1917. Start with is 5 (1926), a short collection that includes “since feeling is first”, then read the debut to see where his style began.
Where to Start with E.E. Cummings
If you want a first taste of the poems
→ is 5 (1926) — short, and home to “since feeling is first”.
If you want the debut that set his style
→ Tulips and Chimneys (1923) — the 1923 collection with “Buffalo Bill ’s”.
If you want prose rather than poetry
→ The Enormous Room (1922) — his account of a French detention camp in 1917.
If you want to hear him explain himself
→ i (1953) — his Harvard lectures of 1952–53.
13 E.E. Cummings Books, in Order
The Enormous Room
Cummings’s account of his detention in 1917 at La Ferté-Macé in Normandy, where the French held him and his friend William Slater Brown (“B.” in the book) on suspicion of espionage from September until his release in December. The title is the room he slept in with about thirty other prisoners. Boni and Liveright published it; F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote that of all the work by young men since 1920, this one book survived.
Tulips and Chimneys
His first collection, published by Thomas Seltzer, who cut the manuscript from 152 poems to 86 and changed the ampersand Cummings wanted in the title to “and”. It includes “Buffalo Bill ’s” and “All in green went my love riding”. Most of the poems that were left out appeared two years later in XLI Poems and the privately printed &.
is 5
His fourth collection, published by Boni and Liveright in 1926, a year after he received the Dial Award “for distinguished service to American letters”. It contains “since feeling is first”, the love poem that ends “for life’s not a paragraph // And death i think is no parenthesis”.
Him
A play in three acts, published in 1927 and staged at the Provincetown Playhouse in New York in 1928. His other dramatic works include Santa Claus: A Morality (1946).
ViVa
A collection published by Liveright in 1931, the same year as CIOPW, a book reproducing his drawings and paintings, and his first major exhibition of paintings.
EIMI
A long, diary-like account of his trip to the Soviet Union from 10 May to 14 June 1931. The title is Greek for “I am”. He received his first Guggenheim Fellowship the same year.
No Thanks
After fourteen publishers turned it down, Cummings published this collection himself in 1935 with his mother’s help, and dedicated it to the fourteen houses that had rejected it. Liveright reissued it in 1998.
50 Poems
Published by Duell, Sloan and Pearce in 1940, two years after his first Collected Poems. The year 1940 is also the first publication of “anyone lived in a pretty how town”, one of his most anthologised poems.
1 x 1
A collection published by Henry Holt in 1944, the year of a one-man show of his paintings at the American-British Art Center. In 1945 he received the Shelley Memorial Award.
XAIPE
Seventy-one poems published by Oxford University Press; the title is Greek for “rejoice” or “greetings”. In 1950 he also received the Harriet Monroe Prize from Poetry and a fellowship of the Academy of American Poets. The book caused outrage because some poems use ethnic slurs, which Cummings refused to cut.
i
The six Charles Eliot Norton lectures he gave at Harvard in 1952–53 as Norton Professor, published under this title in 1953.
95 Poems
The last collection published in his lifetime, by Harcourt, Brace, in 1958, the year he received the Bollingen Prize in Poetry. Before it, Poems 1923–1954, his first comprehensive collection since 1938, had received a special citation from the National Book Awards.
73 Poems
His last new poems, published by Harcourt, Brace & World after his death on 3 September 1962, the day after he suffered a stroke at Joy Farm, his summer home in New Hampshire.
In What Order to Read E.E. Cummings
The poetry books do not continue from one to the next, so the order matters less than for a novelist. Most readers meet Cummings through single poems, and many start with a selected or complete edition rather than with any one collection.
Reading the collections in publication order does show how the style hardened: the early books still have conventional sonnets and long lyrics alongside the experiments, while the later ones are more consistently his own idiom. Read The Enormous Room whenever you like; it stands on its own.
A reading path
1. is 5 (1926)
2. Tulips and Chimneys (1923)
3. 50 Poems (1940)
4. The Enormous Room (1922)
5. 95 Poems (1958)
Everything Else E.E. Cummings Published
Beyond the 13 key books: 11 more, grouped by kind.
Open a group with the + to see every book in it.
Early and collected poetry
6
6 books · 1917–1960
- 1917Eight Harvard Poetsan anthology; his first poems in a book
- 1925XLI Poems41 poems cut from Tulips and Chimneys
- 1925&privately printed; the rest of the cut poems plus new ones
- 1938Collected Poemshis first collected edition, with new poems
- 1954Poems 1923–1954special citation, National Book Awards
- 1960Selected Poems 1923–1958a selection from all his books
Art, plays and prose
3
3 books · 1931–1965
- 1931CIOPWhis drawings and paintings
- 1946Santa Claus: A Moralitya play
- 1965Fairy Talesshort stories, published after his death
Posthumous editions
2
2 books · 1983–1991
- 1983Etcetera: The Unpublished Poemsedited by George James Firmage and Richard S. Kennedy
- 1991Complete Poems 1904–1962edited by George James Firmage
The years · 1894–1962
Quick facts about E.E. Cummings
- Known for
- E.E. Cummings is known for poems that break apart words, punctuation and capital letters to slow the reader down, used mostly for love, spring and satire.
- 1894
- Born in Cambridge, Massachusetts
- 1917
- Detained in France as a suspected spy
- 1952
- Norton lectures at Harvard
- 1962
- Dies in New Hampshire, aged 67
- Born
- 14 October 1894, Cambridge, Massachusetts
- Died
- 3 September 1962, North Conway, New Hampshire, after a stroke
- Education
- Harvard, BA 1915 and MA 1916
- War
- Volunteer ambulance driver in France, 1917; detained at La Ferté-Macé
- Honours
- Dial Award (1925), two Guggenheim Fellowships, Bollingen Prize (1958)
- Partner
- Marion Morehouse, who lived with him as his wife from the 1930s until his death
- Also
- A painter: more than 1,600 oils and watercolours and over 9,000 drawings
The red mark is 1923: Tulips and Chimneys, the first collection of his poems.
How E.E. Cummings Writes: Breaking the Line Open
Cummings treats the page as a visual space. He splits words across lines, runs them together without spaces, sets punctuation where it changes the rhythm, and uses capital letters, or their absence, for emphasis. The idea is to make a reader slow down and see a word again; even a grasshopper is spelt out of order as it jumps.
Underneath, much of the work is traditional. His first book already has sequences of sonnets (“Sonnets—Realities”) next to the experiments, and his subjects are old ones: love, spring, the seasons, childhood, and satire of conformity, war and salesmanship. Grammar is often bent in a consistent way, with words like “how” or “anyone” used as nouns, so that the reader has to work out the sense.
He was a painter as well as a poet, with more than thirty exhibitions in his lifetime, and the habit shows in how carefully he placed each poem on the page. Critics in his own day complained that his style hardly developed after the 1920s; others, such as Randall Jarrell, called him one of the most individual poets who ever lived.
Listen
E.E. Cummings Reads His Poems (1959)
Archival recordings of E.E. Cummings made in 1959 at the YMHA Poetry Center in New York, with an introduction to his life and work, from the Poetry Foundation’s Essential American Poets series. From the archive of the Poetry Foundation.
Frequently asked questions about E.E. Cummings’s books
How many books has E.E. Cummings written?
He published ten collections of new poems in his lifetime, from Tulips and Chimneys (1923) to 95 Poems (1958), with 73 Poems (1963) after his death. Add The Enormous Room, EIMI, i: six nonlectures, his plays, a book of his art and several collected editions, and there are more than twenty books. This page covers the 13 key ones.
What are E.E. Cummings’s books in order?
The Enormous Room (1922), Tulips and Chimneys (1923), is 5 (1926), Him (1927), ViVa (1931), EIMI (1933), No Thanks (1935), 50 Poems (1940), 1 x 1 (1944), XAIPE (1950), i: six nonlectures (1953), 95 Poems (1958) and 73 Poems (1963). XLI Poems and & both appeared in 1925.
Where should I start with E.E. Cummings?
With is 5 (1926), a short collection that includes “since feeling is first”. A selected or complete edition is also a good way in, since most readers know him through single poems rather than whole books.
What is E.E. Cummings’s most famous book?
His best-known single book is The Enormous Room (1922), the account of his detention in France in 1917. As a poet he is known for individual poems spread across his collections, such as “Buffalo Bill ’s” from Tulips and Chimneys and “since feeling is first” from is 5.
Is it e e cummings or E. E. Cummings?
Both are used. Publishers and readers often wrote his name in lower case, and the critic Harry T. Moore claimed he had changed it legally, which his widow denied. Cummings used both forms but mostly signed with capitals, and the Chicago Manual of Style says the name can be capitalised.
Is The Enormous Room a true story?
Yes, it is based on his own experience. In 1917 he and his friend William Slater Brown, both volunteer ambulance drivers, were arrested by the French on suspicion of espionage and held at La Ferté-Macé until December. His father suggested he write it up.
Why are some of Cummings’s poems controversial?
Some poems in XAIPE (1950) use ethnic slurs, including an antisemitic one, and caused outrage. Friends and his editor urged him to remove them; he kept them, arguing they criticised prejudice, and William Carlos Williams defended him. He was also a vocal supporter of Senator Joseph McCarthy in the 1950s.
What prizes did E.E. Cummings win?
The Dial Award (1925), Guggenheim Fellowships (1933 and 1951), the Shelley Memorial Award (1945), the Harriet Monroe Prize (1950), a special citation from the National Book Awards for Poems 1923–1954, and the Bollingen Prize in Poetry (1958).
Have Cummings’s poems been set to music?
Many times. Composers including Pierre Boulez, Luciano Berio, Morton Feldman and Eric Whitacre have set his poems, and Björk used lines from them on Vespertine (2001) and Medúlla (2004).
When did E.E. Cummings die?
On 3 September 1962, at 67, in hospital in North Conway, New Hampshire, the day after a stroke at Joy Farm, his summer home. He is buried at Forest Hills Cemetery in Boston.
Footnotes
- E. E. Cummings — Wikipedia
- E. E. Cummings — Academy of American Poets
- Chronology, Edward Estlin Cummings — SPRING / Grand Valley State University
- The Enormous Room — Wikipedia
- Tulips and Chimneys — Wikipedia
- E. E. Cummings — Representative Poetry Online, University of Toronto
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.
“since feeling is first”
— E.E. Cummings, “since feeling is first”, is 5 (1926)
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