Author Guide · Psychology & Attachment Theory
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In the late 1930s John Bowlby, a young psychiatrist at the London Child Guidance Clinic, studied 44 children referred for stealing and noticed how many of them had been separated from their mothers for long periods early in life. That observation became the root of attachment theory. Born in London in 1907, the son of a royal surgeon, he wrote a report on homeless children for the World Health Organization in 1951 and spent the next three decades at the Tavistock Clinic building the case, in his Attachment and Loss trilogy, that a child’s bond with a caregiver is a biological need in its own right, not a by-product of being fed. This guide covers his nine key books, in order, and where to begin.
By Lisanne Swart · 9 key books · 1946–1990 · Updated October 2026
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Quick answer
John Bowlby is best known for the Attachment and Loss trilogy — Attachment (1969), Separation: Anxiety and Anger (1973) and Loss: Sadness and Depression (1980) — and for his 1951 WHO report Maternal Care and Mental Health. Start with A Secure Base (1988), a collection of his late lectures; read on for the trilogy and the criticism his early work drew.
Where to Start with John Bowlby
If you want an accessible overview
→ A Secure Base (1988) — his own late lectures on the theory and its use in therapy.
If you want the theory in full
→ Attachment (1969) — the first volume of the trilogy.
If you want to understand grief
→ Loss (1980) — mourning in children and adults.
If you want to see where it began
→ Maternal Care and Mental Health (1951) — the 1951 WHO report.
9 John Bowlby Books, in Order
Forty-Four Juvenile Thieves
A study of 44 children seen for stealing at the London Child Guidance Clinic, compared with a control group of children who did not steal. Bowlby identified a group he called “affectionless” and found that many of them had suffered prolonged separations from their mothers in early childhood. It first appeared as two papers in 1944 and as a book in 1946.
Maternal Care and Mental Health
Commissioned by the World Health Organization to look at homeless and orphaned children in post-war Europe, this report concluded that a young child needs “a warm, intimate, and continuous relationship” with a mother or permanent mother figure, and that its loss can damage mental health. It shaped policy on orphanages and children in hospital, and it drew lasting criticism for the quality of its evidence and for how it was used against working mothers.
Child Care and the Growth of Love
The WHO report abridged for general readers by Margery Fry and published as a Pelican paperback, which carried Bowlby’s argument well beyond the medical world. A second edition in 1965 added two chapters by his collaborator Mary Ainsworth reviewing the research since 1951.
Attachment
The founding statement of attachment theory. Drawing on ethology, including Konrad Lorenz on imprinting and Harry Harlow’s experiments with infant monkeys, as well as control-systems theory, Bowlby argues that an infant’s tie to its caregiver is an evolved behavioural system that keeps it close to protection. He published a revised edition in 1982.
Separation
The second volume looks at what happens when the bond is threatened: the protest, anxiety and anger young children show when separated from their attachment figure, building on the observations he and James Robertson made of children in hospitals and residential nurseries. It also sets out his idea that children build working models of how available their caregivers are.
The Making and Breaking of Affectional Bonds
A collection of his lectures and papers from the 1950s to the 1970s, published by Tavistock. It covers the same ground as the trilogy in shorter form, from the ethological basis of the theory to grief, self-reliance and the effects of separation on later relationships.
Loss
The final volume treats mourning as a natural response to the loss of an attachment figure, in adults and in children. Bowlby describes grief as moving through phases, from numbing and yearning to disorganisation and reorganisation, and looks at how disrupted mourning can lead to depression later in life.
A Secure Base
Lectures given in the 1980s, in which Bowlby explains attachment theory in plain terms and shows how it applies to psychotherapy and family life. The title is the idea at its centre: a child explores the world from the safety of a trusted figure and returns there when frightened. The British edition is subtitled Clinical Applications of Attachment Theory.
Charles Darwin
His last book, published in London a few months before his death and in the US in 1991 as Charles Darwin: A New Life. Bowlby makes Darwin’s lifelong illness the centre of the story, diagnosing hyperventilation syndrome and linking it to the death of Darwin’s mother when he was eight. Reviewers found the diagnosis less convincing than the portrait of Darwin’s family.
In What Order to Read John Bowlby
The trilogy is best read in order, since each volume builds on the one before: the bond, then its disruption, then its loss. Each is long and written for professionals, so many readers start instead with A Secure Base or The Making and Breaking of Affectional Bonds, where the same ideas come in lecture-length pieces.
The early books, Forty-Four Juvenile Thieves and the WHO report, are mainly of historical interest now, but they show where the theory came from and why it was controversial. Charles Darwin stands apart: a biography in which he applies his ideas about early loss to someone else’s life.
A reading path
1. A Secure Base (1988)
2. Attachment (1969)
3. Separation: Anxiety and Anger (1973)
4. Loss: Sadness and Depression (1980)
5. Maternal Care and Mental Health (1951)
Everything Else John Bowlby Published
Beyond the 9 key books: 2 more, grouped by kind.
Open a group with the + to see every book in it.
Early work and pamphlets
2
2 books · 1939–1958
- 1939Personal Aggressiveness and Warwith the economist Evan Durbin
- 1958Can I Leave My Baby?a pamphlet for parents published by the National Association for Mental Health
The years · 1907–1990
Quick facts about John Bowlby
- Known for
- Founding attachment theory: the idea that a child’s bond with a primary caregiver is a biological need that shapes emotional life from infancy to old age.
- 1907
- Born in London
- 1951
- WHO report on maternal care
- 1969
- Attachment
- 1990
- Dies on the Isle of Skye
- Born
- 26 February 1907, London; son of the surgeon Sir Anthony Bowlby
- Died
- 2 September 1990, Isle of Skye, Scotland
- Education
- Trinity College, Cambridge; University College Hospital, London
- Training
- Psychiatry at the Maudsley Hospital; qualified as a psychoanalyst in 1936
- Worked
- Tavistock Clinic, London, from 1946; WHO mental health consultant from 1950
- Honours
- CBE; James Spence Medal of the British Paediatric Association (1974)
- Married
- Ursula Longstaff, in 1938; four children
The red mark is 1969: Attachment, the first volume of the trilogy that set out his theory in full.
How John Bowlby Writes: Evidence From Outside the Consulting Room
Bowlby broke with the psychoanalysts who trained him by insisting that what actually happens to a child, such as a separation, a hospital stay or a death, matters more than the child’s fantasies. His books are built on observation: case histories from his clinic, the films James Robertson made of young children in hospital, among them A Two-Year-Old Goes to Hospital (1952), and later the studies of his colleague Mary Ainsworth, whose “Strange Situation” produced the secure, anxious and avoidant categories now used everywhere.
He also borrowed widely from outside psychiatry. The trilogy draws on ethology, evolutionary biology and systems theory to argue that attachment is an evolved behaviour, not a learned response to being fed. The result is thorough and heavily referenced, written for clinicians, and the three volumes run to well over a thousand pages.
His later lectures, collected in The Making and Breaking of Affectional Bonds and A Secure Base, are shorter and plainer, and closer to how he spoke to therapists and parents. For writers who continued his work on attachment, trauma and early relationships, see Authors like John Bowlby.
Frequently asked questions about John Bowlby’s books
How many books did John Bowlby write?
About a dozen. Nine are the key books on this page, from Forty-Four Juvenile Thieves (1946) to Charles Darwin (1990), including the three volumes of Attachment and Loss. The others are an early book on aggression written with Evan Durbin (1939) and a pamphlet for parents, Can I Leave My Baby? (1958).
What are John Bowlby’s books in order?
Forty-Four Juvenile Thieves (1946), Maternal Care and Mental Health (1951), Child Care and the Growth of Love (1953), Attachment (1969), Separation: Anxiety and Anger (1973), The Making and Breaking of Affectional Bonds (1979), Loss: Sadness and Depression (1980), A Secure Base (1988) and Charles Darwin (1990).
What is the best John Bowlby book to start with?
A Secure Base (1988). It is a short collection of lectures in which he explains his core ideas himself, far more accessible than the full trilogy.
What is John Bowlby’s most famous book?
Attachment (1969), the first volume of Attachment and Loss, is the founding text of attachment theory. His 1951 WHO report, Maternal Care and Mental Health, was the most influential in its own time.
What is attachment theory?
Bowlby’s theory that infants are biologically predisposed to form a bond with a primary caregiver, which keeps them close to protection, and that the quality of that early bond shapes emotional development and relationships throughout life.
What order should I read the Attachment and Loss trilogy in?
In publication order: Attachment (1969), Separation: Anxiety and Anger (1973) and Loss: Sadness and Depression (1980). The first volume was revised in 1982, and most current editions use that text.
Did Bowlby invent secure and avoidant attachment styles?
Not directly. The secure, anxious-ambivalent and avoidant categories come from the “Strange Situation” studies of his colleague Mary Ainsworth, which tested and extended his theory. Later researchers added a disorganised category and applied the idea to adult relationships.
Why was John Bowlby criticised?
Mainly over his 1951 maternal deprivation work. The psychiatrist Michael Rutter argued in 1981 that Bowlby had not distinguished between never forming an attachment and losing one, nor separated the effects of losing a mother figure from other deprivation in institutions. The report was also used politically to argue that mothers should not work or use day care. Earlier, many psychoanalysts rejected his focus on real events over inner fantasy.
Did John Bowlby write a biography of Charles Darwin?
Yes. Charles Darwin: A New Biography appeared in 1990, a few months before his death, and in the US in 1991 as Charles Darwin: A New Life. It links Darwin’s chronic illness to the loss of his mother at eight.
When did John Bowlby die?
On 2 September 1990, at his summer home on the Isle of Skye in Scotland, aged 83.
Footnotes
- John Bowlby — Wikipedia
- John Bowlby curriculum vitae — Society for Research in Child Development
- Poor Darwin — London Review of Books, 1990
- Dr Edward John Bowlby — Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health
- John Bowlby: attachment, life-span and old age (1986 interview) — Wellcome Collection
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.
“What is believed to be essential for mental health is that the infant and young child should experience a warm, intimate, and continuous relationship with his mother (or permanent mother substitute) in which both find satisfaction and enjoyment.”
— John Bowlby, Maternal Care and Mental Health (1951)
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