Author Guide · Literary Fiction
Books Written by
In 1976 Saul Bellow won the Pulitzer Prize in May and the Nobel Prize in Literature in October, the first for Humboldt’s Gift, the second “for the human understanding and subtle analysis of contemporary culture that are combined in his work”. By then he had already won the National Book Award three times, the first writer to do so. He was born in Lachine, Quebec, in 1915, grew up in Chicago speaking Yiddish at home, and made the city the setting of much of his fiction, alongside New York. His novels follow restless, talkative men, often intellectuals, trying to think their way through ordinary trouble: divorce, money, ageing, death. This guide covers his eleven key books, in order, and where to begin.
By Lisanne Swart · 11 key books · 1944–2000 · Updated October 2026
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Quick answer
Saul Bellow published fourteen novels and novellas between 1944 and 2000. His best-known are The Adventures of Augie March (1953), Herzog (1964) and Humboldt’s Gift (1975), which won the Pulitzer Prize. Start with Seize the Day (1956), a short novel about one bad day in New York; it shows his voice and his themes in a little over a hundred pages.
Where to Start with Saul Bellow
If you want a short way in
→ Seize the Day (1956) — one day in the life of a failing salesman.
If you want the book that made his name
→ The Adventures of Augie March (1953) — his big, loose Chicago novel.
If you want his most celebrated novel
→ Herzog (1964) — a professor writing letters he never sends.
If you want the Pulitzer winner
→ Humboldt’s Gift (1975) — a comic novel about a poet’s failure and a writer’s success.
11 Saul Bellow Books, in Order
Dangling Man
Bellow’s first novel is the journal of Joseph, a young man in wartime Chicago who has given up his job to wait for his army call-up, which keeps being delayed. With nothing to do, he grows irritable and isolated. It is short and tightly controlled, unlike the books that followed.
The Victim
Asa Leventhal, a Jewish editor in a hot New York summer, is pursued by Kirby Allbee, an acquaintance who blames him for the loss of his job and whose resentment carries an antisemitic edge. The novel turns on the question of what one person owes another.
The Adventures of Augie March
A long, loose, first-person novel about a boy growing up poor in Chicago during the Depression and drifting from job to job, mentor to mentor and woman to woman, refusing to be fixed by anyone else’s plan for him. Its opening paragraph is one of the most quoted in American fiction. It won the National Book Award in 1954 and made Bellow’s name.
Seize the Day
A single day in the life of Tommy Wilhelm, a failed salesman in his forties living in a hotel on the Upper West Side, separated from his wife, scorned by his wealthy father and about to lose his last money on the commodities market on the advice of the dubious Dr. Tamkin. It was filmed in 1986 with Robin Williams as Wilhelm.
Henderson the Rain King
Eugene Henderson, a huge, troubled American millionaire whose inner voice keeps repeating “I want, I want”, travels to Africa and is made rain king by an African tribe whose ruler becomes his friend. It is Bellow’s most fantastical book, a comic quest novel.
Herzog
Moses Herzog, a scholar whose second wife has left him for his close friend, works through his breakdown by writing letters he never sends: to friends, to the dead, to Nietzsche and Heidegger, to God. It won the National Book Award in 1965.
Mr. Sammler’s Planet
Artur Sammler, a Polish-born Jewish intellectual in his seventies who survived the Holocaust with one eye, watches the New York of the late 1960s with dismay. The novel moves between his memories and a city he finds disordered. It won the National Book Award in 1971, his third.
Humboldt’s Gift
Charlie Citrine, a successful Chicago writer, looks back on his friendship with his old mentor, the poet Von Humboldt Fleisher, who died broke and forgotten, while a would-be gangster, Rinaldo Cantabile, drags him into the city’s underworld. Humboldt is partly based on Bellow’s friend, the poet Delmore Schwartz. It won the Pulitzer Prize in 1976.
The Dean’s December
Albert Corde, a Chicago college dean, spends a winter in communist Bucharest, where his wife’s mother is dying, while thinking back over a murder case in Chicago that has made him a public figure. It sets the two cities side by side, one under state control and one in decay.
More Die of Heartbreak
Kenneth Trachtenberg narrates the misadventures of his uncle Benn Crader, a botanist of international standing who is helpless with women and is married into a scheming, wealthy family. It is a late comedy about intelligence and its limits.
Ravelstein
His last novel, published when he was 85. The narrator, called Chick, is asked by his dying friend Abe Ravelstein, a famous professor, to write a memoir of him. Ravelstein is based on Allan Bloom, Bellow’s colleague at the University of Chicago, and the book’s frank account of his homosexuality and death from AIDS caused controversy.
In What Order to Read Saul Bellow
None of Bellow’s novels continue from one another, so you can read them in any order. Publication order shows a clear shift: the first two books are short and formal, Augie March breaks out into the loose, talkative voice he became known for, and the later books turn more and more to old men looking back.
If you are unsure about him, start short with Seize the Day, then try Herzog or Humboldt’s Gift. Augie March is his most famous book but also one of his longest and loosest; it is easier once you know the voice.
A reading path
1. Seize the Day (1956)
2. Herzog (1964)
3. Humboldt’s Gift (1975)
4. The Adventures of Augie March (1953)
5. Ravelstein (2000)
Everything Else Saul Bellow Published
Beyond the 11 key books: 12 more, grouped by kind.
Open a group with the + to see every book in it.
Novellas
3
3 books · 1989–1997
- 1989A Thefta novella
- 1989The Bellarosa Connectiona novella
- 1997The Actuala novella
Short story collections
4
4 books · 1968–2001
- 1968Mosby’s Memoirs and Other Storiesstories
- 1984Him with His Foot in His Mouth and Other Storiesstories
- 1991Something to Remember Me Bythree tales
- 2001Collected Storiesthe collected short fiction
Plays, nonfiction and letters
5
5 books · 1965–2015
- 1965The Last Analysisa play
- 1976To Jerusalem and Backa memoir of a stay in Israel
- 1994It All Adds Upessays
- 2010Saul Bellow: Lettersedited by Benjamin Taylor
- 2015There Is Simply Too Much to Think Aboutcollected nonfiction
The years · 1915–2005
Quick facts about Saul Bellow
- Known for
- Comic, talkative novels of ideas about restless urban intellectuals, mostly in Chicago and New York, which made him the first writer to win the National Book Award three times.
- 1915
- Born in Lachine, Quebec
- 1964
- Herzog
- 1976
- Pulitzer Prize and Nobel Prize
- 2000
- Ravelstein
- 2005
- Dies in Brookline, Massachusetts
- Born
- 10 June 1915, Lachine, Quebec; raised in Chicago
- Died
- 5 April 2005, Brookline, Massachusetts, aged 89
- Education
- Northwestern University, BA in anthropology and sociology, 1937
- Taught
- Bard, Princeton, Minnesota and the Committee on Social Thought, University of Chicago
- Prizes
- National Book Award 1954, 1965 and 1971; Pulitzer Prize 1976
- Nobel
- Nobel Prize in Literature, 1976
- Married
- Five times; his last wife was Janis Freedman
The red mark is 1953: The Adventures of Augie March, the novel that made his name and won his first National Book Award.
How Saul Bellow Writes: A Mind Talking
Bellow’s novels are driven less by plot than by a voice. His central characters, from Augie March to Moses Herzog and Charlie Citrine, talk, argue, remember and theorise; they quote philosophers and street hustlers in the same paragraph. In Herzog the device is literal: a man writing letters he never posts.
He mixes high and low on purpose. Long passages of reflection on history, religion and modern culture sit next to slapstick, gangsters, alimony and real-estate deals, and the style swings from formal English to Yiddish-inflected street talk. That mixture is what the Nobel committee called his “subtle analysis of contemporary culture”.
Many characters are drawn from life: Delmore Schwartz in Humboldt’s Gift, Allan Bloom in Ravelstein, and versions of Bellow’s own wives, friends and family elsewhere. That gave his fiction its density, and also caused offence among the people who recognised themselves.
Frequently asked questions about Saul Bellow’s books
How many books has Saul Bellow written?
Fourteen novels and novellas, from Dangling Man (1944) to Ravelstein (2000), plus four story collections, a play, a memoir, essays and a volume of letters. This page covers eleven key books in detail; the three later novellas and the rest are listed below the main list.
What are Saul Bellow’s books in order?
Dangling Man (1944), The Victim (1947), The Adventures of Augie March (1953), Seize the Day (1956), Henderson the Rain King (1959), Herzog (1964), Mr. Sammler’s Planet (1970), Humboldt’s Gift (1975), The Dean’s December (1982), More Die of Heartbreak (1987) and Ravelstein (2000). The novellas A Theft and The Bellarosa Connection (both 1989) and The Actual (1997) come between the last two.
Where should I start with Saul Bellow?
Seize the Day (1956). It is short, it takes place in a single day, and it has his main concerns: money, fathers and sons, and a man failing in plain sight. After that, Herzog or Humboldt’s Gift.
What is Saul Bellow’s most famous book?
The Adventures of Augie March (1953) and Herzog (1964) are the most famous. Humboldt’s Gift (1975) won the Pulitzer Prize.
Which Saul Bellow books won the National Book Award?
Three: The Adventures of Augie March (1954 award), Herzog (1965) and Mr. Sammler’s Planet (1971). He was the first writer to win the National Book Award three times.
When did Saul Bellow win the Nobel Prize?
In 1976, the same year he won the Pulitzer Prize for Humboldt’s Gift. The Swedish Academy cited “the human understanding and subtle analysis of contemporary culture that are combined in his work”.
Is Saul Bellow still alive?
No. He died on 5 April 2005 in Brookline, Massachusetts, at the age of 89. He had been born in Lachine, Quebec, on 10 June 1915.
Have any Saul Bellow books been made into films?
Few. Seize the Day was filmed in 1986 with Robin Williams as Tommy Wilhelm. His other novels have not had major screen adaptations.
Who is Ravelstein based on?
On Allan Bloom, the philosopher and author of The Closing of the American Mind, who taught with Bellow on the Committee on Social Thought at the University of Chicago. The novel’s portrayal of his homosexuality and death from AIDS drew criticism; Bellow said Bloom had urged him to tell the full story.
What was the “Tolstoy of the Zulus” controversy?
According to the critic Alfred Kazin, Bellow once asked, “Who is the Tolstoy of the Zulus? The Proust of the Papuans? I’d be glad to read him.” The remark was widely criticised as dismissive of non-Western cultures. Bellow said the row was “entirely journalistic in origin” and defended himself against what he saw as political correctness.
Footnotes
- Saul Bellow — Wikipedia
- Saul Bellow — Facts, NobelPrize.org
- Saul Bellow — Biographical, NobelPrize.org
- Humboldt’s Gift — Wikipedia
- Ravelstein — Wikipedia
- Saul Bellow: An Appreciation — NPR, 2005
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.
“I am an American, Chicago born — Chicago, that somber city — and go at things as I have taught myself, free-style, and will make the record in my own way”
— Saul Bellow, The Adventures of Augie March (1953), the opening line
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