E.L. Doctorow books

Anthologies

E.L. Doctorow Non-Fiction Reading Order

E.L. Doctorow Short Story Collections Reading Order

E.L. Doctorow Standalone Novels Reading Order

Non-Fiction

Random House Reader’s Circle Reading Order

The William E. Massey Sr. Lectures Reading Order

E.L. Doctorow was one of the most celebrated American novelists of the twentieth century. Over a career spanning more than five decades, he developed a distinctive style that placed fictional characters inside real historical events, blurring the line between novel and history in ways that influenced an entire generation of writers. Ragtime, his 1975 breakthrough, reimagined turn-of-the-century America through the intersecting lives of immigrants, African Americans, and the wealthy elite.

Doctorow returned to this approach throughout his career. The Book of Daniel fictionalizes the Rosenberg espionage case. Billy Bathgate follows a teenager who joins the crew of gangster Dutch Schultz during the Depression. The March tracks Sherman’s devastating campaign through Georgia and the Carolinas during the Civil War. His prose was precise and often experimental, shifting between voices and time periods within a single novel.

He won the National Book Award, the PEN/Faulkner Award, the National Book Critics Circle Award (three times), and the Library of Congress Prize for American Fiction. He taught at New York University for decades and died in 2015.