Jeanette Winterson books

Anthologies

Canongate’s The Myths Reading Order

Collections

Forward Books of Poetry Reading Order

Hogarth Shakespeare Reading Order

Non-Fiction

Picture Reading Order

Short Stories/Novellas

Standalone Novels

Tanglewreck Reading Order

Vintage Minis Reading Order

Jeanette Winterson is a British novelist born in Manchester in 1959 and raised in Accrington, Lancashire. She studied at St Catherine’s College, Oxford, and published her first novel, Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, in 1985. That semi-autobiographical story of a young woman growing up in a Pentecostal household won the Whitbread Award for Best First Novel and was later adapted into a BBC television series.

Winterson followed her debut with a string of novels that explore identity, desire, and the nature of storytelling. The Passion (1987), Sexing the Cherry (1989), and Written on the Body (1992) established her reputation for lyrical prose and unconventional narrative structures. Later novels include Lighthousekeeping (2004), The Stone Gods (2007), and Frankissstein (2019), which reimagines the story of Mary Shelley. She has also written children’s books, including Tanglewreck and The Battle of the Sun, as well as picture books and non-fiction works on art and technology.

Beyond her own novels, Winterson has contributed to several multi-author projects. She wrote Weight (2005) for Canongate’s Myths series, retelling the Greek myth of Atlas, and The Gap of Time (2015) for the Hogarth Shakespeare series, a modern version of The Winter’s Tale. She received the CBE in 2018 for services to literature.