Titles for Open Response Questions

Adapted from an original list by Norma J. Wilkerson.
further adapted by FWB from http://homepage.mac.com/mseffie/AP/APtitles.html

Listed below are the works referred to on the AP Literature exams since 1971 (specific years in parentheses). In most recent years, the open response question requires that the writer base the essay on a novel or play of established literary merit. You should note the following facts:

Some works that appear only before 1990, though well worth reading, are either too short (for example,“ My Last Duchess”) or are otherwise inappropriate (for example, The Federalist, a collection of essays) to use on the exam as it is now formulated.

Some works that appear more recently, though again, well worth reading, are not novels or plays (for instance, the epic poems), and so they would meet the requirements of most years’ questions.

Some more recently published works (usually appearing only once or twice after 1990) are of questionable literary merit.


A
Absalom, Absalom- William Faulkner (76, 00)
Adam Bede- George Eliot (06)
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn- Mark Twain (80, 82, 85, 91, 92, 94, 95, 96, 99, 05, 06, 07)
The Aeneid- Virgil (06)
Agnes of God- John Pielmeier (00)
The Age of Innocence- Edith Wharton (97, 02, 03)
Alias Grace- Margaret Atwood (00, 04)
All the King's Men- Robert Penn Warren (00, 02, 04, 07)
All My Sons- Arthur Miller (85, 90)
All the Pretty Horses- Cormac McCarthy (95, 96, 06, 07)
America is in the Heart- Carlos Bulosan (95)
An American Tragedy- Theodore Dreiser (81, 82, 95, 03)
The American- Henry James (05, 07)
Anna Karenina- Leo Tolstoy (80, 91, 99, 03, 04, 06)
Another Country- James Baldwin (95)
Antigone- Sophocles (79, 80, 90, 94, 99, 03, 05)
Antony and Cleopatra- William Shakespeare (80, 91)
The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz- Mordecai Richler (94)
Armies of the Night- Norman Mailer (76)
As I Lay Dying- William Faulkner (78, 89, 90, 94, 01, 04, 06, 07)
As You Like It- William Shakespeare (92 05. 06)
Atonement- Ian McEwan (07)
Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man- James Weldon Johnson (02, 05)
The Awakening- Kate Chopin (87, 88, 91, 92, 95, 97, 99, 02, 04, 07)

B
"The Bear"- William Faulkner (94, 06)
Beloved- Toni Morrison (90, 99, 01, 03, 05, 07)
A Bend in the River- V. S. Naipaul (03)
Benito Cereno- Herman Melville (89)
Billy Budd- Herman Melville (79, 81, 82, 83, 85, 99, 02, 04, 05, 07)
The Birthday Party- Harold Pinter (89, 97)
Black Boy- Richard Wright (06)
Bleak House- Charles Dickens (94, 00, 04)
Bless Me, Ultima- Rudolfo Anaya (94, 96, 97, 99, 04, 05, 06)
The Blind Assassin- Margaret Atwood (07)
The Bluest Eye- Toni Morrison (95)
Bone: A Novel- Fae M. Ng (03)
The Bonesetter's Daughter- Amy Tan (06, 07)
Brave New World- Aldous Huxley (89, 05)
Brighton Rock- Graham Greene (79)
The Brothers Karamazov- Fyodor Dostoevsky (90)

C
Candida- George Bernard Shaw (80)
Candide- Voltaire (80, 86, 87, 91, 95, 96, 04, 06)
The Canterbury Tales- Geoffrey Chaucer (06)
The Caretaker- Harold Pinter (85)
Catch-22- Joseph Heller (82, 85, 87, 89, 94, 01, 03, 04, 05, 07)
The Catcher in the Rye- J. D. Salinger (01)
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof- Tennessee Williams (00)
Cat's Eye- Margaret Atwood (94)
The Centaur- John Updike (81)
Ceremony- Leslie Marmon Silko (94, 96, 97, 99, 01, 03, 05, 06, 07)
The Cherry Orchard- Anton Chekhov (71, 77, 06, 07)
"Civil Disobedience"- Henry David Thoreau (76)
Cold Mountain- Charles Frazier (06)
The Color Purple- Alice Walker (92, 94, 95, 96, 97, 05)
Coming Through Slaughter- Michael Ondaatje (01)
Cry, The Beloved Country- Alan Paton (85, 87, 91, 95, 96, 07)
Crime and Punishment- Fyodor Dostoevsky (76, 79, 80, 82, 88, 96, 99, 00, 01, 02, 03, 04, 05)
"The Crisis"- Thomas Paine (76)
The Crucible- Arthur Miller (71, 83, 86, 89, 04, 05)

D
Daisy Miller- Henry James (97, 03)
Dancing at Lughnasa- Brian Friel (01)
David Copperfield- Charles Dickens (78, 83, 06)
"The Dead"- James Joyce (97)
The Death of Ivan Ilyich- Leo Tolstoy (86)
Death of a Salesman- Arthur Miller (86, 88, 94, 03, 04, 05, 07)
Delta Wedding- Eudora Welty (97)
Desire Under the Elms- Eugene O'Neill (81)
Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant- Anne Tyler (97)
The Divine Comedy- Dante Alighieri (06)
The Diviners- Margaret Laurence (95)
Doctor Faustus- Christopher Marlowe (79, 86, 99, 04)
A Doll's House- Henrik Ibsen (71, 83, 87, 88, 95, 05)
The Dollmaker- Harriet Arnot (91)
Don Quixote- Miguel de Cervantes (01, 04, 06)
Dreaming in Cuban- Cristina Garcia (03)
Dutchman- Amiri Baraka/Leroi Jones (03, 06)

E
East of Eden- John Steinbeck (06)
Emma- Jane Austen (96)
An Enemy of the People- Henrik Ibsen (76, 80, 87, 99, 01, 07)
Equus- Peter Shaffer (92, 99, 00, 01)
Ethan Frome- Edith Wharton (80, 85, 03, 05, 06, 07)
The Eumenides- Aeschylus (in The Orestia) (96)

F
The Fall- Albert Camus (81)
A Farewell to Arms- Ernest Hemingway (99, 04)
The Father- August Strindberg (01)
Fathers and Sons- Ivan Turgenev (90)
Faust- Johann Goethe (02, 03)
The Federalist- Alexander Hamilton (76)
Fences- August Wilson (02, 03, 05)
A Fine Balance- Rohinton Mistry (03)
Fifth Business- Robertson Davis (00, 07)
The Fixer- Bernard Malamud (07)
For Whom the Bell Tolls- Ernest Hemingway (03, 06)
Frankenstein- Mary Shelley (89, 00, 03, 06)

G
A Gathering of Old Men- Ernest Gaines (00)
A Gesture Life- Chang-Rae Lee (04, 05)
Ghosts- Henrik Ibsen (00, 04)
The Glass Menagerie- Tennessee Williams (71, 90, 94, 97, 99, 02)
Going After Cacciato- Tim O'Brien (01, 06)
The Good Soldier- Ford Maddox Ford (00)
The Grapes of Wrath- John Steinbeck (95, 03, 06)
Great Expectations- Charles Dickens (79, 80, 88, 89, 92, 95, 96, 00, 01, 02, 03, 04, 05, 07)
The Great Gatsby- F. Scott Fitzgerald (82, 83, 88, 91, 92, 97, 00, 02, 04, 05, 07)
Go Tell It on the Mountain- James Baldwin (83, 88, 90, 05)
Gulliver's Travels- Jonathan Swift (87, 89, 01, 04, 06)

H
The Hairy Ape- Eugene O'Neill (89)
Hamlet- William Shakespeare (88, 94, 97, 99, 00)
The Handmaid's Tale- Margaret Atwood (03)
Hard Times- Charles Dickens (87, 90)
Heart of Darkness- Joseph Conrad (71, 76, 91, 94, 96, 99, 00, 01, 02, 03, 04, 06)
The Heart of the Matter- Graham Greene (71)
Hedda Gabler- Henrik Ibsen (79, 92, 00, 02, 03, 05)
Henry IV, Parts I and II- William Shakespeare (80, 90)
Henry V- William Shakespeare (02)
The Homecoming- Harold Pinter (78, 90)
House Made of Dawn- N Scott Momaday (95, 06)
The House of Mirth- Edith Wharton (04, 07)
The House of Seven Gables- Nathaniel Hawthorne (89)

I
The Iliad- Homer (80)
The Importance of Being Earnest- Oscar Wilde (06)
In the Lake of the Woods- Tim O'Brien (00)
In the Time of Butterflies- Julia Alvarez (05)
Invisible Man- Ralph Ellison (76, 77, 78, 82, 83, 85, 86, 87, 88, 89, 91, 94, 95, 96, 97, 01, 03, 04, 05, 07)

J
Jane Eyre- Charlotte Bronte (78, 79, 80, 88, 91, 94, 95, 96, 97, 99, 00, 05, 07)
Jasmine- Bharati Mukherjee (99)
J.B.- Archibald MacLeish (81, 94)
Joe Turner's Come and Gone- August Wilson (00, 04)
The Joy Luck Club- Amy Tan (97, 03)
Joseph Andrews- Henry Fielding (99)
Jude the Obscure- Thomas Hardy (71, 76, 80, 85, 87, 95, 04)
Julius Caesar- William Shakespeare (82, 97, 05, 07)
The Jungle- Upton Sinclair (77, 78, 82, 88, 89, 90, 96)

K
King Lear- William Shakespeare (77, 78, 82, 88, 89, 90, 96, 01, 03, 04, 05, 06)
The Kite Runner- Khaled Hosseinii (07)

L
A Lesson Before Dying- Ernest Gaines (99)
Letters from an American Farmer- de Crevecoeur (76)
Light in August- William Faulkner (71, 79, 81, 82, 83, 85, 95, 99, 03, 06)
The Little Foxes- Lillian Hellman (85, 90)
Long Day's Journey into Night- Eugene O'Neill (90, 03, 07)
Lord Jim- Joseph Conrad (77, 78, 82, 86, 00, 03, 07)
Lord of the Flies- William Golding (85)
The Loved One- Evelyn Waugh (89)
Love Medicine- Louise Erdrich (95)
"The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" - T. S. Eliot (85)
Lysistrata- Aristophanes (87)

M
Macbeth- William Shakespeare (83, 99, 03, 05)
Madame Bovary- Gustave Flaubert (80, 85, 04, 05, 06)
Main Street- Sinclair Lewis (87)
Major Barbara- George Bernard Shaw (79, 96, 04, 07)
Man and Superman- George Bernard Shaw (81)
Mansfield Park- Jane Austen (03, 06)
Master Harold...and the Boys- Athol Fugard (03)
The Mayor of Casterbridge- Thomas Hardy (94, 99, 00, 02, 07)
M. Butterfly- David Henry Wang (95)
Medea- Euripides (82, 92, 95, 01, 03)
The Member of the Wedding- Carson McCullers (97)
The Merchant of Venice- William Shakespeare (85, 91, 95, 02, 03)
“The Metamorphosis”- Franz Kafka (78, 89)
Middlemarch- George Eliot (95, 04, 05, 07)
Middle Passage- V. S. Naipaul (06)
A Midsummer Night's Dream- William Shakespeare (06)
The Mill on the Floss- George Eliot (90, 92, 04)
Miss Lonelyhearts- Nathanael West (89)
Moby Dick- Herman Melville (76, 77, 78, 79, 80, 89, 94, 96, 01, 03, 04, 05, 06, 07)
Moll Flanders- Daniel Defoe (76, 77, 86, 87, 95)
Monkey Bridge- Lan Cao (00, 03)
The Moor's Last Sigh- Salman Rushdie (07)
Mother Courage and Her Children- Berthold Brecht (85, 87, 06)
Mrs. Dalloway- Virginia Woolf (94, 97, 04, 05, 07)
Mrs. Warren's Profession- George Bernard Shaw (87, 90, 95, 02)
Much Ado About Nothing- William Shakespeare (97)
Murder in the Cathedral- T. S. Eliot (76, 80, 85, 95, 07)
"My Last Duchess"- Robert Browning (85)
My Antonia- Willa Cather (03)
My Name is Asher Lev- Chaim Potok (03)

N
Native Son- Richard Wright (79, 82, 85, 87, 95, 01, 04)
Native Speaker- Chang-Rae Lee (99, 03, 05, 07)
1984- George Orwell (87, 94, 05)
No Exit- John Paul Sartre (86)
No-No Boy- John Okada (95)
Notes from the Underground- Fyodor Dostoevsky (89)

O
Obasan- Joy Kogawa (94, 95, 04, 05, 06, 07)
The Odyssey- Homer (86, 06)
Oedipus Rex- Sophocles (77, 85, 88, 00, 03, 04)
Of Mice and Men- John Steinbeck (01)
One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich- Alexander Solzhenitsyn (05)
One Hundred Years of Solitude- Gabriel Garcia Marquez (89, 04)
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest- Ken Kesey (01)
O Pioneers!- Willa Cather (06)
The Optimist's Daughter- D. H. Lawrence (94)
The Orestia- Aeschylus (90)
Orlando: A Biography- Virginia Woolf (04)
Othello- William Shakespeare (79, 85, 88, 92, 95, 03. 04, 07)
Our Mutual Friend- Charles Dickens (90)
Our Town- Thornton Wilder (86, 97)
Out of Africa- Isaak Dinesen (06)

P
Pale Fire- Vladimir Nabokov (01)
Pamela- Samuel Richardson (86)
A Passage to India- E. M. Forster (71, 77, 78, 88, 91, 92, 07)
Paradise Lost- John Milton (85, 86)
Peer Gynt- Henrik Ibsen (06)
Père Goriot- Honore de Balzac (02)
Persuasion- Jane Austen (90, 05, 07)
Phaedre- Jean Racine (92, 03)
The Piano Lesson- August Wilson (96, 99, 07)
The Picture of Dorian Gray- Oscar Wilde (02)
The Plague- Albert Camus (02)
Pnin- Vladimir Nabokov (97)
Pocho- Jose Antonio Villarreal (02)
The Portrait of a Lady- Henry James ( 88, 92, 96, 03, 05, 07)
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man- James Joyce (76, 77, 80, 86, 88, 96, 99, 04, 05)
The Power and the Glory- Graham Greene (95)
Praisesong for the Widow- Paule Marshall (96)
Pride and Prejudice- Jane Austen (83, 88, 92, 97)
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie- Muriel Spark (90)
Push- Sapphire (07)
Pygmalion- George Bernard Shaw (03, 05)

R
Ragtime- E. L. Doctorow (03, 07)
A Raisin in the Sun- Lorraine Hansberry (87, 90, 94, 96, 99, 07)
“The Rape of the Lock”- Alexander Pope (81)
Redburn- Herman Melville (87)
The Remains of the Day- Kazuo Ishiguro (00, 03)
The Return of the Native- Thomas Hardy (07)
Richard III- William Shakespeare (79)
A Room of One's Own- Virginia Woolf (76)
A Room with a View- E. M. Forster (03)
Romeo and Juliet- William Shakespeare (90, 92, 97)
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead- Tom Stoppard (81, 94, 00, 04, 05, 06)

S
Saint Joan- George Bernard Shaw (95)
The Sandbox- Edward Albee (1971)
The Scarlet Letter- Nathaniel Hawthorne (71, 77, 78, 83, 88, 91, 99, 02, 04, 05, 06)
Sent for You Yesterday- John Edgar Wideman (03)
A Separate Peace- John Knowles (82, 07)
The Shipping News- E. Annie Proulx (97)
Silas Marner- George Eliot (02)
Sister Carrie- Theodore Dreiser (87, 02, 04)
Slaughterhouse-Five- Kurt Vonnegut (91, 04)
Snow Falling on Cedars- David Guterson (00)
Song of Solomon- Toni Morrison (81, 88, 96, 00, 04, 05, 06, 07)
Sons and Lovers- D. H. Lawrence (77, 90)
The Sound and the Fury- William Faulkner (77, 86, 97, 01, 07)
The Stone Angel- Margaret Laurence (96, 04)
The Stranger- Albert Camus (79, 82, 86, 04)
A Streetcar Named Desire- Tennessee Williams (91, 92, 01, 04, 07)
The Street- Ann Petry (07)
Sula- Toni Morrison (92, 97, 02, 04, 07)
Surfacing- Margaret Atwood (05)
The Sun Also Rises- Ernest Hemingway (85, 91, 95, 96, 04, 05)

T
A Tale of Two Cities- Charles Dickens (82, 91, 04)
Tartuffe- Moliere (87)
The Tempest- William Shakespeare (71,78, 96, 03, 05, 07)
Tess of the D'Urbervilles- Thomas Hardy (82, 91, 03, 06, 07)
Their Eyes Were Watching God- Zorah Neale Hurston (88, 90, 91, 96, 04, 05, 06, 07)
Things Fall Apart- Chinua Achebe (91, 97, 03)
The Things They Carried- Tim O'Brien (04)
A Thousand Acres- Jane Smiley (06)
Tom Jones- Henry Fielding (90, 00, 06)
To the Lighthouse- Virginia Woolf (77, 86, 88)
Tracks- Louise Erdrich (05)
The Trial- Franz Kafka (88, 89, 00)
Trifles- Susan Glaspell (00)
Tristram Shandy- Laurence Sterne (86)
The Turn of the Screw- Henry James (92, 94, 00, 02, 04)
Twelfth Night- William Shakespeare (85, 94, 96)
Typical American- Gish Jen (02, 03, 05)

U
Uncle Tom's Cabin- Harriet Beecher Stowe (87)

V
The Vicar of Wakefield- Oliver Goldsmith (06)
Victory- Joseph Conrad (83)
Volpone- Ben Jonson (83)

W
Waiting for Godot- Samuel Beckett (77, 85, 86, 89, 94, 01)
The Warden- Anthony Trollope (96)
Washington Square- Henry James (90)
“The Wasteland”- T. S. Eliot (81)
Watch on the Rhine- Lillian Hellman (87)
The Way of the World- William Congreve (71)
The Way We Live Now- Anthony Trollope (06)
We Were the Mulvaneys- Joyce Carol Oates (07)
Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?- Edward Albee (88, 94, 00, 04, 07)
Wide Sargasso Sea- Jean Rhys (89, 92, 05, 07)
The Wild Duck- Henrik Ibsen (78)
Winter in the Blood- James Welch (95)
The Winter's Tale- William Shakespeare (82, 89, 95, 06)
Wise Blood- Flannery O'Connor (82, 89, 95)
The Woman Warrior- Maxine Hong Kingston (91)
Wuthering Heights- Emily Bronte (71,77, 78, 79, 83, 86, 88, 89, 90, 91, 92, 96, 97, 99, 01, 06, 07)

Z
The Zoo Story- Edward Albee (82, 01)
Zoot Suit- Luis Valdez (95)

Most Frequently Cited 1970-2007

20 Invisible Man- Ralph Ellison
17 Wuthering Heights- Emily Bronte
14 Great Expectations- Charles Dickens
14 Moby Dick- Herman Melville
13 Crime and Punishment- Fyodor Dostoevsky
13 Jane Eyre- Charlotte Bronte
12 King Lear- William Shakespeare
12 Adventures of Huckleberry Finn- Mark Twain
12 Heart of Darkness- Joseph Conrad
11 The Scarlet Letter- Nathaniel Hawthorne
11 The Great Gatsby- F. Scott Fitzgerald
10 The Awakening- Kate Chopin
10 Billy Budd- Herman Melville
10 Catch-22- Joseph Heller
10 Light in August- William Faulkner
9 Ceremony- Leslie Marmon Silko
9 A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man- James Joyce
8 As I Lay Dying- William Faulkner
8 Candide- Voltaire
8 Othello- William Shakespeare
8 Song of Solomon- Toni Morrison
8 Their Eyes Were Watching God- Zorah Neale Hurston
7 Antigone- Sophocles
7 Bless Me, Ultima- Rudolfo Anaya
7 Death of a Salesman- Arthur Miller
7 Jude the Obscure- Thomas Hardy
7 The Jungle- Upton Sinclair
7 Lord Jim- Joseph Conrad
7 Native Son- Richard Wright
7 A Passage to India- E. M. Forster
6 Anna Karenina- Leo Tolstoy
6 Beloved- Toni Morrison
6 The Color Purple- Alice Walker
6 The Crucible- Arthur Miller
6 Cry, The Beloved Country- Alan Paton
6 A Doll's House- Henrik Ibsen
6 An Enemy of the People- Henrik Ibsen
6 Ethan Frome- Edith Wharton
6 The Glass Menagerie- Tennessee Williams
6 Hedda Gabler- Henrik Ibsen
6 Obasan- Joy Kogawa
6 The Portrait of a Lady- Henry James
6 A Raisin in the Sun- Lorraine Hansberry
6 Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead- Tom Stoppard
6 The Sun Also Rises- Ernest Hemingway
6 The Tempest- William Shakespeare
6 Waiting for Godot- Samuel Beckett
5 Gulliver's Travels- Jonathan Swift
5 Madame Bovary- Gustave Flaubert
5 The Mayor of Casterbridge- Thomas Hardy
5 The Merchant of Venice- William Shakespeare
5 Moll Flanders- Daniel Defoe
5 Mrs. Dalloway- Virginia Woolf
5 Murder in the Cathedral- T. S. Eliot
5 The Sound and the Fury- William Faulkner
5 A Streetcar Named Desire- Tennessee Williams
5 Sula- Toni Morrison
5 Tess of the D'Urbervilles- Thomas Hardy
5 The Turn of the Screw- Henry James
5 Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?- Edward Albee

Shakespeare - All Plays- 58

2 Antony and Cleopatra
3 As You Like It
5 Hamlet
2 Henry IV, Parts I and II
1 Henry V
4 Julius Caesar
12 King Lear
4 Macbeth
5 Merchant of Venice
1 A Midsummer Night's Dream
1 Much Ado About Nothing
8 Othello
1 Richard III
3 Romeo and Juliet
6 The Tempest
3 Twelfth Night
4 The Winter's Tale


Greek & Latin Literature- 24

1 The Aeneid- Virgil
7 Antigone- Sophocles
1 The Eumenides- Aeschylus
1 The Iliad- Homer
1 Lysistrata- Aristophanes
5 Medea- Euripides
2 The Odyssey- Homer
6 Oedipus Rex- Sophocles
1 The Orestia- Aeschylus