It's Not the Quantity...

...it's the quality

Yes, there are plenty of authors who are/were prolific, who have written volumes and left their mark. But what about those who haven't written volumes? My point is, one doesn't necessarily need to write a ton a books. What one needs to do is write what you want because you want to. Even if you have only one book in you, it may well be enough.

So, let's take a look at some authors who wrote only one novel.  I have linked each book back to a Goodreads page.

Harper Lee: To Kill a Mockingbird (Read - has anyone not read it?)


Boris Pasternak: Dr. Zhivago (Not read - Would like to read)













Emily Bronte: Wuthering Heights (Read)













Margaret Mitchell: Gone With the Wind (Read)


Ann Swell: Black Beauty (Read)


Oscar Wilde: The Picture of Dorian Gray (Read)


John Kennedy Toole: A Confederacy of Dunces (Not read - Would like to read)

Sylvia Plath: The Bell Jar (Read)


Arundhati Roy: The God of Small Things (Not read - Would like to read)













Austin Tappan Wright: Islandia (Read - a BIG favorite and one I reread every ten years or so.)


Isaac Rosenfeld: Passage from Home (Not read -Would like to read)


Randall Jerrell: Pictures from an Institute (Not read - Would like to read - I have read his children's book, The Bat-Poet)


Lionel Trilling: The Middle of the Journey (Not read - Would like to read)


John Okada: No-No Boy (Not read - Would like to read)


Norman Fruchter: Coat Upon a Stick (Not read)


Daniel James (Danny Santiago): Famous All Over Town (Not read - Would like to read)


Walter Miller, Jr.: A Canticle for Leibowitz (Read - fabulous)


And here are a few authors who wrote other novels but are remembered for just one.

Ralph Ellison: The Invisible Man (Read)

J. D. Salinger: The Catcher in the Rye (Read)

F. Scott Fitzgerald: The Great Gatsby (Read)


Herman Melville: Moby-Dick (Tried to read)


Jack Kerouac: On the Road (Read)


William Golding: Lord of the Flies (Read)


Charlotte Bronte: Jane Eyre (Read)


Antoine de Saint-Exupery: The Little Prince (Read - of course!)
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Joseph Heller: Catch-22 (Read)


Kathleen Windsor: Forever Amber (Not read - Would like to read)


Grace Metalious: Payton Place (Not read)


Richard Hooker: M. A. S. H. (Not read)


Ken Kesey: One Flew Over the Cuckcoo's Nest (Read - though some people prefer Sometimes A Great Notion.)



Kenneth Graham: The Wind in the Willows (Read - Wish I had my original copy...)


Michael Ende: The Neverending Story (Read - Absolutely MUCH better than the movie!)


Peter S. Beagle: The Last Unicorn (Read - a favorite)


Kurk Wagner: The Book of the Dun Cow (Read - Excellent!)


A. Merritt: The Moon Pool (Not read - Would like to read)


Bram Stoker: Dracula (Not read)


Mordecai Roshwald: Level 7 (Read)



Richard Adams: Watership Down (Read)


James Barrie: Peter Pan (Read - of course!)


Mary Shelly: Frankenstein (Read)


Miguel Cervantes: Don Quixote (Read)


John Knowles: A Separate Peace (Read)


Anthony Burgess: A Clockwork Orange (Read)


How many of these books have your read? Which of these haven't you read but would like to?