Penelope Lively Books in Order

Mair and her brother stumble on the ruins of a village destroyed by the Black Death and uncover a secret that still carries fear. The novel blends history, folklore, and menace.

William, Martha, and Susie accidentally bring the ancient sorceress Morgan le Fay back into play. The result is a compact fantasy rooted in old legend and modern danger.

Lucy arrives in a Somerset village just as an old ritual is revived for the summer fete. What begins as local pageantry slowly turns into something darker and much older.

Running away from home, Paul and his sister travel along an ancient road where echoes of earlier travelers still seem to linger. Their journey becomes both an escape and a lesson in listening.

James keeps getting blamed for tricks he did not play after his family moves to an old cottage. The culprit is the ghost of Thomas Kempe, who wants James as his apprentice.

Clare lives in an old Oxford house full of relics from the past, then discovers a shield brought back from New Guinea by her great-grandfather. Soon dreams and history begin pressing in on her.

An orphan is sent back to his birth village and apprenticed to a stone cutter. As he learns a trade, he also tries to work out who he is and where he belongs.

Returning to a country house after many years, a woman remembers a wartime childhood shaped by friendship, family tension, and moral uncertainty. It is a quiet book about memory and what war leaves behind.

On holiday in Lyme Regis, Maria begins hearing sounds from another time and feels drawn to a Victorian girl named Harriet. The mystery grows darker as past and present start to overlap.

Afraid that God might answer a rash prayer and take away her new baby sister, nine-year-old Fanny runs off. The story captures jealousy, guilt, and family love with humor and sympathy.

This accessible nonfiction book shows how roads, hedges, fields, and villages carry traces of older lives. Lively makes landscape history feel concrete, local, and full of human stories.

Sitting beneath a church window, Jane sees the old story in the glass come to life. A knight and his lady step out of history in this brief, beautifully imagined tale.

As Anne Linton spends time near her dying father in Lichfield, she begins an affair that throws her own life into question. A quiet family crisis opens into a novel about identity and memory.

This collection of stories is linked by expectation, unease, and the small ways life can tilt off course. Lively moves from ghostly hints to social comedy with great control.

In a flooded future England emptied of people, a band of animals sets off in a strange boat to discover what kind of creature Stanley is. The quest is funny, eerie, and unexpectedly grand.

Fanny's curiosity pulls her into a prehistoric puzzle involving bones, monsters, and the thrill of discovery. It is another lively clash between a Victorian girl's imagination and the rules around her.

Potter's Piece is wasteland to adults but a whole kingdom to Fanny and the other Stanton children. When intruders appear, the fight to save their private world becomes very real.

Clare Paling settles into village life and its quiet gossip, ambitions, and adulteries. Then a pageant and an unforgivable death remind everyone how fragile that order really is.

When the BBC plans a documentary on a famous archaeologist, his widow and daughter discover that digging up the past can unsettle the present as well. It is sharp, funny, and emotionally precise.

On a housing estate, everyday objects begin behaving in impossible ways and Tim and Jane suspect a malign spirit is involved. The mystery mixes modern life with a distinctly supernatural grudge.

At an arts center in the countryside, students arrive hoping for creativity and renewal. What they actually uncover is vanity, rivalry, and more truth than anyone planned for.

Frances is newly widowed and overwhelmed by grief when unexpected revelations pull her back into other people's lives. It is a compact, serious novel about mourning and the possibility of hope.

Biographer Mark thinks he understands his subject, the late novelist Gilbert Strong, until obsession and desire begin to blur the picture. A hot summer turns into a witty study of self-deception.

A story collection about outwardly calm worlds that suddenly turn unreliable. Holidays, marriages, village routines, and old assumptions all prove less secure than they look.

Peter buys his grandfather an unusual birthday present, only to discover it contains dragon eggs. Once they hatch, the pair must cope with pets far stranger than they expected.

A collection of children's stories that mixes ghosts, Martians, troublesome animals, and other everyday oddities. The stories are varied, readable, and full of sly humor.

This volume gathers Lively's short stories from 1978 to 1986, including earlier collections and new work. Ghosts, comic reversals, love, and loss all fit neatly into the deck.

Dying historian Claudia Hampton decides to write a history of the world and ends up telling her own. The novel moves through love, war, family, and memory with dazzling shifts in perspective.

This linked collection looks at the Dixon house from the viewpoint of the creatures living inside it. Dogs, mice, insects, and other small residents turn ordinary domestic life into adventure.

As architect Matthew Halland works in London's Docklands, the city's older layers keep pressing into the present. It is a novel about memory, rebuilding, and the many lives contained in one place.

After their domineering mother dies, middle-aged siblings Helen and Edward must learn how to live without her grip on their lives. Lively turns family damage into a subtle, moving novel.

When Judy finds a Martian at the supermarket, she has to help him get home without alarming the adults. It is a quick, cheerful story about secrecy, kindness, and a very odd errand.

A palaeontologist and a journalist are stranded in the fictional African state of Callimbia when political turmoil erupts. Their accidental partnership becomes both an adventure and a romance.

A brother and sister annoy the wrong neighbor and find themselves transformed into a fairy-tale princess and a rescuing knight. It is a short, playful fantasy about quarrels and consequences.

Lively revisits her childhood in Egypt, recovering its sounds, scents, heat, and wartime tension through adult memory. It is a vivid memoir about place, identity, and dislocation.

A cat and a crow sit under a banyan tree telling stories that seem to come alive as they are told. It is a picture book about imagination, friendship, and the pleasure of storytelling.

Three short stories, including the title piece about English tourists stranded overnight in Egypt. Lively is sharp on group behavior, class nerves, and comedy under pressure.

Peter and his grandmother take in a stranded Martian after his spaceship leaves without him. Hiding their unusual guest is hard enough, but the village fete makes things much riskier.

A little girl tucks up her toys for the night, but they have other ideas. One by one they sweep her into bedtime adventures that are funny, dreamy, and just a bit wild.

A mischievous dog turns ordinary life upside down in this brisk early reader. The fun comes from the trail of trouble he leaves behind.

Joe wakes to find two young grizzly bears in his bedroom, and the day quickly becomes an imaginative spree. It is a warm, playful story about friendship and make-believe.

During a blazing summer in the English countryside, Pauline watches her daughter's marriage begin to repeat old mistakes. Tension builds slowly toward a violent, shocking end.

A short collection for younger readers built around small upsets, searches, and everyday adventures. The title story leads a set of quick, lively tales.

A short, gently spooky tale for younger readers about unexpected visitors and a brush with the supernatural. Lively keeps the mood eerie, playful, and easy to follow.

Jane goes to stay with her grandparents on her own and expects a quiet visit. Grandpa quickly proves that life with him is anything but dull.

Fourteen contemporary short stories that range from comic observation to modern fable. The title story plays with the *Arabian Nights*, but the whole collection is alert to everyday surprises.

A collection of fourteen short stories that moves from playful fantasy to the odd turns of ordinary life. Chance, memory, and sly humor run through the whole book.

A restless frog decides he wants to be somewhere else and sets off across the garden. The journey is full of dangers, near misses, and one determined leap after another.

Retired anthropologist Stella Brentwood tries to settle into village life in Somerset, only to find it more complicated and cruel than expected. The novel mixes social comedy with real menace.

Debbie's day is disrupted by a very small devil with a talent for mischief. This early reader turns a simple fantasy idea into brisk comic trouble.

Using a beloved Somerset house as her guide, Lively reconstructs family history through rooms, objects, and remembered lives. It is a memoir about home, class, time, and loss.

Judy spots a nervous Martian in the frozen-food aisle and ends up helping him hide, plan, and try to get back home. It is a light, funny adventure for newer readers.

After his wife's death, Glyn finds an old photograph of her holding hands with another man. His search for the truth unsettles not just her memory, but several lives around him.

Part fiction and part anti-memoir, this book imagines the lives Lively might have lived if key moments had gone differently. It is playful, inventive, and quietly unsettling.

Lively retells the story of the *Aeneid* for younger readers, from the fall of Troy to Aeneas's long search for a new home. It is clear, dramatic, and full of mythic danger.

Beginning in 1935, this novel follows Lorna, her daughter Molly, and granddaughter Ruth across three generations. One impulsive love affair casts a long shadow over the family's future.

Six adult siblings circle back to the family home and the childhood their mother tried to make perfect. Beneath the nostalgia sits a secret that has shaped them all.

A volume of spooky tales for younger readers, with ghosts, uneasy moments, and just enough chill to keep pages turning. It is eerie without becoming too dark.

A mugging in London sets off a chain of accidents, meetings, and revelations that ripple through several lives. Lively turns chance into a witty, humane novel about how people collide.

A sharp, funny short story about young artists chasing experience and authenticity in 1950s Europe. Lively gently skewers self-image, cultural pretension, and what travel really teaches.

Lively looks back over a long life through memory, books, history, and a handful of meaningful possessions. The result is thoughtful, funny, and quietly moving.

In this reflective memoir, Lively writes about aging, memory, reading, history, and the objects that outlast us. It is personal, unsentimental, and full of hard-won perspective.

Lively's return to short stories ranges from Pompeii to supermarkets, old grudges, family truths, and marital surprises. The stories are witty, observant, and a little sharp around the edges.

Part memoir and part literary wander, this book follows the gardens that shaped Lively's life, from childhood in Egypt to London. It also looks at gardens in books and the writers who loved them.

A selected volume of stories drawn from Lively's earlier collections, framed by new work and an introduction on how her concerns changed over time. It is both a sampler and a retrospective.