Famous Trilogies and Tetralogies

1. Orestreia Trilogy Aeschylus

• Agamemmon
• The Libation Bearers
• The Eumenides
2. Theban Trilogy Sophocles
• Oedipus Rex/Oedipus Tyrannus/Oedipus The King
• Oedipus at Colonus
• Antigone
3. Wallenstein Trilogy (historical drama) Friedrich Schiller
• Wallensteins Lager (“Wallenstein’s Camp”)
• Die Piccolomini (“The Piccolomini”)
• Wallensteins Tod (“Wallenstein’s Death: A Tragedy”)
4. The Forsyte Chronicles/ Forsyte Saga John Galsworthy
• The Man of Property (1906)
• “Indian Summer of a Forsyte” (Interlude; 1918)
• In Chancery (1920)
• “Awakening” (Interlude; 1920)
• To Let (1921)
5. The Fifth Queen Trilogy Ford Madox Ford
• Fifth Queen: And How She Came to Court (1906)
• Privy Seal (1907)
• The Fifth Queen Crowned (1908).
(Highly fictionalised account of Katharine Howard's arrival at the Court of Henry VIII, her
eventual marriage to the king, and her death.)

6. The Clayhanger Family Arnold Bennett

• Clayhanger (1910)
• Hilda Lessways (1911)
• These Twain (1915)
7. Dublin Trilogy Sean O’Casey
• The Shadow of a Gunman (1923)
• Juno and the Paycock (1924)
• The Plough and the Stars (1926)
8. The Sherston Trilogy (Semi-autobiographical) Siegfried Sassoon
• Memoirs of a Fox-Hunting Man (1928)
• Memoirs of an Infantry Officer (1930)
• Sherston's Progress (1936)
 9. U.S.A Trilogy John Dos Passos
• The 42nd Parallel (1930)
• 1919 (1932)
• The Big Money (1936)
10. Narayan Semi-Autobiographical Trilogy R.K Narayan
• Swami and Friends (1935)
• The Bachelor of Arts (1937)
• The English Teacher (1945)
11. Dustbowl Trilogy John Steinbeck
• In Dubious Battle (1936)
• Of Mice and Men (1937)
• The Grapes of Wrath (1939)
(examined the desperate struggles of common labourers caught in the maelstrom of the Great
Depression)

12. Lal Singh Trilogy Mulk Raj Anand

• The Village (1939)
• Across the Black Waters (1939)
• The Sword and the Sickle (1942)
13. Snopes Trilogy William Faulkner
• The Hamlet (1940)
• The Town (1957)
• The Mansion (1959)
(Regarding the Snopes family in the fictional Yoknapatawpha County, Mississippi.)

14. Young England Trilogy Benjamin Disraeli

• Coningsby, or The New Generation (1844)
• Sybil, or The Two Nations (1845)
• Tancred; or, The New Crusade (1847)
(Question of how Judaism and Christianity are to be reconciled, and the Church reborn as a
progressive force)
15. Trilogy Hilda Doolittle
• The Walls do not Fall (1944)
• Tribute to the Angels (1945)
• The Flowering of the Rod (1946)
16. The Roads to Freedom Trilogy Jean-Paul Sartre
• The Age of Reason (1947)
• The Reprieve (1947)
• Troubled Sleep (1950)
17. The Beckett Trilogy Samuel Beckett
• Molloy (1951)
• Malone Dies (1951)
• The Unnamable (1953)
18. Tolstoy’s Acclaimed Trilogy (Autobiographical) Leo Tolstoy
• Childhood (1952)
• Boyhood (1954)
• Youth (1956)
19. Sword of Honour Evelyn Waugh
• Men at Arms (1952)
• Officers and Gentlemen (1955)
• Unconditional Surrender (1961; published as The End of the Battle in USA & Canada)
20. The Long Day Wanes: A Malayan Trilogy Anthony Burgess
• Time for a Tiger (1956)
• The Enemy in the Blanket (1958)
• Beds in the East (1959)
21. The Wesker Trilogy Arnold Wesker
• Chicken Soup with Barley (1956)
• Roots (1958)
• I’m Talking About Jerusalem (1960)
22. African Trilogy Chinua Achebe
• Things Fall Apart (1958)
• No Longer at Ease (1960)
• Arrow of God (1964)
23. Danzig Trilogy Günter Grass
• The Tin Drum (1959)
• Cat and Mouse (1961)
• Dog Years (1963)
(Focuses on the interwar and wartime period in the Free City of Danzig)
24. The Nova Trilogy/ The Cut-up Trilogy William S. Burroughs
• The Soft Machine (1961)
• The Ticket That Explored (1962)
• Nova Express (1964)
(experimental novels)
25. Bristol Trilogy Angela Carter
• Shadow Dance (1966)
• Several Perception (1968)
• Love (1971)
26. Islands in the Stream (published in 1970 as novel) Ernest Hemingway
• The Sea When Young
• The Sea When Absent
• The Sea in Being
27. The Deptford Trilogy Robertson Davies
• Fifth Business (1970)
• The Manticore (1972)
• World of Wonders (1975)
28. Campus Trilogy David John Lodge
• Changing Places: A Tale of Two Campuses (1975)
• Small World: An Academic Romance (1984)
• Nice Work (1988)
29. African Dictatorship Trilogy Nuruddin Farah
• Sweet and Sour Milk (1979)
• Sardines (1981)
• Close Sesame (1983)
30. Man of Nazareth Trilogy (biblical) Anthony Burgess
• Man of Nazareth (1979)
• Moses: A Narrative (poem; 1976)
• The Kingdom of the Wicked (1985)
31. To the Ends of the Earth William Golding
• Rites of Passage (1980; Man Booker Prize)
• Close Quarters (1987)
• Fire Down Below (1989)
32. Dantesque/ Beloved Trilogy Tony Morrison
• Beloved (1983)
• Jazz (1992)
• Paradise (1997)
33. New York Trilogy Paul Auster
• City of Glass (1985)
• Ghosts (1986)
• The Locked Room (1986)
34. Blood in the Sun Trilogy Nuruddin Farah
• Maps (1986)
• Gifts (1992)
• Secrets (1998)
35. Lilith’s Brood/ Xenogenesis Trilogy Octavia E. Butler
• Dawn (1987)
• Adulthood Rites (1988)
• Imago (1989)
36. “State of the Nation” Trilogy (Plays) David Hare
• Racing Demon (1990)
• Murmuring Judges (1991)
• The Absence of War (1993)
37. The Famished Road Trilogy Ben Okri
• Famished Road (1991)
• Songs of Enchantment (1993)
• Infinite Riches (1998)
38. The Coast of Utopia (play trilogy; 2002) Tom Stoppard
• Voyage
• Shipwreck
• Salvage
(focus on the philosophical debates in pre-revolution Russia between 1833 and 1866. Title
comes from a chapter in Avrahm Yarmolinsky's book Road to Revolution: A Century of
Russian Radicalism (1959)

39. MaddAddam Trilogy Margaret Atwood

• Oryx and Crake (2003)
• The Year of the Flood (2009)
• MaddAddam (2013)
40. Past Imperfect Trilogy Nuruddin Farah
• Links (2003)
• Knots (2007)
• Crossbones (2011)
41. Ibis Trilogy Amitav Ghosh
• Sea of Poppies (2008)
• River of Smoke (2011)
• Flood of Fire (2015)
42. Shiva Trilogy Amish Tripathi
• The Immortals of Meluha (2010)
• The Secret of the Nagas (2011)
• The Oath of the Vayuputras (2013)
43. The Indian Trilogy (2016) V.S Naipaul
• An Area of Darkness
• India: A Wounded Civilization
• India: A Million Mutinies Now
 TETRALOGY

1. Parade’s End Ford Madox Ford

• Some Do Not ... (1924)
• No More Parades (1925)
• A Man Could Stand Up — (1926)
• Last Post (US title, The Last Post) (1928)

2. The Alexandria Quartet Lawrence Durrell

• Justine (1957)
• Balthazar (1958)
• Mountolive (1958)
• Clea (1960)
3. The Raj Quartet Paul Scott
 The Jewel in the Crown (1966)
 The Day of the Scorpion (1968)
 The Towers of Silence (1971)
 A Division of the Spoils (1975)
(About the concluding years of the British Raj in India.)