The 1950s in Literature

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After recently reading Truman Capote’s famous 1958 novella Breakfast at Tiffany’s, I realized that my periodic posts over the years about a specific decade of literature had not yet included the 1950s. That will be remedied today faster than an Elvis Presley hip swivel.

Looking back, the ’50s are considered a relatively conventional time in certain ways, but there were definitely signs of change bubbling under the surface that would explode in the following decade – among them pushes for civil rights, women’s rights, and LGBTQ+ rights. So, not surprisingly, many ’50s-released novels contained both conventional and unconventional elements – with the unconventionality also including a bit more candid depiction of sexuality and a bit more use of four-letter words than in prior decades and centuries. 

Civil rights and the Black experience in general were reflected in novels such as Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man (1952), James Baldwin’s Go Tell It on the Mountain (1953), and Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart (1958). Unfortunately, the otherwise pretty open-minded Breakfast at Tiffany’s has some racist elements, whether that involved Capote thinking that way himself or the author just showing what many people’s views openly were back then.

Some non-white ethnic characters were also treated non-stereotypically in some ’50s novels. One who comes to mind is the highly educated Chinese-American cook/housekeeper Lee in John Steinbeck’s East of Eden (1952); he’s that book’s smartest, most ethical, and most relatable person.

Independent or partly independent women appeared in novels such as Breakfast at Tiffany’s (starring the flighty but strong-willed Holly Golightly), Daphne du Maurier’s Mary Anne (1954), Herman Wouk’s Marjorie Morningstar (1955), and Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House (1959). There’s also East of Eden’s Cathy Ames — though that evil, driven character is far from a role model.

LGBTQ+ characters, whether closeted or not, in ’50s lit? There were certainly some in Breakfast at Tiffany’s – one of the before-its-time highlights of Capote’s novella. Giovanni’s Room (1956) by James Baldwin comes to mind, too.

Meanwhile, Wouk’s The Caine Mutiny (1951) gave readers food for thought about the necessity to distrust authority when the person in authority isn’t worthy of trust. A sentiment that would become more pronounced in the 1960s and beyond.

Also published in 1951 was J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye, with its prescient look at teen angst and alienation through the lens of annoying protagonist Holden Caulfield.

Other ’50s novels of note include, among others, Ray Bradbury’s dystopian Fahrenheit 451 (1953), with its book-burning government’s thought-policing and anti-intellectualism; William Golding’s Lord of the Flies (1954), which explored how things can go bad when “civilization” is lost; and J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings trilogy (1954-1955), the pioneering fantasy classic that some considered a World War II allegory despite the author’s denial of that.

Major releases that decade, to name some, also included Daphne du Maurier’s My Cousin Rachel and Josephine Tey’s The Daughter of Time (both 1951); Ernest Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea, Bernard Malamud’s The Natural, and Flannery O’Connor’s Wise Blood (all 1952); Erich Maria Remarque’s A Time to Love and a Time to Die (1954); Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita (1955); Saul Bellow’s Seize the Day (1956); Nevil Shute’s On the Beach, Boris Pasternak’s Doctor Zhivago, and Jack Kerouac’s On the Road (all 1957); Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa’s The Leopard and Graham Greene’s Our Man in Havana (both 1958), and Gunter Grass’s The Tin Drum and Philip Roth’s Goodbye, Columbus (both 1959).

The ’50s novels mentioned in this post are ones I’ve read; there are of course many other books from that decade I have not gotten to.

As an aside, I’ll mention a novel I recently read by 1955-born author John Grisham. That book is The Widow (2025), and I must say that, after 50 or so novels, Grisham’s still “got it.” The Widow, about a small-town lawyer falsely charged with murdering the title character, is a riveting page-turner.

Thoughts on this post and the books in it? Any other 1950s novels you’d like to mention?

Misty the cat: “I’m keeping the pillow warm for when my college human comes home for Thanksgiving.”

My comedic 2024 book — the part-factual/part-fictional/not-a-children’s-work Misty the Cat…Unleashed — is described and can be purchased on Amazon in paperback or on Kindle. It’s feline-narrated! (And Amazon reviews are welcome. 🙂 )

This 90-second promo video for the book features a talking cat: 🙂 Not my voice. 🙂

I’m also the author of a 2017 literary-trivia book…

…and a 2012 memoir that focuses on cartooning and more, including many encounters with celebrities.

In addition to this weekly blog, I write the 2003-started/award-winning “Montclairvoyant” topical-humor column every Thursday for Montclair Local. The latest piece – about a very interesting Township Council meeting — is here.

127 thoughts on “The 1950s in Literature”

  1. Wow! Quite a list and excellent comments, Dave. I am totally late to this post, but I enjoyed it. Usually, after two days, if I haven’t read a post, I delete it — but not yours.

    I read a lot of these, but I’m sure many were assignments in the 60s, and a book report followed. Fahrenheit 451 is one that I read twice for assignments and also read later for pleasure. It was assigned in junior high just because. It was assigned in my senior year by a teacher who is partially responsible for me becoming an author. He wanted us to read it (1972) and relate it to the things going on in the non-fiction world (as he put it). I’m not sure I reread very many of the others. To be honest, I took advantage of Cliff Notes for Catcher in the Rye.

    I didn’t start reading Kurt Vonnegut until the early 70s, but as I probably mentioned when you were discussing catalogs a couple weeks ago, I went back and read them all. Player Piano (1952) was his first novel, and I really enjoyed it.

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    • Thank you, Dan, for the kind words! Glad you enjoyed the post!

      Interesting to think back to/about which novels we were assigned to read in school, which ones we decided to read on our own, and which ones involved both scenarios. 🙂 Sounds like “Fahrenheit 451” evokes a lot of varied memories for you.

      I think “The Catcher in the Rye” is overrated.

      When one thinks of Kurt Vonnegut, one thinks of the 1960s and later, but two novels in the 1950s (including the one you mentioned)!

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      • After college, I drifted into non-fiction. I’ve read a lot about WWII and other aspects of history. Way too much technology and just enough SciFi to keep me sane. Now it’s mostly indie authors I’ve met through blogging. Dystopian fiction seems more and more like the authors were prescient rather than talented. I look at how many Twilight Zone episodes are still relevant today. I checked those books out of our junior high library. I finally bought the first book of short stories which was published in 1960.

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        • Great nonfiction is…great! I also went through a period (before this lit blog of course) where I read mostly nonfiction — history, biographies, etc.

          And, yes, a lot of dystopian sci-fi of years ago unfortunately feels very prescient and relevant to today. 😦

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  2. Roughly equal honours for adult and children’s fiction classics, but am I too late to add The Go Between and every other qualifying L P Hartley ?

    Also the Eagle of the Ninth, The Silver Branch and The Lantern Bearers by Rosemary Sutcliff and nuch later, recommended by my Latin teacher.

    Presence of Bonjour Tristesse in the school library was never explained, Allowed simply for being in French ?

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    • Thank you, Esther! Never too late. 🙂 And, yes, plenty of memorable children’s literature as well as adult literature published in the 1950s.

      Ha — 😂 — I supposed being in French can help put a book under the radar. 🙂

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  3. Oh wow Dave! What a tremendous post!

    I’ll need until about Christmas to digest this packed post!! So many great titles!

    I would be very interested to read all the books you have listed especially; ‘Giovanni’s Room’ and the John Grisham! So pleased to read he has lost none of his style in, ‘The Widow’. I’m a huge fan of Graham Greene. The last thing I read by him many decades ago was, ‘The End of the Affair’, I thought it was excellent.

    A lot like this week’s post!

    Thank you Dave for the books, as always!

    Sharon 😊

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  4. Hi Dave, I clearly like this era for fiction because I’ve read many of the novels you’ve mentioned here. Somehow Catcher in the Rye has never appealed to me. Two other notable novels published in this era are The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by CS Lewis and Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand.

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  5. LOL – I laugh because my list is so classic.

    Here’s my classic 1950’s list I must mention: Casino Royale, Live and Let Die, Moonraker, Diamonds are Forever, Dr. No, From Russia with Love & Goldfinger.

    Yes, I read very James Bond that Ian Fleming wrote.

    I’d like to add that I impressed my own self when I realized I have read a majority of the books you listed here.

    Thanks Dave!

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  7. Hi Dave, there are so many of these which I have read in the past.

    First, a couple of books which I read when I was a kid. So I loved all of The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis and these were published from 1950 to 1956.

    Also a little group of children’s books written by Mary Norton – beginning with The Borrowers (1952), then the sequels are titled alliteratively and alphabetically: The Borrowers Afield (1955), The Borrowers Afloat (1959) plus The Borrowers Aloft (oops too late, 1961).

    Later I began to read the excellent sci-fi books like many of John Wyndham’s. Over to the library – The Day of the Triffids (1951), The Chrysalids (1955), The Kraken Wakes (1953) and The Midwich Cuckoos (1957).

    I think that’s enough just now, I was still at school while reading all of those up there… and much more too!

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    • Thank you, Chris! That’s a great bunch of 1950s book mentions! Quite a decade for young-person books (that could also be enjoyed by adults) and sci-fi, among other lit. And 1961 is kind of an honorary ’50s year. 🙂

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  8. I know I’ve read some of the books you mentioned, but I remember too little of them to comment. I suspect I read them too young, probably because they were “grown up books” and I was trying to be smarter than I was.

    Anyway…

    It’s hard to think of The Lord of the Rings as a 1950s book. Probably because it’s set in a fictional world, it feels timeless.

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  9. So many of these were on the reading lists of my high school English courses (I graduated in 1970). I wonder, do high school students now read books from the 2010s? Of course from what the media tells us they don’t read anything at all…
    I’m going to add Ellie Wiesel’s “Night” (which I also read in high school) and “Waiting for Godot”. (ditto). Not to mention “Charlotte’s Web” which I read as a younger child on my own. (K)

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    • Thank you, Kerfe! Nice to remember some great reading you did as a high school student! Interesting question about whether high school students nowadays read a lot of novels from their previous decade (the 2010s). Anecdotally, my younger daughter — a 2025 high school graduate — read novels from a variety of decades in her lit courses. Offhand, I remember her being assigned “The Great Gatsby” (1920s), “Lolita” (1950s), “The Handmaid’s Tale” (1980s), etc.

      And I appreciate those three excellent mentions of three ’50s works you read!

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      • We read “Gatsby” too. And things like “The Scarlet Letter”. I guess it’s hard for me to look at recent books and consider them to already be classics, but that really was what was happening in my classes. One thing we did not do, which hopefully they do now, is read much that would be considered world literature.
        I should ask my girls what they remember reading. I remember the older one had an intense dislike of Walt Whitman.

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        • Ah, yes, “The Scarlet Letter.” I also read that in high school and had mixed feelings about it. Reread it many years later and liked it a lot more.

          Interesting to think about which recent novels will be considered classics in a century.

          I’m also glad that more world literature is read by students and other Americans compared to years ago.

          Walt Whitman? Not my favorite poet, either, but he was a game-changer with his more-informal verse.

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  12. Dave, how interesting that you should feature the 1950s, considering that it’s the Golden Age that our current leadership would like our country to return to. You’ve mentioned several great books that I’ve enjoyed over the years. On the Beach by Nevil Shute made an impression on my adolescent mind at the time. Those were the days when the threat of a nuclear war loomed large in our lives. Today, it’s AI gone rogue.

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    • Thank you, Rosaliene! So true that Trump and people like him would like to return to the way things were in the 1950s — the most retrograde part of that decade, not the change-was-in-the-air part.

      Astute observation that AI is kind of like the nuclear threat of decades past. Unlike you, I didn’t read “On the Beach” until I was well into adulthood, but it is indeed an eerie, haunting novel. An example of how “less-guilty” countries get the (literal or figurative) fallout from the negative stuff the more powerful nations do. Sort of like the case with climate change today.

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  13. Faster than an Elvis hip swivel, you say? No false advertising with your opener! 😎😎😎
    What a terrific round up of 50s lit, Dave! And I see your point, about culturally being “ on the cusp” of change. Hadn’t thought about that, but I agree. 😉😉😉
    (And…can’t help but mention Misty. He wins the cuteness award, for sure!)
    😉❤️😉

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  14. Oh Dave, your post sent me back to my childhood and the wonderful books that were published during the 1950s. These years were the beginning of my reading journey. C. S. Lewis’s The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and Dr. Seuss’s The Cat in the Hat both were part of my reading journey, and I still remember the excitement of entering those imaginative worlds.
    When I look back, I see how innovative these books were. Narnia introduced us to some very adult questions about courage and responsibility. The Cat in the Hat turned the experience of learning to read into an adventure filled with humour and mischief. And both introduced me to friendships and working together. There were so many wonderful children’s books (think Charlotte’s Web) published during that decade, but these two have stayed with me. I am not surprised that both have inspired adaptations for new generations? A wonderful decade of reading!! I love this thought: “Once a king or queen of Narnia, always a king or queen of Narnia.” That was very important to me at the time.

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  16. I saw a very good film called Carol a few years ago,set in 1950’s about two women who fall for eachother based on book by Price of Salt by Patricia Highsmith

    Michele E & P way back

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  17. A great post! The 1950s produced some very good books, many of which you have mentioned. Doctor Zhivago being one of my favourites. Here are a few others I’ve enjoyed. Charlotte’s Web by EB White, The Chronicles of Narnia by CS Lewis, anything by Dr Suess, The Crucible by Arther Miller, A Town Like Alice by Nevil Shute, and Nine Coaches Waiting by Mary Stewart. (Although I’ve listed some children’s books, I read them as an adult and loved them. You can learn a lot from kid’s books!)

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    • Thank you, Darlene! Glad you enjoyed the post! And those are GREAT and varied additional examples of 1950s-published works! Including “The Cat in the Hat.” 🙂 Many children’s books can indeed be enjoyed by adults. I didn’t read “Charlotte’s Web” until I was an adult. 🙂

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  19. It’s incredible how many outstanding books were published in the fifties, Dave! I absolutely adored, for example, the Chinese-American cook in East of Eden. I wanted to add Lolita but you have thought also of that one! Many thanks for all your great proposals.

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  20. Thank you for this brilliant post, dear Dave! The 1950s were such a rich decade.

    Here in Italy, that era brought us incredible works by authors like Alberto Moravia and Cesare Pavese, who were exploring themes of alienation and social shift in parallel with the American scene.

    I really enjoyed your analysis!

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  22. I hadn’t considered that some non-white ethnic characters were treated non-stereotypically in some 1950s novels. I haven’t read much from this era, but have always wanted to read Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart. I might add it to my festive reading list so I can get an idea of books written in this decade of change and transition!

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    • That you, Ada! Not always non-stereotypical character depictions in the 1950s, but nice to see that when it happened.

      As for “Things Fall Apart,” for me it turned out to be one of those novels I admired while finding it a bit of a slog to read. But I’m sure many others feel differently.

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  23. I loved ‘Breakfast at Tiffany’s’, Dave, although it was a while ago and I’ve forgotten whatever racism was in there; which has to be a good thing, although I remember Mickey Rooney’s terrible portrayal of a Japanese neighbour of Holly’s in the film adaptation. You’ve mentioned so many books here, some I loved, some I did not, but given how bad I am on dates I had to consult a Goodreads list; given the amount of wonderful reads on there I can’t help but wonder if they left us anything at all to write about! To add to your list, however, there Saul Bellow’s pointed ‘Seize the Day’, and Lawrence Durrell’s ‘Alexandria Quartet’, both of which I loved, along with Lawrence’s brother Gerald’s ‘My Family and Other Animals’. Graham Greene’s ‘Our Man in Havana’ can’t be forgotten (loved that) and we’re currently watching a TV adaptation of Asimov’s ‘Foundation’ trilogy – more to Glen’s taste than mine, but he was a big sci-fi reader back in the day. Wyndham’s ‘Day of the Triffids’ and ‘Cat on a Hot Tin Roof’ – Tennessee Williams in great form – can’t be overlooked either. So many more, but I’ll leave it there so other people have some to mention! Many thanks for another great post and have a good week. 🙂

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    • Thank you, Laura!

      The racism in “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” wasn’t over the top, but definitely there. Still, Mickey Rooney’s objectionable portrayal of a Japanese character in the movie was his and/or the film’s fault; the character was depicted fairly respectfully in the novel.

      “My Family and Other Animals” (that was nonfiction, I think) was a great read! And not a bad title, either. 🙂

      The 1950s were definitely a big decade for Isaac Asimov; I forgot to mention in the post the books I’ve read by him. (I met that author in the 1980s, but that’s another story.)

      And Tennessee Williams wrote some seriously good plays in the 1950s — after of course doing the same in the 1940s.

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        • Well, Laura, I had a full-time job covering newspaper syndication for a magazine back then (writing about comic strips, columns, etc.) and the Los Angeles Times Syndicate signed Asimov to write a weekly science-related column. There was an event in New York City to launch the column, and I got to meet Asimov there. (I took a photo of him, too.) Very exciting!

          That was quite a fun job — I also got to meet, over the years, other columnists such as Ann Landers, Dear Abby, Erma Bombeck, and Heloise, and cartoonists such as Charles Schulz (“Peanuts”), Bill Watterson (“Calvin and Hobbes”), and Jim Davis (“Garfield”).

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  24. a big fan of Bradury, back in the day*

    funny, in even at that age, a sense of the lighter touch (would not have used the ‘poetic’ word back then!! lol) but there was a certain, ‘yeah, that’s more about the world than (the others) are about tomorrow’.

    fun post to time-travel, if only a brief Sunday morning trip

    *served as a bit of an aperitif after too much Heinlein lol (not denigrating the nuts-and-bolts scifi writers of the fities… but even preadolescence can be lightened up without shame

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