This Norman Mailer bibliography lists major books[a] by and about Mailer (January 31, 1923 – November 10, 2007), an American novelist, new journalist, essayist, public intellectual, filmmaker, and biographer. Over a fifty-nine-year period, Mailer won two Pulitzer Prizes and had eleven books spend a total of 160 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list.[1] Mailer's output included fiction, non-fiction, poems and essays. Biographer J. Michael Lennon called Mailer the chronicler of the American Century,[2] and a talent whose career has "been at once so brilliant, varied, controversial, improvisational, public, productive, lengthy and misunderstood".[3]
spent 62 weeks on the bestseller list, achieving no. 1;[4] received a New York Newspaper Guild's "Page One Award"; chosen as one of the four best books of 1948 by Newsweek;[5] original manuscript housed at Yale University[6]
nineteen stories — one new ("The Shortest Novel of Them All") and eighteen previously published with an original introduction;[9] published with material from Existential Errands under the title The Essential Mailer, Sevenoaks, Kent: New English Library, 1982
won the Pulitzer Prize for general nonfiction and the National Book Award for arts and letters;[11] ranked nineteenth on a list of the top 100 works of journalism of the twentieth century[12]
The Idol and the Octopus: Political Writings on the Kennedy and Johnson Administrations
1968
miscellany
selections from PP and CAC, including the new "On Lady Chatterley and Tropic of Cancer"[13]
spent 25 weeks on the bestseller list, achieving no. 3;[4] won the Playboy Writing Award for fiction in 1979 and the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1980;[22] nominated for the American Book Award for fiction and the National Book Critics Circle Award for fiction in 1979;[23] ranked 72 on a list of the top 100 works of journalism of the twentieth century;[12] Mailer insisted on calling ES a "true-life novel"[24]
spent 10 weeks on the bestseller list, achieving no. 5[4]
Conversations with Norman Mailer
CNM
1988
collection
edited and introduced by J. Michael Lennon; contains 34 previously published interviews, including three self-interviews, an introduction, and chronology of Mailer's life[28]
contains 139 excerpts from 26 of Mailer's books and uncollected periodical pieces; includes "The Shadow of the Crime: A Word from the Author", a one-page reflection on the 1960 stabbing of his second wife Adele;[29] Mailer signed 25,000 copies[29]
The Spooky Art: Thoughts on Writing
SA
2003
miscellany
edited and introduced by J. Michael Lennon; contains previously published and original material[30]
Modest Gifts: Poems and Drawings
MG
2003
poetry
old (some revised) and new poems; reprint of DFL and poems from CAC[31]
Why Are We at War?
WWW
2003
essay
assembled from two interviews and a speech, September 2002 to February 2003, against the Iraq war[32]
Norman Mailer's Letters on An American Dream, 1963-1969
LAD
2004
letters
76 letters about the writing and publication of AAD, edited by J. Michael Lennon
The Big Empty: Dialogues on Politics, Sex, God, Boxing, Morality, Myth, Poker and Bad Conscience in America
spent 3 weeks on the bestseller list, achieving no. 5[4]
On God: An Uncommon Conversation
OG
2007
conversations
with J. Michael Lennon; edited transcripts of ten conversations between Lennon and Mailer, 2003–2006[33]
Mind of an Outlaw: Selected Essays of Norman Mailer
MO
2013
collection
49 important essays, 1948–2006, including "Freud" an unpublished essay from the mid-1950s;[34] edited by Phillip Sipiora
The Selected Letters of Norman Mailer
SLNM
2014
letters
714 letters, 1940 to 2007, selected from the approximately 50,000 Mailer wrote over his lifetime,[35] edited by J. Michael Lennon
Norman Mailer: Four Books of the 1960s
2018
collection
Library of America #305 contains AAD, WVN, AON, and MSC; edited by J. Michael Lennon
Norman Mailer: Collected Essays of the 1960s
2018
collection
Library of America #306; edited by J. Michael Lennon
Lipton's: A Marijuana Journal
2024
journal
A journal written in the winter of 1954–1955, containing an introduction, annotations, an index, and correspondence between Mailer and Robert Lindner; edited by J. Michael Lennon, Gerald R. Lucas, and Susan Mailer
Novels
Title
Year
Publication Information
The Naked and the Dead
1948
New York: Rinehart, 6 May; London: Wingate, 9 May 1949.
Barbary Shore
1951
New York: Rinehart, 24 May; London: Cape, 21 January 1952.
The Deer Park
1955
New York: Putnam's, 14 October; London: Wingate, 1957.
An American Dream
1965
New York: Dial, 15 March. London: Deutsch, 26 April.
Why Are We in Vietnam?
1967
New York: Putnam's, 15 September; London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, March or April 1969.
A Transit to Narcissus
1978
New York: Howard Fertig, 29 March.
Of Women and Their Elegance
1980
New York: Simon and Schuster, 26 November; London: Hodder and Stoughton.
The Long Patrol: 25 Years of Writing from the Work of Norman Mailer
1971
New York: World, 1971.
Existential Errands
1972
Boston: Little, Brown, 1972.
Some Honorable Men: Political Conventions, 1960-1972
1976
Boston: Little, Brown, 1976.
The Essential Mailer
1982
Sevenoaks, Kent: New English Library, 1982.
Pieces and Pontifications
1982
Boston: Little, Brown, 1982.
The Time of Our Time
1998
New York: Random House, 1998.
The Spooky Art: Thoughts on Writing
2003
New York: Random House, 2003.
Mind of an Outlaw: Selected Essays of Norman Mailer
2013
New York: Random House: 2013.
Norman Mailer: Four Books of the 1960s
2018
New York: Library of America, 2018.
Norman Mailer: Collected Essays of the 1960s
2018
New York: Library of America, 2018.
Conversations and interviews
By 1986, Mailer had been interviewed approximately 200 times, perhaps more than any other American author on a wide range of topics.[38] He may maintain that distinction today.[37]
Lilliput's Extra Holiday Reading (London 1953); AFM (1959); SFNM (1967); A Selection from the Short Fiction of Norman Mailer (1968); EM (1982); Stag (1975)[48]
based on an anecdote by Vance Bourjaily, to whom Mailer dedicated the story[49]
Various Temptations (1955); The Armchair Esquire (1958); AFM (1959); SFNM (1967); A Selection from the Short Fiction of Norman Mailer (1968); EM (1982)[50]
"Pierrot"
1951
1953
World Review
AFM (1959); SFNM (1967)
published as "The Patron Saint of MacDougal Alley" in AFM and SFNM with changes[50]
Gordon, Andrew (1980). An American Dreamer: A Psychoanalytic Study of the Fiction of Norman Mailer. London: Fairleigh Dickinson UP. OCLC1046256795.
Begiebing, Robert J. (1980). Acts of Regeneration: Allegory and Archetype in the Works of Norman Mailer. Columbia; London: University of Missouri Press. OCLC466533555.
Mills, Hilary (1982). Mailer: A Biography. New York: Empire Books. OCLC966034621.
^This date is often listed as 1957 or 1958 (e.g. Adams (1974, p. 1) and Lennon (1986, p. 219) list 1957), but as Lennon & Lennon (2018, p. 29) explain, the City Lights publication is followed by the 1958 "Reflections on Hipsterism", so earlier than 1959 is unlikely.
— (2008a). "Abbreviations of Books By and About Norman Mailer". The Mailer Review. 2 (1): 518–519. ISSN1936-4679.
—, ed. (1988). Conversations with Norman Mailer. Literary Conversations. Jackson and London: University Press of Mississippi. OCLC643635248.
— (1986). "Norman Mailer". In Martine, James J. (ed.). Contemporary Authors: American Novelists. Bibliographical Series. Vol. 1. Detroit, MI: Bruccoli Clark. pp. 219–260. ISSN0887-3070.
— (2013). Norman Mailer: A Double Life. New York: Simon and Schuster. OCLC873006264.