10 Literary Series Where Every Book Is a Masterpiece
Collider highlights ten literary series it considers consistently exceptional, spanning memoir, children’s fantasy and epic speculative fiction.
– Tove Ditlevsen’s Copenhagen trilogy is praised for its candid, psychologically detailed autobiographical writing. – Harry Potter is described as an enduring benchmark for middle-grade and young adult fantasy, despite criticism of its author’s views. – Brandon Sanderson’s Mistborn series is commended for its world-building, magic system, plotting and characters. – The list excludes works that are technically a single book split into multiple volumes, such as The Lord of the Rings.
- Collider celebrates ten consistently acclaimed book series.
- The selections span memoir, fantasy and children’s literature.
- True series qualify; split single-volume epics do not.
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A literary series tells a story or explores a subject across several books, with each volume forming part of a larger body of work. Some series follow the same characters, while others are linked by setting, themes or the author’s life.
The examples range from Tove Ditlevsen’s autobiographical books about growing up and living in Copenhagen, to J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter novels and Brandon Sanderson’s fantasy series Mistborn. They show how different kinds of writing can be grouped together when readers and critics judge the books to be strong across a whole series.
Lists of this kind involve choices about what counts as a series and what makes one consistently good. Some multi-volume works began as a single book divided for publication, so they may be treated differently from books conceived as separate instalments.