A Level English Set Texts

Pre-1900 set texts for A-Level

• Tess of the D’Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy | AQA 7712, 7717 | Edexcel 9EL0 | Edexcel 9ET0 | WJEC English Language and Literature
• Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë | AQA 7712 | Eduqas English Language and Literature | OCR H474/03 | WJEC English Literature
• Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë | AQA 7712 | CCEA | Edexcel 9EL0 | Edexcel 9ET0
• Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain | Edexcel 9ET0
• Frankenstein (1818) by Mary Shelley | AQA 7707 | CCEA | Edexcel 9ET0
• The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde | AQA 7717 | Edexcel 9ET0 | OCR H472 (first assessment June 2029) | OCR H474/02 (specified Oxford World’s Classics edition)
• Dracula by Bram Stoker | AQA 7707 | CCEA | Edexcel 9EL0 | Edexcel 9ET0 | OCR H472
• Emma by Jane Austen | AQA 7717 | CCEA | WJEC English Language and Literature
• Hard Times by Charles Dickens | AQA 7717 | Edexcel 9ET0
• Great Expectations by Charles Dickens | Eduqas English Language and Literature | Edexcel 9EL0 | WJEC English Language and Literature
• Doctor Faustus by Christopher Marlowe (Longman) | Eduqas English Literature | Edexcel 9ET0 | WJEC English Literature | OCR H472 (first assessment June 2029)
• The Duchess of Malfi by John Webster (Methuen) | Eduqas English Literature | Edexcel 9ET0 | OCR H472 (current list to June 2028; new list first assessed June 2029)
• The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde | Edexcel 9ET0
• Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen | OCR H472 | WJEC English Literature
• Lady Windermere’s Fan by Oscar Wilde (New Mermaids) | Eduqas English Literature | WJEC English Literature
• The Awakening by Kate Chopin | AQA 7712
• The Nun’s Priest’s Tale including Prologue and Epilogue by Geoffrey Chaucer | AQA 7717
• She Stoops to Conquer by Oliver Goldsmith | AQA 7717 | OCR H472 (current list to June 2028)
• Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens | AQA 7717
• Persuasion by Jane Austen | AQA 7712
• A Doll’s House by Henrik Ibsen (translated by Michael Meyer; Methuen Drama Student Edition 2008) | AQA 7717 | OCR H472 (current list to June 2028; new list first assessed June 2029)
• The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne | CCEA
• Silas Marner by George Eliot | CCEA
• The Revenger’s Tragedy by Thomas Middleton (Methuen) | Eduqas English Literature
• The Rover by Aphra Behn | Edexcel 9ET0 | OCR H472 (first assessment June 2029)
• What Maisie Knew by Henry James | Edexcel 9ET0
• Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad | Edexcel 9ET0
• Lady Audley’s Secret by Mary Elizabeth Braddon | Edexcel 9ET0
• The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins | Edexcel 9ET0
• The War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells | Edexcel 9ET0
• Edward II by Christopher Marlowe | OCR H472 (current list to June 2028)
• An Ideal Husband by Oscar Wilde | OCR H472 (current list to June 2028)
• North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell | WJEC English Literature
• David Copperfield by Charles Dickens | WJEC English Literature
• The Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy | WJEC English Literature

Shakespeare for A-Level

• Othello | AQA 7707, 7712, 7717 | CCEA | Eduqas English Language and Literature | Edexcel 9EL0 | Edexcel 9ET0 | OCR H472 (first assessment June 2027) | OCR H474/02 | WJEC English Language and Literature
• King Lear | AQA 7717 | CCEA | Eduqas English Language and Literature | Eduqas English Literature | Edexcel 9ET0 | WJEC English Literature | WJEC English Language and Literature | OCR H472 (first assessment June 2027)
• Antony and Cleopatra | Eduqas English Language and Literature | Eduqas English Literature | Edexcel 9ET0 | WJEC English Literature | WJEC English Language and Literature
• Hamlet | AQA 7717 | Eduqas English Literature | Edexcel 9EL0 | Edexcel 9ET0 | WJEC English Literature | OCR H472
• The Tempest | Eduqas English Language and Literature | Eduqas English Literature | WJEC English Literature | WJEC English Language and Literature | OCR H472
• Much Ado About Nothing | Eduqas English Language and Literature | Edexcel 9EL0 | WJEC English Language and Literature
• The Taming of the Shrew | AQA 7712, 7717 | CCEA | Edexcel 9ET0 | OCR H472 (first assessment June 2027)
• Twelfth Night | AQA 7717 | Edexcel 9EL0 | Edexcel 9ET0
• Measure for Measure | AQA 7712 | CCEA | Eduqas English Literature | Edexcel 9ET0
• Henry IV Part I | AQA 7717 | Eduqas English Literature | WJEC English Literature
• Richard II | AQA 7717
• As You Like It | CCEA
• The Winter’s Tale | AQA 7712 | CCEA
• A Midsummer Night’s Dream | Edexcel 9ET0
• Richard III by William Shakespeare | OCR H472

Modern drama texts for A-Level

• A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams | AQA 7712, 7707 | CCEA | Eduqas English Literature | Edexcel 9EL0 | Edexcel 9ET0 | OCR H474/02 | WJEC English Literature | WJEC English Language and Literature
• Translations by Brian Friel | AQA 7712 | CCEA | Eduqas English Language and Literature | Edexcel 9EL0 | WJEC English Literature
• Top Girls by Caryl Churchill | AQA 7712 | Edexcel 9EL0 | WJEC English Literature
• Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? by Edward Albee | Eduqas English Language and Literature | WJEC English Language and Literature
• All My Sons by Arthur Miller | AQA 7712, 7707 | Edexcel 9EL0
• Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett | CCEA | Edexcel 9ET0
• Loot by Joe Orton (Methuen) | Eduqas English Literature
• Betrayal by Harold Pinter (Faber) | Eduqas English Literature | Edexcel 9EL0
• Cat on a Hot Tin Roof by Tennessee Williams | AQA 7712 | Eduqas English Language and Literature
• The History Boys by Alan Bennett | Eduqas English Language and Literature | Edexcel 9EL0
• Kindertransport by Diane Samuels | Eduqas English Language and Literature | WJEC English Language and Literature
• Oh! What a Lovely War by Joan Littlewood | AQA 7712
• Journey’s End by R.C. Sherriff | AQA 7712
• The Accrington Pals by Peter Whelan | AQA 7712
• Blackadder Goes Forth by Richard Curtis and Ben Elton | AQA 7712
• My Boy Jack by David Haig | AQA 7712
• The Wipers Times by Ian Hislop and Nick Newman | AQA 7712
• Our Country’s Good by Timberlake Wertenbaker | AQA 7712
• The Herd by Rory Kinnear | AQA 7707
• Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller | AQA 7717
• The Crucible by Arthur Miller | CCEA
• Men Should Weep (1982 version) by Ena Lamont Stewart | CCEA
• A Man for All Seasons by Robert Bolt | CCEA
• Enron by Lucy Prebble (Methuen) | Eduqas English Literature
• Murmuring Judges by David Hare (Faber) | Eduqas English Literature
• Elmina’s Kitchen by Kwame Kwei-Armah | Edexcel 9EL0
• Equus by Peter Shaffer | Edexcel 9EL0
• A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry | Edexcel 9EL0
• Rock ‘N’ Roll by Tom Stoppard | Edexcel 9EL0
• Oleanna by David Mamet | Edexcel 9EL0
• Les Blancs by Lorraine Hansberry | Edexcel 9ET0
• Sweat by Lynn Nottage | Edexcel 9ET0
• Barber Shop Chronicles by Inua Ellams | OCR H474/02
• Tribes by Nina Raine | OCR H474/02
• Jerusalem by Jez Butterworth | OCR H474/02
• Amadeus by Peter Shaffer | WJEC English Language and Literature
• Shakespeare in Love by Marc Norman and Tom Stoppard | WJEC English Language and Literature

Modern prose texts for A-Level

• The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald | AQA 7712, 7707, 7717 | Edexcel 9EL0 | OCR H472 | OCR H474/03
• The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood | AQA 7712, 7707, 7717 | Edexcel 9ET0 | OCR H472 | WJEC English Language and Literature
• The Color Purple by Alice Walker (Eduqas edition) | AQA 7712 | Eduqas English Language and Literature | Edexcel 9ET0
• The Color Purple by Alice Walker (WJEC edition) | WJEC English Language and Literature
• In Cold Blood by Truman Capote | Eduqas English Language and Literature | Edexcel 9ET0 | OCR H474/04 (final assessment June 2027) | WJEC English Language and Literature
• Atonement by Ian McEwan | AQA 7712, 7717 | Eduqas English Language and Literature | Edexcel 9ET0 | OCR H474/03
• A Room with a View by E.M. Forster | AQA 7712 | Edexcel 9EL0
• The Go-Between by L.P. Hartley | AQA 7712
• Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit by Jeanette Winterson | AQA 7712
• The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy | AQA 7712 | OCR H474/03
• A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway | AQA 7712
• A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by David Eggers | Eduqas English Language and Literature | WJEC English Language and Literature
• Small Island by Andrea Levy | AQA 7717
• The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini | AQA 7707, 7717
• Down and Out in Paris and London by George Orwell | OCR H474/04 (final assessment June 2027) | WJEC English Language and Literature
• Watching the Fire-Eater by Robert Minhinnick (Seren) | WJEC English Language and Literature
• Homage to Catalonia by George Orwell | Eduqas English Language and Literature
• The Bloody Chamber by Angela Carter | Edexcel 9EL0 | OCR H472
• The Lonely Londoners by Sam Selvon | Edexcel 9ET0
• The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri | OCR H474/03
• Skating to Antarctica by Jenny Diski | OCR H474/04 (final assessment June 2027) | Eduqas English Language and Literature
• Once in a House on Fire by Andrea Ashworth | Eduqas English Language and Literature | WJEC English Language and Literature
• Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier | AQA 7712
• Regeneration by Pat Barker | AQA 7712
• Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks | AQA 7712
• The Return of the Soldier by Rebecca West | AQA 7712
• All Quiet on the Western Front (Vintage paperback edition, translated by Brian Murdoch) by Erich Maria Remarque | AQA 7712
• Strange Meeting by Susan Hill | AQA 7712
• Goodbye to All That by Robert Graves | AQA 7712
• A Long, Long Way by Sebastian Barry | AQA 7712
• The First Casualty by Ben Elton | AQA 7712
• Life Class by Pat Barker | AQA 7712
• Waterland by Graham Swift | AQA 7712
• Spies by Michael Frayn | AQA 7712
• One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey | AQA 7712
• The Help by Kathryn Stockett | AQA 7712
• Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates | AQA 7712
• The Island of Missing Trees by Elif Shafak | AQA 7712 (first assessment 2027)
• Wake by Anna Hope | AQA 7712 (first assessment 2027)
• Mr Loverman by Bernardine Evaristo | AQA 7712 (first assessment 2027)
• The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro | Eduqas English Language and Literature
• Kala by Colin Walsh | AQA 7717 (first assessment 2027)
• Brotherless Night by V. V. Ganeshananthan | AQA 7717 (first assessment 2027)
• The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold | AQA 7707
• Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer | AQA 7707
• The Suspicions of Mr Whicher: or the Murder at Road Hill House by Kate Summerscale | AQA 7707
• When Will There Be Good News? by Kate Atkinson | AQA 7717
• The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie | AQA 7717
• Brighton Rock by Graham Greene | AQA 7717
• Harvest by Jim Crace | AQA 7717
• The Bone People by Keri Hulme | Edexcel 9EL0
• A Single Man by Christopher Isherwood | Edexcel 9EL0
• Enduring Love by Ian McEwan | Edexcel 9EL0
• Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys | Edexcel 9EL0
• The Lowland by Jhumpa Lahiri | Edexcel 9EL0
• Home Fire by Kamila Shamsie | Edexcel 9ET0
• The Cutting Season by Attica Locke | Edexcel 9ET0
• Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro | Edexcel 9ET0
• Beloved by Toni Morrison | Edexcel 9ET0
• The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters | Edexcel 9ET0
• Mrs Dalloway by Virginia Woolf | Edexcel 9ET0 | OCR H472
• A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini | Edexcel 9ET0
• Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe | OCR H474/03
• Stuart: A Life Backwards by Alexander Masters | OCR H474/04 (final assessment June 2027)
• Hyperbole and a Half by Allie Brosh | OCR H474/04 (final assessment June 2027)
• The Lost Continent by Bill Bryson | OCR H474/04 (final assessment June 2027)
• I Am the Secret Footballer by Anonymous | OCR H474/04 (final assessment June 2027)
• Stasiland by Anna Funder | OCR H474/04 (final assessment June 2027)
• Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? by Jeannette Winterson | OCR H474/04 (final assessment June 2027)
• The Examined Life by Stephen Grosz | OCR H474/04 (final assessment June 2027)
• Twelve Years a Slave by Solomon Northup | OCR H474/04 (final assessment June 2027)
• What the Chinese Don’t Eat by Xinran | OCR H474/04 (final assessment June 2027)
• The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck | OCR H472
• Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell | OCR H472
• The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid | OCR H472
• Call It Sleep by Henry Roth | OCR H472
• The Quiet Ear by Raymond Antrobus | OCR H474/04 (first assessment June 2028)
• Common People edited by Kit de Waal | OCR H474/04 (first assessment June 2028)
• Question 7 by Richard Flanagan | OCR H474/04 (first assessment June 2028)
• Wifedom by Anna Funder | OCR H474/04 (first assessment June 2028)
• The Roles We Play by Sabba Khan | OCR H474/04 (first assessment June 2028)
• Look Here by Ana Kinsella | OCR H474/04 (first assessment June 2028)
• Diary of a Young Naturalist by Dara McAnulty | OCR H474/04 (first assessment June 2028)
• My Mess is a Bit of a Life by Georgia Pritchett | OCR H474/04 (first assessment June 2028)
• Say Nothing by Patrick Radden Keefe | OCR H474/04 (first assessment June 2028)
• My Autobiography of Carson McCullers by Jenn Shapland | OCR H474/04 (first assessment June 2028)
• Educated by Tara Westover | OCR H474/04 (first assessment June 2028)
• Free: Coming of Age at the End of History by Lea Ypi | OCR H474/04 (first assessment June 2028)

Poetry for A-Level

• Skirrid Hill (post-2000) by Owen Sheers (Seren) | AQA 7712 | WJEC English Literature | Eduqas English Literature
• The Merchant’s Prologue and Tale by Geoffrey Chaucer (Cambridge) | Eduqas English Literature | WJEC English Literature | OCR H472 (current list to June 2028)
• Poems selected by Patti Smith by William Blake (Vintage) | Eduqas English Literature | WJEC English Literature
• Selected Poems by Christina Rossetti (Penguin Classics) | Eduqas English Literature | Edexcel 9ET0 | OCR H472 (current list to June 2028; updated selection first assessed 2029) | WJEC English Literature
• Poems selected by Seamus Heaney by W. B. Yeats (Faber) | Eduqas English Literature | WJEC English Literature
• Songs of Innocence and of Experience by William Blake | AQA 7717 | OCR H474
• Welsh Retrospective by Dannie Abse (Seren) | Eduqas English Literature | WJEC English Literature
• Poems selected by Simon Armitage by Ted Hughes (Faber) | Eduqas English Literature | WJEC English Literature
• Poems selected by Ted Hughes by Sylvia Plath (Faber) | Eduqas English Literature | WJEC English Literature
• Selected Poems of Sylvia Plath by Sylvia Plath (Faber) | Edexcel 9EL0
• The Whitsun Weddings by Philip Larkin (Faber) | Eduqas English Literature | Edexcel 9EL0 | WJEC English Literature
• Mean Time by Carol Ann Duffy (Picador) | Eduqas English Literature | WJEC English Literature
• Field Work by Seamus Heaney (Faber) | Eduqas English Literature | WJEC English Literature
• Up the Line to Death edited by Brian Gardner | AQA 7712
• Scars Upon My Heart edited by Catherine Reilly | AQA 7712
• The Penguin Book of First World War Poetry edited by George Walter | AQA 7712
• The Oxford Book of War Poetry edited by Jon Stallworthy | AQA 7712
• The War Poems of Wilfred Owen edited by Jon Stallworthy | AQA 7712
• Feminine Gospels by Carol Ann Duffy | AQA 7712
• Selected Poems 2013 Edition by Tony Harrison | AQA 7712 | AQA 7717
• New Selected Poems 1966–1987 by Seamus Heaney | AQA 7712
• Birthday Letters by Ted Hughes | AQA 7712
• Ariel by Sylvia Plath | AQA 7712
• The Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Samuel Taylor Coleridge | AQA 7717
• The Wife of Bath’s Prologue and Tale by Geoffrey Chaucer | Edexcel 9EL0 | Edexcel 9ET0 | CCEA
• Poems selected by Tom Paulin by Thomas Hardy (Faber) | Eduqas English Literature
• Selected Poems by T.S. Eliot (Faber) | Eduqas English Literature
• Metaphysical Poetry edited by Colin Burrow | Edexcel 9EL0 | Edexcel 9ET0
• The Waste Land and Other Poems by T.S. Eliot | Edexcel 9EL0
• The New Penguin Book of Romantic Poetry edited by Jonathan Wordsworth | Edexcel 9EL0
• Goblin Market and Other Poems by Christina Rossetti | Edexcel 9EL0
• North by Seamus Heaney | Edexcel 9EL0
• The Complete Poems by Emily Dickinson (Faber & Faber 1976 edition) | OCR H474
• Pepper Seed by Malika Booker | OCR H474
• If They Come For Us by Fatimah Asghar | OCR H474
• Rapture by Carol Ann Duffy (Picador 2005 edition) | OCR H474
• Breaking Silence by Jacob Sam-La Rose | OCR H474
• Selected Poems by Samuel Taylor Coleridge | OCR H472 (current list to June 2028)
• Selected Poems by Edward Thomas | WJEC English Literature
• Collected Poems by Alun Lewis | WJEC English Literature
• Selected Poems by John Donne (Penguin Classics) | Eduqas English Literature | Edexcel 9ET0 | WJEC English Literature
• Paradise Lost Book IX by John Milton (Oxford) | Eduqas English Literature | WJEC English Literature
• Paradise Lost Books IX and X by John Milton | OCR H472 (current list to June 2028)
• Maud by Alfred, Lord Tennyson | OCR H472 (current list to June 2028)
• The Franklin’s Prologue and Tale by Geoffrey Chaucer | OCR H472 (first assessment June 2029)
• Paradise Lost Books I and II by John Milton | OCR H472 (first assessment June 2029)
• Selected Poems by Elizabeth Barrett Browning | OCR H472 (first assessment June 2029)
• Selected Poems by John Clare | OCR H472 (first assessment June 2029)
• Everyman and Medieval Miracle Plays edited by A. C. Cawley | Edexcel 9ET0
• English Mystery Plays: A Selection edited by Peter Happé | Edexcel 9ET0 (alternative permitted edition for Medieval Poetic Drama)
• English Romantic Verse edited by David Wright | Edexcel 9ET0
• Selected Poems: Keats by John Keats (edited by John Barnard) | Edexcel 9ET0
• The New Oxford Book of Victorian Verse edited by Christopher Ricks | Edexcel 9ET0
• The Great Modern Poets edited by Michael Schmidt | Edexcel 9ET0
• Selected Poems by T. S. Eliot | Edexcel 9ET0
• The Oxford Book of Twentieth Century English Verse edited by Philip Larkin | Edexcel 9ET0
• The Less Deceived by Philip Larkin | Edexcel 9ET0

Additional resources

• OCR has a free set of resources for teaching diverse texts at A-level.
• See our rundown of set texts for GCSE.
• AQA Anthology: Paris is a set text for AQA 7707.
• Pearson 9EL0: Voices in Speech and Writing anthology. The current anthology has 18 assessable texts following Pearson’s 2025 removal of two texts; see Pearson’s current teaching materials and anthology update notice.
• OCR H074/H474 Anthology, Version 4 is the current non-fiction and spoken-text anthology for A-level cohorts from June 2026.
• OCR H474/04 set-text update: current texts have final assessment in June 2027; the replacement list first assesses in June 2028.
• OCR H472 Component 01 set-text update: the current list is assessed through June 2028; the replacement drama and poetry list first assesses in June 2029.

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