John Marsden Reading Order
9 series · 142 books · Born 1946-11-17
John Marsden is a British historian specializing in early medieval Scotland and Northumbria, with a prolific career spanning from 1987 to the present. He has authored approximately 140 works across multiple series, establishing himself as a leading scholar of early British history. His research and writing make him an essential resource for readers interested in the formative centuries of northern Britain, distinct from the similarly-named Australian novelist known for young adult fiction.
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Anthologies Series
Complete1 book (1990–1990)
| # | Title |
|---|---|
| 1 | Dream Time |
From Reason to Revolution Series
Ongoing96 books (2017–2024)
From Reason to Revolution is an ongoing non-fiction series edited by John Marsden comprising 96 books published between 2017 and 2024. The series collects historical narratives, letters, memoirs, and accounts from the late 18th and early 19th centuries, covering topics ranging from military campaigns to personal recollections of soldiers and officers. Readers should follow the books in publication order, beginning with Far Distant Ships: The Blockade of Brest, 1793-1815.
Start with Far Distant Ships: The Blockade of Brest, 1793-1815(By: Quintin Barry), the first of 96 books in the From Reason to Revolution series.
Start this series with Far Distant Ships: The Blockade of Brest, 1793-1815(By: Quintin Barry)
Buy Book 1 🇺🇸🎧 Listen free on Audible| # | Title |
|---|---|
| 1 |  Far Distant Ships: The Blockade of Brest, 1793-1815(By: Quintin Barry) |
| 2 |  Glories to Useless Heroism(By: William Raffle) |
| 3 |  On Gladsmuir Shall the Battle Be!(By: Arran Johnston) |
| 4 |  Recollections from the Ranks(By: Darrin Boland) |
| 5 |  Reminiscences 1808-1815 Under Wellington(By: William Hay,Andrew Bamford) |
| 6 |  The Autobiography or Narrative of a Soldier(By: William Brown) |
| 7 |  The French Army of the Orient 1798-1801(By: Yves Martin) |
| 8 | "Men who are Determined to be Free": The American Assault on Stony Point, 15 July 1779(By: David C. Bonk) |
| 9 |  A Light Infantryman with Wellington: The Letters of Captain George Ulrich Barlow 52nd and 69th Foot 1808-15(By: Gareth Glover) |
| 10 |  By Fire and Bayonet: Grey's West Indies Campaign of 1794(By: Steve Brown) |
| 11 |  For Orange and the States Part I(By: Marc Geerdink-Schaftenaar) |
| 12 |  Murat's Army: The Army of the Kingdom of Naples 1806-1815(By: Digby Smith) |
| 13 |  Narrative of the Eventful Life of Thomas Jackson(By: Thomas Jackson) |
| 14 |  Next to Wellington: General Sir George Murray(By: John Harding-Edgar) |
| 15 |  Olmutz to Torgau: Horace St Paul and the Campaigns of the Austrian Army in the Seven Years War 1758-60(By: Neil Cogswell) |
| 16 |  The Secret Expedition: The Anglo-Russian Invasion of Holland 1799(By: Geert van Uythoven) |
| 17 |  The Veteran or 40 Years' Service in the British Army(By: John Harley) |
| 18 |  We are Accustomed to Do Our Duty: German Auxiliaries with the British Army 1793-95(By: Paul Demet) |
| 19 |  With the Guards in Flanders: The Diary of Captain Roger Morris, 1793-1795(By: Peter Harrington,Roger Morris) |
| 20 | A Redcoat in America: The Diaries of Lieutenant William Bamford, 1757-1765 and 1776(By: John B. Hattendorf) |
| 21 |  All at Sea: Naval Support for the British Army During the American Revolutionary War(By: John Dillon) |
| 22 |  Command and Leadership 1721-1815(By: Andrew Bamford) |
| 23 |  Fluxes, Fevers and Fighting Men: War and Disease in Ancien Regime Europe 1648-1789(By: Padraig Lenihan) |
| 24 |  For Orange and the States: The Army of the Dutch Republic, 1713-1772: Part II: Cavalry and Special Troops(By: Marc Geerdink-Schaftenaar) |
| 25 |  Glory Is Fleeting: New Scholarship on the Napoleonic Wars(By: Andrew Bamford) |
| 26 |  King George’s Hangman: Henry Hawley and the Battle of Falkirk, 1746(By: Jonathan Oates) |
| 27 |  Northern Tars in Southern Waters: The Russian Fleet in the Mediterranean, 1806-1810(By: Darrin Boland) |
| 28 |  Quebec Under Siege: French Eye-Witness Accounts from the Campaign of 1759(By: Charles A Mayhood) |
| 29 |  Royal Navy Officers of the Seven Years War: A Biographical Dictionary of Commissioned Officers 1748-1763(By: Cy Harrison) |
| 30 |  So Bloody a Day: The 16th Light Dragoons in the Waterloo Campaign(By: David Blackmore) |
| 31 |  Swiss Regiments in the Service of France 1798-1815(By: Stephen Ede-Borrett) |
| 32 |  The Key to Lisbon: The Third French Invasion of Portugal, 1810-11(By: Kenton White) |
| 33 |  They Were Good Soldiers: African–Americans Serving in the Continental Army, 1775-1783(By: John Rees) |
| 34 |  Waterloo - After the Glory: Hospital Sketches and Reports on the Wounded after the Battle(By: Gareth Glover) |
| 35 |  Zweybrücken in Command: The Reichsarmee in the Campaign of 1758(By: Neil Cogswell) |
| 36 |  Fashioning Regulation, Regulating Fashion: The Uniforms and Dress of the British Army 1800-1815: Volume II(By: Ben Townsend) |
| 37 |  From Across the Sea: North Americans in Nelson’s Navy(By: John A Rodgaard) |
| 38 |  Guerra Fantastica: The Portuguese Army in the Seven Years War(By: António Barrento) |
| 39 |  Life in the Red Coat: The British Soldier 1721-1815(By: Andrew Bamford) |
| 40 |  Rebellious Scots to Crush: The Military Response to the Jacobite ‘45(By: Andrew Bamford) |
| 41 |  Revenge in the Name of Honour: The Royal Navy’s Quest for Vengeance in the Single Ship Actions of the War of 1812(By: Nicholas James Kaizer) |
| 42 |  The Danish Army of the Napoleonic Wars 1801-1815. Organisation, Uniforms & Equipment: Volume 1 - High Command, Line and Light Infantry(By: David A. Wilson) |
| 43 | They Fought with Extraordinary Bravery: The III GermanArmy Corps in the Southern Netherlands, 1814(By: Geert van Uythoven) |
| 44 |  Wellington at Bay: The Battle of Villamuriel, 25 October 1812(By: Garry David Wills) |
| 45 |  Wellington’s Favourite Engineer: John Fox Burgoyne: Operations, Engineering, and the Making of a Field Marshal(By: Mark S. Thompson) |
| 46 |  At the Point of the Bayonet The Peninsular War Battles of Arroyomolinos and Almaraz 1811-1812(By: Robert Griffith) |
| 47 |  Austrian Cavalry of the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, 1792-1815(By: Bruno Mugnai) |
| 48 |  Bullocks, Grain, and Good Madeira: The Maratha and Jat Campaigns, 1803-1806 and the Emergence of an Indian Arm(By: Joshua Provan) |
| 49 |  Crisis at the Chesapeake: The Royal Navy and the Struggle for America 1775-1783(By: Quintin Barry) |
| 50 |  For God and King: A History of the Damas Legion : A Case Study of the Military Emigration during the French Revolution(By: Alistair Nichols) |
| 51 |  French Light Infantry 1784-1815: From the Chasseurs of Louis XVI to Napoleon’s Grande Armée(By: Terry Crowdy) |
| 52 |  Hastenbeck 1757: The French Army and the Opening Campaign of the Seven Years War(By: Olivier Lapray) |
| 53 |  Like a Brazen Wall: The Battle of Minden, 1759, and its Place in the Seven Years War(By: Ewan Carmichael) |
| 54 |  Napoleon’s Stolen Army: How the Royal Navy Rescued a Spanish Army in the Baltic |
| 55 |  Rebellion, Invasion and Occupation: The British Army in Ireland, 1793-1815(By: Wayne Stack) |
| 56 |  Riflemen: The History of the 5th Battalion, 60th(By: Robert Griffith) |
| 57 |  Scharnhorst: The Formative Years, 1755-1801(By: Charles Edward White) |
| 58 |  Sir James McGrigor: The Adventurous Life of Wellington's Chief Medical Officer(By: Tom Scotland) |
| 59 |  The Sea Is My Element: The Eventful Life of Admiral Sir Pulteney Malcolm, 1766-1838(By: Paul Martinovich) |
| 60 |  The Sieges of the '45: Siege Warfare during the Jacobite Rebellion of 1745-1746(By: Jonathan Oates) |
| 61 | The Sword and the Spirit: Proceedings of the first ‘War & Peace in the Age of Napoleon’(By: Zack White) |
| 62 |  Their Infantry and Guns Will Astonish You: The Army of Hindustan and European Mercenaries in Maratha service 1780-1803(By: Andy Copestake) |
| 63 |  These Distinguished Corps: British Grenadier and Light Infantry Battalions in the American Revolution(By: Don N. Hagist) |
| 64 |  Wellington and the Lines of Torres Vedras: The Defence of Portugal during the Peninsular War, 1807-1814(By: Mark S. Thompson) |
| 65 |  1805 – Tsar Alexander\'s First War with Napoleon: The Russian Official History(By: Peter G. A. Phillips) |
| 66 |  A Very Fine Regiment: The 47th Foot during the American War of Independence, 1773-1783(By: Paula Knight) |
| 67 |  All the Seas of the World(By: Albert C.E. Parker) |
| 68 |  Armies and Enemies of Napoleon, 1789-1815: Proceedings of the 2021 Helion and Company ’From Reason to Revolution’ Conference(By: Robert Griffith) |
| 69 |  From Ushant to Gibraltar: The Channel Fleet 1778-1783(By: Quintin Barry) |
| 70 |  Ladies, Wives and Women: British Army Wives in the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars 1793-1815(By: David Clammer) |
| 71 |  Lobositz to Leuthen: Horace St Paul and the Campaigns of the Austrian Army in the Seven Years War 1756-57(By: Neil Cogswell) |
| 72 |  More Furies Than Men(By: Pierre-Louis Coudray) |
| 73 |  Napoleonic French Military Uniforms 1798-1814(By: Guy Dempsey) |
| 74 |  No Want of Courage: The British Army in Flanders, 1793-1795(By: R.N.W. Thomas) |
| 75 |  The Army of the Kingdom of Italy, 1805-1814(By: Stephen Ede-Borrett) |
| 76 |  The Battle of Rossbach 1757: New Perspectives on the Battle and Campaign(By: Alexander Querengasser) |
| 77 |  The Changing Face of Old Regime Warfare: Essays in Honour of Christopher Duffy(By: Alexander S Burns) |
| 78 |  The Ottoman Army of the Napoleonic Wars, 1784-1815(By: Bruno Mugnai) |
| 79 |  The Soldiers are Dressed in Red: The Quiberon Expedition of 1795 and the Counter-Revolution in Brittany(By: Alistair Nichols) |
| 80 |  Wellington's Other Army(By: Sérgio Veludo Coelho) |
| 81 |  1806-1807 - Tsar Alexander's Second War with Napoleon: The Russian Official History(By: Peter G.A. Philips) |
| 82 |  A Fine Corps and will Serve Faithfully: The Swiss Regiment de Roll in the British Army 1794-1816(By: Alistair Nichols) |
| 83 |  An Atlas of the Battles and Campaigns of the American Revolution, 1775-1783(By: David C. Bonk) |
| 84 |  Anson: Naval Commander and Statesman(By: Anthony Bruce) |
| 85 |  Confronting Napoleon: Levin von Bennigsen’s Memoir of the Campaign in Poland, 1806-1807: Volume II(By: Paul Strietelmeier) |
| 86 |  Fit to Command(By: Steve Brown) |
| 87 |  Kesselsdorf 1745: Decision in the Fight for Silesia(By: Alexander Querengasser) |
| 88 |  Maurice de Saxe and the Conquest of the Austrian Netherlands 1744-1748: Volume 1 - The Ghosts of Dettingen(By: Michael McNally) |
| 89 | New Perspectives on the Jacobite ’45(By: Arran Johnston) |
| 90 |  The Bavarian War of Succession, 1778-79(By: Alexander Querengasser) |
| 91 |  The Pattern: The 33rd Regiment in the American Revolution, 1770-1783(By: Robbie MacNiven) |
| 92 |  The Tagus Campaign of 1809 |
| 93 |  To Conquer and to Keep: Suchet and the War for Eastern Spain, 1809-1814(By: Yuhan Kim) |
| 94 | Wellington's Unsung Heroes: The Fifth Division in the Peninsular War, 1810-1814(By: Carole Divall) |
| 95 | You Have to Die in Piedmont!: The Battle of Assietta, 19 July 1747. The War of the Austrian Succession in the Alps(By: Giovanni Cerino Badone) |
| 96 |  Frontier Soldiers of New France: Volume 1 - Regulation Clothing, Armament, and Equipment of the Colonial Troops in New France(By: René Chartrand,Kevin Gélinas,Michal Pétard) |
Non-Fiction Series
Complete5 books (1989–2019)
This five-book non-fiction series by John Marsden spans three decades, from 1989 to 2019. The complete series should be read in publication order, beginning with The Illustrated Bede and concluding with The Art of Growing Up. Marsden's non-fiction works cover topics ranging from historical subjects to reflections on writing and personal development, offering young adult readers accessible explorations of diverse themes.
Start with The Illustrated Bede, the first of 5 books in the Non-Fiction series.
Start this series with The Illustrated Bede
Buy Book 1 🇺🇸🎧 Listen free on Audible| # | Title |
|---|---|
| 1 | The Illustrated Bede |
| 2 | Everything I Know About Writing |
| 3 | Marsden on Marsden |
| 4 | Somerled: And the Emergence of Gaelic Scotland |
| 5 | The Art of Growing Up |
Picture Series
Complete3 books (1998–2008)
John Marsden's Picture series comprises three complete works published between 1998 and 2008, best read in publication order. The trilogy consists of Norton's Hut, The Rabbits (a collaboration with illustrator Shaun Tan), and Home and Away, spanning the author's young adult and non-fiction work across the decade.
Start with Norton's Hut and read in order.
Start this series with Norton's Hut
Buy Book 1 🇺🇸🎧 Listen free on Audible| # | Title |
|---|---|
| 1 |  Norton's Hut |
| 2 |  The Rabbits(With: Shaun Tan) |
| 3 |  Home and Away |
Shaun Tan Picture Series
Complete6 books (1998–2020)
The Shaun Tan Picture series consists of six illustrated books published between 1998 and 2020, with the complete collection now available. Though credited to John Marsden as author, the series features visual narratives by Shaun Tan across titles including The Rabbits, The Lost Thing, The Red Tree, Rules of Summer, Cicada, and Dog. Readers should follow the publication order to experience the series as intended, beginning with The Rabbits and concluding with Dog.
Start with The Rabbits, the first of 6 books in the Shaun Tan Picture series.
Start this series with The Rabbits
Buy Book 1 🇺🇸🎧 Listen free on Audible| # | Title |
|---|---|
| 1 | The Rabbits |
| 2 |  The Lost Thing(By: Shaun Tan) |
| 3 |  The Red Tree(By: Shaun Tan) |
| 4 |  Rules of Summer(By: Shaun Tan) |
| 5 | Cicada(By: Shaun Tan) |
| 6 |  Dog(By: Shaun Tan) |
So Much to Tell You Series
Complete3 books (1987–2013)
John Marsden's So Much to Tell You series consists of two young adult novels published between 1987 and 1992. The complete series should be read in publication order, beginning with So Much to Tell You followed by Take My Word For It. This finished series offers a compelling entry point for readers interested in Marsden's young adult fiction.
Start with So Much to Tell You and read in order.
Start this series with So Much to Tell You
Buy Book 1 🇺🇸🎧 Listen free on Audible| # | Title |
|---|---|
| 1 | So Much to Tell You |
| 2 |  Take My Word For It |
| 3 | So Much to Tell You: The Play |
Standalone Novels Series
Complete18 books (1989–2020)
John Marsden's Standalone Novels series comprises 18 independent books published between 1989 and 2020, spanning young adult and non-fiction genres. Each novel stands alone and can be read in any order, though publication order is recommended to follow the author's creative development over three decades. The complete series begins with The Great Gatenby and concludes with The Year My Life Broke, offering readers a diverse collection of works that reflect Marsden's range as a writer across different themes and styles.
Start with The Great Gatenby, the first of 18 books in the Standalone Novels series.
Start this series with The Great Gatenby
Buy Book 1 🇺🇸🎧 Listen free on Audible| # | Title |
|---|---|
| 1 |  The Great Gatenby |
| 2 |  Letters from the Inside |
| 3 |  Cool School |
| 4 |  Checkers |
| 5 |  Looking For Trouble |
| 6 |  Staying Alive in Year Five |
| 7 |  Dear Miffy |
| 8 |  Prayer for the Twenty-First Century |
| 9 |  Secret Men's Business |
| 10 |  Winter |
| 11 |  The Head Book |
| 12 |  A Day in the Life of Me |
| 13 | Hamlet |
| 14 |  Hamlet & Ophelia |
| 15 | The Year My Life Broke |
| 16 | South of Darkness |
| 17 |  A Roomful of Magic |
| 18 | Millie |
The Ellie Chronicles Series
Complete3 books (2003–2006)
The Ellie Chronicles by John Marsden is a completed young adult series consisting of three books published between 2003 and 2006. This series should be read in publication order, beginning with While I Live, followed by Incurable, and concluding with Circle of Flight. The trilogy follows the continuing story of its protagonist across all three installments.
Start with While I Live and read in order.
Start this series with While I Live
Buy Book 1 🇺🇸🎧 Listen free on Audible| # | Title |
|---|---|
| 1 |  While I Live |
| 2 |  Incurable |
| 3 |  Circle Of Flight |
Tomorrow Series
Complete7 books (1993–1999)
John Marsden's Tomorrow series consists of seven young adult novels published between 1993 and 1999, following publication order for the complete story arc. Begin with Tomorrow, When the War Began and continue through The Other Side of Dawn to experience the full narrative as intended by the author. This finished series should be read sequentially, starting from the first book to understand the developing plot and character arcs across all entries.
Start with Tomorrow, When the War Began, the first of 7 books in the Tomorrow series.
Start this series with Tomorrow, When the War Began
Buy Book 1 🇺🇸🎧 Listen free on Audible| # | Title |
|---|---|
| 1 |  Tomorrow, When the War Began |
| 2 |  The Dead of Night |
| 3 |  A Killing Frost / The Third Day, the Frost |
| 4 | Darkness, Be My Friend |
| 5 |  Burning For Revenge |
| 6 |  The Night is for Hunting |
| 7 |  The Other Side of Dawn |
Frequently Asked Questions
- How many books has John Marsden written?
- John Marsden has written 142 books across 9 series. Their published works span from 1987 to 2024.
- What is the first book in each John Marsden series?
- Here are the first books in John Marsden's series: From Reason to Revolution: Far Distant Ships: The Blockade of Brest, 1793-1815(By: Quintin Barry); Non-Fiction: The Illustrated Bede; Picture: Norton's Hut; Shaun Tan Picture: The Rabbits; So Much to Tell You: So Much to Tell You.
- What order should I read John Marsden's books?
- We recommend reading John Marsden's series in publication order. Each series can be read independently.
- Is John Marsden still writing new books?
- Yes, John Marsden has 1 ongoing series: From Reason to Revolution.