Margaret Atwood Books in Order: Gilead, MaddAddam, and Every Novel

Margaret Atwood’s bibliography is much larger than her two most famous dystopian worlds. She has written literary fiction, speculative fiction, historical fiction, mythological retellings, poetry, short stories, essays, graphic novels, and nonfiction across more than six decades. Her official bibliography lists 17 novels, beginning with The Edible Woman and continuing through The Testaments.

For readers searching for Margaret Atwood books in order, there is no need to read every novel chronologically. Most are standalone stories. The exceptions are the two Gilead novels and the MaddAddam trilogy, where publication order provides the clearest route through the connected stories.

Margaret Atwood Novels in Publication Order

This order follows Margaret Atwood’s official full bibliography.

The Handmaid’s Tale and The Testaments in Order

The Gilead novels are Atwood’s most recognizable connected works. There are two novels in the series.

1. The Handmaid’s Tale

Gilead novel #1 | 1985

The Handmaid’s Tale takes place in a near-future version of the United States that has been transformed into the theocratic Republic of Gilead. Women have been stripped of their legal and personal freedoms, and fertile women known as Handmaids are forced into reproductive servitude.

The story is narrated by Offred, a Handmaid whose identity has effectively been taken from her. Her memories of the life she had before Gilead are interwoven with her increasingly dangerous existence inside the regime.

Atwood’s official description calls the novel a work of satire and warning, and its central questions about power, bodily autonomy, language, memory, and control remain at the heart of the Gilead story.

2. The Testaments

Gilead novel #2 | 2019

The Testaments returns to Gilead fifteen years after the events recorded by Offred in The Handmaid’s Tale. Instead of continuing with a single narrator, Atwood tells the story through three female voices whose lives are connected to Gilead in very different ways.

The novel expands the reader’s understanding of how Gilead operates from inside its institutions as well as from the perspective of people living under its control. It also introduces characters and revelations that reshape the history established in the first novel.

This is a direct companion to The Handmaid’s Tale, not a separate standalone novel, so reading Atwood’s Gilead books in publication order makes the most sense.

Should You Read The Handmaid’s Tale Before The Testaments?

Yes. Although The Testaments takes place fifteen years after The Handmaid’s Tale, it is designed around the world and history established by the earlier novel.

The first book introduces Gilead through Offred’s experience. The second expands that world through three different perspectives and fills in parts of Gilead’s history that were deliberately left uncertain in the first book.

So the recommended order is:

1. The Handmaid’s Tale
2. The Testaments

Atwood’s official site describes The Testaments as the sequel to The Handmaid’s Tale.

The MaddAddam Trilogy in Order

The MaddAddam trilogy is Atwood’s other major connected fictional universe. It explores a near future shaped by genetic engineering, corporate power, environmental destruction, biotechnology, and a catastrophic pandemic.

The official publisher lists the trilogy in this order: Oryx and Crake, The Year of the Flood, and MaddAddam.

1. Oryx and Crake

MaddAddam #1 | 2003

Jimmy, now known as Snowman, appears to be one of the last surviving humans after a catastrophic pandemic has devastated civilization.

He spends his days surviving in a world populated by genetically engineered creatures known as the Children of Crake while remembering the two people who shaped his earlier life: his brilliant friend Crake and the mysterious Oryx.

As Snowman’s memories unfold, the reader gradually learns how genetic engineering, corporate power, scientific ambition, and personal obsession contributed to the collapse of the old world.

Oryx and Crake establishes the central characters, technologies, and post-apocalyptic setting that the rest of the trilogy expands.

2. The Year of the Flood

MaddAddam #2 | 2009

The Year of the Flood takes place in the same devastated world as Oryx and Crake, but shifts attention toward different survivors.

Toby and Ren are at the center of the story, and both have connections to the God’s Gardeners, an environmentally focused religious community led by the charismatic Adam One.

Rather than simply repeating the first novel, the book reveals another side of the society that existed before the pandemic and shows the disaster through characters whose experiences intersect with the events of Oryx and Crake.

The result is a companion narrative that adds considerable depth to the trilogy’s world.

3. MaddAddam

MaddAddam #3 | 2013

MaddAddam brings together the storylines established in the first two novels.

The Waterless Flood has destroyed most of humanity, and the survivors must establish a new way of living alongside the genetically engineered Children of Crake. Toby begins telling the Crakers stories about humanity’s past, turning memory and storytelling into an important part of their new world.

The novel also explores the history of Zeb and the MaddAddam community while bringing together characters and conflicts from the earlier books.

It is the conclusion to the trilogy and is best saved until after both Oryx and Crake and The Year of the Flood. Atwood’s official site describes it as the novel that brings the previous two works together.

Why The MaddAddam Books Should Be Read in Order

The three novels do not function like a conventional series in which Book 2 simply picks up immediately after Book 1.

The Year of the Flood overlaps with the world and timeline of Oryx and Crake, following different characters and revealing events from another perspective. MaddAddam then brings the strands together.

For that reason, the publication order remains the clearest reading order:

1. Oryx and Crake
2. The Year of the Flood
3. MaddAddam

Penguin Random House identifies these three books as the MaddAddam Trilogy.

Margaret Atwood’s Standalone Novels

Most of Atwood’s fiction does not belong to a continuing series. These novels can therefore be read in any order.

The Edible Woman

1969

Atwood’s debut novel follows Marian, a young woman whose increasingly complicated relationship with food becomes tied to questions about marriage, identity, consumer culture, and the expectations placed on women.

It established several concerns that would recur throughout Atwood’s later fiction, particularly the tension between individual identity and social expectations. It is the first novel in Atwood’s official bibliography.

Surfacing

1972

A young woman returns to a remote part of Quebec to search for her missing father. What begins as a search gradually becomes an unsettling exploration of memory, family, identity, nature, and psychological dislocation.

Surfacing is one of Atwood’s early novels and an important example of her ability to combine literary fiction with elements of psychological mystery.

Lady Oracle

1976

Joan Foster has built a complicated life around secrets, invented identities, and romantic fantasies. Her attempt to escape one version of herself only creates more problems when her different identities begin colliding.

The novel mixes dark comedy, Gothic conventions, romance, and literary satire while examining the stories people create about themselves.

Life Before Man

1979

Set in Toronto, Life Before Man examines relationships among three adults whose lives become entangled through marriage, separation, desire, and emotional uncertainty.

Rather than relying on a conventional mystery or speculative premise, Atwood focuses on the complicated ways people understand themselves and one another.

Bodily Harm

1981

Journalist Rennie Wilford travels to a Caribbean island expecting to cover a relatively ordinary assignment. Instead, she becomes caught in a world of political violence, corruption, fear, and personal danger.

The novel combines psychological tension with political and social observation, while exploring how violence can become difficult to understand from a distance.

Cat’s Eye

1988

Elaine Risley, an artist, returns to Toronto for an exhibition and finds herself forced to confront memories of her childhood.

Central to those memories is Cordelia, a girl whose friendship with Elaine becomes increasingly cruel and psychologically complicated. The novel examines childhood friendship, bullying, memory, identity, and the way adulthood changes our understanding of the past.

The Robber Bride

1993

Three women who were once friends have spent years dealing with the consequences of another woman entering their lives and disrupting their relationships.

The mysterious Zenia becomes the center of a story about friendship, betrayal, memory, jealousy, and the different stories people tell about the same events.

Alias Grace

1996

Based on a real nineteenth-century murder case, Alias Grace follows Grace Marks, an Irish immigrant and domestic servant convicted of participating in the murders of her employer and his housekeeper.

Atwood uses the historical case as the foundation for a novel about memory, identity, class, gender, storytelling, and the uncertainty of truth. The question of what Grace actually remembers, and what she chooses to reveal, remains central to the novel. Atwood’s official site describes it as a journey into the life of one of the most enigmatic women of the nineteenth century.

The Blind Assassin

2000

The Blind Assassin is a layered novel involving family history, political upheaval, romance, memory, and a book within the book.

An older woman looks back over the life of her sister and the events that shaped their family. Embedded within the narrative is a science-fiction story that gradually becomes connected to the larger mystery.

The novel deliberately plays with different forms of storytelling, making it one of Atwood’s most structurally ambitious works.

The Penelopiad

2005

The Penelopiad retells the story of Penelope, wife of Odysseus, from her own perspective.

Drawing on Homer’s Odyssey and later versions of the myth, Atwood gives Penelope a voice after death and questions the traditional heroic version of her marriage, her husband’s adventures, and the twelve maids who were executed after his return.

It is a short, sharply humorous mythological retelling rather than part of an Atwood series. Atwood’s current site describes it as Penelope telling her own version of the story.

The Heart Goes Last

2015

Stan and Charmaine are struggling to survive in a society where economic insecurity has made ordinary life increasingly unstable. They accept an unusual offer to participate in the Positron project, in which residents alternate between living in a controlled community and serving time in a prison.

The apparent solution to their problems becomes increasingly disturbing as the boundaries between voluntary participation, surveillance, desire, and control begin to disappear.

The novel developed from Atwood’s earlier Positron serial, which appeared online in installments before becoming a novel. It is generally best treated as a standalone novel rather than a conventional series.

Hag-Seed

2016

Hag-Seed is Atwood’s contribution to the Hogarth Shakespeare project, which invited contemporary authors to rework Shakespeare’s plays.

Here, The Tempest becomes the story of Felix, an artistic director who has been pushed out of his position. Years later, he uses a prison theatre program to stage an elaborate production that allows him to confront the people who betrayed him.

The novel combines Shakespearean themes with revenge, theatre, grief, imprisonment, and performance. Atwood’s official site identifies it as a reimagining of The Tempest.

The Positron Stories and The Heart Goes Last

Readers sometimes encounter Positron as though it were a separate Margaret Atwood series.

The Positron project began as a serialized story published in installments. Those installments were later developed into The Heart Goes Last, published in 2015.

For a reader interested in the finished novel, there is no need to track down every original serial installment first. The Heart Goes Last is the published novel to read.

Margaret Atwood Books That Are Not Novels

Atwood’s complete bibliography is much larger than her 17 novels. Her official bibliography separately lists poetry, fiction collections, nonfiction, children’s books, graphic novels, theatre, radio scripts, and other work.

Some particularly notable books include:

Old Babes in the Wood

2023 | Short stories

This collection contains 15 stories exploring aging, memory, relationships, grief, love, and the strange details of everyday life. It is a short-fiction collection rather than a novel.

Paper Boat: New and Selected Poems, 1961–2023

2024 | Poetry

Paper Boat gathers poems from across Atwood’s long career, beginning with her earliest poetry and extending through work published in the twenty-first century. Atwood’s official site describes it as a collection tracing the development of her poetry across more than six decades.

Book of Lives: A Memoir of Sorts

2025 | Memoir

Book of Lives is Atwood’s memoir, published in November 2025. It is not a novel, so it should not be inserted into a chronological list of her fiction.

The memoir connects episodes from Atwood’s life with the books and experiences that shaped her work. Her official site describes it as a memoir that links her life with the writing that emerged from it.

What Is Margaret Atwood’s Latest Book?

As of September 2026, Margaret Atwood’s latest published book is Book of Lives: A Memoir of Sorts, published in 2025. Her latest novel remains The Testaments, published in 2019.

This distinction is useful because some book databases list Book of Lives as her latest release without making it clear that it is nonfiction.

What Is the Best Order to Read Margaret Atwood?

There is no single required order for Atwood’s entire bibliography.

For her connected fiction, use these two paths:

Gilead novels

1. The Handmaid’s Tale
2. The Testaments

MaddAddam trilogy

1. Oryx and Crake
2. The Year of the Flood
3. MaddAddam

Everything else can generally be read independently.

Where Should You Start With Margaret Atwood?

If you want her most famous dystopian fiction, start with The Handmaid’s Tale.

If you prefer a completed speculative-fiction trilogy involving genetic engineering, environmental collapse, and a post-pandemic world, start with Oryx and Crake.

For historical fiction, Alias Grace offers a very different Atwood experience, while The Blind Assassin is a strong choice for readers interested in layered storytelling and family history.

If mythology and retellings appeal to you, The Penelopiad is a much shorter entry point. Readers interested in Shakespeare can turn to Hag-Seed, Atwood’s reworking of The Tempest.

Margaret Atwood Series at a Glance

The two major connected series are confirmed by Atwood’s official bibliography and publisher listings.

Frequently Asked Questions

How many Margaret Atwood novels are there?

Margaret Atwood has published 17 novels through The Testaments in 2019. Her broader bibliography contains many additional poetry collections, short-story collections, essays, nonfiction books, graphic novels, and other works.

What is Margaret Atwood’s first novel?

The Edible Woman, published in 1969, is Margaret Atwood’s first novel. It appears first in her official full bibliography of novels.

Are The Handmaid’s Tale and The Testaments a series?

Yes. The Testaments is the sequel to The Handmaid’s Tale and takes place 15 years after the events narrated by Offred in the first novel.

Are the MaddAddam books connected?

Yes. Oryx and Crake, The Year of the Flood, and MaddAddam form the MaddAddam Trilogy. The second novel explores the same broader timeline through different characters, while the third brings the major storylines together.

Should I read Oryx and Crake before The Year of the Flood?

Yes. The publication order is the simplest way to approach the trilogy: Oryx and Crake, then The Year of the Flood, then MaddAddam. The second book adds another perspective on the same world, while the third brings the narratives together.

Is Book of Lives a novel?

No. Book of Lives: A Memoir of Sorts is Margaret Atwood’s memoir, published in 2025. It should not be included in the chronological list of her 17 novels.

What should I read after The Handmaid’s Tale?

If you want to continue in Gilead, read The Testaments. If you would rather explore Atwood’s other speculative fiction, Oryx and Crake begins the MaddAddam trilogy. For a completely different type of Atwood novel, Alias Grace, The Blind Assassin, and Hag-Seed offer historical, literary, and Shakespearean directions respectively.

Final Thoughts

Margaret Atwood’s bibliography is unusually broad, so the phrase “books in order” can mean different things. If you want every novel chronologically, begin with The Edible Woman and finish with The Testaments. If you are interested only in connected stories, the two essential reading paths are the two-book Gilead sequence and the three-book MaddAddam trilogy.

Her newer nonfiction also deserves a separate place in the bibliography. Book of Lives, published in 2025, is Atwood’s latest book, but The Testaments remains her latest novel. Keeping those categories separate makes the reading order much clearer.

Written by

Emon Anam

Hi, I’m Emon. I’m the voice and heart behind Whimsy Read. After nine years in the world of banking, I followed my passion for storytelling into the world of SEO and content strategy. Now, I blend that analytical eye with a deep love for literature to bring you book reviews that are thoughtful, honest, and always focused on the stories that stay with you. When I’m not reading or writing, you’ll find me enjoying joyful chaos with my wife and three kids, getting lost in a new series, or revisiting my old loves: theater, music, and gaming. At the end of the day, I believe great books are meant to be shared, and I’m so glad you’re here to share them with me.