“What are the best Revenge Books of all-time?” We looked at 14 lists and came away with 69 of the best revenge stories ever! The top 15 stories of revenge which appeared on multiple lists are counted down with images and links below and the full list of books as well as the sources we used can be found at the bottom of the page.
For more of the best revenge stories of all time, take a look at our sister site, Cinema Dailies, for the Best Revenge Movies Of All-Time!
Happy Scrolling!
The Queen of Mystery has come to Harper Collins! Agatha Christie, the acknowledged mistress of suspense—creator of indomitable sleuth Miss Marple, meticulous Belgian detective Hercule Poirot, and so many other unforgettable characters—brings her entire oeuvre of ingenious whodunits, locked room mysteries, and perplexing puzzles to Harper Paperbacks…including Murder on the Orient Express, the most famous Hercule Poirot mystery, which has the brilliant detective hunting for a killer aboard one of the world’s most luxurious passenger trains.
With these words, the reader is ushered into an isolated gray stone mansion on the windswept Cornish coast, as the second Mrs. Maxim de Winter recalls the chilling events that transpired as she began her new life as the young bride of a husband she barely knew. For in every corner of every room were phantoms of a time dead but not forgotten—a past devotedly preserved by the sinister housekeeper, Mrs. Danvers: a suite immaculate and untouched, clothing laid out and ready to be worn, but not by any of the great house’s current occupants. With an eerie presentiment of evil tightening her heart, the second Mrs. de Winter walked in the shadow of her mysterious predecessor, determined to uncover the darkest secrets and shattering truths about Maxim’s first wife—the late and hauntingly beautiful Rebecca.
This long-awaited new edition of Lattimore’s Iliad is designed to bring the book into the twenty-first century—while leaving the poem as firmly rooted in ancient Greece as ever. Lattimore’s elegant, fluent verses—with their memorably phrased heroic epithets and remarkable fidelity to the Greek—remain unchanged, but classicist Richard Martin has added a wealth of supplementary materials designed to aid new generations of readers. A new introduction sets the poem in the wider context of Greek life, warfare, society, and poetry, while line-by-line notes at the back of the volume offer explanations of unfamiliar terms, information about the Greek gods and heroes, and literary appreciation. A glossary and maps round out the book.
“When Mikey’s sister claims a boy assaulted her, his world begins to fall apart. When Ellie’s brother is charged with the offense, her world begins to unravel. When Mikey and Ellie meet, two worlds collide.
This is an unflinching novel from the bestselling author of Before I Die. It’s about loyalty and the choices that come with it. Above all, it’s a book about love.”
On a warm summer morning in North Carthage, Missouri, it is Nick and Amy Dunne’s fifth wedding anniversary. Presents are being wrapped and reservations are being made when Nick’s clever and beautiful wife disappears. Husband-of-the-Year Nick isn’t doing himself any favors with cringe-worthy daydreams about the slope and shape of his wife’s head, but passages from Amy’s diary reveal the alpha-girl perfectionist could have put anyone dangerously on edge. Under mounting pressure from the police and the media—as well as Amy’s fiercely doting parents—the town golden boy parades an endless series of lies, deceits, and inappropriate behavior. Nick is oddly evasive, and he’s definitely bitter—but is he really a killer?
Moby-Dick; or, The Whale is a novel by Herman Melville, in which Ishmael narrates the monomaniacal quest of Ahab, captain of the whaler Pequod, for revenge on the albino sperm whale Moby Dick, which on a previous voyage destroyed Ahab’s ship and severed his leg at the knee. Although the novel was a commercial failure and out of print at the time of the author’s death in 1891, its reputation grew immensely during the twentieth century. D. H. Lawrence called it “one of the strangest and most wonderful books in the world,” and “the greatest book of the sea ever written.” Moby-Dick is considered a Great American Novel and an outstanding work of the Romantic period in America and the American Renaissance.
It may not be on the menu at New York’s finer restaurants, but revenge is a dish best served cold — and while lunching at Le Cirque, the ladies decide the time for self-pity is over: now it’s time to get even. How they conspire to give each man his due — in full view of New York society — makes The First Wives Clubthe “deliciously wicked” (San Francisco Chronicle) indulgence that, like vintage champagne, goes straight to your head…and captures your heart along the way!
Anyone who lived through the 1980s may find it impossible—inconceivable, even—to equate The Princess Bride with anything other than the sweet, celluloid romance of Westley and Buttercup, but the film is only a fraction of the ingenious storytelling you’ll find in these pages. Rich in character and satire, the novel is set in 1941 and framed cleverly as an “abridged” retelling of a centuries-old tale set in the fabled country of Florin that’s home to “Beasts of all natures and descriptions. Pain. Death. Brave men. Coward men. Strongest men. Chases. Escapes. Lies. Truths. Passions.”
Like all of Hawthorne’s novels, “The Scarlet Letter” has but a slender plot and but few characters with an influence on the development of the story. Its great dramatic force depends entirely on the mental states of the actors and their relations to one another, —relations of conscience, — relations between wronged and wrongers. Its great burden is the weight of unacknowledged sin as seen in the remorse and cowardice and suffering of the Rev. Arthur Dimmesdale. Contrasted with his concealed agony is the constant confession, conveyed by the letter, which is forced upon Hester, and has a double effect, — a healthful one, working beneficently, and making her helpful and benevolent, tolerant and thoughtful ; and an unhealthful one, which by the great emphasis placed on her transgression, the keeping her forever under its ban and isolating her from her fellows, prepares her to break away from the long repression and lapse again into sin when she plans her flight. Roger Chillingworth is an embodiment of subtle and refined revenge. The most striking situation is perhaps “The Minister’s Vigil,” in chapter xii. The book, though corresponding in its tone and burden to some of the shorter stories, had a more startling and dramatic character, and a strangeness, which at once took hold of a larger public than any of those had attracted. Though imperfectly comprehended, and even misunderstood in some quarters, it was seen to have a new and unique quality; and Hawthorne’s reputation became national.
True Grit is his most famous novel–first published in 1968, and the basis for the movie of the same name starring John Wayne. It tells the story of Mattie Ross, who is just fourteen years of age when a coward going by the name of Tom Chaney shoots her father down in Fort Smith, Arkansas, and robs him of his life, his horse, and $150 in cash money. Mattie leaves home to avenge her father’s blood. With the one-eyed Rooster Cogburn, the meanest available U.S. Marshal, by her side, Mattie pursues the homicide into Indian Territory.
Harriet Vanger, a scion of one of Sweden’s wealthiest families disappeared over forty years ago. All these years later, her aged uncle continues to seek the truth. He hires Mikael Blomkvist, a crusading journalist recently trapped by a libel conviction, to investigate. He is aided by the pierced and tattooed punk prodigy Lisbeth Salander. Together they tap into a vein of unfathomable iniquity and astonishing corruption.
Wuthering Heights is a novel by Emily Brontë, written between October 1845 and June 1846, and published in 1847 under the pseudonym Ellis Bell. It was her first and only published novel: she died aged 30 the following year. The decision to publish came after the success of her sister Charlotte’s novel, Jane Eyre. After Emily’s death, Charlotte edited the manuscript of Wuthering Heights, and arranged for the edited version to be published as a posthumous second edition in 1850. Wuthering Heights is the name of the farmhouse on the Yorkshire moors where the story unfolds. The book’s core theme is the destructive effect that jealousy and vengefulness have, both on the jealous or vengeful individuals and on their communities. Although Wuthering Heights is now widely regarded as a classic of English literature, it received mixed reviews when first published, and was considered controversial because its depiction of mental and physical cruelty was so unusually stark.
Carrie White may have been unfashionable and unpopular, but she had a gift. Carrie could make things move by concentrating on them. A candle would fall. A door would lock. This was her power and her sin. Then, an act of kindness, as spontaneous as the vicious taunts of her classmates, offered Carrie a chance to be a normal and go to her senior prom. But another act–of ferocious cruelty–turned her gift into a weapon of horror and destruction that her classmates would never forget.
Set against the turbulent years of the Napoleonic era, Alexandre Dumas’s thrilling adventure story is one of the most widely read romantic novels of all time. In it the dashing young hero, Edmond Dantès, is betrayed by his enemies and thrown into a secret dungeon in the Chateau d’If — doomed to spend his life in a dank prison cell. The story of his long, intolerable years in captivity, his miraculous escape, and his carefully wrought revenge creates a dramatic tale of mystery and intrigue and paints a vision of France — a dazzling, dueling, exuberant France — that has become immortal.
| A Tale of Two Cities | Charles Dickens | About Great Books |
| Again the Magic | Lisa Kleypas | About Great Books |
| Best Served Cold | Joe Abercrombie | Worlds Strongest Librarian |
| Bluets | Maggie Nelson | Eye For An Eye |
| Bryant & May The Burning Man | Christopher Fowler | Dead Good Books |
| Burger Wuss | M.T. Anderson | Jenryland |
| Burn for Burn | Jenny Han and Siobhan Vivian | Jenryland |
| Disclaimer | Renée Knight | Dead Good Books |
| Drood | Dan Simmons | Worlds Strongest Librarian |
| Frankenstein | Mary Shelley | Revenge Lady |
| Geek Love | Katherine Dunn | Worlds Strongest Librarian |
| Getting Rid of Bradley | Jennifer Crusie | Smart Bitches Trashy Books |
| Great Expectations | Charles Dickens | About Great Books |
| Gross-Out Get Sick and Turn Blue Cookbook | Revenge Lady | |
| Heart-Shaped Bruise | Tanya Byrne | The Guardian |
| Heartburn | Nora Ephron | Revenge Lady |
| Heavier Than Heaven | Charles R. Cross | Eye For An Eye |
| Her | Harriet Lane | Express |
| Mercy | HelenKay Dimon | Smart Bitches Trashy Books |
| Mockingjay | Suzanne Collins | The Guardian |
| Money Shot | Christa Faust | Worlds Strongest Librarian |
| Mrs. Harris | Diana Trilling | Revenge Lady |
| Please Kill Me | Legs McNeil and Gillian McCain | Eye For An Eye |
| Pop Goes the Weasel | MJ Arlidge | Dead Good Books |
| Portnoy’s Complaint | Philip Roth | Eye For An Eye |
| Premeditated | Josin L. McQuein | Jenryland |
| Revenge | Jim Harrison | Revenge Lady |
| Revenge | Martina Cole | Dead Good Books |
| Sin City: The Hard Goodbye | Frank Miller | Barnes & Noble |
| Storm of Swords | George R.R. Martin | Top Tenz |
| Sweet Revenge | Zoe Archer | Smart Bitches Trashy Books |
| The Ghost Riders of Ordebec | Fred Vargas | Panmacmillan |
| The Godfather | Mario Puzo | Revenge Lady |
| The Golden Chance | Jayne Ann Krentz | Smart Bitches Trashy Books |
| The Life and Loves of a She-Devil | Fay Weldon | Revenge Lady |
| The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe | CS Lewis | The Guardian |
| The Mistress’s Revenge | Tamar Cohen | Dead Good Books |
| The Murder Bag | Tony Parsons | Dead Good Books |
| The Old Testament | God | Eye For An Eye |
| The Power of the Dog | Thomas Savage | Worlds Strongest Librarian |
| The Retribution | Val McDermid | Dead Good Books |
| The Revenant | Michael Punke | Panmacmillan |
| The Revenge Encyclopedia | Revenge Lady | |
| The Shadow of the Wind | Carlos Ruiz Zafon | Panmacmillan |
| The Shawshank Redemption | Stephen King | Worlds Strongest Librarian |
| The Woman’s Book of Divorce | Christine Gallagher | Revenge Lady |
| Titus Andronicus | William Shakespeare | Bookshelves of Doom |
| Vanity Fare | Megan Caldwell | Smart Bitches Trashy Books |
| Waiting to Exhale | Terry McMillan | Revenge Lady |
| What I Did for a Duke | Julie Anne Long | Smart Bitches Trashy Books |
| Without Remorse | Tom Clancy | Worlds Strongest Librarian |
| Woman of the Dead | Bernhard Aichner | Panmacmillan |
| Source | Article |
| About Great Books | Top 10 Great Books About Revenge |
| Barnes & Noble | The 7 Best Revenge Stories in Literature |
| Bookshelves of Doom | Classic Revenge Stories |
| Dead Good Books | 8 Crime Books Riddled with Revenge |
| Express | Gone Girl to Dragon Tattoo – author Fanny Blake’s top books about revenge |
| Eye For An Eye | Revenge Books |
| Jenryland | If You Like… Books About Revenge |
| Panmacmillan | Ten books about revenge |
| Revenge Lady | Books With Revenge Themes We Recommend |
| Smart Bitches Trashy Books | Romance and Revenge on NPR |
| The Guardian | Natasha Carthew’s top 10 revenge reads |
| Top Tenz | Top 10 Fictional Revenge Stories |
| Worlds Strongest Librarian | Best Movies and Books about Revenge |
| Writeers Write | Why Revenge is Such a Brilliant Plot for Beginner Writers |
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