James Clavell books in order

James Clavell (10 October 1921 to 7 September 1994) was a British-born novelist, screenwriter and director who became an American citizen, best known for the Asian Saga novels King Rat, Tai-Pan and Shōgun.

He was born Charles Edmund Dumaresq Clavell in Sydney, Australia. Serving with the Royal Artillery in the Second World War, he was captured in Java in 1942 and held in Changi Prison in Singapore, which gave him the material for his first novel. After the war he worked in Hollywood, writing the screenplays for The Fly (1958) and The Great Escape (1963), and he wrote, produced and directed To Sir, with Love (1967). He became a naturalised American citizen in 1963 and died in Vevey, Switzerland.

King Rat (1962), set in a Japanese prisoner-of-war camp, was published by Little, Brown in the United States and Michael Joseph in Britain and was filmed in 1965. Tai-Pan (Atheneum, 16 May 1966) is set in Hong Kong in 1841, after the British victory in the First Opium War. Shōgun (1975), set in Japan around 1600, had sold about six million copies by 1980, when it was adapted as a television miniseries; a new series followed in 2024. Noble House (1981), Whirlwind (1986) and Gai-Jin (1993) completed the six-book saga.

For collectors

King Rat (1962) is the first book of the saga, with Little, Brown publishing in the United States and Michael Joseph issuing the British first. The 1966 Atheneum first of Tai-Pan and the 1975 first edition of Shōgun, published in Britain by Hodder & Stoughton, are the other key titles.