AP English Literature: the most cited books 1970 to 2026

The AP English Literature and Composition exam does not set texts: its third free-response question asks candidates to answer from a work of their own choosing, and the College Board prints a list of suggested titles with each year's question. Sandra Effinger's tally of those lists, started by Norma Wilkerson and kept up since 1970, is the nearest thing AP Literature has to a canon, and teachers plan the course around it. Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man has been suggested in 36 exam years, Wuthering Heights in 34, Great Expectations in 30 and Jane Eyre in 29, with Moby-Dick, The Awakening, Beloved and Heart of Darkness close behind. The rows above are the top of that tally.

These are also, by a long way, the most valuable books on any school list in this section. Invisible Man was published by Random House in 1952 and a first printing in jacket is a four-figure book, signed copies far more; Beloved (Knopf, 1987) is a modern first that climbs every year; Their Eyes Were Watching God (Lippincott, 1937) is scarce in its jacket and has made five figures; The Scarlet Letter (Ticknor, Reed and Fields, 1850, 2,500 copies) and Wuthering Heights (Newby, 1847) are rare-book-room territory. King Lear is the exception: the 1608 Pied Bull quarto is unobtainable, so the collectable Lears are later editions.

A student's AP copy of any of these is a paperback worth a few dollars. Each row links to the book's page, where the first edition is identified against two sources, the points that mark a first printing are listed, and a value band appears once we hold recorded sales of that printing.