OCR GCSE English Literature set texts 2026 to 2027

OCR's GCSE English Literature (J352) is the smallest of the English boards by entry but its list has two books the others do not set: Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go and H. G. Wells's The War of the Worlds. Pupils study one modern prose or drama text, one nineteenth-century prose text, a Shakespeare play and poetry from the OCR anthology Towards a World Unknown.

Both of OCR's distinctive titles are good collecting stories. The War of the Worlds was serialised in Pearson's Magazine in 1897 and published by Heinemann in 1898 in grey cloth; the first edition is scarce in good condition and its American counterpart from Harper followed the same year. Never Let Me Go is a modern first: Faber published it in 2005, and a signed first printing is the copy collectors want, which is a reminder that a book set for GCSE can still be bought as a first edition for less than the cost of the revision guides.

Each row links to the book's page with the first edition identified against two sources, the points of issue where known, and a value band once we hold recorded sales. School copies are reprints worth a few pounds; the pages show what the first printing looks like instead.