Publication Order of Narratives of Empire Books
| Washington, D.C. | 1967 |
| Burr | 1973 |
| 1876 | 1976 |
| Lincoln | 1984 |
| Empire | 1987 |
| Hollywood | 1990 |
| The Golden Age | 2000 |
Publication Order of Peter Cutler Sargeant II Books
| Death in the Fifth Position | 1952 |
| Death Before Bedtime | 1953 |
| Death Likes It Hot | 1954 |
Publication Order of Myra Breckinridge Books
| Myra Breckinridge | 1968 |
| Myron | 1974 |
Publication Order of Standalone Novels
| Williwaw | 1946 |
| In a Yellow Wood | 1947 |
| The City and the Pillar | 1948 |
| The Season of Comfort | 1949 |
| A Search for the King | 1950 |
| Dark Green, Bright Red | 1950 |
| A Star’s Progress / Cry Shame! | 1950 |
| The Judgment of Paris | 1952 |
| Thieves Fall Out | 1953 |
| Messiah | 1954 |
| Julian | 1964 |
| Two Sisters | 1970 |
| Kalki | 1978 |
| Creation | 1981 |
| Duluth | 1983 |
| Live from Golgotha | 1992 |
| The Smithsonian Institution | 1998 |
Publication Order of Short Story Collections
| A Thirsty Evil | 1956 |
| Clouds and Eclipses: The Collected Short Stories | 2006 |
Publication Order of Non-Fiction Books
| Rocking the Boat | 1963 |
| Reflections Upon a Sinking Ship | 1969 |
| Homage to Daniel Shays: Collected Essays, 1952-1972 | 1972 |
| Matters of Fact and of Fiction | 1977 |
| Pink Triangle and Yellow Star: Essays 1976-1982 | 1982 |
| The Second American Revolution | 1983 |
| Vidal in Venice | 1985 |
| Armageddon? Essays 1983-1987 | 1987 |
| At Home: Essays 1982-1988 | 1988 |
| A View from the Diners Club: Essays 1987-1991 | 1991 |
| Screening History | 1992 |
| Decline and Fall of the American Empire | 1992 |
| United States: Essays 1952-1992 | 1993 |
| Palimpsest: A Memoir | 1995 |
| Virgin Islands: Essays 1992-1997 | 1997 |
| The American Presidency | 1998 |
| Sexually Speaking: Collected Sex Writings | 1999 |
| The Last Empire: Essays 1992-2000 | 2001 |
| Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace | 2002 |
| Dreaming War: Blood for Oil and the Cheney-Bush Junta | 2002 |
| Inventing a Nation: Washington, Adams, Jefferson | 2003 |
| Imperial America: Reflections on the United States of Amnesia | 2004 |
| Point to Point Navigation: A Memoir | 2006 |
| Gore Vidal: Snapshots in History’s Glare | 2009 |
About Gore Vidal
Gore Vidal (1925 to 2012) was an American novelist, essayist, playwright and screenwriter. He is best known for the seven historical novels of his Narratives of Empire series, which includes “Burr” and “Lincoln”, for the Roman novel “Julian”, and for the satire “Myra Breckinridge”.
Vidal was born at the US Military Academy at West Point, New York, where his father was an aeronautics instructor, and was raised in Washington, D.C. His maternal grandfather was the blind US Senator Thomas Gore, to whom he read aloud as a boy. Instead of going to university he enlisted in the US Army at 17 and served as first mate of a supply ship in the Aleutian Islands. That posting gave him the material for his first novel, “Williwaw” (1946).
His third novel, “The City and the Pillar” (1948), about a young man coming to terms with his homosexuality, caused a furore among reviewers. In the early 1950s he wrote three mystery novels as Edgar Box, featuring the publicist turned private eye Peter Cutler Sargeant II, and a pulp novel, “Thieves Fall Out”, as Cameron Kay. He also worked in television, theatre and film. MGM hired him as a screenwriter in 1956, he did uncredited rewriting on “Ben-Hur” (1959), and his play “The Best Man” (1960) was filmed in 1964.
The Narratives of Empire novels, published between 1967 and 2000, follow two families through American history alongside real political figures. They began with “Washington, D.C.” and continued with “Burr”, “1876”, “Lincoln”, “Empire”, “Hollywood” and “The Golden Age”. His other fiction includes “Julian” (1964), about the Roman emperor Julian the Apostate, “Creation” (1981), set in the ancient world, and satires such as “Myron”, “Kalki”, “Duluth” and “Live from Golgotha”.
Vidal was also a prolific essayist, writing for The Nation, the New Statesman, the New York Review of Books and Esquire. His collection “United States: Essays 1952-1992” won the National Book Award for Nonfiction in 1993, and in 2009 the National Book Foundation gave him its Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters. He stood unsuccessfully for office twice as a Democrat, for the House of Representatives in New York in 1960 and for the Senate in California in 1982. He published two memoirs, “Palimpsest” (1995) and “Point to Point Navigation” (2006), and died at his home in the Hollywood Hills on 31 July 2012, aged 86.
Photo: David Shankbone, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons (cropped).