Skip to content
cookie

OCR A level English Literature set texts 2027

The texts students choose from for OCR A level English Literature exams in 2027, paper by paper, read from the board's specification. The school picks which ones its students study, so ask the English department which your child has.

H472/01Drama and poetry pre-1900

Shakespeare (study one)

  • Hamlet, William Shakespeare
  • King Lear, William Shakespeare (from 2027)
  • Othello, William Shakespeare (from 2027)
  • Richard III, William Shakespeare
  • The Taming of the Shrew, William Shakespeare (from 2027)
  • The Tempest, William Shakespeare

Pre-1900 drama (study one)

  • Edward II, Christopher Marlowe
  • Doctor Faustus, Christopher Marlowe (from 2029)
  • The Duchess of Malfi, John Webster
  • She Stoops to Conquer, Oliver Goldsmith
  • The Rover, Aphra Behn (from 2029)
  • A Doll’s House, Henrik Ibsen
  • An Ideal Husband, Oscar Wilde
  • The Importance of Being Earnest, Oscar Wilde (from 2029)

Pre-1900 poetry (study one)

  • The Merchant’s Prologue and Tale, Geoffrey Chaucer
  • The Franklin’s Prologue and Tale, Geoffrey Chaucer (from 2029)
  • Paradise Lost Books 9 & 10, John Milton
  • Paradise Lost Books 1 & 2, John Milton (from 2029)
  • Selected Poems, Samuel Taylor ColeridgePoems listed in Appendix 5c
  • Maud, Alfred, Lord Tennyson
  • Selected Poems, Christina RossettiThe selection listed in Appendix 5c for final assessment 2028
  • Selected Poems, Christina Rossetti (from 2029)A different selection, listed in Appendix 5c for first assessment from 2029
  • Selected Poems, Elizabeth Barrett Browning (from 2029)Poems listed in Appendix 5c
  • Selected Poems, John Clare (from 2029)Poems listed in Appendix 5c

H472/02Comparative and contextual study

American Literature 1880-1940: core set texts (study one topic; two texts, at least one from the core list)

  • The Great Gatsby, F Scott Fitzgerald
  • The Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck

American Literature 1880-1940: suggested set texts (study the second text may come from this list)

  • The Portrait of a Lady, Henry James
  • Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain
  • Sister Carrie, Theodore Dreiser
  • My Ántonia, Willa Cather
  • The Age of Innocence, Edith Wharton
  • The Sound and the Fury, William Faulkner
  • A Farewell to Arms, Ernest Hemingway
  • Passing, Nella Larsen
  • Native Son, Richard Wright

The Gothic: core set texts (study one topic; two texts, at least one from the core list)

  • The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories, Angela Carter
  • Dracula, Bram Stoker

The Gothic: suggested set texts (study the second text may come from this list)

  • Vathek, William Beckford
  • The Italian, Ann Radcliffe
  • Frankenstein, Mary Shelley
  • The Picture of Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde
  • Light in August, William Faulkner
  • Rebecca, Daphne du Maurier
  • Outer Dark, Cormac McCarthy
  • The Wasp Factory, Iain Banks
  • Beloved, Toni Morrison

Dystopia: core set texts (study one topic; two texts, at least one from the core list)

  • The Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood
  • Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell

Dystopia: suggested set texts (study the second text may come from this list)

  • The Time Machine, H G Wells
  • Brave New World, Aldous Huxley
  • Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury
  • A Clockwork Orange, Anthony Burgess
  • The Drowned World, J G Ballard
  • Memoirs of a Survivor, Doris Lessing
  • The Children of Men, P.D. James
  • Parable of the Sower, Octavia Butler
  • The Road, Cormac McCarthy

Women in Literature: core set texts (study one topic; two texts, at least one from the core list)

  • Sense and Sensibility, Jane Austen
  • Mrs Dalloway, Virginia Woolf

Women in Literature: suggested set texts (study the second text may come from this list)

  • Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontë
  • The Mill on the Floss, George Eliot
  • Tess of the D’Urbervilles, Thomas Hardy
  • Women in Love, D H Lawrence
  • Their Eyes Were Watching God, Zora Neale Hurston
  • The Bell Jar, Sylvia Plath
  • The Bluest Eye, Toni Morrison
  • Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, Jeanette Winterson
  • Girl, Woman, Other, Bernadine Evaristo

The Immigrant Experience: core set texts (study one topic; two texts, at least one from the core list)

  • The Reluctant Fundamentalist, Mohsin Hamid
  • Call It Sleep, Henry Roth

The Immigrant Experience: suggested set texts (study the second text may come from this list)

  • The Jungle, Upton Sinclair
  • The Lonely Londoners, Sam Selvon
  • Goodbye Columbus, Philip Roth
  • Sour Sweet, Timothy Mo
  • The Namesake, Jhumpa Lahiri
  • Brick Lane, Monica Ali
  • Small Island, Andrea Levy
  • The Secret River, Kate Grenville
  • Terrorist, John Updike

Component 01 Section 2 has two lists in this version: texts for examination until 2028 and a refreshed list for first teaching from 2027 and examination from 2029 (the Rossetti selection changes too). King Lear, Othello and The Taming of the Shrew replaced Coriolanus, Measure for Measure and Twelfth Night for assessment from 2027. The non-exam assessment has no set list. Read from the specification (Version 2.1, July 2026), pp. 5-8, 36-40, 45, on Saturday 26 September 2026.

Also: past papers, grade calculator, and other boards' A level set texts.

cookie is independent and is not affiliated with or endorsed by any exam board. The lists are facts read from each board's own specification, last checked on Saturday 26 September 2026; the specification is the final word.