Tracy Chevalier Books In Order

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

Publication Order of Collections

Publication Order of Short Stories/Novellas

Publication Order of Non-Fiction Books

Publication Order of Hogarth Shakespeare Books

Publication Order of Anthologies

Tracy Chevalier was born October 19, 1962 and grew up in Washington, D.C. She was the youngest of three kids, and her dad was a photographer for The Washington Post.

As a kid, she read a lot. She loved authors such as: Joan Aiken, Laura Ingalls Wilder, Susan Cooper, Lloyd Alexander, Zilpha Keatley Snyder, and Madeleine L’Engle.

She talked about becoming a writer when she was a kid, but putting real pen to paper was minimal. In her twenties, she wrote short stories and during her MA year, she began writing her first novel.

In the year 1984, she moved to England, and worked for many years as a reference book editor. She worked on encyclopedias on writers. She learned how to make her sentences better and how to research. However, she got sick of fixing other peoples’ sentences and wanted to start fixing her own.

She graduated in the year 1994 from the MA course in creative writing at the University of East Anglia. The whole year she was working on her MA, made her write the entire time and take all of it seriously.

With her second novel, called “Girl With a Pearl Earring” (written in the year 1998), she started writing full-time, and has since juggled it with being a mother.

“Girl With a Pearl Earring” was adapted into a movie that starred Scarlett Johansson and Colin Firth.

Tracy’s debut novel, called “The Virgin Blue”, was released in the year 1997. She writes historical and literary fiction.

“The Virgin Blue” is the first stand alone novel and was released in the year 1997. Two women, born four centuries apart. Ella Turner tries hard to fit into the close-knit, small community of Lisle-sur-Tarn. She even changes her name back to Tournier, and dusts off her high school French. In vain. Lonely and isolated, she is pulled to investigate her Tournier ancestry, which leads to encountering the town’s wolfish librarian.

Her name is Isabell du Moulin, called as Le Rousse due to her red hair, and is tormented and shunned in the village, having been suspected of witchcraft and is reviled because of her association to the Virgin Mary. Becoming pregnant, she has to marry into the ruling family: the Tourniers. The tormentor becomes husband, and there is a shocking fate that awaits her. Ella, who is plagued by the color blue, gets haunted by parallels with the past, and her recurring dream. One morning she wakes to find that her hair is starting to become inexplicably red.

Readers got hooked and found that as the story progressed, everything gets more intense and started revealing secrets. This one was tough to put down for very long, with its brisk pace, well written and realistic characters, and engrossing plot. Chevalier’s descriptions of the towns and people in France both past and present to be beautiful and full of life. Fans found themselves falling in love with France, while reading the novel.

“Girl With a Pearl Earring” is the second stand alone novel and was released in the year 1999. Johannes Vermeer, with 35 canvases to his name, is one of the biggest enigmas of seventeenth century art. All of the meager facts on his biography come from a few legal documents. Vermeer’s extraordinary paintings of domestic life, with their subtle play of texture and light, have defined the Dutch golden age. The portrait he has done of the anonymous Girl with a Pearl Earring has gotten a particular fascination for hundreds of years and this painting is at the center of the novel.

It centers on Vermeer’s successful Delft household in the 1660s. Griet, a perceptive and quiet heroine, gets hired to be a servant, turmoil ensues. The sixteen year old narrator starts getting more and more intimate with her master. Vermeer then employs her as his assistant and he winds up having Griet sit for him as a model.

Some readers found themselves on the edge of their seats while reading this one. The novel is amazing in its endless emotion and simple prose. This one is able to make you feel like you are walking with the characters, feel what they do, and share in their lives.

“Falling Angels” is the third stand alone novel and was released in the year 2001. The year of the Queen’s death, 1901. The two graves, both gorgeously decorated, stood right next to each other. One had a huge urn, some might say ridiculously huge, and the other had an angel that was close to leaning over the first which some might claim was overly sentimental. The pair of families visiting the cemetery to view these neighboring graves were divided even more social class than by their taste.

They never would have gotten acquainted had their two girls, who met behind the tombstones, not become best friends. Furthermore, not to mention even more unsuitably, become involved with the life of the muddied son of the gravedigger. While the girls grow up, and the century wears on, while the new era and new King changes the social customs, the fortunes and lives of the Waterhouses and Colemans started being more and more intertwined. Neighbors in life, as well as in death.

“The Lady and the Unicorn” is the fourth stand alone novel and was released in the year 2003. Paris in the year 1490. A shrewd French nobleman commissions six lavish tapestries to celebrate his rising status at Court. He hires the arrogant, charismatic, and highly talented Nicolas des Innocents to design all of them. Nicolas creates a bit of havoc among the women in the house: the daughter, mother, lady-in-waiting, and servant. All before he takes his designs north up to the Brussels workshop where the tapestries will be woven.

Master weaver, named Georges de la Chapelle, is going to risk it all to finish these tapestries, which will be his most intricate and finest work, on time for his exacting French client. The final result is going to change their lives, lives that are captured in the tapestries, for anybody that know where to look.

2 Responses to “Tracy Chevalier”

1. Janice Hickey: 1 year ago

   After reading The Girl with The Pearl Earring, I want to read the first book. And I will be happy. Then I will read as many as I can for the year. She will be my author of the year. Starting now
   Maybe I am a Bibliophile! I have been a reader for over 75 years.

   Reply
2. Carol: 2 years ago

   I actually have never done this before. I was just scrolling through my iPad on a wet afternoon in Eastern Canada when I was looking up to see if you had written anything new since 2019. I see you haven’t but maybe there’s a book soon to come out ….thank you
   By the way I have enjoyed all the others but most particularly of course the girl with the pearl earring which I’ve read twice and seen the movie twice and your latest book the single thread. They were my favorites. Have a great day 💐

   Reply