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How to Cite a Book in MLA 9

MLA 9th edition cites a whole book as inverted author, italic title, publisher, and year. Add a translator, editor, edition, e-book label, narrator, database, or DOI only when the copy you used actually prints that fact. This page follows the MLA Handbook (9th ed., 2021) and the MLA Style Center book page. It is the MLA whole-book guide. It is not the anthology or chapter, APA book, Chicago book, or literature-field tutorial.

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An open book lying on a table, its pages catching the light
Photo: Ben White, Wikimedia Commons (CC0)
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How to Cite a Book in MLA: Quick Answer

Start with the person or organization named on the title page. Invert the first name. Italicize the book title and subtitle in title case. Shorten a university press to UP. Skip the city of publication. Use the year on the title page or copyright page. Pair the Works Cited line with an in-text citation that uses that first element plus a printed page, a numbered note, or an audiobook timestamp when you quote or paraphrase a passage. If you used only one essay from a multi-author collection, stop here and open the anthology guide.

MLA 9 book templates

Works Cited, one author:

Author Last Name, First Name. Title of Book. Publisher, Year.

Works Cited, two authors:

Author Last Name, First Name, and First Name Last Name. Title of Book. Publisher, Year.

Works Cited, three or more authors:

Author Last Name, First Name, et al. Title of Book. Publisher, Year.

Works Cited, editor of the whole book:

Editor Last Name, First Name, editor. Title of Book. Publisher, Year.

Works Cited, translation:

Author Last Name, First Name. Title of Book. Translated by First Name Last Name, Publisher, Year.

Works Cited, numbered edition:

Author Last Name, First Name. Title of Book. #th ed., Publisher, Year.

Works Cited, e-book on a device:

Author Last Name, First Name. Title of Book. #th ed., e-book ed., Publisher, Year.

Works Cited, book in a database:

Author Last Name, First Name. Title of Book. Publisher, Year. Title of Database, DOI or URL.

Works Cited, audiobook:

Author Last Name, First Name. Title of Book. Narrated by First Name Last Name, Publisher, Year. Audiobook.

Parenthetical citation:

(Author Page)

Citation in prose:

Author Last Name writes that . . . (Page).

What kind of book are you holding?
What you openedWorks Cited starts withDo not
A novel, monograph, or textbook by one or more authorsThe first author, invertedAdd a city, or invent a chapter entry
A book you cite as a collection, not one essay inside itThe editor plus the label editor or editorsList every contributor in one entry
One essay, story, or poem in a multi-author anthologyThe piece author, then the piece title in quotation marksCite the whole book if you used only that piece
A numbered or critical edition of a novelThe author, then Edited by and the edition labelCite a generic undated reprint you never opened
An e-book you read in an app, with no URLThe same author and title, then e-book ed.Cite Kindle locations or other device numbering
A book you opened on a website or in a library databaseThe print facts you have, then the platform as a containerHunt print page numbers you never saw
An audiobook you listened toThe author, then the narrator if relevant, then the audiobook publisherCite the print publisher or a print page you never heard
Only the introduction, preface, or afterwordThe front-matter author and a description such as IntroductionList the introducer when you cited only the main text

The Official Rule, from the MLA Handbook

The Style Center book page states the four facts every whole-book entry must try to supply:

MLA Style Center, on the basic book entry

To create a basic works-cited-list entry for a book, list the author, the title, the publisher, and the publication date.

Those four facts sit inside the same nine core elements used for every MLA source: Author; Title of source; Title of container; Other contributors; Version; Number; Publisher; Publication date; Location. A print book usually fills Author, Title of source, Publisher, and Publication date. A translator, editor, or narrator after the title is Other contributors. 9th ed. or e-book ed. is Version. A volume number is Number. A database name plus a DOI is a second container plus Location. Leave a slot blank when the copy does not print it. The Handbook's container rule, restated on the works-cited quick guide, is the reason a short work inside a book is a different citation from the book itself:

MLA Style Center, on containers

When the source being documented forms part of a larger whole, the larger whole can be thought of as a container that holds the source. For example, a short story may be contained in an anthology. The short story is the source, and the anthology is the container.

Handbook 5.3–5.23 covers names. Handbook 5.38–5.47 covers other contributors. Handbook 5.59–5.83 covers publishers and dates, including the copublisher slash in 5.61. Handbook 5.108 and 5.114 cover original publication dates and reprint history. Handbook 5.117 covers one volume from a multivolume set. Handbook 6.3–6.30 covers in-text citations. The examples below come from pages we opened on the Style Center, not from invented classroom titles.

Core Elements Students Miss on Books

Author

Take the name from the title page, in the order printed there. Reverse only the first name. Two authors keep both names; three or more keep the first name and et al. Set et al. roman in the entry and in parentheses. If the title page names an editor and no author, put that editor in the Author slot and add editor or editors. If no person or organization is named, start with the title. Do not write Anonymous. If you now know the name of an author who was originally anonymous, the known-author post lets you supply that name in square brackets.

Title of the book

Italicize the full title and subtitle. Use title case. A colon separates title from subtitle when the title page does. A titled chapter of a novel is not a Works Cited source; name that chapter in your prose and cite the book.

Publisher

Copy the publisher from the title page, then shorten it the way Handbook 5.65 tells you to. If the name contains University Press or a foreign-language equivalent, use UP: Oxford UP, U of Chicago P, Fordham UP. Spell out Press when the press is not a university press: MIT Press, Belknap Press, Academic Press. Drop business endings such as Company, Corporation, Incorporated, and Limited. Keep words that are part of the imprint, including Books and Publishers. The official two-author example keeps HarperCollins Publishers. If two organizations published the book, Handbook 5.61 says to join them with a slash. MLA 9 does not ask for the city of publication. Purdue OWL's older book template still shows a city before the publisher; that is an MLA 7 leftover, not current Handbook practice.

Publication date

Use the year on the title page. If the title page has no year, use the copyright year. A reprint may add the original year right after the title (Handbook 5.108). A month can stay when the source prints one, as the official Oxford Scholarship Online example does with Jan. 2010.

Book by One Author

The Style Center's model one-author book is Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall. Invert the author. Italicize the title. Give the imprint and the year. No city. No page range on the Works Cited line.

MLA Style Center, book by one author

Works Cited:

Mantel, Hilary. Wolf Hall. Picador, 2010.

Parenthetical citation (template):

(Mantel Page)

Citation in prose (template):

Mantel writes that . . . (Page).

Book by Two Authors

The Handbook, quoted on the Style Center coauthor page, says that when a source has two authors you reverse the first of the names and follow it with a comma and and before giving the second name in normal order. Both names also appear in the in-text citation. The official example is Michael Dorris and Louise Erdrich's The Crown of Columbus.

MLA Style Center, two authors

Works Cited:

Dorris, Michael, and Louise Erdrich. The Crown of Columbus. HarperCollins Publishers, 1999.

Parenthetical citation (template):

(Dorris and Erdrich Page)

Citation in prose (template):

Dorris and Erdrich write that . . . (Page).

Book by Three or More Authors

Give the first author, inverted, then et al. Do not italicize et al. in the entry or in parentheses. The Style Center *et al.* page uses Anne Burdick and colleagues' Digital_Humanities and a page-specific parenthetical citation:

MLA Style Center, three or more authors

In parenthetical citations and works-cited-list entries, the abbreviation should be set roman, as shown in the MLA Handbook (116, 22):

Works Cited:

Burdick, Anne, et al. Digital_Humanities. MIT P, 2012.

Parenthetical citation:

(Burdick et al. 42)

Book by an Unknown Author

Begin with the title. The Style Center book page uses the Sullivan and Murphy Beowulf. The translators and editor stay in the Other contributors slot. In the text, use a shortened italic title, not Anonymous. The same no-author post that supplies that rule also covers a corporate author who is not the publisher.

MLA Style Center, unknown author

When a work is published without an author's name, begin the works-cited-list entry with the title of the work. Do not use Anonymous in place of an author's name:

Works Cited:

Beowulf. Translated by Alan Sullivan and Timothy Murphy, edited by Sarah Anderson, Pearson, 2004.

Parenthetical citation (template):

(Beowulf Page)

Works Cited, author now known (Style Center):

[Luard, Kate]. Diary of a Nursing Sister on the Western Front, 1914-1915. Blackwood, 1915.

Edited Book

Cite the editor in the Author slot only when you are documenting the collection as a whole. Add a comma and editor or editors. The Style Center model is Ignacio M. Sánchez Prado's Mexican Literature in Theory. If you quoted one essay from that collection, cite the essay instead; that template lives on the anthology page.

MLA Style Center, edited book

Works Cited:

Sánchez Prado, Ignacio M., editor. Mexican Literature in Theory. Bloomsbury, 2018.

Parenthetical citation (template):

(Sánchez Prado Page)

Translated Book

Keep the author first. Write Translated by and the translator's name in normal order. The Style Center's Zola example is the model for a novel you cite as a translation. If your paper is about the translator's notes, the editor-and-translator notes post lets you list the translator first and move the author after the title. Deeper reprint and translation cases belong on reprinted and translated works.

MLA Style Center, translated book

Works Cited:

Zola, Émile. Germinal. Translated by Roger Pearson, Penguin Books, 2004.

Style Center in-text, translator's numbered note:

Zola's translator explains that the name of the town Le Voreux "suggests the 'voracious' nature of the mine" (533n2).

Works Cited if the notes are the focus:

Pearson, Roger, translator. Germinal, by Émile Zola, Penguin Books, 2004.

Reprint and Original Year

Handbook 5.108 lets you put the original year immediately after the title. The Style Center reprint page uses Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart. The year after the title is 1959. The year after the publisher is the copy you held. You may instead put the original publisher in a final supplemental element.

MLA Style Center, reprinted book

Works Cited, original year after the title:

Achebe, Chinua. Things Fall Apart. 1959. Penguin Books, 2017.

Works Cited, original publisher at the end:

Achebe, Chinua. Things Fall Apart. Penguin Books, 2017. Originally published by McDowell Obolensky, 1959.

Numbered Edition and Critical Edition

A numbered edition belongs in the Version slot: 3rd ed. or 9th ed. A named series such as Norton Critical Edition sits with the editor in Other contributors, then the numbered edition. The Style Center commentator page (2 March 2022) uses Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre and points to Handbook 5.38–5.47 for contributors. Cite the edition you opened, not a generic undated reprint.

MLA Style Center, numbered critical edition

Works Cited:

Brontë, Charlotte. Jane Eyre. Edited by Richard J. Dunn, Norton Critical Edition, 3rd ed., W. W. Norton, 2001.

Parenthetical citation (template):

(Brontë Page)

Edition and E-book

An e-book you read in software, with no URL, also uses Version. The Style Center e-book post defines that case and tells you not to cite device-specific numbering:

MLA Style Center, e-book

Use the Version element to specify that the work you are citing is an e-book—that is, a book that lacks a URL and that you use software to read on a personal device or computer.
When citing an e-book in your text, avoid using device-specific numbering systems.

Works Cited, current Handbook as an e-book:

MLA Handbook. 9th ed., e-book ed., Modern Language Association of America, 2021.

Works Cited, file format as a supplemental element:

MLA Handbook. 8th ed., e-book ed., Modern Language Association of America, 2016. EPUB.

If the digital file has no stable pages, omit the page number from the in-text citation. Name a chapter or section heading in your prose instead. The 18 June 2025 digital-edition post is explicit: cite the edition you opened. Do not walk to the library only to harvest print pages you never used, and do not list both the print book and the e-book unless you consulted both.

MLA Style Center, digital versus print (18 June 2025)

Generally, if you've consulted the digital edition of a work, that is the edition you should include in your works-cited list.
It is not necessary to track down the page numbers for the print edition if you consulted the digital or open access edition, nor should you include both the print and digital editions of the same book in your works-cited list, unless you consulted both.

Book on a Website or in a Database

Keep the book facts you have. Then add the platform as a container and end with a DOI, handle, or URL. The Style Center prefers a DOI when one exists. The titles-of-online-works post keeps a monograph title in italics even when the file sits inside a database. The DOI-and-URL post adds the monograph rule students miss: do not make a separate chapter entry for a novel or a single-author study, and do not list both a DOI and a second URL for the same book.

MLA Style Center, online and database books

If you are citing a chapter of a book from a novel or monograph, create an entry for the book as a whole and list the book's URL or DOI in the "Location" slot, since in MLA style, chapters from these types of works are not cited individually:

Works Cited, book in ACLS Humanities E-Book:

Gikandi, Simon. Ngugi wa Thiong'o. Cambridge UP, 2000. ACLS Humanities E-book, hdl.handle.net/2027/heb.07588.0001.001.

Works Cited, monograph with a DOI:

Gerrard, Christine. Aaron Hill: The Muses' Projector, 1685-1750. Oxford UP, Jan. 2010. Oxford Scholarship Online, https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198183884.001.0001.

Do Not Cite a Chapter of a Novel or Monograph

The Style Center authored-book post is the failure mode this page exists to stop. Create one entry for the book. If the chapter title helps the reader, name it in your sentence and keep the page numbers in parentheses.

MLA Style Center, chapter of a single-author book

Create a works-cited-list entry only for the book.

Works Cited:

Enjoe, Toh. Self-Reference Engine. Translated by Terry Gallagher, Haikasoru, 2013.

Style Center in-text, chapter named in prose:

In the chapter "Bobby Socks," Toh Enjoe writes, "A child's sock is not necessarily a sock child" (122).

Introduction, Preface, or Afterword

If you quoted only the novel, skip the introducer. The omitting-introduction post says authors of front and back matter are not usually essential to identifying the work. If the introducer's name helps a reader judge the edition, put introduction by in Other contributors. If you quoted the introduction itself, start the entry with that writer and use a description such as Introduction. The more-than-one-introduction post uses Bernard Knox's introductions to Sophocles.

MLA Style Center, front matter

Authors of introductions, prefaces, afterwords, and the like—collectively called front and back matter—are not usually essential to identifying a work and can be omitted from works-cited-list entries.

Works Cited, introduction named only if useful:

Gogol, Nikolai. Dead Souls: A Novel. Translated by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volkhonsky, introduction by Pevear, Vintage Books, 1996.

Works Cited, the introduction is the source:

Knox, Bernard. Introduction to Antigone. The Three Theban Plays, by Sophocles, translated by Robert Fagles, Penguin Books, 2000, pp. 33-54.

Style Center in-text for that introduction:

In his introduction to Antigone, Bernard Knox remarks that to Victorian readers, "the subject matter of the play seemed academic" (35).

Audiobook

Cite the audiobook you heard, not the print book on the syllabus. The Style Center audiobook post keeps the book's author first, adds the narrator when that performance matters, and uses the audiobook publisher. If you downloaded the file, do not list the storefront as a website. If you streamed a clip, the site becomes a second container. In the text, use a timestamp in hours, minutes, and seconds.

MLA Style Center, audiobook

To cite an audiobook, include the book's author and title along with the publication details for the audiobook version.

Works Cited:

Atwood, Margaret. The Handmaid's Tale. Narrated by Claire Danes et al., Audible, 2017. Audiobook.

Parenthetical citation, timestamp:

(Atwood 01:47:12-29)

Works Cited, streamed abridged recording:

Heaney, Seamus, translator. Beowulf. Narrated by Heaney, audiobook, abridged edition, HighBridge Audio, 2006. Audible.com, www.audible.com/pd/Classics/Beowulf-Audiobook/B002V5CVPY/.

One Volume from a Multivolume Work

Handbook 5.117, restated on the commentator page, treats one volume as its own book and then names the set. The Style Center's Dante example is the model: the translation volume starts with Dante; the separate commentary volume starts with Charles S. Singleton. If each digitized volume has its own URL, the digital-multivolume post prefers a separate entry per volume.

MLA Style Center, one volume and its commentary

Commentary published in its own volume can be cited as a work in itself.

Works Cited, translation volume:

Dante. Inferno 1: Text. Translated by Charles S. Singleton, Princeton UP, 1990. Vol. 1 of The Divine Comedy.

Works Cited, commentary volume:

Singleton, Charles S. Inferno 2: Commentary. Princeton UP, 1990. Vol. 2 of The Divine Comedy.

No Publisher, Self-Published, or Corporate Author

If the author published the book, omit the Publisher slot. If no organization is named as the publisher, omit that slot. The no-organization-as-publisher post uses Amanda Hocking's Fate and a 2017 Enormous Room. Treat an unknown publisher as a reliability warning and prefer an established edition when one exists. When an organization wrote the book and also published it, skip the Author slot and list the organization only as publisher. The Style Center model is the National Endowment for the Arts report Reading at Risk.

MLA Style Center, missing publisher or corporate publisher

An element should be omitted from the entry if it's not relevant to the work being documented.

Works Cited, author as publisher:

Hocking, Amanda. Fate. 2010.

Works Cited, publisher unknown:

Cummings, E. E. The Enormous Room. 2017.

Works Cited, organization is author and publisher:

Reading at Risk: A Survey of Literary Reading in America. National Endowment for the Arts, June 2004.

Copublishers

Handbook 5.61, restated on the copublishers post, says to list each publisher and separate them with a slash. Add a space on each side of the slash when a name is more than one word.

MLA Style Center, copublished book

Add a space on either side of the slash when one or more of the publishers' names consists of more than one word.

Works Cited, one-word copublishers:

Ortiz Wallner, Alexandra. El arte de ficcionar: La novela contemporánea en Centroamérica. Iberoamericana/Vervuert, 2012.

In-Text Citations for Books

The Style Center in-text overview and Handbook 6.3–6.30 are the rules. The citation starts with whatever comes first in the Works Cited entry. Add a location marker only when you quote or paraphrase a specific passage and the copy prints one.

MLA Style Center, in-text citations

In-text citations are brief, unobtrusive references that direct readers to the works-cited-list entries for the sources you consulted and, where relevant, to the location in the source being cited.
An in-text citation begins with the shortest piece of information that directs your reader to the entry in the works-cited list.
All in-text references should be concise. Avoid, for instance, providing the author's name or title of a work in both your prose and parentheses.

Citation in prose, then page only:

According to Naomi Baron, reading is "just half of literacy. The other half is writing" (194).

Parenthetical citation with name and page:

Reading is "just half of literacy. The other half is writing" (Baron 194).

Three or more authors:

(Burdick et al. 42)

Do not repeat the author's name in parentheses when the sentence already names that author. For a numbered note, Handbook 6.29 uses the page plus n plus the note number, with no space: (533n2). For an e-book without pages, skip the locator rather than inventing a Kindle location. For an audiobook, use the timestamp. For a chapter of a novel, name the chapter in the sentence and cite the book page. Baron's Style Center example is a journal article; the author-page pattern is the same one you use for a book.

Failure Modes

  • City of publication. MLA 8 dropped it and MLA 9 did not bring it back. New York, Knopf, 1987 is an older pattern, and Purdue OWL's leftover city slot is not current Handbook practice.
  • Kindle locations. The e-book post says to avoid device-specific numbering. Use a chapter or heading, or omit the locator.
  • A chapter entry for a novel or monograph. Cite the book. Name the chapter in your sentence if the title helps the reader.
  • Listing the introducer when you cited only the novel. Front matter is optional unless you quoted it or the name identifies the edition.
  • Citing the print book after you listened to the audiobook. Use the narrator, the audiobook publisher, and a timestamp.
  • *Italic et al.*** Roman in citations. Italic only when you are talking about the Latin term.
  • Print pages for a file you never opened. Cite the digital edition you used.
  • Anonymous. Start with the title.
  • Listing both DOI and a second URL for the same book. The Style Center says pick one location, and prefer the DOI.
  • Oxford University Press written out. The Handbook wants Oxford UP.

Build the MLA book citation

The atomic how-to-cite page shows one formatted book. Use the MLA generator when you already have the author, title, ISBN, or DOI. Then check the Version and Publisher slots against the title page: e-book ed., UP, a narrator, and a translator are the lines software most often drops.

Open the MLA citation generator

MLA book citation FAQs

How do you cite a book in MLA 9?
Invert the first author, italicize the title, give the publisher, and add the year. The Style Center one-author model is Mantel, Hilary. Wolf Hall. Picador, 2010. Add translator, editor, edition, e-book ed., narrator, database, or DOI only when your copy prints that fact.
Do I include the city of publication in MLA 9?
No. MLA 8 removed the city, and MLA 9 still omits it. Write Picador, 2010, not New York, Picador, 2010. If a classroom handout still shows a city slot, it is copying an older template, including a leftover line on Purdue OWL's book page.
How do I cite a book with two authors in MLA?
Reverse the first name, add a comma and and, then give the second name in normal order. The official example is Dorris, Michael, and Louise Erdrich. The Crown of Columbus. HarperCollins Publishers, 1999. In the text, keep both surnames; add the printed page after the names when you quote or paraphrase a passage. Three or more authors become the first name plus et al. in roman type: Burdick, Anne, et al. Digital_Humanities. MIT P, 2012, and (Burdick et al. 42).
How do I cite an e-book in MLA 9?
If you read it in an app and it has no URL, add e-book ed. in the Version slot: MLA Handbook. 9th ed., e-book ed., Modern Language Association of America, 2021. Do not cite Kindle locations. If you opened the book on a website or in a database, cite that platform and end with the DOI or URL instead of writing e-book ed. The 18 June 2025 Style Center post says to cite the digital edition you used, not print pages you never saw.
How do I cite an audiobook in MLA?
Keep the book's author first. Add Narrated by plus the narrator when the performance matters, then the audiobook publisher, then Audiobook. The Style Center model is Atwood, Margaret. The Handmaid's Tale. Narrated by Claire Danes et al., Audible, 2017. Audiobook. In the text, use a timestamp such as (Atwood 01:47:12-29), not a print page.
How do I cite a translated book or an introduction in MLA?
For the novel, keep the author first and add Translated by plus the translator in normal order: Zola, Émile. Germinal. Translated by Roger Pearson, Penguin Books, 2004. Cite a translator's note as (533n2). If you quoted only the introduction, start with that writer: Knox, Bernard. Introduction to Antigone. The Three Theban Plays, by Sophocles, translated by Robert Fagles, Penguin Books, 2000, pp. 33-54. If you quoted only the novel, you may omit the introducer.
Can I cite one chapter of a novel in MLA?
No. The Style Center says chapters of novels and monographs are not cited individually. Cite the book. Name the chapter in your sentence if the title helps. The official model is Enjoe, Toh. Self-Reference Engine. Translated by Terry Gallagher, Haikasoru, 2013. A numbered critical edition is still one book entry, as in Brontë, Charlotte. Jane Eyre. Edited by Richard J. Dunn, Norton Critical Edition, 3rd ed., W. W. Norton, 2001.
How do I cite a book I found in a library database?
Give the book facts, then the database as a container, then the DOI or handle. Official models are Gikandi's Ngugi wa Thiong'o on ACLS Humanities E-Book and Gerrard's Aaron Hill on Oxford Scholarship Online with https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198183884.001.0001. Do not add print page numbers you never saw, and do not list both a DOI and a second URL.
What if the book has no author?
Start with the italic title. Do not write Anonymous. The Style Center book example is Beowulf. Translated by Alan Sullivan and Timothy Murphy, edited by Sarah Anderson, Pearson, 2004. Alphabetize by the first significant word of the title. If you now know an originally anonymous author, the Style Center supplies the name in square brackets, as in [Luard, Kate].
How do I shorten a university press in MLA?
If the name contains University Press, use UP: Oxford UP, U of Chicago P, State U of New York P, Princeton UP. Spell out Press for MIT Press, Belknap Press, and Academic Press. Keep Publishers when it is part of the imprint, as in HarperCollins Publishers.