Post Office
The first and most accessible of Bukowski's major novels.
Author guide
Charles Bukowski Books in Order
Charles Bukowski (1920–1994) was a German-American writer whose career spanned poetry, short fiction, novels, essays, memoir, correspondence, and screenwriting. After publishing in small magazines and presses, he became widely known for books including Post Office, Factotum, Women, Ham on Rye, Love Is a Dog from Hell, and Hot Water Music. His work frequently draws on his experiences in Los Angeles, low-wage employment, the post office, horse racing, drinking, and literary life, often through his alter ego Henry Chinaski. His posthumous publications include previously uncollected poems, stories, essays, letters, and manuscript materials.
poetrynovelsshort storiesessaysmemoirscreenwritingcorrespondencegraphic works
Catalog record updated .
Not sure where to begin?
Start with one of these
Ham on Rye
A strongly autobiographical novel and a good entry point to his fiction.
Love Is a Dog from Hell
A representative major poetry collection.
South of No North
A representative collection of Bukowski's short fiction.
Outside the series
Bibliography by category
Novels (6)
- Post Office
novel · 1971
"It began as a mistake." By middle age, Henry Chinaski has lost more than twelve years of his life to the U.S. Postal Service. In a world where his three true, bitter pleasures are women, booze, and racetrack betting, he somehow drags his…
- Factotum
novel · 1975
Synopsis: One of Charles Bukowski's best, this beer-soaked, deliciously degenerate novel follows the wanderings of aspiring writer Henry Chinaski across World War II-era America. Deferred from military service, Chinaski travels from city…
- Women
novel · 1978
“The Walt Whitman of Los Angeles.”—Joyce Carol Oates, bestselling author “He brought everybody down to earth, even the angels.”—Leonard Cohen, songwriter Low-life writer and unrepentant alcoholic Henry Chinaski was born to survive. After…
- Ham on Rye
novel · 1982
In what is widely hailed as the best of his many novels, Charles Bukowski details the long, lonely years of his own hardscrabble youth in the raw voice of alter ego Henry Chinaski. From a harrowingly cheerless childhood in Germany through…
- Hollywood
novel · 1989
There are many scandalous books about life in Hollywood, but none as poetic and dangerous as this.
- Pulp
novel · 1994
Charles Bukowski is one of America's best-known contemporary writers of poetry and prose, and, many would claim, its most influential and imitated poet. He was born in Andernach, Germany, and raised in Los Angeles, where he lived for…
Nonfiction (3)
- Shakespeare Never Did This
travel-memoir · 1979
An account of Charles Bukowski's 1978 European trip. In 1978 Europe was new territory for Bukowski holding the secrets of his own personal ancestry and origins. En route to his birthplace in Andernach, Germany, he is trailed by…
- Confession of a Coward
memoir · 1995
- The Captain Is Out to Lunch and the Sailors Have Taken Over the Ship
graphic-memoir · 1997
Short fiction (5)
- Erections, Ejaculations, Exhibitions, and General Tales of Ordinary Madness
short-story-collection · 1972
Erections, Ejaculations, Exhibitions, and General Tales of Ordinary Madness was a paperback collection of short stories by Charles Bukowski, first published by City Lights Publishers in 1972.[1] It was the first collection of Bukowski's…
- South of No North
short-story-collection · 1973
Charles Bukowski is one of America's best-known contemporary writers of poetry and prose, and, many would claim, its most influential and imitated poet. He was born in Andernach, Germany, and raised in Los Angeles, where he lived for…
- Hot Water Music
short-story-collection · 1983
Charles Bukowski is one of America's best-known contemporary writers of poetry and prose, and, many would claim, its most influential and imitated poet. He was born in Andernach, Germany, and raised in Los Angeles, where he lived for…
- The Most Beautiful Woman in Town and Other Stories
short-story-collection · 1983
- Tales of Ordinary Madness
short-story-collection · 1983
Exceptional stories that come pounding out of Bukowski's violent and depraved life. Horrible and holy, you cannot read them and ever come away the same again. This collection of stories was once part of the 1972 City Lights classic,…
Essays and speeches (7)
- Notes of a Dirty Old Man
essays · 1969
A collection of Charles Bukowski's columns for the underground LA newspaper OPEN, that epitomises his style of gritty realism.
- Pig in a Pamphlet
poetry-pamphlet · 1985
- Portions from a Wine-Stained Notebook
stories-and-essays · 2008
Essential uncollected work from one of the most infamous and provocative contemporary American writers.
- Absence of the Hero
stories-and-essays · 2010
- More Notes of a Dirty Old Man
essays · 2011
- The Bell Tolls for No One
stories-and-essays · 2015
From the self-illustrated, unpublished work written in 1947 to hardboiled contributions to 1980s adult magazines, The Bells Tolls for No One presents the entire range of Bukowski's talent as a short story writer, from straight-up genre…
- The Mathematics of the Breath and the Way
essays · 2018
“Genius could be the ability to say a profound thing in a simple way, or even to say a simple thing in a simpler way.”—Charles Bukowski In The Mathematics of the Breath and the Way, Charles Bukowski considers the art of writing, and the…
Poetry (90)
- Flower, Fist and Bestial Wail
poetry-collection · 1960
- A Signature of Charles Bukowski
poetry-chapbook · 1960
- Signature 2
poetry-chapbook · 1961
- A Charles Bukowski Album
poetry-ephemera · 1961
- Longshot Pomes for Broke Players
poetry-collection · 1961
- Poems and Drawings
poetry-graphic-work · 1962
- Run with the Hunted
poetry-chapbook · 1962
- It Catches My Heart in Its Hands
poetry-collection · 1963
- Crucifix in a Deathhand
poetry-collection · 1965
- Cold Dogs in the Courtyard
poetry-chapbook · 1965
- Atomic Scribblings from a Maniac Age
poetry-chapbook · 1965
- The Genius of the Crowd
poetry-chapbook · 1966
- 2 by Bukowski
poetry-chapbook · 1967
- At Terror Street and Agony Way
poetry-collection · 1968
- Poems Written Before Jumping Out of an 8 Story Window
poetry-collection · 1968
- If We Take
poetry-chapbook · 1969
- The Days Run Away Like Wild Horses Over the Hills
poetry-collection · 1969
- Fire Station
poetry-collection · 1970
- Mockingbird Wish Me Luck
poetry-collection · 1972
Charles Bukowski is one of America's best-known contemporary writers of poetry and prose, and, many would claim, its most influential and imitated poet. He was born in Andernach, Germany, and raised in Los Angeles, where he lived for…
- Me and Your Sometimes Love Poems
poetry-chapbook · 1972
- While the Music Played
poetry-chapbook · 1973
- Burning in Water, Drowning in Flame
poetry-collection · 1974
Charles Bukowski is one of America's best-known contemporary writers of poetry and prose, and, many would claim, its most influential and imitated poet. He was born in Andernach, Germany, and raised in Los Angeles, where he lived for…
- Africa, Paris, Greece
poetry-chapbook · 1975
- The Last Poem and Tough Company
poetry-chapbook · 1976
- Scarlet
poetry-chapbook · 1976
- Art
poetry-chapbook · 1977
- Maybe Tomorrow
poetry-chapbook · 1977
- What They Want
poetry-chapbook · 1977
- Love Is a Dog from Hell
poetry-collection · 1977
A classic in the Bukowski poetry canon, Love Is a Dog from Hell is a raw, lyrical exploration of the exigencies, heartbreaks, and limits of love. Charles Bukowski was a man of intense emotions, someone an editor once called a “passionate…
- You Kissed Lily
poetry-chapbook · 1978
- We'll Take Them
poetry-chapbook · 1978
- Legs, Hips and Behind
poetry-chapbook · 1978
- A Love Poem
poetry-chapbook · 1979
- Play the Piano Drunk Like a Percussion Instrument Until the Fingers Begin to Bleed a Bit
poetry-collection · 1979
“He brought everybody down to earth, even the angels.”—Leonard Cohen, songwriter Play the Piano introduces Charles Bukowski's poetry from the 1970s. He leads a life full of gambling and booze but also finds love. These poems are full of…
- Dangling in the Tournefortia
poetry-collection · 1981
More than a hundred poems about writing, mortality, the nature of success, and the relationship between men and women.
- The Last Generation
poetry-chapbook · 1982
- Sparks
poetry-chapbook · 1983
- One for the Old Boy
poetry-chapbook · 1984
- War All the Time
poetry-collection · 1984
Charles Bukowski is one of America's best-known contemporary writers of poetry and prose, and, many would claim, its most influential and imitated poet. He was born in Andernach, Germany, and raised in Los Angeles, where he lived for…
- Horses Don't Bet on People and Neither Do I
poetry-collection · 1984
- Going Modern
poetry-chapbook · 1984
- Blow 6
poetry-chapbook · 1984
- Alone in a Time of Armies
poetry-collection · 1985
- Cornered
poetry-chapbook · 1985
- The Wedding
poetry-chapbook · 1986
- Gold in Your Eye
poetry-collection · 1986
- The Day It Snowed in L.A.
poetry-chapbook · 1986
- You Get So Alone at Times That It Just Makes Sense
poetry-collection · 1986
Charles Bukowski is one of America's best-known contemporary writers of poetry and prose, and, many would claim, its most influential and imitated poet. He was born in Andernach, Germany, and raised in Los Angeles, where he lived for…
- Relentless as the Tarantula
poetry-chapbook · 1986
- Luck
poetry-chapbook · 1987
- A Visitor Complains of My Disenfranchise
poetry-chapbook · 1987
- The Movie Critics
poetry-chapbook · 1988
- The Roominghouse Madrigals
poetry-collection · 1988
- Beauti-Ful and Other Long Poems
poetry-collection · 1988
- Red
poetry-chapbook · 1989
- If You Let Them Kill You, They Will
poetry-collection · 1989
- We Ain't Got No Money, Honey
poetry-chapbook · 1990
- Septuagenarian Stew
poetry-collection · 1990
Charles Bukowski is one of America's best-known contemporary writers of poetry and prose, and, many would claim, its most influential and imitated poet. He was born in Andernach, Germany, and raised in Los Angeles, where he lived for…
- Not Quite Bernadette
poetry-chapbook · 1990
- This
poetry-chapbook · 1990
- Darkness and Ice
poetry-chapbook · 1990
- In the Morning and at Night and In Between
poetry-collection · 1991
- In the Shadow of the Rose
poetry-collection · 1991
- A Couple of Winos
poetry-chapbook · 1991
- People Poems
poetry-collection · 1991
- Now
poetry-chapbook · 1992
- The Last Night of the Earth Poems
poetry-collection · 1992
Charles Bukowski is one of America's best-known contemporary writers of poetry and prose, and, many would claim, its most influential and imitated poet. He was born in Andernach, Germany, and raised in Los Angeles, where he lived for…
- Three by Bukowski
poetry-chapbook · 1992
- Between the Earthquake, the Volcano and the Leopard
poetry-chapbook · 1994
- Heat Wave
poetry-chapbook · 1995
- The Laughing Heart
poetry-chapbook · 1996
- Betting on the Muse
poetry-and-stories · 1996
- A New War
poetry-chapbook · 1997
- Bone Palace Ballet
poetry-collection · 1997
This is a collection of 175 previously unpublished works by Bukowski. It contains yarns about his childhood in the Depression and his early literary passions, his apprentice days as a hard-drinking, starving poetic aspirant, and his later…
- To Lean Back Into It
poetry-chapbook · 1998
- The Singer
poetry-chapbook · 1999
- Open All Night
poetry-collection · 2000
- Popcorn in the Dark
poetry-collection · 2000
- Pink Silks
poetry-chapbook · 2001
- The Night Torn Mad with Footsteps
poetry-collection · 2001
This collection of previously unpublished poems offers the author's take on squabbling neighbours, off-kilter lovers, would-be hangers-on, and the loneliness of a man afflicted with acute powers of observation. The tone is gritty and…
- The Cruelty of Loveless Love
poetry-chapbook · 2001
- The Simple Truth
poetry-collection · 2002
- Sifting Through the Madness for the Word, the Line, the Way
poetry-collection · 2002
from "neither Shakespeare nor Mickey Spillane"young young young, only wanting the Word, going mad in the streets and in the bars,brutal fights, broken glass, crazy women screaming inyour cheap room,you a familiar guest at the drunk tank,…
- The Flash of Lightning Behind the Mountain
poetry-collection · 2004
The second of five new books of unpublished poems from the late, great, Charles Bukowski, America's most imitated and influential poet –– 143 never–before–seen works of gritty, amusing, and inspiring verse.
- Slouching Toward Nirvana
poetry-collection · 2005
in this placethere are the dead, the deadly and the dying.there is the cross, the builders of the cross and the burners of thecross.the pattern of my life forms like a cheap shadowon the wall before me.my lovewhat is left of itnow must…
- Come On In!
poetry-collection · 2006
- The People Look Like Flowers at Last
poetry-collection · 2007
This exciting book by three pioneers in the new field of cognitive science discusses important discoveries about how much babies and young children know and learn, and how much parents naturally teach them. It argues that evolution…
- The Continual Condition
poetry-collection · 2009
"The Walt Whitman of Los Angeles."-Joyce Carol Oates"He brought everybody down to earth, even the angels."-Leonard Cohen, songwriter Arguably the most imitated and influential American poet of the previous half-century, Charles Bukowski…
- Storm for the Living and the Dead
poetry-collection · 2017
A timeless selection of some of Charles Bukowski’s best unpublished and uncollected poems Charles Bukowski was a prolific writer who produced countless short stories, novels, and poems that have reached beyond their time and place to…
Plays (1)
- Barfly
screenplay · 1984
Other (16)
- Confessions of a Man Insane Enough to Live with Beasts
prose-collection · 1965
- All the Assholes in the World and Mine
prose-collection · 1966
- Horsemeat
prose-collection · 1982
Horsemeat by Charles Bukowski and photographer Michael Montfort is a photographic and literary portrait of Bukowski’s obsession with the American racetrack. It features poems about horse racing and horseplayers, paired with candid, gritty…
- The Bukowski/Purdy Letters
correspondence · 1983
- There's No Business
prose-collection · 1984
- Those Marvelous Lunches
prose-collection · 1993
- Screams from the Balcony
correspondence · 1993
- Jaggernaut
prose-collection · 1995
- Living on Luck
correspondence · 1995
Charles Bukowski is one of America's best-known contemporary writers of poetry and prose, and, many would claim, its most influential and imitated poet. He was born in Andernach, Germany, and raised in Los Angeles, where he lived for…
- Reach for the Sun
correspondence · 1999
Charles Bukowski is one of America's best-known contemporary writers of poetry and prose, and, many would claim, its most influential and imitated poet. He was born in Andernach, Germany, and raised in Los Angeles, where he lived for…
- Beerspit Night and Cursing
correspondence · 2001
Charles Bukowski is one of America's best-known contemporary writers of poetry and prose, and, many would claim, its most influential and imitated poet. He was born in Andernach, Germany, and raised in Los Angeles, where he lived for…
- Los Angeles–Andernach: Letters to Uncle Heinrich
correspondence · 2004
- Back to the Machinegun, Manuscripts Volume 1: 1959–1974
manuscripts · 2011
- Back to the Machinegun, Manuscripts Volume 2: 1975–1977
manuscripts · 2014
- Back to the Machinegun, Manuscripts Volume 3: 1978–1980
manuscripts · 2014
Frequently asked questions about Charles Bukowski
Who was Charles Bukowski?
Charles Bukowski (1920–1994) was a German-American poet, novelist, and short-story writer. Born in Andernach, Germany, he grew up in Los Angeles and became known for candid writing about urban life and people on society’s margins.
Sources: poets.org (opens in a new tab)poetryfoundation.org (opens in a new tab)
Was Charles Bukowski German or American?
He was both German-born and American by upbringing and literary identity. Born to an American soldier and a German mother, he moved to the United States as a child and grew up in Los Angeles.
Source: poets.org (opens in a new tab)
What influenced Charles Bukowski’s writing?
His writing drew heavily on lived experience in Los Angeles, including low-wage work, drinking, gambling, and encounters with marginalized people. He transformed that material into direct, unsentimental poetry and prose shaped by experience and imagination.
Sources: poetryfoundation.org (opens in a new tab)poets.org (opens in a new tab)
Who is Henry Chinaski in Charles Bukowski’s writing?
Henry Chinaski is Bukowski’s recurring, roughly autobiographical alter ego. The character appears as a down-and-out writer whose experiences with marginal jobs, drinking, relationships, and urban life resemble themes from Bukowski’s own work.
Sources: poets.org (opens in a new tab)poetryfoundation.org (opens in a new tab)
What is Charles Bukowski’s literary legacy?
Bukowski became a cult figure in underground literature, recognized for a distinctive, hard-edged style about outsiders and downtrodden urban lives. His reputation has continued through sustained readership and posthumous publication of his work.
Sources: poetryfoundation.org (opens in a new tab)poets.org (opens in a new tab)