Skip to Main Content

MLA Citations: Books

Quick Links

MLA Style Center Homepage

Learn the MLA citation style directly from the creators.  The MLA Style Center provides guidance, formatting, and examples of how to cite within the MLA style. 


Purdue Online Writing Lab: MLA Style Guide

Purdue University's Online Writing Lab (OWL) provides writing resources and instructional materials for writing projects.  The MLA Style Guide includes an introduction to the style, citation formatting for various sources, formatting for in-text citations and reference lists, and more. 


MLA Handbook

Citing a Book

Basic Form

Last Name, First Name. Title of Book. City of Publication, Publisher, Publication Date. 

Note: The City of Publication should only be used if the book was published before 1900, if the publisher has offices in more than one country, or if the publisher is unknown in North America.

 

Book with One Author

Gleick, James. Chaos: Making a New Science. Penguin, 1987.

 

Book with Two Authors

Gillespie, Paula, and Neal Lerner. The Allyn and Bacon Guide to Peer Tutoring. Allyn and Bacon, 2000.

 

Book with Three or More Authors 

Wysocki, Anne Frances, et al. Writing New Media: Theory and Applications for Expanding the Teaching of Composition. Utah State UP, 2004.

 

Book by a Corporate Author or Organization 

American Allergy Association. Allergies in Children. Random House, 1998.

 

Book with No Author

Encyclopedia of Indiana. Somerset, 1993.

 

eBook

Machiavelli, Niccolo. The Prince, translated by W. K. Marriott, Kindle ed., Library of Alexandria, 2018.

 

Translated Book

Foucault, Michel. Madness and Civilization: A History of Insanity in the Age of Reason. Translated by Richard Howard, Vintage-Random House, 1988.

 

Book Prepared by an Editor

Bronte, Charlotte. Jane Eyre, edited by Margaret Smith, Oxford UP, 1998.

 

Book Published Before 1900

Thoreau, Henry David. Excursions. Boston, 1863.

 

The Bible

The Bible. Authorized King James Version, Oxford UP, 1998.

The New Jerusalem Bible. Edited by Susan Jones, Doubleday, 1985.