How to cite a book in MLA format (9th edition)

Quick answer: In MLA 9, cite a book on your Works Cited page as Last name, First name. Title of Book. Publisher, Year. Use italics for the book title, put the author's full name as it appears on the title page, and give an in-text citation of just the author's last name and the page number — (Orwell 12) — with no comma between them.

Key takeaways

• MLA 9 needs three core elements for a book: author, title, publisher, year. Everything else is optional.
• The book title is italicised; a part of a book (a chapter, a poem, a short story in a collection) goes in quotation marks instead.
• In-text citations are short: the author's last name plus the page number, with no comma — (Orwell 12), not (Orwell, 12).
• The 9th edition dropped the city of publication. If your teacher's example still says "New York: Penguin," it is an older edition.
• Two authors, three authors and corporate authors each have a set shape — the table below makes them quick to copy.
• A chapter in an edited book is cited differently from a whole book you wrote yourself.

Contents

• The shape of an MLA 9 book citation
• Worked examples: every common case
• In-text citations in MLA
• The mistakes that actually happen
• Quick pre-submit check

The shape of an MLA 9 book citation

MLA is built from a small set of core elements, always in the same order, separated by commas and closed with a full stop:

Slot	What goes in it	Example
1. Author	Last name, First name.	Orwell, George.
2. Title	Title of Book. (italicised, title case)	Nineteen Eighty-Four.
3. Contributor	Ed. / Trans. / Illus. (optional)	Trans. John Smith,
4. Version	Ed. 3, (optional)	2nd ed.,
5. Publisher	The publisher's name	Penguin,
6. Publication date	The year	1949.
7. Location	Page range or DOI (optional for print books)	pp. 4–25.

For most books you only ever need slots 1, 2, 5 and 6. If a detail is missing, leave it out and move to the next element — MLA 9 does not use "n.d." placeholders the way APA does unless the date is genuinely unknown.

Worked examples: every common case

One author

Orwell, George. Nineteen Eighty-Four. Penguin, 1949.

Two authors (only the first is inverted)

Strunk, William, and E. B. White. The Elements of Style. 4th ed., Longman, 2000.

Three or more authors (first author + "et al.")

Booth, Wayne C., et al. The Craft of Research. 4th ed., U of Chicago P, 2016.

Corporate author (organisation as author; if it is also the publisher, start with the title)

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

Edited book (no single author)

Clarke, Marcus, editor. Essays on Modern Fiction. Oxford UP, 2019.

Chapter or essay in an edited book

Nabokov, Vladimir. "Good Readers and Good Writers." Lectures on Literature, edited by Fredson Bowers, Harcourt, 1980, pp. 1–40.

Translated book

Kafka, Franz. The Metamorphosis. Translated by Susan Bernofsky, Norton, 2014.

Ebook or online book (add the platform, then the URL)

Austen, Jane. Pride and Prejudice. Penguin Classics, 2003. Kindle.

Audiobook

Gladwell, Malcolm. Talking to Strangers. Narrated by Malcolm Gladwell, Audible, 2019.

Edition later than the first (the edition goes in the Version slot)

Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein. 3rd ed., Broadview, 2012.

Publisher abbreviations: MLA prefers the publisher's name as it appears, shortened where it is widely known — U of Chicago P (or "University of Chicago Press"), Oxford UP, Norton, Penguin. Drop business words such as "Publishers" and "Inc.", and abbreviate "University Press" to "UP" or "U of ... P".

In-text citations in MLA

MLA uses parenthetical citations in the body text, not footnotes.

• Standard form: author's last name + page number, no comma — (Orwell 12)
• Two authors: both names with "and" — (Strunk and White 24)
• Three or more: first name + "et al." — (Booth et al. 55)
• Corporate author: a shortened form of the organisation — (Modern Language Association 9)
• No page number (e.g. an ebook without fixed pages): the author alone — (Orwell)
• Narrative form (author named in the sentence): page number only — George Orwell writes that... (12).
• Two works by the same author: add a short title — (Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four 12)

The mistakes that actually happen

1. A comma before the page number. It is (Orwell 12), never (Orwell, 12). The comma was removed in the 8th edition.
2. Underlining or quoting the book title. A whole book is italicised. Only a part of a book — a chapter, a poem, a short story inside a collection — goes in quotation marks.
3. Including the city. "New York: Penguin" is MLA 7 and earlier. MLA 8 and 9 dropped the place of publication.
4. Capitalising the title like a headline. MLA uses title case — The Craft of Research — and lowercases small words (a, an, the, and, of) inside the title.
5. Missing the edition when you used a later one. If you quoted from the 4th edition, say so; your page numbers belong to that edition.
6. Alphabetising wrong. The Works Cited list is one alphabetical sequence by author's last name; where a work has no author, alphabetise by the title (ignoring A, An, The).
7. Different editions of MLA mixed in one paper. Pick 9th edition and be consistent — the rules changed between 7, 8 and 9.

Quick pre-submit check

• [ ] Author inverted (last name first) and a full stop after it
• [ ] Book title italicised, in title case
• [ ] Publisher, then a comma, then the year, then a full stop
• [ ] No city of publication
• [ ] Edition stated when it is not the first
• [ ] In-text citation is (Last name page) — no comma
• [ ] Works Cited list is alphabetical by last name
• [ ] Every in-text citation has a matching Works Cited entry, and every entry is cited at least once

---

Proper formatting is the last mile of a manuscript — and it is where most first-time authors spend the most time for no reward. If you would rather your book arrived at the printer already clean — formatting, front matter and all — see our self-publishing packages, where layout and typesetting are handled end to end.

Related guides

Keep going: how to write a book, the types of book editing, book editing services and proofreading services. For the official guidance, see MLA works cited: books (Purdue OWL).

Disclosure: Harmony Publishing is a self-publishing company and links to its own services where they match a step. The language guidance here is practical, not a rule for every style guide.