List of French novelists

• Honoré d'Urfé
• Charles Sorel
• Madeleine de Scudéry
• Madame de Lafayette, author of La Princesse de Clèves
• Alain-René Le Sage
• Pierre de Marivaux
• Voltaire, philosophe, satirist, playwright, author of Candide
• Françoise de Graffigny, author of Lettres d'une Péruvienne
• Abbé Prévost, author of Manon Lescaut
• Claude Prosper Jolyot de Crébillon
• Jean-Jacques Rousseau, philosophe, author of Julie, or the New Heloise
• Denis Diderot, philosophe, author of Rameau's Nephew
• Marie Jeanne Riccoboni
• Restif de la Bretonne
• Jacques-Henri Bernardin de Saint-Pierre, author of Paul et Virginie
• Marquis de Sade, author of "Dialogue Between a Priest and a Dying Man", Justine, The 120 Days of Sodom, Philosophy in the Bedroom, and Juliette
• Choderlos de Laclos, author of Les liaisons dangereuses
• Anne Louise Germaine de Staël
• Benjamin Constant, author of Adolphe
• Sophie de Renneville, writer, editor, journalist
• François-René de Chateaubriand, author of Atala and René
• Étienne Pivert de Senancour
• Charles Nodier
• Stendhal, author of The Red and the Black, considered by some to be the first modern novel, and The Charterhouse of Parma
• Élise Voïart,, writer and translator
• Charles Paul de Kock
• Antoinette Henriette Clémence Robert
• Charles Dezobry, historian and historical novelist
• Honoré de Balzac, author of La Comédie Humaine, a series of novels presenting a full picture of France in the early 19th century
• Alexandre Dumas, père, author of The Count of Monte Cristo and The Three Musketeers
• Victor Hugo, author of The Hunchback of Notre Dame and Les Misérables
• Prosper Mérimée, author of Carmen
• Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve
• George Sand, pseudonym of Amantine Aurore Lucile Dupin, Baroness Dudevant
• Eugène Sue
• Jules Amédée Barbey d'Aurevilly
• Alfred de Musset
• Théophile Gautier
• Gustave Flaubert, author of Madame Bovary and Sentimental Education
• Edmond de Goncourt
• Henri Murger, author of Scènes de la vie de bohème
• Alexandre Dumas, fils, author of La Dame aux camélias
• Edmond About
• Jules Verne, writer of techno-thrillers like Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea, and founding father of science fiction
• Jules de Goncourt
• Hector Malot
• Émile Gaboriau, pioneer of modern detective fiction
• Eugène Le Roy
• Alphonse Daudet
• Émile Zola, naturalist, author of Germinal and Nana
• Anatole France
• Léon Bloy
• Joris-Karl Huysmans, author of À rebours and Là-bas
• Guy de Maupassant
• Pierre Loti
• Élémir Bourges
• Paul Bourget
• René Bazin
• Adolphe Chenevière
• Maurice Barrès
• Henri de Régnier
• Jules Renard
• Romain Rolland, Nobel Prize in Literature, 1915
• Gaston Leroux, author of The Phantom of the Opera and The Mystery of the Yellow Room which is recognized as the first locked room puzzle mystery novel
• André Gide
• Henri Bordeaux
• Marcel Proust, author of In Search of Lost Time, sometimes seen as the greatest modernist novel
• Colette, best known for Gigi and Chéri
• Alfred Jarry, satirist, inventor of Pataphysics
• Roger Martin du Gard, Nobel Prize in Literature, 1937
• Louis Pergaud
• Georges Duhamel
• François Mauriac, Nobel Prize in Literature, 1952
• Jules Romains
• Alain-Fournier
• René Maran
• Georges Bernanos
• Adrien Bertrand
• Henri Bosco
• Louis Ferdinand Céline, author of Journey to the End of the Night and Death on the Installment Plan or Mort à Crédit
• Henri de Montherlant
• Jean Giono
• Julien Green
• Antoine de Saint Exupéry
• Nathalie Sarraute
• André Malraux
• Marie-Magdeleine Carbet
• Irène Némirovsky, author of Suite française
• Raymond Queneau
• Raymond Radiguet
• Marguerite Yourcenar
• Jean-Paul Sartre, Nobel Prize in Literature, 1964
• Louise Aslanian, pseudonym "Las", author of "The Way of doubt".
• Pauline Réage
• Simone de Beauvoir
• Paul Berna
• Jean Genet
• Jean-Louis Baghio'o
• Raphaël Tardon
• Henri Troyat
• Pierre Boulle, author of The Bridge on the River Kwai and Planet of the Apes
• Albert Camus, Nobel Prize in Literature, 1957
• Gilbert Cesbron
• Claude Simon, Nobel Prize in Literature, 1985
• Romain Gary, winner of the Goncourt prize twice, 1956, and 1975 under the pseudonym of Emile Ajar
• Marguerite Duras
• Joseph Zobel
• Maurice Druon
• Boris Vian
• Alain Robbe-Grillet
• Salvat Etchart
• Michel Tournier
• Philippe Daudy
• Michel Butor
• Édouard Glissant
• André Schwarz-Bart
• Sébastien Japrisot
• Emmanuelle Arsan
• Jean Bernabé
• Régine Deforges
• Françoise Sagan
• Georges Perec
• Maryse Condé
• J.M.G. Le Clézio, Nobel Prize in Literature, 2008
• Marie-Reine de Jaham
• Daniel Maximin
• Raphaël Confiant
• Kama Sywor Kamanda
• Patrick Chamoiseau
• Nancy Huston
• Gisèle Pineau
• Michel Houellebecq, Impact award winner
• Annie Ernaux
• Éric-Emmanuel Schmitt
• Charles Dantzig
• Pavel Hak
• Beatrice Hammer
• Fabienne Kanor