Hurry On Down (1953)
     aka Born in Captivity
Living in the Present (1955)
The Contenders (1958)
A Travelling Woman (1959)
Strike the Father Dead (1962)
The Young Visitors (1965)
The Smaller Sky (1967)
A Winter in the Hills (1970)
Visit at Tea Time (1977)
The Pardoner's Tale (1978)
Lizzie's Floating Shop (1981)
Young Shoulders (1982)
     aka Free Zone Starts Here
Where the Rivers Meet (1988)
Comedies (1990)
Hungry Generations (1994)

Mixed Feelings: Nineteen Poems (poems) (1951)
A Word Carved On a Sill (poems) (1956)
Nuncle: And Other Stories (1960)
Weep Before God: Poems (poems) (1961)
Death of the Hind Legs: And Other Stories (1966)
Letters to Five Artists (poems) (1969)
Life Guard (1971)
Selected Stories of Thomas Hardy (1975) (with Thomas Hardy)
Selection (1977)
King Caliban and Other Stories (1978)
Poems, 1949-79 (poems) (1980)
Poetry of Dylan Thomas (1982) (with Dylan Thomas)
Open Country (poems) (1987)
Selected Stories (1989)
Two Worlds of Ernst: And Other Stories (1991)
The Twofold (poems) (1998)
Selected Poems and Memoirs of John Wain (2000)

Contemporary Reviews of Romantic Poetry (1953)
Interpretations: Essays On Twelve English Poems (1955)
Preliminary Essays (1957)
Sprightly Running: Part of an autobiography (1962)
Essays on Literature and Ideas (1963)
The Living World of Shakespeare: A Playgoer's Guide (1966) (see William Shakespeare)
Arnold Bennett (1967) (see Arnold Bennett)
A House for the Truth: Critical Essays (1972)
Johnson as Critic (1973)
Samuel Johnson (1974)
Lives of the English Poets (1975)
Johnson on Johnson (1976)
Professing Poetry (1977)
Edmund Wilson: The Man And His Work (1978) (see Edmund Wilson)
Mid-Week Period Return: Home Thoughts of a Native (1982)
Modern Poetry (1982) (with Ted Walker)
Dear Shadows: Portraits from Memory (1986)
The Journals of James Boswell, 1762-1795 (1992)