Series
The Handmaid's Tale
Margaret Atwood · 2 novels · 1 short story · 1985–2019
The Handmaid's Tale is Margaret Atwood's 1985 novel set in Gilead, a totalitarian theocracy that has overthrown the United States and forces fertile women into reproductive servitude as Handmaids; it is narrated by one such woman, Offred. Atwood returned to the world in her 2019 sequel The Testaments, set fifteen years later and narrated by three women, including the regime's Aunt Lydia. Together the two novels move from Gilead's grip on power toward the first cracks in it.
Summary by Loreful, from public sources
Reading order
The order the books came out.
Best read in the order they were published.
Map
The Handmaid's Tale at the centre, its books fanned around what holds them. Pick anything for its details, and zoom out for similar series in orbit — the reading order above lists the same books as text.
Stats
By decade
- 1980s1
- 1990s1
- 2000s0
- 2010s1
Shape
Mood
Grim and intense: 100% of this series' placed works, the catalog's 46%.
this series · the catalog · one dot = one book2 of 3 works carry a tone
Edges of the map
- The Handmaid's Taledarkest · calmest
- The Testamentsbrightest · most intense