The theme of adultery features in a wide range of literature through the ages. This is hardly surprising, as the fact of adultery has been a part of the human existence for as long as there has been marriage. As a theme it automatically brings its own conflict, between the people concerned and between sexual desires and a sense of loyalty; it brings intense emotions into the foreground, and has consequences for all concerned.

As marriage and family are often regarded as basis of society a story of adultery often shows the conflict between social pressure and individual struggle for happiness.

In the Bible, incidents of adultery are present almost from the start. The story of Abraham contains several incidents and serve as warnings or stories of sin and forgiveness. Abraham attempts to continue his blood line through his wife's maidservant, with consequences that continue through history. Jacob's family life is complicated with similar incidents.

Shakespeare wrote two plays in which the perception of adultery plays a significant part. In both Othello and The Winter's Tale it is the (false) belief by the central character that his wife is unfaithful that brings about his downfall.

In The Country Wife by William Wycherley, the morals of English Restoration society are satirised. The object of the rake hero is to seduce as many married ladies as possible, while blinding their husbands to what is going on by pretending to be impotent. The scheme is very successful, and it is assumed that he goes on adding more notches to his belt after the final curtain.

The following works of literature have adultery and its consequences as one of their major themes. (M) and (F) stand for adulterer and adulteress respectively.

Drama

• Simon Gray: Japes (F)
• Arthur Miller: Broken Glass (F)
• Peter Nichols: Passion Play (M,F)
• Harold Pinter: The Homecoming (F)
• William Shakespeare: The Tragedy of Othello, the Moor of Venice (no adulterers/esses, though the plot revolves around the perception of adultery)
• William Shakespeare: The Winter's Tale the suspicion of adultery initiates the plot
• Richard Wagner: Tristan and Isolde (F)
• Hugh Whitemore : Disposing of the Body (M,F)
• Tennessee Williams: Baby Doll (F)
• William Wycherley: The Country Wife (F)

Fiction

• Kingsley Amis: That Uncertain Feeling (M,F)
• Malcolm Bradbury: The History Man (M,F)
• John Braine: The Jealous God (M,F)
• James M. Cain: The Postman Always Rings Twice (F)
• Geoffrey Chaucer: The Canterbury Tales (M,F)
• Albert Cohen: Belle du Seigneur (F)
• Gustave Flaubert: Madame Bovary (F)
• Theodor Fontane: Effi Briest (M,F)
• Ellen Glasgow: Virginia (M)
• Josephine Hart : Damage (M)
• Nathaniel Hawthorne: The Scarlet Letter (F)
• Francis Iles: Malice Aforethought (M)
• John Irving: The World According to Garp (M,F)
• Milan Kundera: The Unbearable Lightness of Being (M)
• D. H. Lawrence: Lady Chatterley's Lover (F)
• David Lodge: Thinks ... (M)
• William Somerset Maugham: Liza of Lambeth (M)
• Iris Murdoch: A Severed Head (M,F)
• Boris Pasternak: Doctor Zhivago (M)
• Raymond Radiguet: Le Bal du Comte d'Orgel (F)
• Leo Tolstoy: Anna Karenina (F)
• Scott Turow: Presumed Innocent (M)
• Fay Weldon: The Life and Loves of a She-Devil (M)
• Edith Wharton: Ethan Frome (M)
• Stefan Zweig: (M)
• Ford Maddox Ford: The Good Soldier (M,F)