Fantasy is sometimes referred to as a genre or type of literature; other genres include romances, westerns, horror stories, and detective novels.

The genre of fantasy contains a number of subgenres; descriptions of genres are useful to the general reader insofar as a genre recognizes common elements of works. Thus a reader who enjoys a particular work might look for other works that belong to that same genre.

The list of genres that appears here is by no means exhaustive or definitive, but will serve as an introduction to many of the most popular categories of fantasy.

Go to the Reading Guides and Browse by Fantasy Subgenre for overviews of selected written works.