To cite a book in MLA format, follow this basic structure for your Works Cited entry: Works Cited format: Last Name, First Name. Title of Book. Publisher, Publication Date.

• The book title should be italicized and use title case (capitalize major words).
• Include the city of publication only if required by your instructor or if the book is rare or published before 1900 (optional in MLA 9).
• For books with multiple authors, list them in the order they appear on the book, using "and" before the last author.
• For three or more authors, list the first author followed by "et al."
• If citing a chapter or essay in an edited collection, include the chapter title in quotation marks, the book title italicized, the editor(s), publisher, year, and page range.

Example of a book citation: Walker, Alice. The Color Purple. Harcourt, 1992. Example of a chapter in an edited book: Montrose, Louis. “Elizabeth Through the Looking Glass: Picturing the Queen’s Two Bodies.” The Body of the Queen: Gender and Rule in the Courtly World, 1500-2000, edited by John Doe, Yale UP, 2005, pp. 45-67. In-text citation format: (Author's Last Name page number) Example: (Walker 33) If you use the author's name in the sentence, just include the page number in parentheses: Walker (33)

. For e-books, add the format and device after the publication date, e.g., Harkness, Deborah. A Discovery of Witches: A Novel. E-book, Penguin Books, 2011. Kindle.

This covers the core MLA citation format for books and chapters.