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Literature in Jersey may be divided into literature in Jèrriais, Francophone literature, and literature in English.

The literary tradition in Jersey is traced back to Wace, the 12th-century Jersey-born poet.

William Prynne wrote poetry while imprisoned in Jersey, but little indigenous literature survives from before the 18th century.

Printing only arrived in Jersey in the 1780s, but the island supported a multitude of regular publications in French (and Jèrriais) and English throughout the 19th century, in which poetry, most usually topical and satirical, flourished.

The first printed Jèrriais appears in the first newspapers at the end of the 18th century. The earliest identified dated example of printed poetry in Jèrriais is a fragment by Matchi L'Gé (Matthew Le Geyt 1777–1849), dated 1795. The first printed anthology of Jèrriais poetry, Rimes Jersiaises, was published in 1865.

Influential writers include 'Laelius' (Sir Robert Pipon Marett 1820–1884, Bailiff of Jersey 1880–1884), 'A.A.L.G.' (Augustus Aspley Le Gros 1840–1877), and 'St.-Luorenchais' (Philippe Langlois 1817–1884).

Philippe Le Sueur Mourant (1848–1918) wrote under several pseudonyms. His greatest success was the character Bram Bilo, but he later developed the Pain family, newly moved to Saint Helier, who commented on its Anglicized society and fashionable entertainments.

'Elie' (Edwin J. Luce 1881–1918) was editor of the French-language newspaper La Nouvelle Chronique de Jersey and a poet who wrote topical poems for the newspaper. He died in the influenza pandemic of 1918. His brother, Philip W. Luce (1882–1966), also a journalist and poet, emigrated to Canada, but sent occasional writings back to Jersey.

'Caouain' (George W. De Carteret 1869–1940) maintained a weekly newspaper column purporting to be the work of an owl (cahouain) reporting on the latest election news and local gossip.

During the Occupation, little original writing was permitted to be published by the German censors. However very many older pieces of literature were re-published in the newspapers as an act of cultural self-assertion and morale-boosting.

Edward Le Brocq (1877–1964) revived the weekly column in 1946 with a letter from Ph'lip et Merrienne, supposedly a traditional old couple who would comment on the latest news or recall times past. The column continued until the author's death in 1964.

The most influential writer of Jèrriais in the 20th century was a U.S. citizen, George Francis Le Feuvre (1891–1984), whose pen-name was 'George d'la Forge'. He emigrated to North America after the First World War but for almost forty years maintained a flow of articles in Jèrriais back to Jersey for publication in newspapers.

Frank Le Maistre (1910–2002), compiler of the Jèrriais–French dictionary, maintained a literary output starting in the 1930s with newspaper articles under the pseudonym Marie la Pie, poems, magazine articles, and research into toponymy and etymology. He himself considered his masterpiece the translation of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam that he undertook during the German Occupation (1940–1945).

The famous French writer Victor Hugo lived in exile in Jersey from 1852 to 1855.

Elinor Glyn and John Lemprière were Jersey-born writers. Frederick Tennyson, Jack Higgins and Gerald Durrell are among writers who have made Jersey their home.

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