1940 in literature
Encyclopedia
The year 1940 in literature involved some significant events and new books.
Events
- Aldous HuxleyAldous HuxleyAldous Leonard Huxley was an English writer and one of the most prominent members of the famous Huxley family. Best known for his novels including Brave New World and a wide-ranging output of essays, Huxley also edited the magazine Oxford Poetry, and published short stories, poetry, travel...
is a screenwriter for the movie adaptation of Pride and PrejudicePride and PrejudicePride and Prejudice is a novel by Jane Austen, first published in 1813. The story follows the main character Elizabeth Bennet as she deals with issues of manners, upbringing, morality, education and marriage in the society of the landed gentry of early 19th-century England...
. - Jean-Paul SartreJean-Paul SartreJean-Paul Charles Aymard Sartre was a French existentialist philosopher, playwright, novelist, screenwriter, political activist, biographer, and literary critic. He was one of the leading figures in 20th century French philosophy, particularly Marxism, and was one of the key figures in literary...
is taken prisoner by the Germans. - Robertson DaviesRobertson DaviesWilliam Robertson Davies, CC, OOnt, FRSC, FRSL was a Canadian novelist, playwright, critic, journalist, and professor. He was one of Canada's best-known and most popular authors, and one of its most distinguished "men of letters", a term Davies is variously said to have gladly accepted for himself...
joins the Old VicOld VicThe Old Vic is a theatre located just south-east of Waterloo Station in London on the corner of The Cut and Waterloo Road. Established in 1818 as the Royal Coburg Theatre, it was taken over by Emma Cons in 1880 when it was known formally as the Royal Victoria Hall. In 1898, a niece of Cons, Lilian...
repertory company.
New book
- Giorgio Basssani - Una città di pianura
- Henry BellamannHenry BellamannHeinrich Hauer Bellamann was an American novelist and poet, best known as the author of the novel Kings Row.- Biography :...
- King's Row - Adolfo Bioy CasaresAdolfo Bioy CasaresAdolfo Bioy Casares was an Argentine fiction writer, journalist, and translator. He was a friend and collaborator with his fellow countryman Jorge Luis Borges, and wrote what many consider one of the best pieces of fantastic fiction, the novella The Invention of Morel.-Biography:Adolfo Bioy...
- The Invention of MorelThe Invention of MorelLa invención de Morel — translated as The Invention of Morel or Morel's Invention — is a science fiction novel by Adolfo Bioy Casares. It was Bioy Casares' breakthrough effort, for which he won the 1941 First Municipal Prize for Literature of the City of Buenos Aires... - Karin BoyeKarin Boyewas a Swedish poet and novelist.- Career :Boye was born in Gothenburg , Sweden and moved with her family to Stockholm in 1909. She studied at Uppsala University from 1921 to 1926 and debuted in 1922 with a collection of poems, "Clouds"...
- KallocainKallocainKallocain is a classic 1940 Swedish dystopian novel which envisions a future of drab terror. Seen through the eyes of idealistic scientist Leo Kall, Kallocain's depiction of a totalitarian world state draws on what novelist Karin Boye observed or sensed about the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany of... - Edgar Rice BurroughsEdgar Rice BurroughsEdgar Rice Burroughs was an American author, best known for his creation of the jungle hero Tarzan and the heroic Mars adventurer John Carter, although he produced works in many genres.-Biography:...
- Synthetic Men of MarsSynthetic Men of MarsSynthetic Men of Mars is a science fiction novel by American writer Edgar Rice Burroughs, the ninth of his Barsoom series. It was first published in the magazine Argosy Weekly in six parts in early 1939... - Dino BuzzatiDino BuzzatiDino Buzzati-Traverso was an Italian novelist, short story writer, painter and poet, as well as a journalist for Corriere della Sera. His worldwide fame is mostly due to his novel Il deserto dei Tartari, translated into English as The Tartar Steppe.-Life:Buzzati was born at San Pellegrino,...
- The Tartar SteppeThe Tartar SteppeThe Tartar Steppe is a novel by Italian author Dino Buzzati, published in 1940.The novel tells the story of a young officer, Giovanni Drogo, and his life spent guarding the Bastiani Fortress, an old, unmaintained border fortress. The plot of the novel is Drogo's lifelong wait for a great war in...
(Il deserto dei Tartari) - Erskine CaldwellErskine CaldwellErskine Preston Caldwell was an American author. His writings about poverty, racism and social problems in his native South like the novels Tobacco Road and God's Little Acre won him critical acclaim, but they also made him controversial among fellow Southerners of the time who felt he was...
- Trouble in July - Taylor CaldwellTaylor CaldwellJanet Miriam Holland Taylor Caldwell was an Anglo-American novelist and prolific author of popular fiction, also known by the pen names Marcus Holland and Max Reiner, and by her married name of J. Miriam Reback....
- The Earth is the Lord's - John Dickson CarrJohn Dickson CarrJohn Dickson Carr was an American author of detective stories, who also published under the pen names Carter Dickson, Carr Dickson and Roger Fairbairn....
- The Department of Queer Complaints
- The Man Who Could Not ShudderThe Man Who Could Not ShudderThe Man Who Could Not Shudder, first published in 1940, is a detective story by John Dickson Carr featuring his series detective Gideon Fell...
- And So To MurderAnd So to MurderAnd So to Murder is a mystery novel by the American writer John Dickson Carr , who published it under the name of Carter Dickson...
(as by Carter Dickson) - Murder in the Submarine ZoneMurder in the Submarine ZoneMurder in the Submarine Zone is a mystery novel by the American writer John Dickson Carr , who published it under the name of Carter Dickson. It is a whodunnit and features the series detective Sir Henry Merrivale.-Plot summary:Nine oddly-assorted passengers aboard the S.S...
(as by Carter Dickson)
- Willa CatherWilla CatherWilla Seibert Cather was an American author who achieved recognition for her novels of frontier life on the Great Plains, in works such as O Pioneers!, My Ántonia, and The Song of the Lark. In 1923 she was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for One of Ours , a novel set during World War I...
- Sapphira And The Slave - Raymond ChandlerRaymond ChandlerRaymond Thornton Chandler was an American novelist and screenwriter.In 1932, at age forty-five, Raymond Chandler decided to become a detective fiction writer after losing his job as an oil company executive during the Depression. His first short story, "Blackmailers Don't Shoot", was published in...
- Farewell, My LovelyFarewell, My LovelyFarewell, My Lovely is a 1940 novel by Raymond Chandler, the second novel he wrote featuring Los Angeles private eye Philip Marlowe. It was adapted for the screen three times.-Plot summary:... - Agatha ChristieAgatha ChristieDame Agatha Christie DBE was a British crime writer of novels, short stories, and plays. She also wrote romances under the name Mary Westmacott, but she is best remembered for her 66 detective novels and 14 short story collections , and her successful West End plays.According to...
- Sad CypressSad CypressSad Cypress is a work of detective fiction by Agatha Christie and first published in the UK by the Collins Crime Club in March 1940 and in the US by Dodd, Mead and Company later in the same year...
- One, Two, Buckle My ShoeOne, Two, Buckle My Shoe"One, Two, Buckle My Shoe" is a popular English language nursery rhyme and counting-out rhyme. It has a Roud Folk Song Index number of 11284.-Lyrics:Common modern versions include:...
- Sad Cypress
- Walter ClarkWalter Van Tilburg ClarkWalter Van Tilburg Clark was an American novelist, short story writer, and educator. He ranks as one of Nevada's most distinguished literary figures of the 20th century and is known primarily for his novels, his one volume of stories, as well as his uncollected short stories...
- The Ox-bow IncidentThe Ox-Bow IncidentThe Ox-Bow Incident is a 1943 American western film directed by William A. Wellman and starring Henry Fonda, Dana Andrews, Mary Beth Hughes, Anthony Quinn, William Eythe, Harry Morgan and Jane Darwell... - James DaughertyJames DaughertyJames Henry Daugherty was an American modernist painter, muralist, children's book author, and illustrator. -Life:...
- Daniel BooneDaniel BooneDaniel Boone was an American pioneer, explorer, and frontiersman whose frontier exploits mad']'e him one of the first folk heroes of the United States. Boone is most famous for his exploration and settlement of what is now the Commonwealth of Kentucky, which was then beyond the western borders of... - Georges DuhamelGeorges DuhamelGeorges Duhamel , was a French author, born in Paris. Duhamel trained as a doctor, and during World War I was attached to the French Army. In 1920, he published Confession de minuit , the first of a series featuring the anti-hero Salavin...
- Les MaîtresLes MaîtresLes Maîtres is the sixth volume in Georges Duhamel's Chronique des Pasquier. It tells the story of Laurent Pasquier, a research student who is working for two rival academics, professors Chalgrin and Rohner... - Graham GreeneGraham GreeneHenry Graham Greene, OM, CH was an English author, playwright and literary critic. His works explore the ambivalent moral and political issues of the modern world...
- The Power and the GloryThe Power and the GloryThe Power and the Glory is a novel by British author Graham Greene. The title is an allusion to the doxology often added to the end of the Lord's Prayer: "For thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory, now and forever , amen." This novel has also been published in the US under the name The... - Ernest HemingwayErnest HemingwayErnest Miller Hemingway was an American author and journalist. His economic and understated style had a strong influence on 20th-century fiction, while his life of adventure and his public image influenced later generations. Hemingway produced most of his work between the mid-1920s and the...
- For Whom the Bell TollsFor Whom the Bell TollsFor Whom the Bell Tolls is a novel by Ernest Hemingway published in 1940. It tells the story of Robert Jordan, a young American in the International Brigades attached to a republican guerrilla unit during the Spanish Civil War. As an expert in the use of explosives, he is assigned to blow up a... - Georgette HeyerGeorgette HeyerGeorgette Heyer was a British historical romance and detective fiction novelist. Her writing career began in 1921, when she turned a story for her younger brother into the novel The Black Moth. In 1925 Heyer married George Ronald Rougier, a mining engineer...
- The CorinthianThe Corinthian (novel)The Corinthian is a regency novel by Georgette Heyer.-Plot summary:Sir Richard Wyndham, an accomplished Corinthian, is being forced into marriage by his family, who want him to have an heir. Depressed by the life laid out before him, he nevertheless agrees to this course... - Arthur KoestlerArthur KoestlerArthur Koestler CBE was a Hungarian author and journalist. Koestler was born in Budapest and, apart from his early school years, was educated in Austria...
- Darkness at NoonDarkness at NoonDarkness at Noon is a novel by the Hungarian-born British novelist Arthur Koestler, first published in 1940... - Dorothy KunhardtDorothy KunhardtDorothy Kunhardt was an American children's-book author, best known for the baby book Pat the Bunny. She was also a historian and writer about the life of U.S. President Abraham Lincoln....
- Pat the BunnyPat the BunnyPat the Bunny is a "touch and feel" book for small children and babies and has been a perennial best-seller in the U.S. since its publication in 1940... - John M. Lee - Counter-Clockwise
- Carson McCullersCarson McCullersCarson McCullers was an American writer. She wrote novels, short stories, and two plays, as well as essays and some poetry. Her first novel The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter explores the spiritual isolation of misfits and outcasts of the South...
- The Heart Is a Lonely HunterThe Heart Is a Lonely HunterThe Heart Is a Lonely Hunter is the debut 1940 novel by American author Carson McCullers. Written in Charlotte, North Carolina, in houses on Central Avenue and East Boulevard, it is about a deaf man named John Singer and the people he encounters in a 1930s mill town in the US state of Georgia... - John O'HaraJohn O'HaraJohn Henry O'Hara was an American writer. He initially became known for his short stories and later became a best-selling novelist whose works include Appointment in Samarra and BUtterfield 8. He was particularly known for an uncannily accurate ear for dialogue...
- Pal JoeyPal JoeyPal Joey is a 1940 epistolary novel by John O'Hara, which became the basis of the 1940 stage musical comedy and 1957 motion picture of the same name, with music by Richard Rodgers and lyrics by Lorenz Hart.... - Raymond PostgateRaymond PostgateRaymond William Postgate was an English socialist, journalist and editor, social historian, mystery novelist and gourmet.-Early life:...
- Verdict of TwelveVerdict of TwelveVerdict of Twelve is a novel by Raymond Postgate first published in 1940 about a trial by jury seen through the eyes of each of the twelve jurors as they listen to the evidence and try to reach a unanimous verdict of either “Guilty” or “Not guilty”. Verdict of Twelve is set in England in the late... - Arthur RansomeArthur RansomeArthur Michell Ransome was an English author and journalist, best known for writing the Swallows and Amazons series of children's books. These tell of school-holiday adventures of children, mostly in the Lake District and the Norfolk Broads. Many of the books involve sailing; other common subjects...
- The Big SixThe Big SixThe Big Six is the ninth book of Arthur Ransome's Swallows and Amazons series of children's books, published in 1940. The book returns Dick and Dorothea Callum, known as the Ds, to the Norfolk Broads where they renew their friendship with the members of the Coot Club... - Marjorie Kinnan RawlingsMarjorie Kinnan RawlingsMarjorie Kinnan Rawlings was an American author who lived in rural Florida and wrote novels with rural themes and settings. Her best known work, The Yearling, about a boy who adopts an orphaned fawn, won a Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1939 and was later made into a movie, also known as The...
- When the Whippoorwill - Clayton RawsonClayton RawsonClayton Rawson was an American mystery writer, editor, and amateur magician. His four novels frequently invoke his great knowledge of stage magic and feature as their fictional detective The Great Merlini, a professional magician who runs a shop selling magic supplies...
-- The Headless LadyThe Headless LadyThe Headless Lady is a whodunnit mystery novel written by Clayton Rawson. A character in the novel, a detective story writer named Stuart Towne, has the same name as a pen name of Rawson... - Mikhail Sholokov - The Don Flows Home to the SeaThe Don Flows Home to the SeaThe Don Flows Home to the Sea is the second in the series of the great Don epic written by Mikhail Sholokhov. It originally appeared in serialized form between 1928 and 1940...
- Dr. SeussDr. SeussTheodor Seuss Geisel was an American writer, poet, and cartoonist most widely known for his children's books written under the pen names Dr. Seuss, Theo LeSieg and, in one case, Rosetta Stone....
- Horton Hatches the EggHorton Hatches the EggHorton Hatches the Egg is a children's book by Dr. Seuss, first published in 1940. The character Horton appeared again in Horton Hears a Who!, published in 1954... - C. P. SnowC. P. SnowCharles Percy Snow, Baron Snow of the City of Leicester CBE was an English physicist and novelist who also served in several important positions with the UK government...
- George PassantGeorge PassantGeorge Passant is the first published of C. P. Snow's series of novels Strangers and Brothers, but the second according to the internal chronology. It was first published under the name Strangers and Brothers....
(first of the Strangers and BrothersStrangers and BrothersStrangers and Brothers is a series of novels by C. P. Snow, published between 1940 and 1974. They deal with – amongst other things – questions of political and personal integrity, and the mechanics of exercising power....
series) - Christina SteadChristina SteadChristina Stead was an Australian novelist and short-story writer acclaimed for her satirical wit and penetrating psychological characterisations.-Biography:...
- The Man Who Loved ChildrenThe Man Who Loved ChildrenThe Man Who Loved Children is a 1940 novel by Australian writer Christina Stead. It wasn't until a reissue edition in 1965, with an introduction by poet Randall Jarrell, that it found widespread critical acclaim and popularity. Time magazine included the novel in its TIME 100 Best English-language... - Rex StoutRex StoutRex Todhunter Stout was an American writer noted for his detective fiction. Stout is best known as the creator of the larger-than-life fictional detective Nero Wolfe, described by reviewer Will Cuppy as "that Falstaff of detectives." Wolfe's assistant Archie Goodwin recorded the cases of the...
- Over My Dead BodyOver My Dead Body (novel)Over My Dead Body is the seventh Nero Wolfe detective novel by Rex Stout. The story first appeared in abridged form in The American Magazine...
- Where There's a Will
- Over My Dead Body
- Phoebe Atwood TaylorPhoebe Atwood TaylorPhoebe Atwood Taylor was an American mystery author.Phoebe Atwood Taylor wrote mystery novels under her own name, and as Freeman Dana and Alice Tilton. Her first novel, The Cape Cod Mystery, introduced the "Codfish Sherlock", Asey Mayo, who became a series character appearing in 24 novels...
- The Criminal C.O.D.
- The Deadly Sunshade
- The Left LegThe Left LegThe Left Leg is a novel that was published in 1940 by Phoebe Atwood Taylor writing as Alice Tilton. It is the fourth of the eight Leonidas Witherall mysteries.-Plot summary:...
(as by Alice Tilton)
- Richard WrightRichard Wright (author)Richard Nathaniel Wright was an African-American author of sometimes controversial novels, short stories, poems, and non-fiction. Much of his literature concerns racial themes, especially those involving the plight of African-Americans during the late 19th to mid 20th centuries...
-Native SonNative SonNative Son is a novel by American author Richard Wright. The novel tells the story of 20-year-old Bigger Thomas, an African American living in utter poverty. Bigger lived in Chicago's South Side ghetto in the 1930s...
New drama
- Agatha ChristieAgatha ChristieDame Agatha Christie DBE was a British crime writer of novels, short stories, and plays. She also wrote romances under the name Mary Westmacott, but she is best remembered for her 66 detective novels and 14 short story collections , and her successful West End plays.According to...
- Peril at End HousePeril at End House (play)Peril at End House is a 1940 play based on the 1932 novel of the same name by Agatha Christie. The play is by Arnold Ridley, who much later played Private Godfrey in Dad's Army.... - Jean CocteauJean CocteauJean Maurice Eugène Clément Cocteau was a French poet, novelist, dramatist, designer, playwright, artist and filmmaker. His circle of associates, friends and lovers included Kenneth Anger, Pablo Picasso, Jean Hugo, Jean Marais, Henri Bernstein, Marlene Dietrich, Coco Chanel, Erik Satie, María...
- Le Bel Indifférent - Lawrence RileyLawrence RileyLawrence Riley was a successful American playwright and screenwriter. He gained fame in 1934 as the author of the Broadway hit Personal Appearance, which was turned by Mae West into the classic film Go West, Young Man , starring herself.-Biography:Riley was a Princeton University alumnus and a...
- Return Engagement - George ShielsGeorge ShielsGeorge Shiels was an Irish dramatist whose plays were a success both in his native Ulster and at the Abbey Theatre in Dublin. His most famous plays are The Rugged Path, The Passing Day, and The New Gossoon....
- The Rugged Path
Non-fiction
- "Cato" (Michael FootMichael FootMichael Mackintosh Foot, FRSL, PC was a British Labour Party politician, journalist and author, who was a Member of Parliament from 1945 to 1955 and from 1960 until 1992...
and others) - Guilty MenGuilty MenGuilty Men was a book published in Great Britain in 1940 that attacked British public figures for their appeasement of Nazi Germany in the 1930s... - G. H. HardyG. H. HardyGodfrey Harold “G. H.” Hardy FRS was a prominent English mathematician, known for his achievements in number theory and mathematical analysis....
- A Mathematician's ApologyA Mathematician's ApologyA Mathematician's Apology is a 1940 essay by British mathematician G. H. Hardy. It concerns the aesthetics of mathematics with some personal content, and gives the layman an insight into the mind of a working mathematician.-Summary:... - C. S. LewisC. S. LewisClive Staples Lewis , commonly referred to as C. S. Lewis and known to his friends and family as "Jack", was a novelist, academic, medievalist, literary critic, essayist, lay theologian and Christian apologist from Belfast, Ireland...
- The Problem of PainThe Problem of PainThe Problem of Pain is a 1940 book by C. S. Lewis, in which he seeks to provide an intellectual Christian response to questions about suffering... - Arthur MarderArthur MarderArthur Jacob Marder was a highly regarded American historian specializing in British naval history in the period 1880 - 1945.-Early life and education:...
- The Anatomy of British Sea Power: a history of British naval policy in the pre-Dreadnought era, 1880-1905 - A. A. MilneA. A. MilneAlan Alexander Milne was an English author, best known for his books about the teddy bear Winnie-the-Pooh and for various children's poems. Milne was a noted writer, primarily as a playwright, before the huge success of Pooh overshadowed all his previous work.-Biography:A. A...
- War with Honour - Edmund WilsonEdmund WilsonEdmund Wilson was an American writer and literary and social critic and noted man of letters.-Early life:Wilson was born in Red Bank, New Jersey. His father, Edmund Wilson, Sr., was a lawyer and served as New Jersey Attorney General. Wilson attended The Hill School, a college preparatory...
- To the Finland StationTo the Finland StationTo the Finland Station: A Study in the Writing and Acting of History is a book by American critic and historian Edmund Wilson. The work presents the history of revolutionary thought and the birth of socialism, from the French Revolution through the collaboration of Marx and Engels to the arrival...
Births
- January 14 - Sir Trevor NunnTrevor NunnSir Trevor Robert Nunn, CBE is an English theatre, film and television director. Nunn has been the Artistic Director for the Royal Shakespeare Company, the Royal National Theatre, and, currently, the Theatre Royal, Haymarket. He has directed musicals and dramas for the stage, as well as opera...
, theatre director - February 4 - George A. RomeroGeorge A. RomeroGeorge Andrew Romero is a Canadian-American film director, screenwriter and editor, best known for his gruesome and satirical horror films about a hypothetical zombie apocalypse. He is nicknamed "Godfather of all Zombies." -Life and career:...
, horror film writer, producer, director - March 16 - Bernardo BertolucciBernardo BertolucciBernardo Bertolucci is an Italian film director and screenwriter, whose films include The Conformist, Last Tango in Paris, 1900, The Last Emperor and The Dreamers...
, Italian writer and film director - March 28 - Russell BanksRussell BanksRussell Banks is an American writer of fiction and poetry.- Biography :Russell Banks was born in Newton, Massachusetts on March 28, 1940. He attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He lives in upstate New York, and has been named a New York State Author. He is also...
, novelist - April 15 - Jeffrey Archer, novelist
- May 7 - Angela CarterAngela CarterAngela Carter was an English novelist and journalist, known for her feminist, magical realism, and picaresque works...
, English magical realist author (d. 1992) - May 8 - Peter BenchleyPeter BenchleyPeter Bradford Benchley was an American author, best known for his novel Jaws and its subsequent film adaptation, the latter co-written by Benchley and directed by Steven Spielberg...
, novelist (d. 2006) - May 13 - Bruce ChatwinBruce ChatwinCharles Bruce Chatwin was an English novelist and travel writer. He won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for his novel On the Black Hill...
, novelist and travel writer (d. 1989) - May 24 - Joseph BrodskyJoseph BrodskyIosif Aleksandrovich Brodsky , was a Russian poet and essayist.In 1964, 23-year-old Brodsky was arrested and charged with the crime of "social parasitism" He was expelled from the Soviet Union in 1972 and settled in America with the help of W. H. Auden and other supporters...
, poet (d. 1996) - May 28 - Maeve BinchyMaeve BinchyMaeve Binchy is an Irish novelist, newspaper columnist and speaker. Educated at University College Dublin, she worked as a teacher then a journalist at The Irish Times and later became a writer of novels and short stories.Many of her novels are set in Ireland, dealing with the tensions between...
, novelist - July 17 - Tim Brooke-TaylorTim Brooke-TaylorTimothy Julian Brooke-Taylor OBE is an English comic actor. He became active in performing in comedy sketches while at Cambridge University, and became President of the Footlights club, touring internationally with the Footlights revue in 1964...
, comedy writer and actor - October 20 - Robert PinskyRobert PinskyRobert Pinsky is an American poet, essayist, literary critic, and translator. From 1997 to 2000, he served as Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress. Pinsky is the author of nineteen books, most of which are collections of his own poetry...
, poet - December 5 - Peter PohlPeter PohlPeter Pohl, born is a Swedish author and former director and screenwriter of short films.He has received prizes for several of his books and films, as well as for his entire work....
, novelist
Deaths
- January 5 - Humbert WolfeHumbert WolfeHumbert Wolfe CB CBE , was an Italian-born English poet, man of letters and civil servant, from a Jewish family background, his father, Martin Wolff of German descent and his mother, Consuela, née Terraccini, Italian...
, poet and epigrammist - January 27 - Isaac BabelIsaac BabelIsaak Emmanuilovich Babel was a Russian language journalist, playwright, literary translator, and short story writer. He is best known as the author of Red Cavalry, Story of My Dovecote, and Tales of Odessa, all of which are considered masterpieces of Russian literature...
, journalist and dramatist - February 11 - John BuchanJohn Buchan, 1st Baron TweedsmuirJohn Buchan, 1st Baron Tweedsmuir was a Scottish novelist, historian and Unionist politician who served as Governor General of Canada, the 15th since Canadian Confederation....
, Scottish author - February 29 - E. F. Benson, novelist
- March 7 - Edwin MarkhamEdwin MarkhamCharles Edwin Anson Markham was an American poet. From 1923 to 1931 he was Poet Laureate of Oregon.-Life:Edwin Markham was born in Oregon City, Oregon and was the youngest of 10 children; his parents divorced shortly after his birth...
, poet - March 10 - Mikhaïl Boulgakov, Russian writer (b. 1891)
- March 16
- Selma LagerlöfSelma LagerlöfSelma Ottilia Lovisa Lagerlöf was a Swedish author. She was the first female writer to win the Nobel Prize in Literature, and most widely known for her children's book Nils Holgerssons underbara resa genom Sverige ....
, writer - Thomas HeathT. L. HeathSir Thomas Little Heath was a British civil servant, mathematician, classical scholar, historian of ancient Greek mathematics, translator, and mountaineer. He was educated at Clifton College...
, historian and translator
- Selma Lagerlöf
- June 10 - Marcus GarveyMarcus GarveyMarcus Mosiah Garvey, Jr., ONH was a Jamaican publisher, journalist, entrepreneur, and orator who was a staunch proponent of the Black Nationalism and Pan-Africanism movements, to which end he founded the Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities League...
, journalist and publisher - June 20 - Charley ChaseCharley ChaseCharley Chase was an American comedian, actor, screenwriter and film director, best known for his work in Hal Roach short film comedies...
, screenwriter - September - W. H. DaviesW. H. DaviesWilliam Henry Davies or W. H. Davies was a Welsh poet and writer. Davies spent a significant part of his life as a tramp or vagabond in the United States and United Kingdom, but became known as one of the most popular poets of his time...
, poet and Supertramp - December 21 - F Scott Fitzgerald (b. 1896)
- December 22 - Nathanael WestNathanael WestNathanael West was a US author, screenwriter and satirist.- Early life :...
(b. 1903) - date unknown - T. O'Conor SloaneT. O'Conor SloaneThomas O'Conor Sloane, Ph.D. was the editor of Amazing Stories from 1929 through 1938. In that year, publisher Ziff-Davis moved production of the magazine to Chicago and named Raymond A. Palmer as Sloane's successor....
, editor of Amazing Stories
Awards
- Carnegie MedalCarnegie MedalThe Carnegie Medal is a literary award established in 1936 in honour of Scottish philanthropist Andrew Carnegie and given annually to an outstanding book for children and young adults. It is awarded by the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals...
for children's literatureChildren's literatureChildren's literature is for readers and listeners up to about age twelve; it is often defined in four different ways: books written by children, books written for children, books chosen by children, or books chosen for children. It is often illustrated. The term is used in senses which sometimes...
: Kitty BarneKitty BarneMarion Catherine "Kitty" Barne was a British screenwriter and writer of children's books, especially on music and musical themes....
, Visitors from LondonVisitors from LondonVisitors from London is a children's novel by Kitty Barne, published in 1940. It deals with the then highly topical subject of evacuees. The novel was awarded the Carnegie Medal for 1940.-Plot summary:... - James Tait Black Memorial PrizeJames Tait Black Memorial PrizeFounded in 1919, the James Tait Black Memorial Prizes are among the oldest and most prestigious book prizes awarded for literature written in the English language and are Britain's oldest literary awards...
for fiction: Charles MorganCharles Langbridge MorganCharles Langbridge Morgan , was an English-born playwright and novelist of English and Welsh parentage. The main themes of his work were, as he himself put it, "Art, Love, and Death", and the relation between them...
, The Voyage - James Tait Black Memorial PrizeJames Tait Black Memorial PrizeFounded in 1919, the James Tait Black Memorial Prizes are among the oldest and most prestigious book prizes awarded for literature written in the English language and are Britain's oldest literary awards...
for biography: Hilda F. M. Prescott, Spanish Tudor: Mary I of EnglandMary I of EnglandMary I was queen regnant of England and Ireland from July 1553 until her death.She was the only surviving child born of the ill-fated marriage of Henry VIII and his first wife Catherine of Aragon. Her younger half-brother, Edward VI, succeeded Henry in 1547... - Newbery MedalNewbery MedalThe John Newbery Medal is a literary award given by the Association for Library Service to Children, a division of the American Library Association . The award is given to the author of the most distinguished contribution to American literature for children. The award has been given since 1922. ...
for children's literatureChildren's literatureChildren's literature is for readers and listeners up to about age twelve; it is often defined in four different ways: books written by children, books written for children, books chosen by children, or books chosen for children. It is often illustrated. The term is used in senses which sometimes...
: James DaughertyJames DaughertyJames Henry Daugherty was an American modernist painter, muralist, children's book author, and illustrator. -Life:...
, Daniel BooneDaniel Boone (book)Daniel Boone is a book by James Daugherty about the famous pioneer. It won the Newbery Medal for excellence in American children's literature in 1940. It deals with the life, death, and legacy of Daniel Boone.-Work:... - Nobel Prize for literature: not awarded
- Pulitzer Prize for DramaPulitzer Prize for DramaThe Pulitzer Prize for Drama was first awarded in 1918.From 1918 to 2006, the Drama Prize was unlike the majority of the other Pulitzer Prizes: during these years, the eligibility period for the drama prize ran from March 2 to March 1, to reflect the Broadway 'season' rather than the calendar year...
: William SaroyanWilliam SaroyanWilliam Saroyan was an Armenian American dramatist and author. The setting of many of his stories and plays is the center of Armenian-American life in California in his native Fresno.-Early years:...
, The Time of Your LifeThe Time of Your LifeThe Time of Your Life is a 1939 five-act play by American playwright William Saroyan. The play is the first drama to win both the Pulitzer Prize for Drama and the New York Drama Critics Circle Award. The play opened 25 October 1939 at the Booth Theatre in New York City... - Pulitzer Prize for PoetryPulitzer Prize for PoetryThe Pulitzer Prize in Poetry has been presented since 1922 for a distinguished volume of original verse by an American author. However, special citations for poetry were presented in 1918 and 1919.-Winners:...
: Mark Van DorenMark Van DorenMark Van Doren was an American poet, writer and a critic, apart from being a scholar and a professor of English at Columbia University for nearly 40 years, where he inspired a generation of influential writers and thinkers including Thomas Merton, Robert Lax, John Berryman, and Beat Generation...
: Collected Poems - Pulitzer Prize for the Novel: John SteinbeckJohn SteinbeckJohn Ernst Steinbeck, Jr. was an American writer. He is widely known for the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Grapes of Wrath and East of Eden and the novella Of Mice and Men...
- The Grapes of WrathThe Grapes of WrathThe Grapes of Wrath is a novel published in 1939 and written by John Steinbeck, who was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1940 and the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1962.... - King's Gold Medal for PoetryQueen's Gold Medal for PoetryThe Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry is awarded for a book of verse published by someone in any of the Commonwealth realms. Originally the award was open only to British subjects living in the United Kingdom, but in 1985 the scope was extended to include people from the rest of the Commonwealth realms...
: Michael ThwaitesMichael ThwaitesMichael Rayner Thwaites, AO was an Australian academic, poet, intelligence officer, and activist for Moral Rearmament.-Early life and education:...