1909 in literature

This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1909.

Events

*January – T. E. Hulme's poems "Autumn" and "A City Sunset" are included in the Poets' Club anthology ''For Christmas MDCCCCVIII'', as the first examples of Imagism.
*January 15 – Filippo Tommaso Marinetti's drama ''La donna è mobile'' opens at the Teatro Alfieri, Turin.
*February 1 – The first issue appears of ''La Nouvelle Revue Française'', a literary magazine founded in Paris by André Gide, Jacques Copeau, Jean Schlumberger, Gaston Gallimard, and others.
*February 20 – Filippo Tommaso Marinetti's Futurist Manifesto first appears in the French newspaper '' Le Figaro''.
* March 2 – Katherine Mansfield, while pregnant by another man, marries the singing teacher George Bowden, whom she barely knows. She leaves him the same evening to resume lesbian relations with Ida Baker.
*April
**The opening night of Filippo Tommaso Marinetti's drama ''Le Roi bombance'' (The Feasting King, written 1905) is heckled by the audience and the writer himself.
**The German periodical '' Die Tat'' is founded by Ernst Horneffer.
*April 24 – The Metropolitan Library (, ''Jīngshī Túshūguǎn'') in Beijing, predecessor of the National Library of China, is founded by the Qing government.
* September 6 – Israel Zangwill's play '' The Melting Pot'' opens in New York City.
*September 23 – Gaston Leroux's novel ''The Phantom of the Opera (Le Fantôme de l'Opéra)'' begins serialization in the Paris newspaper ''Le Gaulois''.
*September 29 – Franz Kafka's short story " The Aeroplanes at Brescia (Die Aeroplane in Brescia)", based on a real event, is published in the Prague newspaper '' Bohemia'', as the first description of airplanes in German literature.
*November – E. M. Forster's science fiction short story "The Machine Stops" is published in ''The Oxford and Cambridge Review''.
*''unknown date'' – ''Babelstornið'' (The Tower of Babel), by Rasmus Rasmussen, writing as Regin í Líð, becomes the first Faroese language novel to be published.

New books

Fiction

*Florence Barclay – '' The Rosary''
*Maurice Barrès – ''Colette Baudoche''
* André Billy – ''La Derive''
*Algernon Blackwood
**''The Education of Uncle Paul''
**''Jimbo: A Fantasy''
*René Boylesve – ''La Jeune Fille bien élevée'' (The Well-raised Girl)
*Hall Caine – ''The White Prophet''
*Gilbert Cannan – ''Peter Homunculus''
*Ion Luca Caragiale – ''Kir Ianulea''
* Robert W. Chambers – ''The Danger Mark''
* Herbert Croly – '' The Promise of American Life''
*Em Kol Chai (Chava Shapiro) – ''Kovetz Tziurim'' (קבץ ציורים, A Collection of Sketches)
*Concha Espina – '' That Luzmela Girl''
* Charles Hoy Fort – ''The Outcast Manufacturers''
*Anatole France – ''Balthazar''
* Jacques Futrelle – '' Elusive Isabel''
*John Galsworthy – ''Fraternity''
* Charles Garvice – '' A Fair Impostor''
* Robert Hichens – '' Bella Donna''
*Olha Kobylianska – ''V Nediliu Rano Zillia Kopala'' (She Gathered Herbs on Sunday Morning)
* Maurice Leblanc – '' The Hollow Needle''
*Gaston Leroux – ''Le fauteuil hanté'' (The Haunted Chair)
*Jack London – '' Martin Eden''
*John Masefield – ''Multitude and Solitude''
* Silas Weir Mitchell – ''The Red City''
*Baroness Orczy
**''The Nest of the Sparrowhawk''
**'' The Old Man in the Corner''
* Randall Parrish – ''My Lady of the South''
*Eden Phillpotts – '' The Haven''
*Luigi Pirandello – ''I vecchi e i giovani'' (The Old and the Young, part 1)
* Władysław Reymont – ''Chłopi'' (The Peasants; publication completed)
* Stein Riverton – ''Jernvognen'' (The Iron Carriage)
* Olivia Shakespear – ''Uncle Hilary''
*Gertrude Stein – '' Three Lives''
*Gene Stratton-Porter – '' A Girl of the Limberlost''
*Hermann Sudermann – '' The Song of Songs''
*Mark Twain – ''Captain Stormfield's Visit to Heaven''
* Edgar Wallace
** ''Captain Tatham of Tatham Island''
** ''The Duke in the Suburbs''
* Robert Walser – ''Jakob von Gunten''
*Mary Augusta Ward – ''Daphne''
* H. G. Wells
**'' Ann Veronica''
**''Tono-Bungay''

Children and young people

* L. Frank Baum
**''The Road to Oz''
**'' Aunt Jane's Nieces at Work'' (as Edith Van Dyne)
* Angela Brazil – ''The Nicest Girl in the School''
*Lucy Maud Montgomery – '' Anne of Avonlea''
*Beatrix Potter
**'' The Tale of the Flopsy Bunnies''
**''The Tale of Ginger and Pickles''
* P. G. Wodehouse – '' Mike''

Drama

* Paul Armont and Nicolas Nancey – ''Théodore et Cie''
* Sem Benelli – ''The Jester's Supper (La cena delle beffe)''
* Clyde Fitch – ''The City''
*John Galsworthy – ''Strife''
* Harley Granville-Barker – ''The Madras House''
* Cicely Hamilton – ''A Pageant of Great Women''
* Agha Hashar Kashmiri – '' Khwab-e-Hasti'' (The Dream World of Existence)
*Oskar Kokoschka – '' Murderer, the Hope of Women (Mörder, Hoffnung der Frauen)''
*Else Lasker-Schüler – ''Die Wupper'' (published)
* André de Lorde – ''L'horrible expérience''
*Ferenc Molnár – ''Liliom''
* Quintero brothers – ''El patinillo''
*George Bernard Shaw – '' The Shewing-Up of Blanco Posnet''

Poetry

*Guillaume Apollinaire – ''L'Enchanteur pourrissant'' (The Putrifying Enchanter)
*François Mauriac – ''Les Mains jointes'' (Clasped Hands)
*John Millington Synge – ''Poems and Translations''

Non-fiction

*Henry James – '' Italian Hours''
*William James – ''A Pluralistic Universe''
*''Jane's All the World's Aircraft'' (first annual edition)
* Daniel Jones – ''The Pronunciation of English''
*C. I. Scofield (ed.) – Scofield Reference Bible
* Charlotte Fell Smith – ''John Dee, 1527–1608''
* Eraclie Sterian – ''În noaptea nunții'' (On Your Wedding Night)
* A. E. Waite – ''The Hidden Church of the Holy Graal''
* Alice Zimmern – ''Women's Suffrage in Many Lands''

Births

*January 20 – Mae Virginia Cowdery, African American poet (died 1953)
*January 18 – Oskar Davičo, Serbian novelist and poet (died 1989)
*January 29 – Phoebe Hesketh (Phoebe Rayner), English poet (died 2005)
*February 15 – Miep Gies (Hermine Santruschitz), Austrian-born biographer (died 2010)
*February 24 – August Derleth, American anthologist (died 1971)
*March 6 – Stanisław Jerzy Lec, Polish aphorist and poet (died 1966)
*March 17 – Margiad Evans, Anglo-Welsh poet, novelist and illustrator (died 1958)
*March 22 – Gabrielle Roy, French Canadian author (died 1983)
*March 28 – Nelson Algren, American novelist (died 1981)
*March 31 – Robert Brasillach, French author (died 1945)
* April 8 – John Fante, American novelist (died 1983)
*May 1 – Yiannis Ritsos, Greek poet (died 1990)
*May 5 – Miklós Radnóti, Hungarian poet (died 1944)
*May 9 – Robert Garioch, Scottish poet (died 1981)
* June 6 – Isaiah Berlin, German philosopher (died 1997)
* June 19 – Osamu Dazai (太宰 治), Japanese author (died 1948)
*June 28 – Eric Ambler, English novelist (died 1998)
*July 1 – Juan Carlos Onetti, Uruguayan writer (died 1994)
* July 8 – Petar Šegedin, Croatian diplomat, novelist and essayist (died 1998)
*July 17 – G. P. Wells, son and co-author of H. G. Wells (died 1985)
* July 28 – Malcolm Lowry, English novelist (died 1957)
* July 29 – Chester Himes, American writer (died 1984)
* July 30 – C. Northcote Parkinson, English historian and author (died 1993)
* August 3 – Walter Van Tilburg Clark, American novelist (died 1971)
* August 11 – Uku Masing, Estonian religious philosopher, linguist and writer (died 1985)
*August 19 – Jerzy Andrzejewski, Polish author (died 1983)
*October 24 – Sheila Watson (Sheila Doherty), Canadian novelist and critic (died 1998)
* November 12 – Laxmi Prasad Devkota, Nepali poet, playwright, and novelist (died 1959)
* November 26 – Eugène Ionesco (Eugen Ionescu), Romanian-born French playwright (died 1994)
* November 27 – James Agee, American writer (died 1955)
* December 14 – Ronald Welch (Ronald Oliver Felton), Welsh novelist and children's writer writing in English (died 1982)
* December 16 – Edgar Mittelholzer, Guyanese novelist (suicide 1965)

Deaths

*January 1 – Mollie Evelyn Moore Davis, American poet, writer, and editor (born 1844)
*January 14 – William à Beckett, English journalist (born 1844)
*January 22 – Hattie Tyng Griswold, American author (born 1842)
*February 11 – Russell Sturgis, American art critic (born 1836)
*March 24 – John Millington Synge, Irish dramatist and poet (born 1871)
*March 27 ''(probable)'' – John Davidson, Scottish poet (born 1857)
*April 9
**Francis Marion Crawford, American novelist (born 1854)
**Paschal Grousset, French journalist and science fiction writer (born 1844)
*April 12 – Algernon Charles Swinburne, English poet (born 1837)
* April 21 – Denys Corbet, Guernsey poet writing in Guernsey French and English (born 1826)
* April 26 – Marcus Dods, Scottish theologian (born 1834)
* May 18 – George Meredith, English novelist and poet (born 1828)
*June 11 – Jacob Mikhailovich Gordin, American dramatist (born 1853)
*June 24 – Sarah Orne Jewett, American writer (born 1849)
* July 8 – Albert Craig (The Surrey Poet), English cricket writer (born 1850)
*July 9 – Rosa Nouchette Carey, English children's writer (born 1840)
* August 15 – Euclides da Cunha, Brazilian writer, shot (born 1866)
* August 18 – Theodore Martin, Scottish-born writer (born 1816)
*August 21 – George Cabot Lodge, American poet (born 1873)
* August 23 – Liu E (劉鶚, Liu O), Chinese scholar, entrepreneur and novelist (born 1857)
* August 26 – George Manville Fenn, English novelist and educationalist (born 1831)
*September 4 – Clyde Fitch, American playwright (born 1865)
* September 19 – József Borovnyák, Slovene writer, politician and priest (born 1826)
* October 16 – Jakub Bart-Ćišinski, Upper Sorbian poet, writer, playwright and translator (born 1856)
*October 24 – Henry Charles Lea, American historian (born 1825)
*November 5 – * H. L. Fischer, Pennsylvania German-language writer and translator (born 1822)
*November 18 – Renée Vivien, English-born French-language Symbolist poet (born 1877)
* December 14 – Frederick Greenwood, English novelist and journalist (born 1830)

Awards

*Chancellor's Gold Medal: Dennis Holme Robertson
*Nobel Prize in Literature: Selma Lagerlöf (first female recipient)
* Newdigate Prize: Frank Ashton-Gwatkin
*Knighthood: Arthur Wing Pinero
*Prix Goncourt: Marius-Ary Leblond, ''En France''

References

Years of the 20th century in literature

{{DEFAULTSORT:1909 In Literature