1902 In Literature

This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1902.

Events

*January 5
**The political drama ''Danton's Death'' (''Dantons Tod'', completed and published in 1835) by Georg Büchner (died 1837), is first performed, at the Belle-Alliance-Theater in Berlin by the Vereins Neue Freie Volksbühne.
**George Bernard Shaw's controversial 1893 play ''Mrs. Warren's Profession'' receives its first performance at a private London club.
*January 23 – The first example of a Sherlockian game – a study of inconsistencies of dates in Arthur Conan Doyle's ''The Hound of the Baskervilles'' (the serialisation of which in ''The Strand Magazine'' concludes in April) by publisher Frank Sidgwick – appears in ''The Cambridge Review''.

*April – Mark Twain buys a home in Tarrytown, New York. On June 4 he receives an honorary doctorate of literature from the University of Missouri.
*June 16 – Bertrand Russell writes to Gottlob Frege about the mathematical problem to become known as Russell's paradox.
*July 1 – The Romanian language literary review '' Luceafărul'' begins publication in Budapest.
*August 6 – ''În sat sau la oraș'' (In the Village or in the City), by the Romanian peasant leader Constantin Dobrescu-Argeș, is performed in his native Mușătești, in front of an audience comprising Education Minister Spiru Haret and some 2,000 villagers.
*September 9 – P. G. Wodehouse leaves his job at the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Company in London to become a freelance writer. On September 18, his first published novel, the St. Austin's school story ''The Pothunters'', is published in London by A & C Black, as a truncation of the version in their ''Public School Magazine'' from January to March.
*Early October – Beatrix Potter's self-illustrated children's book ''The Tale of Peter Rabbit'' (originally published privately a year earlier) appears in its first trade edition with Frederick Warne & Co in London. It sells 28,000 copies by the end of the year.
*October 5 – Thousands attend the funeral of the French novelist Émile Zola at the Cimetière de Montmartre, Paris. They include Alfred Dreyfus, given special permission by Mme Zola to attend.
*November 4 – J. M. Barrie's comedy ''The Admirable Crichton'' is first performed, at the Duke of York's Theatre in London, starring H. B. Irving, Henry Kemble and Irene Vanbrugh. It runs for 828 performances.
*December 5 – Leo Tolstoy's drama ''The Power of Darkness'' («Власть тьмы», ''Vlast' t'my'', written in 1886) has its Russian-language première at the Moscow Art Theatre by Konstantin Stanislavski with some success, although Stanislavski is self-critical.
*December 18 – Maxim Gorky's drama '' The Lower Depths – Scenes from Russian Life'' («На дне», ''Na dne'') is first performed, at the Moscow Art Theatre, as a first major success for Konstantin Stanislavsky as director and star.
*''unknown date'' – The poet Ștefan Petică's cycle ''Fecioara în alb'' is published, marking a maturing of Romanian Symbolism.

New books

Fiction

* Azorín – ''La voluntad'' (Volition)
*Jane Barlow – ''The Founding of Fortunes''
*Pío Baroja – '' Camino de perfección (pasión mística)'' (Road to Perfection)
*Edward Harold Begbie (as Caroline Lewis) – '' Clara in Blunderland''
*Arnold Bennett
**''Anna of the Five Towns''
**''The Grand Babylon Hotel''
*Rhoda Broughton – ''Lavinia''
*Joseph Conrad
**''Typhoon'' (serialized in ''The Pall Mall Magazine'' January–March and US book publication)
**'' Youth: a Narrative, and Two Other Stories'', incorporating '' Youth: a Narrative'' (1898) and ''Heart of Darkness'' (first 1899)
**''The End of the Tether''
*Marie Corelli – ''Temporal Power: A Study in Supremacy''
*Miguel de Unamuno – '' Amor y pedagogía''
*Ramón del Valle-Inclán – '' Sonatas: Memorias del Marqués de Bradomín – Sonata de otoño'' (Sonatas: The Pleasant Memories of the Marquis of Bradomín – Autumn Sonata)
*Arthur Conan Doyle – ''The Hound of the Baskervilles''
*Paul Laurence Dunbar – '' The Sport of the Gods''
*Hamlin Garland – ''The Captain of the Gray-Horse Troop''
*André Gide – '' L'immoraliste''
*Ellen Glasgow – ''The Battle-Ground''
* Annie French Hector – ''Kitty Costello''
*Theodor Herzl – ''The Old New Land''
*Violet Jacob – ''The Sheepstealers''
*W. W. Jacobs – '' The Lady of the Barge'' (short stories, including "The Monkey's Paw")
*Henry James – ''The Wings of the Dove''
*Alfred Jarry – '' Supermale (Le Surmâle: roman moderne)''
*Mary Johnston – ''Audrey''
*Olha Kobylianska – ''Zemlya'' (Land)
*Liang Qichao – ''Xin Zhongguo weilai ji'' (新中國未來記, The Future of New China; unfinished)
*Jack London – '' A Daughter of the Snows''
*George Barr McCutcheon – '' Brewster's Millions''
* Charles Major – ''Dorothy Vernon of Haddon Hall''
* A. E. W. Mason – ''The Four Feathers''
*W. Somerset Maugham – ''Mrs Craddock''
* Dmitri Merejkowski – ''The Romance of Leonardo da Vinci''
*Arthur Morrison – ''The Hole in the Wall''
*Frank Norris – '' The Pit'' (serialization)
*Luigi Pirandello – ''Il Turno''
* W. Heath Robinson – ''The Adventures of Uncle Lubin''
*Saki – ''The Westminster Alice''
*Percy Sykes – ''Ten Thousand Miles in Persia''
*Jules Verne – ''The Kip Brothers'' (''Les Frères Kip'')
*Eduard Vilde – ''Mahtra sõda'' (The war in Mahtra)
*Edith Wharton – ''The Valley of Decision''
*Owen Wister – '' The Virginian''

Children and young people

*L. Frank Baum – ''The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus''
*J. M. Barrie – ''The Little White Bird'' (includes the story "Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens")
*Edith Ogden Harrison – ''Prince Silverwings and other fairy tales''
*William Dean Howells – ''The Flight of Pony Baker''
*Rudyard Kipling – ''Just So Stories for Little Children''
* Bessie Marchant – ''Fleckie: A Story of the Desert, etc.''
*E. Nesbit – ''Five Children and It''
*Beatrix Potter – ''The Tale of Peter Rabbit''
*Edward Stratemeyer – ''The Young Volcano Explorers''
*Mrs George de Horne Vaizey – ''A Houseful of Girls''
* C. N. and A. M. Williamson – ''The Lightning Conductor: the Strange Adventures of a Motor-car''
*P. G. Wodehouse – ''The Pothunters''

Drama

*J. M. Barrie – ''The Admirable Crichton''
*Gaston Arman de Caillavet and Robert de Flers – ''Le Cœur a ses raisons''
*Constantin Dobrescu-Argeș – ''În sat sau la oraș'' (''In the Village or in the City'', first performance)
*Clyde Fitch – ''The Girl with the Green Eyes''
*Cosmo Gordon-Lennox – ''The Marriage of Kitty''
*Maxim Gorky – ''The Lower Depths''
*Haralamb Lecca – ''Septima. Câiniĭ''
*Maurice Maeterlinck – ''Monna Vanna''
*Frank Wedekind – ''King Nicolo''
*W. B. Yeats – ''Cathleen Ní Houlihan''

Poetry

* Edwin James Brady – '' The Earthen Floor''
*Walter de la Mare (as Walter Ramal) – ''Songs of Childhood''
* Ștefan Petică – ''Fecioara în alb''

Non-fiction

*Jane Addams – ''Democracy and Social Ethics''
* James Allen – ''As a Man Thinketh''
*Hilaire Belloc – ''The Path to Rome''
*Euclides da Cunha – '' Os Sertões'' (translated as ''Rebellion in the Backlands'')
*Arthur Conan Doyle – ''The War in South Africa: Its Cause and Conduct''
*Michael Fairless (pseudonym of Margaret Barber) – ''The Roadmender''
* John A. Hobson – '' Imperialism: a study''
*William James – ''The Varieties of Religious Experience''
*Vilfredo Pareto – ''Les Systèmes socialistes''
*Bertrand Russell – ''A Free Man's Worship''
*William Wynn Westcott – ''Collectanea Hermetica'' (finishes publication)

Births

*January 1 - Muhammad Zaki Abd al-Qadir, Egyptian journalist and writer (d. 1981)
*January 5 – Stella Gibbons, English novelist (died 1989)
*January 20 – Nazim Hikmet, Turkish lyricist and dramatist (died 1963)
*January 30 – Nikolaus Pevsner, German-born architectural historian (died 1983)
*February 1 – Langston Hughes, African-American poet and novelist (died 1967)
*February 16 – Ion Călugăru, Romanian novelist, short story writer and journalist (died 1956)
*February 19 – Kay Boyle, American writer, educator and political activist (died 1992)
*February 27 – John Steinbeck, American novelist and journalist (died 1968)
*March 10 – Stefan Inglot, Polish historian (died 1994)
*March 29 – Marcel Aymé, French novelist and short-story writer (died 1967)
*April 2 – Jan Tschichold, German-born typographer (died 1974)
*April 6 – Julien Torma, French poet and dramatist (died 1933)
*April 9 – Lord David Cecil, English literary critic and biographer (died 1986)
*April 23 – Halldór Laxness, Icelandic novelist (died 1998)
*June 5 – Hugo Huppert, Austrian poet, writer and translator (died 1982)
*July 10 – Nicolás Guillén, Afro-Cuban poet (died 1989)
*July 8 – Gwendolyn B. Bennett, African American writer and artist (died 1981)
*July 27 - Yaroslav Halan, Ukrainian playwright, translator, and publicist (died 1949)
*August 15 – Katharine Brush, American short story writer (died 1952)
*August 16 – Georgette Heyer, English novelist (died 1974)
*August 19 – Ogden Nash, American poet and humorist (died 1971)
*August 24
**Felipe Alfau, Spanish-American fiction writer, poet and translator (died 1999)
**Fernand Braudel, French historian (died 1985)
*September 21 – Luis Cernuda, Spanish poet (died 1963)
*September 25 – Ernst von Salomon, German writer (died 1972)
*October 13 – Arna Bontemps, African American poet (died 1973)
*October 23 – Dadie Rylands (George Rylands), English Shakespeare scholar (died 1999)
*October 26 – Beryl Markham (Beryl Clutterbuck), English-born Kenyan adventurer and memoirist (died 1986)
*October 31 – Carlos Drummond de Andrade, Brazilian poet (died 1987)
*November 1 – Nordahl Grieg, Norwegian poet and author (killed in action 1943)
*November 2
**Hu Feng (胡风), Chinese novelist (died 1985)
**Gyula Illyés, Hungarian author (died 1983)
*November 29 – Carlo Levi, Italian writer (died 1975)
*December 7 – N. Crevedia, Romanian poet, novelist and journalist (died 1978).
*December 20 – Jolán Földes, Hungarian novelist and playwright (died 1963)

Deaths

*January 7 – Wilhelm Hertz, German poet and translator (born 1835)
*April 6 – Gleb Uspensky, Russian writer (born 1843)
*April 20 – Frank R. Stockton, American writer and humorist (born 1834)
*April 21 – Ethna Carbery, Irish poet (born 1866)
*April 27 – Nancy H. Adsit, American art lecturer, art educator, and writer of art literature (born 1825)
*May 5 – Bret Harte, American author and poet (born 1836)
*May 6
** Martha Perry Lowe, American social activist and organizer (born 1829)
** Emma Augusta Sharkey, American dime novelist (born 1858)
*May 17/18 — Harriet Abbott Lincoln Coolidge, American philanthropist, author and reformer (b. 1849)
*June 10 – Jacint Verdaguer, Catalan poet (born 1845)
*June 18 – Samuel Butler, English novelist (born 1835)
*July 10 – Annie French Hector (pseudonym Mrs Alexander), Irish-born novelist (born 1825)
*August 31
* August 31
** Grace Hinsdale, American religious writer (born 1832)
**Mathilde Wesendonck, German poet (born 1828)
*September 11 – Ernst Dümmler, German historian (born 1830)
*September 19 – Masaoka Shiki (正岡 子規), Japanese haiku poet (born 1867)
*September 29
**William McGonagall, Scottish doggerel poet (born 1825)
**Émile Zola, French novelist (carbon monoxide poisoning, born 1840)
*October 7 – George Rawlinson, English historian (born 1812)
*October 13 – John George Bourinot, Canadian historian (born 1836)
*October 25 – Frank Norris, American novelist (peritonitis, born 1870)
*October 31 – Cornélie Huygens, Dutch writer, social democrat and feminist (born 1848)
*November 16 – G. A. Henty, English historical novelist (born 1832)
*December 26 – Mary Hartwell Catherwood, American author and poet (born 1849)

Awards

*Nobel Prize for Literature: Christian Matthias Theodor Mommsen

References

Years of the 20th century in literature

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