1917 in literature
Encyclopedia
The year 1917 in literature involved some significant events and new books.
Events
- January - Francis PicabiaFrancis PicabiaFrancis Picabia was a French painter, poet, and typographist, associated with both the Dada and Surrealist art movements.- Early life :...
produces the first issue of the DadaDadaDada or Dadaism is a cultural movement that began in Zurich, Switzerland, during World War I and peaked from 1916 to 1922. The movement primarily involved visual arts, literature—poetry, art manifestoes, art theory—theatre, and graphic design, and concentrated its anti-war politics through a...
periodical 391391 (magazine)391 was a periodical created and edited by the Dadaist Francis Picabia. It first appeared in January 1917 in Barcelona, and continued to be published until 1924...
in BarcelonaBarcelonaBarcelona is the second largest city in Spain after Madrid, and the capital of Catalonia, with a population of 1,621,537 within its administrative limits on a land area of...
. - June 4 - The first Pulitzer PrizePulitzer PrizeThe Pulitzer Prize is a U.S. award for achievements in newspaper and online journalism, literature and musical composition. It was established by American publisher Joseph Pulitzer and is administered by Columbia University in New York City...
s are awarded: Laura E. RichardsLaura E. RichardsLaura Elizabeth Howe Richards was born in Boston, Massachusetts, to a high-profile family. During her life, she wrote over 90 books, including children's, biographies, poetry, and others. A well-known children's poem for which she is noted is the literary nonsense verse Eletelephony.Her father...
, Maude H. Elliott, and Florence Hall receive the first Pulitzer for a biography (for Julia Ward HoweJulia Ward HoweJulia Ward Howe was a prominent American abolitionist, social activist, and poet, most famous as the author of "The Battle Hymn of the Republic".-Biography:...
). Jean Jules JusserandJean Jules JusserandJean Adrien Antoine Jules Jusserand was a French author and diplomat. He was the French ambassador to the United States during World War I.-Career:...
receives the first Pulitzer for history for his work With Americans of Past and Present Days. Herbert B. Swope receives the first Pulitzer for journalismJournalismJournalism is the practice of investigation and reporting of events, issues and trends to a broad audience in a timely fashion. Though there are many variations of journalism, the ideal is to inform the intended audience. Along with covering organizations and institutions such as government and...
for his work for the New York WorldNew York WorldThe New York World was a newspaper published in New York City from 1860 until 1931. The paper played a major role in the history of American newspapers...
. - July - Siegfried SassoonSiegfried SassoonSiegfried Loraine Sassoon CBE MC was an English poet, author and soldier. Decorated for bravery on the Western Front, he became one of the leading poets of the First World War. His poetry both described the horrors of the trenches, and satirised the patriotic pretensions of those who, in Sassoon's...
issues his "Soldier's Declaration" and is sent by the military authorities to Craiglockhart War HospitalCraiglockhart HydropathicCraiglockhart Hydropathic, now a part of Edinburgh Napier University and known as Craiglockhart Campus, is a building with surrounding grounds in Craiglockhart, Edinburgh, Scotland.-Origins:...
in EdinburghEdinburghEdinburgh is the capital city of Scotland, the second largest city in Scotland, and the eighth most populous in the United Kingdom. The City of Edinburgh Council governs one of Scotland's 32 local government council areas. The council area includes urban Edinburgh and a rural area...
, where on August 17 Wilfred OwenWilfred OwenWilfred Edward Salter Owen MC was an English poet and soldier, one of the leading poets of the First World War...
introduces himself. - December 25 - Why Marry?Why Marry?Why Marry? is a 1917 play written by American playwright Jesse Lynch Williams. It won the first Pulitzer Prize for Drama....
, first dramatic play to win a Pulitzer PrizePulitzer PrizeThe Pulitzer Prize is a U.S. award for achievements in newspaper and online journalism, literature and musical composition. It was established by American publisher Joseph Pulitzer and is administered by Columbia University in New York City...
, opens at the Astor Theatre in New York CityNew York CityNew York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
. - The Hogarth PressHogarth PressThe Hogarth Press was founded in 1917 by Leonard Woolf and Virginia Woolf. It was named after their house in Richmond, in which they began hand-printing books....
is founded by LeonardLeonard WoolfLeonard Sidney Woolf was an English political theorist, author, publisher and civil servant, and husband of author Virginia Woolf.-Early life:...
and Virginia WoolfVirginia WoolfAdeline Virginia Woolf was an English author, essayist, publisher, and writer of short stories, regarded as one of the foremost modernist literary figures of the twentieth century....
. - J.R.R. Tolkien begins writing The Book of Lost TalesThe Book of Lost TalesThe Book of Lost Tales is the title of a collection of early stories by J. R. R. Tolkien, and of the first two volumes of Christopher Tolkien's 12-volume series The History of Middle-earth, in which he presents and analyses the manuscripts of those stories, which were the earliest form of the...
(the first version of The SilmarillionThe SilmarillionThe Silmarillion is a collection of J. R. R. Tolkien's mythopoeic works, edited and published posthumously by his son Christopher Tolkien in 1977, with assistance from Guy Gavriel Kay, who later became a noted fantasy writer. The Silmarillion, along with J. R. R...
); thus Middle-earthMiddle-earthMiddle-earth is the fictional setting of the majority of author J. R. R. Tolkien's fantasy writings. The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings take place entirely in Middle-earth, as does much of The Silmarillion and Unfinished Tales....
is first chronicled.
New books
- Henri BarbusseHenri BarbusseHenri Barbusse was a French novelist and a member of the French Communist Party.-Life:...
— Under FireUnder Fire (novel)Under Fire: The Story of a Squad by Henri Barbusse , was one of the first novels about World War I to be published... - Adrien BertrandAdrien BertrandAdrien Bertrand was a French novelist whose short career was punctuated by a series of striking surrealist anti-war novels, written as Bertrand lay dying from complications involved in a wound he suffered whilst serving with the French Army in the First World War.-Biography:Bertrand was born in...
— L'Orage sur le jardin de Candide - Rhoda BroughtonRhoda BroughtonRhoda Broughton was a novelist.-Life:Rhoda Broughton was born in Denbigh in North Wales on 29 November 1840. She was the daughter of the Rev. Delves Broughton youngest son of the Rev. Sir Henry Delves-Broughton, 8th baronet. She developed a taste for literature, especially poetry, as a young girl...
— A Thorn in the Flesh - 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:...
- A Princess of MarsA Princess of MarsA Princess of Mars is a science fiction novel by Edgar Rice Burroughs, the first of his Barsoom series. It is also Burroughs' first novel, predating his famous Tarzan series. Full of swordplay and daring feats, the novel is considered a classic example of 20th century pulp fiction...
- The Son of TarzanThe Son of TarzanThe Son of Tarzan is a novel written by Edgar Rice Burroughs, the fourth in his series of books about the title character Tarzan. It was written between January 21 and May 11, 1915, and first published in the magazine All-Story Weekly as a six-part serial from December 4, 1915-January 8, 1916. It...
- A Princess of Mars
- Abraham CahanAbraham CahanAbraham "Abe" Cahan was a Lithuanian-born American socialist newspaper editor, novelist, and politician.-Early years:...
— The Rise of David LevinskyThe Rise of David LevinskyThe Rise of David Levinsky is a novel by Abraham Cahan. It was published in 1917, and remains Cahan's best known work.-Book I: Home and School:... - Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay - DevdasDevdasDevdas is a Bengali Romance novel by Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay. Essentially, it is a retelling of the Krishna, Radha, and Meera myths, the relationships between its three protagonists - Devdas, Parvati, and Chandramukhi - paralleling the Hindu deities'.-Plot summary:Devdas is a young man from...
- Mary CholmondeleyMary CholmondeleyMary Cholmondeley was an English novelist.The daughter of the vicar at St Luke's Church in the village of Hodnet, Market Drayton, Shropshire, England, where she was born, Cholmondeley spent much of the first thirty years of her life taking care of her sickly mother...
— Under One Roof - Joseph ConradJoseph ConradJoseph Conrad was a Polish-born English novelist.Conrad is regarded as one of the great novelists in English, although he did not speak the language fluently until he was in his twenties...
- The Shadow LineThe Shadow LineThe Shadow-Line is a short novel based at sea by Joseph Conrad; it is one of his later works, being written from February to December 1915. It was first published in 1916 as a serial in New York's Metropolitan Magazine in the English Review and published in book form in 1917 in the UK and America...
(in book form) - Norman DouglasNorman DouglasGeorge Norman Douglas was a British writer, now best known for his 1917 novel South Wind.-Life:Norman Douglas was born in Thüringen, Austria . His mother was Vanda von Poellnitz...
— South WindSouth windFor other uses, see South wind .A south wind is a wind that originates in the south and blows north.Words used in English to describe the south wind are auster, buster , föhn/foehn , gibli , friagem , khamsin For other uses, see South wind (disambiguation).A south wind is a wind that originates in... - Arthur Conan DoyleArthur Conan DoyleSir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle DL was a Scottish physician and writer, most noted for his stories about the detective Sherlock Holmes, generally considered a milestone in the field of crime fiction, and for the adventures of Professor Challenger...
— His Last BowHis Last BowHis Last Bow is a collection of seven Sherlock Holmes stories by Arthur Conan Doyle, as well as the title of the last story in that collection...
(collected stories) - George Washington Ellis — The Leopard's Claw
- Zona GaleZona GaleZona Gale was an American author and playwright. She became the first woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for drama, in 1921.-Biography:Gale was born in Portage, Wisconsin, which she often used as a setting in her writing...
— A Daughter of the Morning - Joseph HergesheimerJoseph HergesheimerJoseph Hergesheimer was a prominent American writer of the early 20th century known for his naturalistic novels of decadent life amongst the very wealthy.-Biography:...
— The Three Black Pennys - Ricarda HuchRicarda HuchRicarda Huch was a pioneering German intellectual. Trained as a historian, and the author of many works of European history, she also wrote novels, poems, and a play. Asteroid 879 Ricarda is named in her honour.- Life :...
— The Deruga CaseThe Deruga CaseDer Fall Deruga is a novel by Ricarda Huch first published in German in 1917 about a physician charged with killing his ex-wife... - Henry JamesHenry JamesHenry James, OM was an American-born writer, regarded as one of the key figures of 19th-century literary realism. He was the son of Henry James, Sr., a clergyman, and the brother of philosopher and psychologist William James and diarist Alice James....
(posthumously)- The Ivory TowerThe Ivory TowerThe Ivory Tower is an unfinished novel by Henry James, posthumously published in 1917. The novel is a brooding story of Gilded Age America...
- The Sense of the PastThe Sense of the PastThe Sense of the Past is an unfinished novel by Henry James, posthumously published in 1917. The novel is at once an eerie account of time travel and a bittersweet comedy of manners...
- The Ivory Tower
- Sinclair LewisSinclair LewisHarry Sinclair Lewis was an American novelist, short-story writer, and playwright. In 1930, he became the first writer from the United States to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, "for his vigorous and graphic art of description and his ability to create, with wit and humor, new types of...
— Knights of Araby - Oscar MicheauxOscar MicheauxOscar Devereaux Micheaux was an American author, film director and independent producer of more than 44 films...
— The HomesteaderThe HomesteaderThe Homesteader is a black-and-white silent film by African American author and filmmaker Oscar Micheaux.-Production:The film was produced, co-directed and written for the screen by Micheaux, based on his book of the same name. It is believed to be the first feature-length film made with a black... - Lucy Maud MontgomeryLucy Maud MontgomeryLucy Maud Montgomery OBE , called "Maud" by family and friends and publicly known as L.M. Montgomery, was a Canadian author best known for a series of novels beginning with Anne of Green Gables, published in 1908. Anne of Green Gables was an immediate success...
- Anne's House of DreamsAnne's House of DreamsAnne's House of Dreams is a novel by Canadian author Lucy Maud Montgomery. It was first published in 1917 by McClelland, Goodchild and Stewart.... - Baroness OrczyBaroness OrczyBaroness Emma Magdolna Rozália Mária Jozefa Borbála "Emmuska" Orczy de Orczi was a British novelist, playwright and artist of Hungarian noble origin. She was most notable for her series of novels featuring the Scarlet Pimpernel...
- Lord Tony's WifeLord Tony's WifeLord Tony's Wife, by Baroness Orczy is a sequel book to the classic adventure tale, The Scarlet Pimpernel. It was first published in 1917....
- A Sheaf of BluebellsA Sheaf of BluebellsA Sheaf of Bluebells is a novel about the feuds between Royalists and the followers of Napoleon Bonaparte. It is a novel by Baroness Orczy, which was first published in 1917...
- Lord Tony's Wife
- David Graham PhillipsDavid Graham PhillipsDavid Graham Phillips was an American journalist of the muckraker tradition and novelist.-Early life and career:Phillips was born in Madison, Indiana...
— Susan Lenox: Her Rise and Fall - Marmaduke PickthallMarmaduke PickthallMarmaduke Pickthall was a Western Islamic scholar, noted as an English translator of the Qur'an into English. A convert from Christianity, Pickthall was a novelist, esteemed by D. H. Lawrence, H. G. Wells, and E. M. Forster, as well as a journalist, headmaster, and political and religious leader...
— The JobThe JobThe Job may refer to:* The Job , a 1917 novel by Sinclair Lewis* The Job , a 1998 novel by Douglas Kennedy* The Job , an action film starring Daryl Hannah... - Ernest PooleErnest PooleErnest Cook Poole was an American novelist.He was born in Chicago, Illinois on January 23, 1880, and graduated from Princeton University in 1902...
— His FamilyHis FamilyHis Family is a novel by Ernest Poole published in 1917 about the life of a New York widower and his three daughters in the 1910s. It received the first Pulitzer Prize for the Novel in 1918.-Plot introduction:... - Horacio QuirogaHoracio QuirogaHoracio Silvestre Quiroga Forteza was an Uruguayan playwright, poet, and short story writer....
— Cuentos de amor de locura y de muerte - Elizabeth von ArnimElizabeth von ArnimElizabeth von Arnim , born Mary Annette Beauchamp, was an Australian-born British novelist. By marriage she became Gräfin von Arnim-Schlagenthin, and by a second marriage, Countess Russell...
— ChristineChristine (book)Christine is purportedly a compilation of letters from a "gifted young English girl studying in Germany just before the outbreak of the war" to her mother in Britain. Written by Elizabeth von Arnim and presented under her anonymous pen-name Alice Cholmondeley, the work dated from May 28, 1914 to... - Mary Augusta WardMary Augusta WardMary Augusta Ward née Arnold; , was a British novelist who wrote under her married name as Mrs Humphry Ward.- Early life:...
- Missing
- Towards the Goal
- Edith WhartonEdith WhartonEdith Wharton , was a Pulitzer Prize-winning American novelist, short story writer, and designer.- Early life and marriage:...
— SummerSummer (novel)Summer is a novel by Edith Wharton published in 1917 by Charles Scribner's Sons. The story is one of only two novels by Wharton to be set in New England; Wharton was best known for her portrayals of upper class New York society... - P. G. WodehouseP. G. WodehouseSir Pelham Grenville Wodehouse, KBE was an English humorist, whose body of work includes novels, short stories, plays, poems, song lyrics, and numerous pieces of journalism. He enjoyed enormous popular success during a career that lasted more than seventy years and his many writings continue to be...
- The Man with Two Left FeetThe Man With Two Left FeetThe Man With Two Left Feet, and Other Stories is a collection of short stories by P. G. Wodehouse, first published in the United Kingdom on March 8, 1917 by Methuen & Co., London, and in the United States in 1933 by A.L. Burt and Co., New York...
(collected stories) - Piccadilly JimPiccadilly JimPiccadilly Jim is a novel by P. G. Wodehouse, first published in the United States on February 24, 1917 by Dodd, Mead and Company, New York, and in the United Kingdom in May 1918 by Herbert Jenkins, London...
- The Man with Two Left Feet
New drama
- Guillaume ApollinaireGuillaume ApollinaireWilhelm Albert Włodzimierz Apolinary Kostrowicki, known as Guillaume Apollinaire was a French poet, playwright, short story writer, novelist, and art critic born in Italy to a Polish mother....
- The Breasts of TiresiasThe Breasts of TiresiasThe Breasts of Tiresias is a surrealist play by Guillaume Apollinaire. Written in 1903, the play received its first production in a revised version in 1917...
(first performed) - Ferdinand BrucknerFerdinand BrucknerFerdinand Bruckner was an Austrian-German writer and theater manager.-Life:...
- Der Herr in den Nebeln - 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...
- ParadeParade (ballet)Parade is a ballet with music by Erik Satie and a one-act scenario by Jean Cocteau. The ballet was composed 1916-1917 for Serge Diaghilev's Ballets Russes... - Georg KaiserGeorg KaiserFriedrich Carl Georg Kaiser, called Georg Kaiser, was a German dramatist.-Biography:Kaiser was born at Magdeburg....
- The Corals - 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...
- Wurzel-FlummeryWurzel-FlummeryWurzel-Flummery is a play by A. A. Milne, which was performed for the first time in 1917, in London.It was the first play Milne wrote. He originally wrote it in three acts, but when he got a good offer for a production if he cut it down to a two-act play, he rewrote it... - Luigi PirandelloLuigi PirandelloLuigi Pirandello was an Italian dramatist, novelist, and short story writer awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1934, for his "bold and brilliant renovation of the drama and the stage." Pirandello's works include novels, hundreds of short stories, and about 40 plays, some of which are written...
- Right You Are If You Think You Are - Jesse Lynch WilliamsJesse Lynch WilliamsJesse Lynch Williams was an American Pulitzer Prize-winning author and dramatist.Born in Sterling, Illinois, Williams began his literary career in college, writing Princeton Stories. Upon graduation he continued to write novels and plays, including Why Marry? for which he was awarded the first...
- Why Marry?Why Marry?Why Marry? is a 1917 play written by American playwright Jesse Lynch Williams. It won the first Pulitzer Prize for Drama....
Poetry
- Lascelles AbercrombieLascelles AbercrombieLascelles Abercrombie was a British poet and literary critic, one of the "Dymock poets"...
- Emblems Of Love - T. S. EliotT. S. EliotThomas Stearns "T. S." Eliot OM was a playwright, literary critic, and arguably the most important English-language poet of the 20th century. Although he was born an American he moved to the United Kingdom in 1914 and was naturalised as a British subject in 1927 at age 39.The poem that made his...
- Prufrock, and other observationsThe Love Song of J. Alfred PrufrockThe Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, commonly known as Prufrock, is a poem by T. S. Eliot, begun in February 1910 and published in Chicago in June 1915. Described as a "drama of literary anguish," it presents a stream of consciousness in the form of a dramatic monologue, and marked the beginning of... - Robert GravesRobert GravesRobert von Ranke Graves 24 July 1895 – 7 December 1985 was an English poet, translator and novelist. During his long life he produced more than 140 works...
- Fairies and Fusiliers - Ivor GurneyIvor GurneyIvor Bertie Gurney was an English composer and poet.-Life:Born at 3 Queen Street, Gloucester in 1890, the second of four children of David Gurney, a tailor, and his wife Florence, a seamstress, Gurney showed musical ability early...
- Severn and Somme - Siegfried SassoonSiegfried SassoonSiegfried Loraine Sassoon CBE MC was an English poet, author and soldier. Decorated for bravery on the Western Front, he became one of the leading poets of the First World War. His poetry both described the horrors of the trenches, and satirised the patriotic pretensions of those who, in Sassoon's...
- The Old Huntsman, and Other Poems - William WatsonWilliam Watson (poet)Sir William Watson , was an English poet, popular in his time for the political content of his verse. He was born in Burley, in West Yorkshire....
- The Man Who Saw: and Other Poems Arising out of the War - W. B. Yeats - The Wild Swans at Coole, Other Verses and a Play in VerseThe Wild Swans at CooleThe Wild Swans at Coole is a collection of poems by William Butler Yeats, first published in 1917. It is also the name of a poem in that collection...
Non-fiction
- Clayton Adams — Ethiopia, The Land of Promise
- Max Aitken — Canada at Flanders
- Daniel JonesDaniel Jones (phonetician)Daniel Jones was a London-born British phonetician. A pupil of Paul Passy, professor of phonetics at the École des Hautes Études at the Sorbonne , Daniel Jones is considered by many to be the greatest phonetician of the early 20th century...
– An English Pronouncing Dictionary - D'Arcy Thompson — On Growth and Form
Births
- February 11 - Sidney SheldonSidney SheldonSidney Sheldon was an Academy Award-winning American writer. His TV works spanned a 20-year period during which he created The Patty Duke Show , I Dream of Jeannie and Hart to Hart , but he became most famous after he turned 50 and began writing best-selling novels such as Master of the Game ,...
, novelist (d. 20072007 in literatureThe year 2007 in literature involves some significant new books.-Events:*November 19 - First Kindle e-book reader released.*December 11 - Terry Pratchett informs fans on-line that he has been diagnosed with a rare form of Alzheimer's disease.-Literature:...
) - February 25 - Anthony BurgessAnthony BurgessJohn Burgess Wilson – who published under the pen name Anthony Burgess – was an English author, poet, playwright, composer, linguist, translator and critic. The dystopian satire A Clockwork Orange is Burgess's most famous novel, though he dismissed it as one of his lesser works...
, British novelist (d. 19931993 in literatureThe year 1993 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:*Professor Stephen Hawking's book, A Brief History of Time, becomes the longest running book on the bestseller list of The Sunday Times....
) - March 1 - Robert LowellRobert LowellRobert Traill Spence Lowell IV was an American poet, considered the founder of the confessional poetry movement. He was appointed the sixth Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress where he served from 1947 until 1948...
, American poet (d. 19771977 in literatureThe year 1977 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:*Douglas Adams begins writing for BBC radio.*V. S. Naipaul declines the offer of a CBE....
) - March 17 - Carlo CassolaCarlo CassolaCarlo Cassola was an important Italian novelist and essayist. His novel La Ragazza di Bube , which received the Strega Prize, was adapted into a film by Luigi Comencini in 1963....
, Italian novelist (d. 1987) - April 9 - Johannes BobrowskiJohannes BobrowskiJohannes Bobrowski was a German lyric poet, narrative writer, adaptor and essayist.-Life:Bobrowski was born in Tilsit in East Prussia. In 1925, he moved first to Rastenburg, then in 1928 on to Königsberg, where he attended the humanist Gymnasium. One of his teachers was Ernst Wiechert. In 1937, he...
, German author (d. 1965) - June 16 - Katharine GrahamKatharine GrahamKatharine Meyer Graham was an American publisher. She led her family's newspaper, The Washington Post, for more than two decades, overseeing its most famous period, the Watergate coverage that eventually led to the resignation of President Richard Nixon...
, journalist (d. 20012001 in literatureThe year 2001 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:* The film version of J. R. R. Tolkien's classic book, The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, is released to movie theaters...
) - October 24 - Denys Val BakerDenys Val BakerDenys Val Baker was a British writer, specialising in short stories, novels, and autobiographical novels. He was also known for his activities as an editor, and promotion of the arts in Cornwall.-Early years:...
, Welsh writer (d. 19841984 in literatureThe year 1984 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:*The book Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell is widely read....
) - November 3 - Conor Cruise O'BrienConor Cruise O'BrienConor Cruise O'Brien often nicknamed "The Cruiser", was an Irish politician, writer, historian and academic. Although his opinion on the role of Britain in Northern Ireland changed over the course of the 1970s and 1980s, he always acknowledge values of, as he saw, the two irreconcilable traditions...
, Irish biographer and political writer (d. 20082008 in literatureThe year 2008 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:*January 1 - In the 2008 New Year Honours, Hanif Kureishi , Jenny Uglow , Peter Vansittart and Debjani Chatterjee are all rewarded for "services to literature".*June 15 - Gore Vidal, asked in a New York Times...
) - December 21 - Heinrich BöllHeinrich BöllHeinrich Theodor Böll was one of Germany's foremost post-World War II writers. Böll was awarded the Georg Büchner Prize in 1967 and the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1972.- Biography :...
, German author, Nobel PrizeNobel PrizeThe Nobel Prizes are annual international awards bestowed by Scandinavian committees in recognition of cultural and scientific advances. The will of the Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite, established the prizes in 1895...
winner (d. 19851985 in literatureThe year 1985 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-New books:*Isaac Asimov - Robots and Empire*Margaret Atwood - The Handmaid's Tale*Jean M. Auel - The Mammoth Hunters*Iain Banks - Walking on Glass...
)
Deaths
- January 15 - William de MorganWilliam De MorganWilliam Frend De Morgan was an English potter and tile designer. A lifelong friend of William Morris, he designed tiles, stained glass and furniture for Morris & Co. from 1863 to 1872. His tiles are often based on medieval designs or Persian patterns, and he experimented with innovative glazes and...
, novelist - February 16 - Octave MirbeauOctave MirbeauOctave Mirbeau was a French journalist, art critic, travel writer, pamphleteer, novelist, and playwright, who achieved celebrity in Europe and great success among the public, while still appealing to the literary and artistic avant-garde...
, novelist and critic - April 9
- Edward ThomasEdward Thomas (poet)Philip Edward Thomas was an Anglo-Welsh writer of prose and poetry. He is commonly considered a war poet, although few of his poems deal directly with his war experiences. Already an accomplished writer, Thomas turned to poetry only in 1914...
, poet and prose writer - R. E. VernèdeR. E. VernèdeRobert Ernest Vernède was an English poet and writer, now remembered as a war poet.He was born in London, and educated at St Paul's School and at St John's College, Oxford. After graduating, he wrote novels and short stories....
, war poet
- Edward Thomas
- April 14 - L. L. ZamenhofL. L. ZamenhofLudwig Lazarus Zamenhof December 15, 1859 – April 14, 1917) was the inventor of Esperanto, the most successful constructed language designed for international communication.-Cultural background:...
, creator of Esperanto - April 21 - Francis BurnandFrancis BurnandSir Francis Cowley Burnand , often credited as F. C. Burnand, was an English comic writer and dramatist....
, dramatist and editor of "Punch" - July 31 - Francis LedwidgeFrancis LedwidgeFrancis Edward Ledwidge was an Irish war poet from County Meath. Sometimes known as the "poet of the blackbirds", he was killed in action at the Battle of Passchendaele during World War I.-Early life:...
, war poet - July 31 - Hedd WynHedd WynHedd Wyn was a Welsh language poet who was killed during the Battle of Passchendaele in World War I. He was posthumously awarded the bard's chair at the 1917 National Eisteddfod...
, Welsh-language poet - November 15 - Émile DurkheimÉmile DurkheimDavid Émile Durkheim was a French sociologist. He formally established the academic discipline and, with Karl Marx and Max Weber, is commonly cited as the principal architect of modern social science and father of sociology.Much of Durkheim's work was concerned with how societies could maintain...
, sociologist - November 18 - Adrien BertrandAdrien BertrandAdrien Bertrand was a French novelist whose short career was punctuated by a series of striking surrealist anti-war novels, written as Bertrand lay dying from complications involved in a wound he suffered whilst serving with the French Army in the First World War.-Biography:Bertrand was born in...
, French novelist - December 15 - Lady Anne BluntLady Anne BluntAnne Isabella Noel Blunt, née King-Noel, 15th Baroness Wentworth , known for most of her life as Lady Anne Blunt, was co-founder, with her husband the poet Wilfrid Scawen Blunt, of the Crabbet Arabian Stud. The two married on 8 June 1869...
, descendant of Lord Byron and wife of Wilfrid Scawen BluntWilfrid Scawen BluntWilfrid Scawen Blunt was an English poet and writer. He was born at Petworth House in Sussex, and served in the Diplomatic Service from 1858 to 1869. His mother was a Catholic convert and he was educated at Twyford School, Stonyhurst and at St Mary's College, Oscott...