1926 in literature

This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1926.

Events

February 8 â SeÃ¡n O'Casey's play The Plough and the Stars opens at the Abbey Theatre, Dublin. At the February 11 performance there is a near-riot: one audience member strikes an actress.^[1]
February 12 â The Irish Free State Minister for Justice, Kevin O'Higgins, appoints a Committee on Evil Literature.
February 26 â The future English novelist Graham Greene is received into the Catholic Church.
April 1 â Hugo Gernsback launches his pioneering science fiction magazine Amazing Stories in the United States.
May 11 â C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien first meet in Oxford.^[2]
October 10 â Mikhail Bulgakov's novel The White Guard (ÐÐµÐ»Ð°Ñ Ð³Ð²Ð°ÑÐ´Ð¸Ñ), partly serialized in Rossiya before the magazine's suppression earlier in the year, opens as a dramatic adaptation, The Days of the Turbins, at the Moscow Art Theatre. It is enjoyed by Stalin.
October 14 â The children's book Winnie-the-Pooh by A. A. Milne first appears, published by Methuen in London.
November â George Bernard Shaw initially declines the 1925 Nobel Prize in Literature (which is awarded a year later) stating "I can forgive Nobel for inventing dynamite, but only a fiend in human form could have invented the Nobel prize". He later changes his mind and accepts the honour, but refuses to receive the prize money.^[3] Shaw recommends that the prize money instead be used to fund the translation of works by Swedish playwright August Strindberg to English.^[3]
December 3 â The English detective story writer Agatha Christie disappears from her home in Surrey. On December 14 she is found at a Harrogate hotel by the journalist Ritchie Calder, staying under her husband's mistress's surname.
December â Thomas Mann begins writing Die Geschichten Jaakobs in Munich, first of the tetralogy Joseph and His Brothers (Joseph und seine BrÃ¼der), on which he will work until January 1943.
unknown dates
- Antonin Artaud and Roger Vitrac establish the ThÃ©atre Alfred-Jarry in Paris to produce surrealist drama.
- The Bread Loaf Writers' Conference is founded in Middlebury, Vermont.
- Vsevolod Meyerhold stages an expressionistic production of Gogol's satirical comedy The Government Inspector (Ð ÐµÐ²Ð¸Ð·Ð¾Ñ, 1836) in Moscow.^[4]
- Margaret Mitchell begins the novel Gone with the Wind, which will appear 1936.
- The remains of the English poet Isaac Rosenberg (killed in battle in 1918) are re-interred at Bailleul Road East Cemetery, Plot V, St. Laurent-Blangy, Pas de Calais, France.
- Peter Llewelyn Davies establishes the London publishing house Peter Davies Ltd.

New books

Non-fiction

GermÃ¡n List Arzubide â El movimiento estridentista
Benedictine Vulgate (begins publication)
Angela Brazil â My Own Schooldays
Arthur Conan Doyle â The History of Spiritualism
H. Rider Haggard â The Days of My Life
T. E. Lawrence â Seven Pillars of Wisdom
Otto Schmidt (chief editor) â Great Soviet Encyclopedia (ÐÐ¾Ð»ÑÑÐ°Ñ ÑÐ¾Ð²ÐµÑÑÐºÐ°Ñ ÑÐ½ÑÐ¸ÐºÐ»Ð¾Ð¿ÐµÐ´Ð¸Ñ, Bolshaya sovetskaya entsiklopediya; begins publication)
Dan Simonescu â ÃncercÄri istorico-literare (Literary and Historical Essays)
R. H. Tawney â Religion and the Rise of Capitalism
Helen Thomas â As It Was
W. B. Yeats â Autobiographies
Paul Zarifopol â Din registrul ideilor gingaÈe (A Register of Tender Ideas)
Alfred Eckhard Zimmern â The Third British Empire

Births

January 5 â W. D. Snodgrass, American poet (died 2009)
January 12 â Shumon Miura, Japanese novelist (died 2017)
January 13 â Michael Bond, English fiction writer and creator of Paddington Bear (died 2017)^[5]
January 14 â Tom Tryon, American actor and novelist (died 1991)
January 27 â Fritz Spiegl, Austrian-born musician and writer (died 2003)^[6]
February 3 â Richard Yates, American novelist (died 1992)
February 8 â Neal Cassady, American writer and poet (died 1968)
February 20 â Richard Matheson, American science fiction writer (died 2013)
March 3 â James Merrill, American poet (died 1995)
March 7 â Chemmanam Chacko, Indian poet (died 2018)
March 24 â Dario Fo, Italian dramatist and actor (died 2016)^[7]
March 27 â Frank O'Hara, American poet (died 1966)
March 31 â John Fowles, English novelist (died 2005)^[8]
April 3 â LuÃs de Sttau Monteiro, Portuguese novelist and dramatist (died 1993)
April 11 â Franz Herre, German biographer (died 2026)
April 12 â Khozh-Akhmed Bersanov, Chechen ethnographer (died 2018)
April 13 â Egon Wolff, Chilean dramatist (died 2016)
April 23
- J. P. Donleavy, Irish American novelist (died 2017)
- Ãva Janikovszky, Hungarian novelist and children's writer (died 2003)
April 28 â Harper Lee, American novelist (died 2016)^[9]
April 30 â Edmund Cooper, British poet and author (died 1982)^[10]
May 15 â English twins
- Anthony Shaffer, dramatist and screenwriter (died 2001)
- Peter Shaffer, dramatist (died 2016)
May 21 â Robert Creeley, American author (died 2005)
June 3 â Allen Ginsberg, American Beat Generation poet (died 1997)^[11]
June 4 â Ain Kaalep, Estonian poet, playwright and critic (died 2020)
June 13
- Kanam EJ, Malayalam novelist and lyricist (died 1982)
- Dalmiro SÃ¡enz, Argentinian writer (died 2016)
June 19 â Giangiacomo Feltrinelli, Italian publisher (died 1972)
June 25 â Ingeborg Bachmann, Austrian poet, writer, essayist and librettist (died 1973)
July 7 â Spencer Holst, American writer and storyteller (died 2001)
July 11 â Frederick Buechner, American author and minister (died 2022)
July 18 â Elizabeth Jennings, English poet (died 2001)
August 6 â Elisabeth Beresford, English children's author (died 2010)^[12]
August 12 â Wallace Markfield, American comic novelist (died 2002)
August 13 â Roy Heath, Guyanese novelist (died 2008)^[13]
August 14
- Alice Adams, American short story writer (died 1999)
- RenÃ© Goscinny, French writer and co-creator of AstÃ©rix (died 1977)
September 3 â Alison Lurie, American novelist and academic (died 2020)
September 6 â Clancy Sigal, American writer (died 2017)
September 14 â Michel Butor, French writer (died 2016)
September 16 â John Knowles, American novelist (died 2001)^[14]
October 2 â Jan Morris, born James Morris, Anglo-Welsh historian and travel writer (died 2020)
October 15
- Michel Foucault, French historian of ideas, philosopher and literary critic (died 1984)
- Evan Hunter, American author and screenwriter (died 2005)
October 27 â June Arnold, American novelist and publisher (died 1982)
November 5 â John Berger, English art critic and novelist (died 2017)^[15]
November 11
- JosÃ© Manuel Caballero, Spanish novelist and poet (died 2021)
- Harold Perkin, English social historian (died 2004)
November 19 â Barry Reckord, Jamaican playwright (died 2011)
November 20 â John Gardner, English thriller writer (died 2007)
November 25 â Poul Anderson, American science fiction writer (died 2001)
December 23 â Robert Bly, American writer (died 2021)

Deaths

January 26 â Bucura DumbravÄ, Romanian novelist and spiritualist (malaria, born 1868)
February 6 â Wolf Wilhelm Friedrich von Baudissin, German theologian (born 1847)
February 12 â Radu Rosetti, Romanian politician, historical novelist and memoirist (born 1853)
March 3 â Sir Sidney Lee, English biographer (born 1859)
May 9 â J. M. Dent, English publisher (born 1849)
May 21 â Ronald Firbank, English novelist (born 1886)
May 23 â Sigrid Elmblad, Swedish author and translator (born 1860)^[16]
May 26 â SreÄko Kosovel, Slovenian Expressionist poet (meningitis, born 1904)
June 27 â Addie C. Strong Engle, American author and publisher (born 1845)
July 8 â Karel VÃ¡clav Rais, Czech realist novelist (born 1859)
July 11 â Fran Detela, Slovenian academic and writer (born 1850)
July 14 â Elisabeth Cavazza, American author, journalist, and music critic (born 1849)
July 19 â Ada Cambridge, English/Australian writer and poet (born 1844)
July 22 â John Burland Harris-Burland, British writer (born 1870)
August 1 â Israel Zangwill, English poet (born 1864)
October 5 â Javier de Viana, Uruguayan writer (born 1868)
October 9 â Helena Nyblom, Danish-born poet and writer of fairy tales (born 1843)
October 11 â Albert Robida, French illustrator and novelist (born 1848)
November 10 â Lyubov Dostoyevskaya, Russian memoirist (born 1869)
December 8 â Sarah Doudney, English novelist, children's writer and hymnist (born 1841)
December 12 â Jean Richepin, French poet, dramatist and novelist (born 1849)
December 29 â Rainer Maria Rilke, German poet (born 1875)^[17]
unknown date
- Emma Whitcomb Babcock, American litterateur and author (born 1849)
- Susanne Vandegrift Moore, American editor and publisher (born 1848)

Awards

James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction: Radclyffe Hall, Adam's Breed
James Tait Black Memorial Prize for biography: Herbert Brook Workman, John Wyclif: A Study of the English Medieval Church
Newbery Medal for children's literature: Arthur Bowie Chrisman, Shen of the Sea
Nobel Prize for Literature: Grazia Deledda
Pulitzer Prize for Drama: George Kelly, Craig's Wife
Pulitzer Prize for Poetry: Amy Lowell, What's O'Clock
Pulitzer Prize for the Novel: Sinclair Lewis, Arrowsmith
Blindman International Poetry Prize: Ruth Manning-Sanders, The City

1926 in literature

Events

New books

Fiction

Children and young people

Drama

Poetry

Non-fiction

Births

Deaths

Awards

References

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