1897 in literature

This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1897.

Events

January–March – Oscar Wilde, imprisoned in Reading Gaol in England, writes a letter to his lover, Lord Alfred Douglas, De Profundis.
January 2 – Newspapers in London erroneously report the death of Mark Twain. It is believed the rumors began when Twain's cousin had become ill. Twain makes his famous statement, "The report of my death was an exaggeration."
April–December – H. G. Wells' science fiction novel The War of the Worlds is serialized in Pearson's Magazine.
April 13 – The Grand Guignol is opened in Paris by Oscar Méténier.
May 19 – Oscar Wilde is released early this morning from Pentonville Prison in London, to which he has been transferred from Reading via Twyford the previous night. This afternoon he visits Hatchards bookshop briefly before catching an evening train to Newhaven, on his way to exile on the continent under the pseudonym "Sebastian Melmoth".
May 26
* The theatrical manager Bram Stoker's contemporary Gothic horror novel Dracula is published in London by Constable with a late change of title from The Un-Dead. It will influence vampire literature for the following century. On May 18 he had staged a reading of a dramatised version for copyright purposes before an audience of two at the Lyceum Theatre, London.
* The original manuscript of William Bradford's history, Of Plymouth Plantation, is returned to the Governor of Massachusetts by the Bishop of London after being taken during the American Revolutionary War.
June 22 – Moscow Art Theatre is formed by Constantin Stanislavski and Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko.
July 2 – The Yorkshire Dialect Society is founded, the oldest such society in England.
July 25 – The writer Jack London sails to join the Klondike Gold Rush, where he will write his first successful stories.
October – The first issue of Albina, a Romanian literary and agriculturalist magazine aimed at a peasant readership, is published in Bucharest by Ioan Kalinderu, George Coșbuc and Petre Dulfu.
November 1 – The Library of Congress Building in Washington, D.C., is opened.
December 28 – Edmond Rostand's play Cyrano de Bergerac opens at the Théâtre de la Porte Saint-Martin in Paris with the theater's director, Coquelin aîné, in the title role. The applause lasts for more than an hour.
December 30 – The comedy The White Horse Inn , by Oscar Blumenthal and Gustav Kadelburg, opens in Berlin. Decades later it will be turned into a successful musical play.
unknown dates
*Hall Caine's novel The Christian: a story is published and becomes the first in Britain to sell a million copies. The author also writes a dramatization.
*Anna Katharine Green's That Affair Next Door introduces the first female fictional detective character in a novel, Amelia Butterworth, an inquisitive New York society spinster.
*Benito Pérez Galdós is elected to the Real Academia Española.
*The publisher Doubleday is founded as the Doubleday & McClure Company by Frank Nelson Doubleday in partnership with magazine publisher Samuel McClure in New York City.
*The publisher Commercial Press is founded as the first modern publishing organisation in China, by 26-year-old Xia Ruifang and three friends in Shanghai.
*Winter 1896–97 – A significant collection of unpublished 17th-century manuscripts later recognised as by Thomas Traherne is discovered by chance in London.

New books

Non-fiction

Adolphe Appia – Musique et mise en scéne
Annie Besant – The Ancient Wisdom
Alice Diehl – Musical Memories
Émile Durkheim – Le Suicide
Gustav Jaeger – Problems of Nature: Researches and Discoveries
Stéphane Mallarmé – Divagations
Nouveau Larousse illustré
Ralph Waldo Trine – In Tune With The Infinite: Fullness of Peace, Power and Plenty
Edith Wharton and Ogden Codman – ''The Decoration of Houses''

Births

January 8 – Dennis Wheatley, English thriller writer
January 11 – Bernard DeVoto, American historian
January 14 – Wasif Jawhariyyeh, Palestinian Arab diarist, poet and composer
January 19 – Natacha Rambova, American dramatist
January 27 – Iris Tree, English poet
February 1 – Denise Robins, English romantic novelist
March 8 – Josep Pla, Catalan journalist and writer
March 17 – Barbu Solacolu, Romanian poet, translator and economist
March 23 – Béla Hamvas, Hungarian philosopher
May 11 – Carola Oman, English historical novelist, biographer and children's writer
June 20 – Elisabeth Hauptmann, German writer
July 1 – Edward Tennant, English poet
July 14 – Myroslav Irchan, Ukrainian storywriter and playwright
July 15 – R. J. Yeatman, English humorous author
July 25 – Basil Willey, English academic literary critic
August 11
*Enid Blyton – English children's author
*Louise Bogan – American poet
September 10 – Georges Bataille, French philosopher, essayist and novelist
September 25 – William Faulkner, American novelist
September 26 – Michael Joseph, English publisher
October 3 – James Hanley, English novelist and dramatist of Irish descent
October 4 – Jirō Osaragi, Japanese novelist
October 17 – Ștefana Velisar Teodoreanu, Romanian novelist, memoirist and poet
October 21 – Alexander Lernet-Holenia, Austrian poet, dramatist and fiction writer
October 22 – Marjorie Flack, American children's author
November 1 – Naomi Mitchison, Scottish novelist and poet
November 5 – Hilda Vīka, Latvian poet and novelist
November 7 – Herman J. Mankiewicz, American screenwriter
November 8 – Dorothy Day, American journalist
November 15 – Sacheverell Sitwell, English writer and art critic
November 28 – Marcus Goodrich, American screenwriter and novelist
December 3 – Kate O'Brien, Irish novelist and dramatist
October 23 – Arab Shamilov, Kurdish novelist
December 8 – Josephine Bell, English novelist
December 25 – Wilson Starbuck, American playwright and author
December 26 – Willy Corsari, Dutch author of detective fiction

Deaths

January 24 – Margaret Wolfe Hungerford, Irish novelist
February 4 – Walter Gregor, Scottish folklorist, linguist and pastor
March 2 – Guillermo Prieto, Mexican novelist, short-story writer and poet
March 6 – E. Cobham Brewer, English lexicographer
March 7 – Harriet Jacobs, African-American writer
March 11 – Henry Drummond, Scottish evangelist and natural historian
April 26 – Manonmaniam Sundaram Pillai, Indian scholar and dramatist
May 4 – Isabella Banks, English poet and novelist
May 12
*Minna Canth, Finnish writer and social activist
*Mary Alice Fonda, American music critic
June 25 – Margaret Oliphant, Scottish novelist
July 6 – Henri Meilhac, French dramatist and opera librettist
July 20 – Jean Ingelow, English novelist and poet
July 28 – Étienne Vacherot, French philosophical writer
August 2 – Adam Asnyk, Polish poet and dramatist
August 5 – James Hammond Trumbull, American philologist
August 8 – Jacob Burckhardt, Swiss historian
August 25 – Léon Gautier, French historian
September 9
*Richard Holt Hutton, English critic and journalist
*Ferenc Pulszky, Hungarian political writer
October 23 – Jessie Catherine Couvreur, Australian novelist
October 24 – Francis Turner Palgrave, English anthologist
October 27 – Gheorghe Chițu, Romanian classical scholar, publisher and journalist
November 15 – Lucinda Barbour Helm, American author, editor, and activist
November 29 – James Legge, Scottish sinologist, missionary and translator
December 17 – Alphonse Daudet, French novelist

Awards

Stanhope Essay Prize – John Buchan

1897 in literature

Events

New books

Fiction

Children and young people

Drama

Poetry

Non-fiction

Births

Deaths

Awards