1899 in literature
This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1899.
Events
- January 21 – The French actress Sarah Bernhardt, having taken over management of the Paris theatre she renames the Théâtre Sarah-Bernhardt, opens it in the title rôle of Victorien Sardou's La Tosca. On May 20 she premières an adaptation of Shakespeare's Hamlet, with herself in the title rôle.
- March 20 – W. H. Davies, "tramp-poet", loses his foot trying to jump on a freight train at Renfrew, Ontario.
- April – Karl Kraus establishes the radical periodical Die Fackel in Vienna.
- April–June – Rainer Maria Rilke, still an art student at the time, travels to Moscow to meet Leo Tolstoy.
- May–December – The only work of fiction by the British politician Winston Churchill, Savrola: A Tale of the Revolution in Laurania, is serialised in Macmillan's Magazine.
- May – Jack London's first published work, the short story "[A Thousand Deaths (London Short film|short story)|A Thousand Deaths]", appears in The Black Cat; its acceptance convinces London that he can make a living from literature.
- May 8 – The Irish Literary Theatre, founded by W. B. Yeats, Augusta, Lady Gregory, George Moore and Edward Martyn, puts on its first production in Dublin, a version of Yeats' verse drama The Countess Cathleen.
- June 20 – The English writer Edward Thomas, an Oxford undergraduate at this time, marries Helen Noble at Fulham register office.
- July 31 – Arthur Machen's wife Amy dies after a long illness, an event that has a devastating effect on him.
- September 1 – The National Theatre in Norway opens with pieces by Holberg and Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson's 1862 trilogy Sigurd Slembe.
- September – The British Mutoscope and Biograph Company's King John becomes the first known film based on a Shakespeare play.
- November – The oldest surviving Japanese film, Momijigari, is shot by Tsunekichi Shibata in Tokyo. It records the kabuki actors Onoe Kikugorō V and Ichikawa Danjūrō IX performing a scene from the play Momijigari.
- November 6 – William Gillette's play Sherlock Holmes, based on the writings of Arthur Conan Doyle, opens in New York City with himself in the title rôle.
- November 7 – Anton Chekhov's Uncle Vanya, a reworking of his The Wood Demon, receives its Russian metropolitan première at the Moscow Art Theatre, with Konstantin Stanislavski directing and playing the rôle of Astrov, and Olga Knipper as Yeléna.
- November 18 – Leo Tolstoy completes his last novel, Resurrection, published serially in Niva.
- December 12 – Herbert Putnam is appointed Librarian of Congress in the United States, where he will introduce in practice the Library of Congress Classification scheme.
- December – The imprisoned William Sydney Porter's pseudonym O. Henry first appears over the short story "Whistling Dick's Christmas Stocking" in this month's McClure's Magazine.
- unknown dates
- *Curtis Brown (literary agents) is established in London by the American Albert Curtis Brown.
- *Edgar Rice Burroughs begins a brief spell working in his father's battery business.
- *Simon Pokagon's O-gi-maw-kwe Mit-I-gwa-ki is published, the first novel both by and about Native Americans in the United States.
- *Lin Shu's first translation into Chinese from a Western text, The Lady of the Camellias, is published as 巴黎茶花女遺事.
- *The first series of the Arden Shakespeare under the general editorship of W. J. Craig begins publication by Methuen in London with an edition of Hamlet edited by Edward Dowden.
- *The Bulgarian language is officially codified.
New books
Fiction
- Anna Adolph – Arqtiq
- Victor Anestin – În anul 4000 sau O călătorie la Venus
- Machado de Assis – Dom Casmurro
- René Bazin – La terre qui meurt
- René Boylesve – Demoiselle Cloque
- Mary Elizabeth Braddon – His Darling Sin
- Rhoda Broughton – The Game and the Candle
- Charles Waddell Chesnutt – The Conjure Woman
- Mary Cholmondeley – Red Pottage
- Kate Chopin – The Awakening
- J. Storer Clouston – The Lunatic at Large
- Ralph Connor – The Sky Pilot
- Joseph Conrad – serializations in Blackwood's Magazine
- *Heart of Darkness
- *Lord Jim
- Stephen Crane – The Monster and Other Stories
- Cora Linn Daniels – The Bronze Buddha: A Mystery
- Margaret Deland – Old Chester Tales
- Maxim Gorky – Foma Gordyeeff
- G. A. Henty – The Golden Canon
- Robert Hichens – The Slave
- E. W. Hornung – The Amateur Cracksman
- Henry James – The Awkward Age
- Selma Lagerlöf – The Tale of a Manor
- Octave Mirbeau – The Torture Garden
- A. E. W. Mason – Man and His Kingdom
- Arthur Morrison – To London Town
- Frank Norris
- *Blix
- *McTeague
- George Paston – A Writer of Books
- Władysław Reymont – The Promised Land
- Pamela Colman Smith – Annancy Stories
- Somerville and Ross – Some Experiences of an Irish R.M.
- Leo Tolstoy – Resurrection
- Juan Valera y Alcalá-Galiano – Morsamor
- H.G. Wells – "The Sleeper Awakes"
- Edith Wharton – "The Greater Inclination"
- Émile Zola – ''Fécondité''
Children and young people
- Helen Bannerman – Little Black Sambo
- L. Frank Baum – Father Goose: His Book
- Tom Bevan – The Thane of the Dean: A Tale of the Time of the Conqueror
- Géza Gárdonyi – Eclipse of the Crescent Moon
- E. Nesbit – The Story of the Treasure Seekers
- Ethel Pedley – Dot and the Kangaroo
- Josephine Pollard
- *Bible Stories for Children
- *History of The Old Testament in Words of One Syllable
- *History of The New Testament in Words of One Syllable
- Edward Stratemeyer as Arthur M. Winfield
- *The Rover Boys at School
- *The Rover Boys on the Ocean
- *''The Rover Boys in the Jungle''
Drama
- Anton Chekhov – Uncle Vanya
- Arnold Denham – The Kelly Gang
- Georges Feydeau – La Dame de chez Maxim
- Clyde Fitch – Barbara Frietchie
- Henrik Ibsen – When We Dead Awaken
- Leon Kobrin – Minna or, The Ruined Family from Downtown
- Mulshankar Mulani – Ajabkumari
- Arthur Wing Pinero – The Gay Lord Quex
- Verna M. Raynor – Noel Corson's Oath; or Leonia's Repentance
- Stanisław Wyspiański
- *Klątwa
- *Meleager
- *Protesilas i Leodamia
- William Young – ''Ben-Hur''
Poetry
- W. B. Yeats – ''The Wind Amongst the Reeds''
Non-fiction
- Qasim Amin – The Liberation of Women
- Edward Bernstein – Evolutionary Socialism
- Eliza Brightwen – Rambles with Nature Students
- Houston Stewart Chamberlain – The Foundations of the Nineteenth Century
- Auguste Choisy – Histoire de l'architecture
- Percy Dearmer – The Parson's Handbook
- John Dewey – The School and Society
- Emilia, Lady Dilke – French Painters of the Eighteenth Century
- W. E. B. DuBois - The Philadelphia Negro
- Sigmund Freud – The Interpretation of Dreams
- Edward Bruce Hamley – National Defence
- Elbert Hubbard – A Message to Garcia
- Gertrude Jekyll – Wood and Garden
- Arthur Symons – The Symbolist Movement in Literature
- Thorstein Veblen – ''The Theory of the Leisure Class''
Births
- January 17 – Nevil Shute, English novelist
- February 3 – Lao She, Chinese author
- February 23 – Erich Kästner, German children's author
- March 8 – Eric Linklater, Welsh-born Scottish novelist and travel writer
- March 19 – Aksel Sandemose, Danish novelist
- March 25 – Jacques Audiberti, French playwright
- April 22 – Vladimir Nabokov, Russian-born novelist
- May 8 – Friedrich Hayek, Austrian-born social scientist
- May 18 – D. Gwenallt Jones, Welsh poet
- May 24
- *Kazi Nazrul Islam, Bengali poet
- *Henri Michaux, Belgian-born poet, writer and painter
- June 7 – Elizabeth Bowen, Irish-born English novelist and short-story writer
- June 11 - Yasunari Kawabata, Japanese novelist, short-story writer and Nobel laureate in Literature
- June 18 – Eugène Vinaver, Russian-born English literary scholar
- July 1 – James Lennox Kerr, Scottish novelist and children's writer
- July 8 – G. B. Edwards, Guernsey-born writer
- July 11 – E. B. White, American children's writer and writer on style
- July 21
- *Hart Crane, American poet
- *Ernest Hemingway, American novelist
- August 9
- *Laurence Meynell, English novelist and children's writer
- *P. L. Travers, Australian children's writer
- August 24
- * Jorge Luis Borges, Argentinian writer
- * Gaylord DuBois, American author and poet
- August 27 – C. S. Forester, Egyptian-born English adventure novelist
- September 30 – Hendrik Marsman, Dutch poet
- October 19 - Miguel Ángel Asturias,
- November 10 – Kate Seredy, Hungarian-born American children's writer and illustrator
- November 17 – Roger Vitrac, French surrealist playwright and poet
- December 9 – Jean de Brunhoff, French children's author and illustrator
- December 16
- *Harold Walter Bailey, English linguistics scholar
- *Noël Coward, English playwright
- December 18 – Peter Wessel Zapffe, Norwegian philosopher
Deaths
- February 10 – Archibald Lampman, Canadian poet
- March 16 – Alexander Balloch Grosart, Scottish literary editor
- May 1 – Ludwig Büchner, German philosopher
- May 16 – Francisque Sarcey, French journalist and theater critic
- June 7 – Augustin Daly, American dramatist and theater manager
- June 30 – E. D. E. N. Southworth, American novelist
- July 18 – Horatio Alger, Jr., American novelist and children's author
- August 27 – Vendela Hebbe, Swedish journalist and novelist
- August 29 – Catharine Parr Traill, English-born Canadian author
- October 22 – Ella H. Brockway Avann, American educator and writer
- October 25 – Grant Allen, Canadian science writer and novelist
- October 27 – Florence Marryat, English novelist and entertainer
- November 2 – Anna Swanwick, English feminist writer
- November 13 – Arthur Giry, French historian
- December 17 – Bernard Quaritch, German-born English bibliographer and bookseller
- December 18 – Bonifaciu Florescu, Romanian polygraph
- December 22 – Dwight L. Moody, American preacher and publisher