1901 in literature

This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1901.

Events

January 31 – Anton Chekhov's Three Sisters opens at the Moscow Art Theatre, directed by Constantin Stanislavski and Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko with Stanislavski as Vershinin, Olga Knipper as Masha, Margarita Savetskaya as Olga, Maria Andreyeva as Irina, and Maria Lilina as Natasha.
February 22 – Leo Tolstoy is excommunicated from the Russian Orthodox Church.
May 1 – Publication of Maurice Maeterlinck's The Life of the Bee in Belgium.
May 6 – Swedish dramatist August Strindberg, 52, marries his third wife, the Swedish-Norwegian actress Harriet Bosse, 23, after an engagement in March during rehearsals for his play Easter .
May 25 – Chekhov marries Olga Knipper in a quiet ceremony.
May 28 – Cherry v. Des Moines Leader is decided in the Iowa Supreme Court, upholding the right to publish critical reviews.
June 28 – G. K. Chesterton marries Frances Blogg at St Mary Abbots, Kensington.
July – The first modern performances of Everyman, the 15th-century morality play, are given by William Poel's Elizabethan Stage Society outdoors at the Charterhouse in London.
July 24 – O. Henry is released from prison in Columbus, Ohio after serving three years for embezzlement.
October
*Thomas Mann's first novel, Buddenbrooks, is published in Berlin.
*The Irish Literary Theatre project gives its final performance.
October 23 – Mark Twain receives an honorary doctorate of literature from Yale University. In the same month he moves to Riverdale, New York.
December 2 – The Romanian literary review Sămănătorul is founded.
December 10 – The first Nobel Prize in Literature is awarded, to French poet Sully Prudhomme.
unknown date – World's Classics series of publications is founded by Grant Richards in England.

New books

Births

January 1 – Elisabeth Kyle, Scottish novelist and journalist
January 17 – Hryhorii Epik, Ukrainian writer and journalist
January 30 – Hans Erich Nossack, German poet, playwright, novelist and short story writer
January 31 – Marie Luise Kaschnitz, German story writer, novelist and poet
February 1 – Langston Hughes, African-American poet and novelist
February 2 – Valerian Pidmohylny, Ukrainian modernist
February 3 – Rosamond Lehmann, English novelist
February 13 – Lewis Grassic Gibbon, Scottish novelist
February 23 – Ivar Lo-Johansson, Swedish novelist and journalist
March 4 – Jean-Joseph Rabearivelo, Malagasy Francophone poet
April 10 – Anna Kavan, French-born English novelist and short story writer
April 21 – Gladys Mitchell, English crime fiction writer
May 1 – Antal Szerb, Hungarian writer
May 2 – Margaret Wetherby Williams, English crime fiction writer
May 15 – Xavier Herbert, Australian novelist
May 26 – Norman Denny, English writer and translator
June 1 – John Van Druten, English-born American dramatist
June 23 – Ahmet Hamdi Tanpınar, Turkish novelist and essayist
July 9 – Barbara Cartland, English romantic novelist, historian and playwright
July 20 – Dilys Powell, English film critic
July 25 – Ruth Krauss, American children's author and poet
August 10 – Sergio Frusoni, Cape Verde poet and promoter of Cape Verdean Creole language
August 14 – Alice Rivaz, Swiss writer
August 17 – Heðin Brú, Faroese fiction writer and translator
August 20 – Salvatore Quasimodo, Italian poet and translator
October 25 – Samuil Lehtțir, Soviet Moldovan poet, critic and literary theorist
November 3 – André Malraux, French author
November 4 – Ernest Elmore, English crime writer and theatre director
December 9 – Ödön von Horváth, Austro-Hungarian dramatist and novelist
December 16 – Margaret Mead, American anthropologist and author

Deaths

January 1 – Ignatius L. Donnelly, American politician and writer
January 14 – Víctor Balaguer, Catalan Spanish dramatist and poet
January 17 – Frederic W. H. Myers, British poet
January 26 – Grigore Sturdza, Moldavian and Romanian adventurer, literary sponsor and philosopher
February 2 – John Cordy Jeaffreson, English novelist and non-fiction writer
February 7 – Rowena Granice Steele, first female novelist in California
February 15 – Maurice Thompson, American novelist
February 18 – Anna Gardner, American author, abolitionist, teacher, reformer
March 19 – Philippe Gille, French dramatist
April 6 – George Murray Smith, English publisher
April 10 — Harriet Newell Kneeland Goff, reformer and author
April 12 – Louis Auguste Sabatier, French theologian
April 26 – Harriett Ellen Grannis Arey, American educator, author, editor, and publisher
May 24 – Charlotte Mary Yonge, English novelist
June 4 – Charlotte Fowler Wells, American phrenologist and publisher
June 5 – Dagny Juel, Norwegian writer and artists' model
June 9 – Walter Besant, English novelist and historian
June 10 – Robert Williams Buchanan, Scottish poet, novelist and dramatist
July 7 – Johanna Spyri, Swiss children's writer
July 18 – Jan ten Brink, Dutch novelist
July 20 – William Cosmo Monkhouse, English poet and critic
July 27 – Brooke Foss Westcott, English theologian
August 4 – Harriet Pritchard Arnold, American author
August 9 – Vishnudas Bhave, Indian dramatist
October 28 – Paul Rée, German author and philosopher
October 31 – Julien Leclercq, French Symbolist poet and art critic
November 6 – Kate Greenaway, English children's illustrator and writer
November 21 – V. A. Urechia, Romanian historian, writer and politician
December 28 – Mary K. Buck, Bohemian-born American author

Awards

Nobel Prize for Literature: Sully Prudhomme

1901 in literature

Events

New books

Fiction

Children and young people

Drama

Poetry

Non-fiction

Births

Deaths

Awards