1909 in literature
This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1909.
Events
- January – T. E. Hulme's poems "Autumn" and "A City Sunset" are included in the Poets' Club anthology For Christmas MDCCCCVIII, as the first examples of Imagism.
- January 15 – Filippo Tommaso Marinetti's drama La donna è mobile opens at the Teatro Alfieri, Turin.
- February 1 – The first issue appears of La Nouvelle Revue Française, a literary magazine founded in Paris by André Gide, Jacques Copeau, Jean Schlumberger, Gaston Gallimard, and others.
- February 20 – Filippo Tommaso Marinetti's Futurist Manifesto first appears in the French newspaper Le Figaro.
- March 2 – Katherine Mansfield, while pregnant by another man, marries the singing teacher George Bowden, whom she barely knows. She leaves him the same evening to resume lesbian relations with Ida Baker.
- April
- *The opening night of Filippo Tommaso Marinetti's drama Le Roi bombance is heckled by the audience and the writer himself.
- *The German periodical Die Tat is founded by Ernst Horneffer.
- April 24 – The Metropolitan Library in Beijing, predecessor of the National Library of China, is founded by the Qing government.
- September 6 – Israel Zangwill's play The Melting Pot opens in New York City.
- September 23 – Gaston Leroux's novel The Phantom of the Opera begins serialization in the Paris newspaper Le Gaulois.
- September 29 – Franz Kafka's short story "The Aeroplanes at Brescia ", based on a real event, is published in the Prague newspaper Bohemia, as the first description of airplanes in German literature.
- November – A production by Kaoru Osanai of Henrik Ibsen's John Gabriel Borkman at the Free Theater in Tokyo inaugurates shingeki drama in Japan.
- November 2 – First English-language performance of a play by Anton Chekhov opens, The Seagull, translated and directed by George Calderon, by the Glasgow Repertory Theatre company at the Royalty Theatre, Glasgow.
- unknown date – Babelstornið, by Rasmus Rasmussen, writing as Regin í Líð, becomes the first Faroese language novel to be published.
New books
Fiction
- Florence Barclay – The Rosary
- Maurice Barrès – Colette Baudoche
- André Billy – La Derive
- Algernon Blackwood
- *The Education of Uncle Paul
- *Jimbo: A Fantasy
- René Boylesve – La Jeune Fille bien élevée
- Hall Caine – The White Prophet
- Gilbert Cannan – Peter Homunculus
- Ion Luca Caragiale – Kir Ianulea
- Robert W. Chambers – The Danger Mark
- Herbert Croly – The Promise of American Life
- Em Kol Chai – Kovetz Tziurim
- Concha Espina – That Luzmela Girl
- Charles Hoy Fort – The Outcast Manufacturers
- Anatole France – Balthazar
- Jacques Futrelle – Elusive Isabel
- John Galsworthy – Fraternity
- Charles Garvice – A Fair Impostor
- Robert Hichens – Bella Donna
- Olha Kobylianska – V Nediliu Rano Zillia Kopala
- Alfred Kubin – Die andere Seite
- Maurice Leblanc – The Hollow Needle
- Gaston Leroux – Le fauteuil hanté
- Jack London – Martin Eden
- John Masefield – Multitude and Solitude
- Silas Weir Mitchell – The Red City
- Baroness Orczy
- *The Nest of the Sparrowhawk
- *The Old Man in the Corner
- Randall Parrish – My Lady of the South
- Eden Phillpotts – The Haven
- Luigi Pirandello – I vecchi e i giovani
- Władysław Reymont – Chłopi
- Stein Riverton – Jernvognen
- Olivia Shakespear – Uncle Hilary
- Gertrude Stein – Three Lives
- Gene Stratton-Porter – A Girl of the Limberlost
- Hermann Sudermann – The Song of Songs
- Mark Twain – Captain Stormfield's Visit to Heaven
- Edgar Wallace
- * Captain Tatham of Tatham Island
- * The Duke in the Suburbs
- Robert Walser – Jakob von Gunten
- Mary Augusta Ward – Daphne
- H. G. Wells
- *Ann Veronica
- *Tono-Bungay
- Mabel Osgood Wright – ''Poppea of the Post Office''
Children and young people
- L. Frank Baum
- *The Road to Oz
- *Aunt Jane's Nieces at Work
- Angela Brazil – The Nicest Girl in the School
- Lucy Maud Montgomery – Anne of Avonlea
- Beatrix Potter
- *The Tale of the Flopsy Bunnies
- *The Tale of Ginger and Pickles
- P. G. Wodehouse – ''Mike''
Drama
- Paul Armont and Nicolas Nancey – Théodore et Cie
- Sem Benelli – The Jester's Supper
- Clyde Fitch – The City
- John Galsworthy – Strife
- Harley Granville-Barker – The Madras House
- Cicely Hamilton – A Pageant of Great Women
- Agha Hashar Kashmiri – Khwab-e-Hasti
- Oskar Kokoschka – Murderer, the Hope of Women
- Else Lasker-Schüler – Die Wupper
- André de Lorde – L'horrible expérience
- Ferenc Molnár – Liliom
- Quintero brothers – El patinillo
- George Bernard Shaw – The Shewing-Up of Blanco Posnet
Poetry
- Guillaume Apollinaire – L'Enchanteur pourrissant
- François Mauriac – Les Mains jointes
- John Millington Synge – ''Poems and Translations''
Non-fiction
- Henry James – Italian Hours
- William James – A Pluralistic Universe
- Jane's All the World's Aircraft
- I. M. E. Blandin – History of Higher Education of Women in the South, Prior to 1860
- Alfred W. Pollard – Shakespeare Folios and Quartos: a Study in the Bibliography of Shakespeare's Plays, 1594–1685
- C. I. Scofield – Scofield Reference Bible
- Charlotte Fell Smith – John Dee, 1527–1608
- Eraclie Sterian – În noaptea nunții
- A. E. Waite – The Hidden Church of the Holy Graal
- Alice Zimmern – ''Women's Suffrage in Many Lands''
Births
- January 20 – Mae Virginia Cowdery, African American poet
- January 18 – Oskar Davičo, Serbian novelist and poet
- January 29 – Phoebe Hesketh, English poet
- February 15 – Miep Gies, Austrian-born biographer
- February 24 – August Derleth, American anthologist
- March 6 – Stanisław Jerzy Lec, Polish aphorist and poet
- March 17 – Margiad Evans, Anglo-Welsh poet, novelist and illustrator
- March 22 – Gabrielle Roy, French Canadian author
- March 28 – Nelson Algren, American novelist
- March 31 – Robert Brasillach, French author
- April 8 – John Fante, American novelist
- May 1 – Yiannis Ritsos, Greek poet
- May 5 – Miklós Radnóti, Hungarian poet
- May 9 – Robert Garioch, Scottish poet
- June 6 – Isaiah Berlin, German-born philosopher
- June 19 – Osamu Dazai, Japanese author
- June 28 – Eric Ambler, English spy novelist
- June 29 – C. Hamilton Ellis, English writer
- July 1 – Juan Carlos Onetti, Uruguayan writer
- July 8 – Petar Šegedin, Croatian diplomat, novelist and essayist
- July 17 – G. P. Wells, English zoologist, son and co-author of H. G. Wells
- July 28 – Malcolm Lowry, English novelist
- July 29 – Chester Himes, American writer
- July 30 – C. Northcote Parkinson, English historian and author
- August 3 – Walter Van Tilburg Clark, American novelist
- August 11 – Uku Masing, Estonian religious philosopher, linguist and writer
- August 19 – Jerzy Andrzejewski, Polish author
- September 9 – Noel Barber, British novelist
- October 24 – Sheila Watson, Canadian novelist and critic
- November 12 – Laxmi Prasad Devkota, Nepali poet, playwright, and novelist
- November 26 – Eugène Ionesco, Romanian-born French playwright
- November 27 – James Agee, American writer
- December 7 – Alexandru Talex, Romanian journalist, critic and biographer
- December 14 – Ronald Welch, Welsh novelist and children's writer writing in English
- December 16 – Edgar Mittelholzer, Guyanese novelist
Deaths
- January 1 – Mollie Evelyn Moore Davis, American poet, writer, and editor
- January 14 – William à Beckett, English journalist
- January 22 – Hattie Tyng Griswold, American author
- February 11 – Russell Sturgis, American art critic
- March 24 – John Millington Synge, Irish dramatist and poet
- March 27 – John Davidson, Scottish poet
- April 9
- *Francis Marion Crawford, American novelist
- *Paschal Grousset, French journalist and science fiction writer
- April 12 – Algernon Charles Swinburne, English poet
- April 21 – Denys Corbet, Guernsey poet writing in Guernsey French and English
- April 26 – Marcus Dods, Scottish theologian
- May 18 – George Meredith, English novelist and poet
- June 11 – Jacob Mikhailovich Gordin, American dramatist
- June 24 – Sarah Orne Jewett, American writer
- July 8 – Albert Craig, English cricket writer
- July 9 – Rosa Nouchette Carey, English children's writer
- August 15 – Euclides da Cunha, Brazilian writer, shot
- August 18 – Theodore Martin, Scottish-born writer
- August 21 – George Cabot Lodge, American poet
- August 23 – Liu E, Chinese scholar, entrepreneur and novelist
- August 26 – George Manville Fenn, English novelist and educationalist
- September 4 – Clyde Fitch, American playwright
- September 19 – József Borovnyák, Slovene writer, politician and priest
- October 16 – Jakub Bart-Ćišinski, Upper Sorbian poet, writer, playwright and translator
- October 24 – Henry Charles Lea, American historian
- November 5 – H. L. Fischer, Pennsylvania German-language writer and translator
- November 18 – Renée Vivien, English-born French-language Symbolist poet
- December 14 – Frederick Greenwood, English novelist and journalist