1911 in literature

This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1911.

Events

January – The journal Ay Qap begins monthly publication in Arabic script in Troitsk, to promote modern Kazakh literature and progressive thought.
February–March – Antisemitic riots break out in Paris over the staging of Henri Bernstein's Après moi by the Comédie-Française, instigated by the far-right Action Française led by writer Charles Maurras, but in conjunction with the far-left Guerre Sociale.
March
* Filippo Tommaso Marinetti in Paris plans a Futurist conference and publishes a manifesto, Le futurisme, at Sansot.
* Publication in The Strand Magazine of the P. G. Wodehouse short story "Absent Treatment" introducing the character Reggie Pepper, a prototype for Bertie Wooster.
March 29 – The 1911 New York State Capitol fire in Albany destroys 700,000 books and documents belonging to the New York State Library.
April – Hugo Gernsback begins to publish his pioneering science fiction novel Ralph 124C 41+ in the monthly U.S. magazine Modern Electrics.
c. April 8 – The English poet Lascelles Abercrombie and his family move to near Dymock in rural Gloucestershire, as the first of the Dymock poets.
May 9 – The works of Gabriele D'Annunzio are placed on the Index of Forbidden Books by the Vatican.
May 31 – The French publishers Éditions Gallimard is founded in Paris by Gaston Gallimard as Les Éditions de la Nouvelle Revue Française. Its first publication is Paul Claudel's play L'Otage.
Summer – Jaroslav Hašek begins publishing stories of The Good Soldier Švejk in the Prague newspaper Karikatura, edited by the illustrator Josef Lada.
September 7 – Wilhelm Apollinaris de Kostrowitzky, writing as "Guillaume Apollinaire", is suspected in the theft of the Mona Lisa from the Louvre museum in Paris on August 21 and imprisoned for six days. This year he publishes his first book of poetry, Le Bestiaire ou Cortège d'Orphée.
October 16 – The new building for the Mitchell Library opens in Glasgow.
October 17 – Rudolf Wilhelm Friedrich Ditzen, the later German novelist Hans Fallada, kills his best friend in a suicide pact staged as a duel.
November
*The Kalem Company of New York agrees to pay the estate of author Lew Wallace $25,000 for having adapted Ben Hur (1907 film) from his novel without securing prior rights.
*Virginia Stephen begins to share her brother Adrian Stephen's London house at 38 Brunswick Square with other members of the Bloomsbury Group: Leonard Woolf, John Maynard Keynes and Duncan Grant.
December 16 – The U.K. Copyright Act consolidates copyright law in the British Empire and confirms the six libraries to which a copy of every book published in the U.K. must be deposited by the publisher: the British Museum Library ; the Bodleian Library ; the Advocates Library ; the National Library of Wales ; Trinity College Dublin; and Cambridge University Library.

New books

Non-fiction

Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition.
Wassily Kandinsky – Über das Geistige in der Kunst
Walter John Kilner – The Human Atmosphere
Jack London – The Cruise of the Snark
Filippo Tommaso Marinetti – Le futurisme
Robert Michels – Political Parties: A Sociological Study of the Oligarchical Tendencies of Modern Democracy
George Moore – Ave
John Muir – My First Summer in the Sierra
R. Scott-Moncrieff – The Household Book of Lady Grisell Baillie, 1692–1733
C. T. Onions – A Shakespeare Glossary
Percy Simpson – Shakespearean Punctuation
Rudolf Steiner – Mystics of the Renaissance
Evelyn Underhill – Mysticism: A Study of the Nature and Development of Man's Spiritual Consciousness
A. E. Waite
*The Pictorial Key to the Tarot
*''The Secret Tradition in Freemasonry''

Births

January 9 – Eva Alexanderson, Swedish novelist and translator
January 18 – José María Arguedas, Peruvian author
January 22 – Mary Hayley Bell, English dramatist
January 24
*C. L. Moore, American science fiction author
*L. Ron Hubbard, American science fiction writer, founder of Scientology
February 4 – Geoffrey Willans, English novelist and comic writer
February 8 – Elizabeth Bishop, American poet, Pulitzer Prize winner
February 17 – Margaret St. Clair, American science fiction writer
March 11 – Fitzroy Maclean, Scottish political writer and autobiographer
March 15 – Ursula Vaughan Williams, British poet, novelist and biographer
March 16 – Sybille Bedford, German-born English novelist and journalist
March 26 – Tennessee Williams, American playwright
April 8 – Emil Cioran, Romanian philosopher and essayist
April 19
*Frank Barlow, English historian, )
*Ursula Moray Williams, English children's writer
May 15 – Max Frisch, Swiss author
May 20 – Annie M. G. Schmidt, Dutch children's author
May 28 – Fritz Hochwälder, Austrian playwright
June 2 – Xiao Hong Chinese author
June 15 - Wilbert Awdry, British Anglican reverend and children's author
June 6 – Verna Aardema, American children's author
June 30 – Czesław Miłosz, Lithuanian-born Polish author, Nobel Prize in Literature winner
July 17 – Yang Jiang, Chinese playwright, author, and translator
July 21 – Marshall McLuhan, Canadian media theorist
July 22 – George Ivașcu, Romanian journalist, literary critic, and communist militant
July 27 – Rayner Heppenstall, English novelist and poet
September 19 – William Golding, British novelist, playwright and poet, Nobel Prize in Literature winner
October 13 – Millosh Gjergj Nikolla, Albanian poet and writer
November 2 – Odysseas Elytis, Greek poet, Nobel Prize winner
November 19 – Mary Elizabeth Counselman, American author and poet
December 4 – Robert Payne, English author, poet and biographer
December 11 – Naguib Mahfouz, Egyptian novelist, Nobel Prize in literature winner
December 25 – Noel Langley, South African-born American screenwriter

Deaths

January 23 – David Graham Phillips, American journalist and novelist
February 25 – Friedrich Spielhagen, German novelist, literary theorist and translator
March 7 – Antonio Fogazzaro, Italian novelist
April 14 – George Cary Eggleston, American memoirist
April 25 – Emilio Salgari, Italian adventure novelist
April 30 – Stanisław Brzozowski, Polish philosopher, publicist and critic
May 1 – Hannah Whitall Smith, American Quaker author
May 9 – Thomas Wentworth Higginson, American writer, abolitionist and advocate of women's suffrage
May 29 – W. S. Gilbert, English librettist, dramatist and comic poet
June 7 – Henry Abbey, American poet
June 10 – Adolf Wilbrandt, German novelist and dramatist
June 14 – Charlotte O'Conor Eccles, Irish-born London writer, translator and journalist
July 21 – Philippe Monnier, Swiss writer in French
September 4 – John Francon Williams, Welsh-born writer, historian, and cartographer
September 5 – Katherine Thurston, Irish novelist
September 9 – Francis March, American lexicographer and philologist
September 23 – John Arthur Barry, English author and journalist
October 6 – Martha D. Lincoln, American author and journalist
October 8 – Hesba Stretton, English children's writer
October 29 – Joseph Pulitzer, Hungarian-born American journalist and publisher
November 9 – Howard Pyle, American children's author
December 1 – Richard Barham Middleton, English poet and fiction writer
December 22 – Catharine H. T. Avery, American author, editor, and educator
December 13 – Henrietta Stannard, English novelist
December 29 – Rosamund Marriott Watson, English poet

Awards

Newdigate Prize: Roger Heath, "Achilles"
Nobel Prize for Literature: Maurice Maeterlinck, Belgian poet, playwright, and essayist
Prix Goncourt: Alphonse de Châteaubriant, ''Monsieur des Lourdines''

1911 in literature

Events

New books

Fiction

Children and young people

Drama

Poetry

Non-fiction

Births

Deaths

Awards