1926 in literature

This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1926.

Events

February 8 – Seán O'Casey's play The Plough and the Stars opens at the Abbey Theatre, Dublin. At the February 11 performance there is a near-riot: one audience member strikes an actress.
February 12 – The Irish Free State Minister for Justice, Kevin O'Higgins, appoints a Committee on Evil Literature.
February 26 – The future English novelist Graham Greene is received into the Catholic Church.
April 1 – Hugo Gernsback launches his pioneering science fiction magazine Amazing Stories in the United States.
May 11 – C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien first meet in Oxford.
October 10 – Mikhail Bulgakov's novel The White Guard, partly serialized in Rossiya before the magazine's suppression earlier in the year, opens as a dramatic adaptation, The Days of the Turbins, at the Moscow Art Theatre. It is enjoyed by Stalin.
October 14 – The children's book Winnie-the-Pooh by A. A. Milne first appears, published by Methuen in London.
November – George Bernard Shaw initially declines the 1925 Nobel Prize in Literature stating "I can forgive Nobel for inventing dynamite, but only a fiend in human form could have invented the Nobel prize". He later changes his mind and accepts the honour, but refuses to receive the prize money. Shaw recommends that the prize money instead be used to fund the translation of works by Swedish playwright August Strindberg to English.
December 3 – The English detective story writer Agatha Christie disappears from her home in Surrey. On December 14 she is found at a Harrogate hotel by the journalist Ritchie Calder, staying under her husband's mistress's surname.
December – Thomas Mann begins writing Die Geschichten Jaakobs in Munich, first of the tetralogy Joseph and His Brothers, on which he will work until January 1943.
unknown dates
*Antonin Artaud and Roger Vitrac establish the Théatre Alfred-Jarry in Paris to produce surrealist drama.
*The Bread Loaf Writers' Conference is founded in Middlebury, Vermont.
*Vsevolod Meyerhold stages an expressionistic production of Gogol's satirical comedy The Government Inspector in Moscow.
*Margaret Mitchell begins the novel Gone with the Wind, which will appear 1936.
*The remains of the English poet Isaac Rosenberg are re-interred at Bailleul Road East Cemetery, Plot V, St. Laurent-Blangy, Pas de Calais, France.
*Peter Llewelyn Davies establishes the London publishing house Peter Davies Ltd.

New books

Births

January 5 – W. D. Snodgrass, American poet
January 12 – Shumon Miura, Japanese novelist
January 13 – Michael Bond, English fiction writer and creator of Paddington Bear
January 14 – Tom Tryon, American actor and novelist
January 27 – Fritz Spiegl, Austrian-born musician and writer
February 3 – Richard Yates, American novelist
February 8 – Neal Cassady, American writer and poet
February 20 – Richard Matheson, American science fiction writer
March 3 – James Merrill, American poet
March 7 – Chemmanam Chacko, Indian poet
March 24 – Dario Fo, Italian dramatist and actor
March 27 – Frank O'Hara, American poet
March 31 – John Fowles, English novelist
April 3 – Luís de Sttau Monteiro, Portuguese novelist and dramatist
April 11 – Franz Herre, German biographer
April 12 – Khozh-Akhmed Bersanov, Chechen ethnographer
April 13 – Egon Wolff, Chilean dramatist
April 23
*J. P. Donleavy, Irish American novelist
*Éva Janikovszky, Hungarian novelist and children's writer
April 28 – Harper Lee, American novelist
April 30 – Edmund Cooper, British poet and author
May 15 – English twins
*Anthony Shaffer, dramatist and screenwriter
*Peter Shaffer, dramatist
May 21 – Robert Creeley, American author
June 3 – Allen Ginsberg, American Beat Generation poet
June 4 – Ain Kaalep, Estonian poet, playwright and critic
June 13
*Kanam EJ, Malayalam novelist and lyricist
*Dalmiro Sáenz, Argentinian writer
June 19 – Giangiacomo Feltrinelli, Italian publisher
July 7 – Spencer Holst, American writer and storyteller
July 11 – Frederick Buechner, American author and minister
July 18 – Elizabeth Jennings, English poet
August 6 – Elisabeth Beresford, English children's author
August 12 – Wallace Markfield, American comic novelist
August 13 – Roy Heath, Guyanese novelist
August 14
*Alice Adams, American short story writer
*René Goscinny, French writer and co-creator of Astérix
September 3 – Alison Lurie, American novelist and academic
September 6 – Clancy Sigal, American writer
September 14 – Michel Butor, French writer
September 16 – John Knowles, American novelist
October 2 – Jan Morris, born James Morris, Anglo-Welsh historian and travel writer
October 15 – Evan Hunter, American author and screenwriter
November 5 – John Berger, English art critic and novelist
November 11
*José Manuel Caballero, Spanish novelist and poet
*Harold Perkin, English social historian
November 19 – Barry Reckord, Jamaican playwright
November 20 – John Gardner, English thriller writer
November 25 – Poul Anderson, American science fiction writer
December 23 – Robert Bly, American writer

Deaths

January 14
*René Boylesve, French author
*August Sedláček, Czech historian
January 26 – Bucura Dumbravă, Romanian novelist and spiritualist
February 1 – Ishibashi Ningetsu, Japanese author and critic
February 6 – Wolf Wilhelm Friedrich von Baudissin, German theologian
February 12 – Radu Rosetti, Romanian politician, historical novelist and memoirist
March 3 – Sir Sidney Lee, English biographer
May 9 – J. M. Dent, English publisher
May 21 – Ronald Firbank, English novelist
May 23 – Sigrid Elmblad, Swedish author and translator
May 26 – Srečko Kosovel, Slovenian Expressionist poet
June 27 – Addie C. Strong Engle, American author and publisher
July 8 – Karel Václav Rais, Czech realist novelist
July 11 – Fran Detela, Slovenian academic and writer
July 14 – Elisabeth Cavazza, American author, journalist, and music critic
July 19 – Ada Cambridge, English/Australian writer and poet
July 22 – John Burland Harris-Burland, British writer
August 1 – Israel Zangwill, English poet
October 5 – Javier de Viana, Uruguayan writer
October 9 – Helena Nyblom, Danish-born poet and writer of fairy tales
October 11 – Albert Robida, French illustrator and novelist
November 10 – Lyubov Dostoyevskaya, Russian memoirist
December 8 – Sarah Doudney, English novelist, children's writer and hymnist
December 12 – Jean Richepin, French poet, dramatist and novelist
December 29 – Rainer Maria Rilke, German poet
unknown date
*Emma Whitcomb Babcock, American litterateur and author
*Susanne Vandegrift Moore, American editor and publisher

Awards

James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction: Radclyffe Hall, Adam's Breed
James Tait Black Memorial Prize for biography: Herbert Brook Workman, John Wyclif: A Study of the English Medieval Church
Newbery Medal for children's literature: Arthur Bowie Chrisman, Shen of the Sea
Nobel Prize for Literature: Grazia Deledda
Pulitzer Prize for Drama: George Kelly, Craig's Wife
Pulitzer Prize for Poetry: Amy Lowell, What's O'Clock
Pulitzer Prize for the Novel: Sinclair Lewis, Arrowsmith
Blindman International Poetry Prize: Ruth Manning-Sanders, ''The City''

1926 in literature

Events

New books

Fiction

Children and young people

Drama

Poetry

Non-fiction

Births

Deaths

Awards