1929 in literature

This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1929.

Events

January 10 – The Adventures of Tintin begin with the first appearance of Hergé's Belgian comic book hero in Tintin in the Land of the Soviets , serialized in the children's newspaper supplement Le Petit Vingtième.
February–August – Voltaire's Candide is held to be obscene by the United States Customs Service in Boston.
February – The first of Margery Allingham's crime novels to feature Albert Campion, The Crime at Black Dudley, is published in the UK.
March – Norah C. James's first novel, Sleeveless Errand, is held to be obscene on publication in London, for its portrayal of the city's bohemian life. An edition appears later in Paris from Jack Kahane's Obelisk Press.
April 1 – The Faber and Faber publishing company is founded in London by Geoffrey Faber, with T. S. Eliot as its literary editor.
April 29 – In the course of a domestic argument in London between poets and writers Robert Graves, Laura Riding, Geoffrey Phibbs and Graves's wife Nancy Nicholson, Riding and Graves jump from windows, she sustaining life-threatening injuries. Later this year, Graves and Riding go to live together in Mallorca.
May – Hugo Gernsback first uses the term "science fiction" in its modern sense, for his pulp magazine Amazing Stories.
c. June – The first of Gladys Mitchell's crime novels appears in the UK. Entitled Speedy Death, it introduces a psychologist detective character, Mrs Bradley.
July – British publisher William Collins, Sons launches its Detective Story Club imprint with Edgar Wallace's novelization of The Terror.
July 5 – Scotland Yard seizes 13 paintings of male and female nudes by D. H. Lawrence from a Mayfair, London, gallery on grounds of indecency, citing the Vagrancy Act 1838.
August – The Censorship of Publications Act sets up the Censorship of Publications Board in the Irish Free State.
August 15 – The first Ellery Queen mystery novel, The Roman Hat Mystery, is published in New York City.
Mid year – Serialization begins of one of the first Thai novels – the first by a woman, M. L. Bubpha Kunjara Nimmanhemin writing as Dokmai Sot – entitled Sattru Khǫng Čhaolon. Soon after comes the semi-autobiographical Lakhǫn Haeng Chiwit of Prince Arkartdam-keung Rapheephat, writing as M. C. Akat. Several Thai writers join Kulap Saipradit in the Suphapburut literary group.
October – Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir become a couple, having met while he studied at the École Normale Supérieure in Paris. Twenty-one-year-old De Beauvoir becomes the youngest person ever to obtain an agrégation in philosophy, and comes second in the final examination, beaten only by Sartre.
October 11 – Seán O'Casey's play The Silver Tassie, set in World War I, receives its première at the Apollo Theatre, London, directed by Raymond Massey. It stars Charles Laughton and Barry Fitzgerald, and has a set design by Augustus John. Rejected the year before by W. B. Yeats for the Abbey Theatre in Dublin, it will not open in Ireland until 1935.
October 5 – The New York Society for the Suppression of Vice confiscates copies of Samuel Roth's pirated edition of James Joyce's 1922 novel Ulysses – the first complete edition printed in the U.S. He serves two prison terms for publishing an obscene work.
October 29 – Released in the U.S. is the first sound film adaptation of a Shakespeare play: The Taming of the Shrew, starring Mary Pickford and her husband Douglas Fairbanks.
December – George Orwell returns to England after a period living in Paris.
unknown dates
*Norwegian poet Herman Wildenvey, born Herman Portaas, and his wife, fiction writer Gisken Wildenvey, born Jonette Andreassen, formally adopt the joint surname Wildenvey.
*Father Ronald Knox codifies the "rules" for the Golden Age of Detective Fiction in a "Decalogue" introducing The Best Detective Stories of 1928–1929.
*The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes is banned in the Soviet Union due to the interest its author, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, shows in the occult.
*Foyles bookshop in London moves to larger premises in the Foyles Building, Charing Cross Road.
*Monotype introduces Stanley Morison's revival of the Bembo typeface for book printing.

New books

Poetry

Robinson Jeffers – Dear Judas and Other Poems
W. B. Yeats – ''The Winding Stair''

Non-fiction

Ada Boni – Il talismano della felicità
Aleister Crowley – Magick in Theory and Practice
Mahatma Gandhi – The Story of My Experiments with Truth
Robert Graves – Good-Bye to All That
Walter Lippmann – A Preface to Morals
A. A. Milne – Those Were the Days
Tomas O'Crohan – oldwikisource:An t-Oileánach
Charles Kay Ogden – Basic English
Walter F. Otto – Die Götter Griechenlands
Alice Prin – Kiki's Memoirs
I. A. Richards – Practical Criticism
Various authors – Our Exagmination Round His Factification for Incamination of Work in Progress: essays in support of James Joyce
A. E. Waite – The Holy Kabbalah
E. B. White and James Thurber – Is Sex Necessary?
Alfred North Whitehead – Process and Reality
Virginia Woolf – ''A Room of One's Own''

Births

January 9
*Brian Friel, Irish dramatist
*Heiner Müller, German dramatist
January 26 – Jules Feiffer, American cartoonist and writer
February 6
* Keith Waterhouse, English journalist and novelist
* Valentin Yanin, Russian historian and author
February 16 – Peter Porter, Australian-born English poet and educator
February 17 – Chaim Potok, American author
February 18 – Len Deighton, English thriller writer
February 25 – Issa J. Boullata, Palestinian scholar and writer
March 1 – Thuppettan, Malayalam-language Keralan playwright
March 7 – Dan Jacobson, South African novelist
March 13 – Mateja Matevski, Macedonian poet, literary and theater critic, essayist and translator
March 18 – Christa Wolf, German literary critic, novelist and essayist
March 19 – Miquel Martí i Pol, Catalan poet
April 1 – Milan Kundera, Czech-French novelist
April 9 – Paule Marshall, born Valenza Pauline Burke, American novelist
April 23 – George Steiner, French-born literary critic and philosopher
April 26 – Jerzy Turonek, Polish-Belarusian historian
May 10
*Sándor Kányádi, Hungarian poet and translator
*Antonine Maillet, Acadian novelist, playwright, and scholar
May 14 – George Selden, American author
May 16 – Adrienne Rich, American poet and essayist
June 2 – Norton Juster, American children's writer and academic
June 11 – George Garrett, American poet and novelist
June 12
*Brigid Brophy, English novelist and critic
*Anne Frank, German-born Dutch child diarist
June 18 – Grigorijus Kanovičius, Jewish Lithuanian writer
June 20 – Anne Weale, English writer
June 25 – Eric Carle, American children's writer and illustrator
June 29 – Oriana Fallaci, Italian journalist and author
July 8
*Shirley Ann Grau, American short story writer
*A. T. Q. Stewart, Northern Irish historian and academic
July 12 – Tayeb Salih, Sudanese fiction writer and cultural commentator
July 22 – U. A. Fanthorpe, English poet
July 27 – Jack Higgins, English thriller writer
July 31 – Lynne Reid Banks, English novelist
August 5 – Al Alvarez, English writer and poetry editor
August 7 – Arrigo Petacco, Italian journalist and writer
August 14 – Thomas Meehan, American screenwriter
August 18 – Anatoly Kuznetsov, Russian dissident novelist
August 21 – X. J. Kennedy, American poet, author, editor and translator
August 27 – Ira Levin, American novelist and playwright
August 29 – Thom Gunn, Anglo-American poet
September 15 – John Julius Norwich, British historian and travel writer
September 25 – Barbara Walters, American journalist
September 30 – Leticia Ramos-Shahani, Filipino senator, writer
October 7 – Robert Westall, English novelist and children's writer
October 15 – Milorad Pavić, Serbian novelist
October 21
* Pierre Bellemare, French writer and radio personality
* Ursula K. Le Guin, American science fiction and fantasy author
October 23 – Shamsur Rahman, Bengali poet
October 30 – Jean Chapman, English novelist
November 6 – C. P. Taylor, Scottish playwright
November 7 – Steve Carter, American playwright
November 12 – Michael Ende, German novelist and children's writer
November 13 – Theo Aronson, South African-born British biographer
December 2 – Leon Litwack, American historian
December 12 – John Osborne, English playwright and screenwriter
December 16 – James Moore, English author
December 17 – William Safire, born Safir, American columnist
December 19 – Howard Sackler, American dramatist and screenwriter
December 23 – Monique Watteau, Belgian fantasy novelist and artist
December 24 – Philip Ziegler, English biographer and historian
December 30 – Lucien Xavier Michel-Andrianarahinjaka, Malagasy writer, politician
December 31 – Robert B. Silvers, American literary editor

Deaths

January — Anna Bowman Dodd, American author
January 15 – Leonard Cline, American novelist, poet and journalist
January 29 – Hans Prutz, German historian
February 6 – Charlotte Carmichael Stopes, Scottish writer and women's rights activist
March 7 – Auguste Groner, Austrian detective fiction writer
March 15 – Grace Rhys, Irish novelist and poet
March 28 – Katharine Lee Bates, American lyricist
March 31 – Santeri Nuorteva, Soviet journalist and politician
April 12 – Flora Annie Steel, English writer
April 16 – Sir John Morris-Jones, Welsh grammarian and poet
April 21 – Lucy Clifford, English novelist, dramatist and screenwriter
May 19 – Mary E. Mann, English novelist and short story writer
June 8 – Bliss Carman, Canadian poet
June 18 – Vedam Venkataraya Sastry, Sanskrit and Telugu poet, critic and dramatist
June 22–Ellen Thorneycroft Fowler, English writer of romances and children's books
June 25 – Georges Courteline, French dramatist and novelist
June 28 – Edward Carpenter, English socialist poet and philosopher
July 15 – Hugo von Hofmannsthal, Austrian novelist and poet
July 31 – José de Castro, Portuguese journalist
August – Mary MacLane, Canadian feminist writer
September 11 – Rainis, Latvian poet and playwright
September 19 – Francis Darwin, English botanist and academic
October – Arno Holz, German Naturalist poet and dramatist
October 8 – Max Lehmann, German historian
October 19 – Alexandru Davila, Romanian dramatist and diplomat
November 3 – Olav Aukrust, Norwegian poet and teacher
November 29 – Dallas Lore Sharp, American nature writer
December 10 – Harry Crosby, American publisher and poet
unknown dates
*Ella M. S. Marble, American physician
*Evelyn Whitaker, English children's writer

Awards

James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction: J. B. Priestley, The Good Companions
James Tait Black Memorial Prize for biography: Lord David Cecil, The Stricken Deer: or The Life of Cowper
Newbery Medal for children's literature: Eric P. Kelly, The Trumpeter of Krakow
Newdigate prize: Phyllis Hartnoll
Nobel Prize in Literature: Thomas Mann
O. Henry Award: Dorothy Parker, "Big Blonde"
Pulitzer Prize for Drama: Elmer L. Rice, Street Scene
Pulitzer Prize for Poetry: Stephen Vincent Benét, John Brown's Body
Pulitzer Prize for the Novel: Julia Peterkin, ''Scarlet Sister Mary''

1929 in literature

Events

New books

Fiction

Children and young people

Drama

Poetry

Non-fiction

Births

Deaths

Awards