1939 in literature
This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1939.
Events
- Early – The Pocket Books mass-market paperback imprint is launched in the United States. The first of the nationally distributed titles is James Hilton's Lost Horizon.
- January
- *American literary magazine The Kenyon Review is founded and edited by John Crowe Ransom.
- *The American pulp science fiction magazine Startling Stories appears, edited by Mort Weisinger. It includes The Black Flame by Stanley G. Weinbaum as lead novel.
- *Eando Binder's story "I, Robot" appears in the U.S. science fiction magazine Amazing Stories.
- *The Criterion, a British literary quarterly, is founded and edited by T. S. Eliot.
- *W. H. Auden and Christopher Isherwood set sail from England for the United States.
- January/February – Poetry London: a Bi-Monthly of Modern Verse and Criticism, founded and edited by Tambimuttu, is first published.
- February 6 – Raymond Chandler's California private detective Philip Marlowe is introduced in his first full-length work of crime fiction, The Big Sleep, which reworks elements from earlier short stories. It is published by Alfred A. Knopf in the United States.
- March – Isaac Asimov's first published short story, "Marooned off Vesta", appears in Astounding Science-Fiction magazine.
- March 4 – BBC Television broadcasts one of the first specially written television plays, Condemned To Be Shot by R. E. J. Brooke, live from its London studios at Alexandra Palace. The production notably uses a camera as the first-person view by the play's unseen central character.
- March 31 – 20th Century Fox releases a film version of The Hound of the Baskervilles, first of a Sherlock Holmes film series starring Basil Rathbone as Sherlock Holmes and Nigel Bruce as Dr Watson.
- April 13 – The United Artists film version of Wuthering Heights, starring Merle Oberon and Laurence Olivier, is released.
- May – Jorge Luis Borges' first short story in his later characteristic style, "Pierre Menard, autor del Quijote", is published in the Buenos Aires literary magazine Sur.
- May 4 – James Joyce's last work, Finnegans Wake, is published in full by Faber and Faber in London.
- May 15 – Russian writer Isaac Babel is arrested by the NKVD at his dacha as part of the Great Purge in the Soviet Union, and incarcerated in the Lubyanka Building in Moscow.
- c. August – Ernest Vincent Wright publishes his lipogrammatic novel Gadsby, "a story of over 50,000 words without using the letter 'E'", in Los Angeles a few months before his death on October 7.
- August
- *Mikhail Bulgakov, while secretly working on The Master and Margarita, prepares the propaganda play Batumi, to romanticize events in Joseph Stalin's youth. The project is shelved by Stalin himself once Bulgakov announces he will interview witnesses personally.
- *Robert A. Heinlein's first published short story, "Life-Line", appears in Astounding Science-Fiction.
- Before September – After a pledge drive led by Renaud de Jouvenel and Lucien Lévy-Bruhl, the Romanian poet Benjamin Fondane is naturalized French and in September conscripted into the French Army, to serve in the Phony War.
- September 2 – Jean-Paul Sartre is conscripted into the French Army, where he will serve as a meteorologist.
- September 3 – Yorkshire-born novelist and playwright J. B. Priestley reads the first installment of his novel Let the People Sing, a celebration of local democracy, on BBC Home Service radio in the UK, the day war is declared.
- September 18 – The Polish painter, playwright and novelist Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz commits suicide after the Soviet invasion of Poland.
- September/October – Famous Fantastic Mysteries, a pulp magazine reprinting American science fiction and fantasy, begins publication in New York.
- Fall – Frank Herbert lies about his age to get his first job as a local newspaper reporter.
- November – The teenage Brendan Behan is arrested in Liverpool for possessing explosives.
- November 8 – Lindsay and Crouse's stage adaptation of Clarence Day's Life with Father opens at the Empire Theatre (42nd Street) in New York. Running until 12 July 1947, it becomes the all-time longest-running non-musical play in Broadway theatre.
- November/December – Captain Marvel makes his first appearance, in Whiz Comics #2.
New books
—From ''Finnegans Wake''Fiction
- Eric Ambler – The Mask of Dimitrios
- Sholem Asch – The Nazarene
- William Attaway – Let Me Breathe Thunder
- H. E. Bates – My Uncle Silas
- Arna Wendell Bontemps – Drums at Dusk
- Pearl S. Buck – The Patriot
- Karel Čapek – Život a dílo skladatele Foltýna
- Joyce Carey – Mister Johnson
- John Dickson Carr
- *The Black Spectacles
- *The Problem of the Wire Cage
- *The Reader is Warned
- *Drop to His Death
- Aimé Césaire – "Cahier d'un retour au pays natal"
- Raymond Chandler – The Big Sleep
- James Hadley Chase – No Orchids for Miss Blandish
- Agatha Christie
- *Murder is Easy
- *The Regatta Mystery and Other Stories
- *Ten Little Niggers
- G.D.H. Cole and Margaret Cole – Greek Tragedy
- Cecil Day-Lewis – The Smiler with the Knife
- Jeffrey Dell – Nobody Ordered Wolves
- Pierre Drieu La Rochelle – Gilles
- John Fante – Ask the Dust
- William Faulkner – If I Forget Thee Jerusalem (The Wild Palms/Old Man)
- Vardis Fisher – Children of God
- Zona Gale – Magna
- Konstantine Gamsakhurdia – The Right Hand of the Grand Master
- Rumer Godden – Black Narcissus
- Henry Green – Party Going
- Yaroslav Halan – The Mountains are Smoking
- Cyril Hare – Suicide Excepted
- Ernest Hemingway – The Snows of Kilimanjaro
- Rayner Heppenstall – The Blaze of Noon
- Anne Hocking – Old Mrs. Fitzgerald
- Zora Neale Hurston – Moses, Man of the Mountain
- Aldous Huxley – After Many a Summer
- Christopher Isherwood – Goodbye to Berlin
- James Joyce – Finnegans Wake
- Arthur Koestler – The Gladiators
- Richard Llewellyn – How Green Was My Valley
- H. P. Lovecraft – The Outsider and Others
- Ngaio Marsh – Overture to Death
- Henry Miller – Tropic of Capricorn
- Gladys Mitchell – Printer's Error
- Christopher Morley – Kitty Foyle
- Ian Niall – Wigtown Ploughman
- Anaïs Nin – Winter of Artifice
- Flann O'Brien – At Swim-Two-Birds
- John O'Hara – Files on Parade
- Juan Carlos Onetti – El pozo
- George Orwell – Coming Up for Air
- Ellery Queen – The Dragon's Teeth
- Katherine Anne Porter – Pale Horse, Pale Rider
- Clayton Rawson – The Footprints on the Ceiling
- Seymour Reit – The Friendly Ghost
- Jean Rhys – Good Morning, Midnight
- Dorothy L. Sayers – In the Teeth of the Evidence
- Pierre Schaeffer – Chlothar Nicole
- John Steinbeck – The Grapes of Wrath
- Gladys Bronwyn Stern – The Woman in the Hall
- Rex Stout – Some Buried Caesar
- Cecil Street – Death on Sunday
- Jan Struther – Mrs. Miniver
- Phoebe Atwood Taylor – Cold Steal
- Dalton Trumbo – Johnny Got His Gun
- S. S. Van Dine – The Winter Murder Case
- Simon Vestdijk – Sint Sebastiaan
- Elio Vittorini – Conversations in Sicily
- Nathanael West – The Day of the Locust
- Ernest Vincent Wright – Gadsby
- Marguerite Yourcenar – ''Coup de Grâce''
Children and young people
- Ludwig Bemelmans – Madeline
- Enid Blyton – The Enchanted Wood
- Edgar Rice Burroughs – Tarzan the Magnificent
- Lavinia R. Davis – Hobby Horse Hill
- Hardie Gramatky – Little Toot
- Carolyn Haywood – "B" is for Betsy
- Robert Lawson – Ben and Me: An Astonishing Life of Benjamin Franklin By His Good Mouse Amos
- Hilda Lewis – The Ship That Flew
- Lucy Maud Montgomery – Anne of Ingleside
- Violet Needham – The Black Riders
- Carola Oman – Alfred, King of the English
- Arthur Ransome – We Didn't Mean To Go To Sea
- Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings – The Yearling
- Joan G. Robinson – A Stands for Angel
- Felix Salten – Bambis Kinder, eine Familie in Walde
- Alison Uttley – A Traveller in Time
- Laura Ingalls Wilder – By the Shores of Silver Lake
- Ursula Moray Williams – ''Adventures of the Little Wooden Horse''
Drama
- Philip Barry – The Philadelphia Story
- Bertolt Brecht
- *Life of Galileo
- *Mother Courage and Her Children
- Mikhail Bulgakov – Batumi
- Max Catto – Punch without Judy
- T. S. Eliot – The Family Reunion
- Jean Giraudoux – Ondine
- Ian Hay – Little Ladyship
- Frank Harvey – Saloon Bar
- Lillian Hellman – The Little Foxes
- George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart – The Man Who Came to Dinner
- Joseph Kesselring – Arsenic and Old Lace
- Clare Boothe Luce – Margin for Error
- Hugh Mills and Wells Root – As You Are
- William Saroyan – The Time of Your Life
Poetry
- W. H. Auden
- *Journey to a War
- *"September 1, 1939"
- Vladimir Cavarnali – Răsadul verde al inimii stelele de sus îl plouă
- Aimé Césaire – Cahier d'un retour au pays natal
- T. S. Eliot – Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats
- José Gorostiza – Muerte sin fin
- Javier del Granado – Rosas Pálidas
- Changampuzha Krishna Pillai – Rahtapuspangal
- Christopher Smart – ''Jubilate Agno''
Non-fiction
- Adrian Bell – Men and the Fields
- Lord David Cecil – The Young Melbourne and the Story of his Marriage with Caroline Lamb
- Savitri Devi – A Warning to the Hindus
- Norbert Elias – The Civilizing Process
- Mary Lascelles – Jane Austen and Her Art
- Erwin Panofsky – Studies in Iconology
- Ed Ricketts – Between Pacific Tides
- Antoine de Saint-Exupéry – Wind, Sand and Stars
- Ronald Syme – The Roman Revolution
- Bill W. and Dr. Bob – The Big Book
- Gamel Woolsey – ''Death's Other Kingdom''
Births
- January 10 – Jared Carter, American poet and author
- January 12 – Jacques Hamelink, Dutch poet, novelist and literary critic, best known for short stories
- January 29 – Germaine Greer, Australian-born feminist author
- February 19 – Erin Pizzey, English novelist and founder of world's first domestic violence shelter
- February 25 – Gerald Murnane, Australian novelist
- March 15 – Alicia Freilich, Venezuelan novelist
- March 25 – Toni Cade Bambara, African-American writer
- April 10 – Penny Vincenzi, née Hannaford, English novelist
- April 12 – Alan Ayckbourn, English dramatist
- April 13 – Seamus Heaney, Irish poet
- April 22 – Jason Miller, American playwright and actor
- May 4 – Amos Oz, né Klausner, Israeli author
- June 5 – Margaret Drabble, English novelist
- June 14 – Penelope Farmer, English children's writer
- June 15 – Brian Jacques, English writer
- July 2 – Ferdinand Mount, English journalist and novelist
- July 27 – Michael Longley, Northern Irish poet
- August 1 – Robert James Waller, American novelist
- September 6 – Dan Cragg, American science-fiction author
- September 16 – Breyten Breytenbach, South African writer and painter
- September 9 – Ed Victor, American-born literary agent
- September 24 – Jacky Gillott, English novelist
- October 6 – Melvyn Bragg, English novelist, critic and broadcast presenter
- October 7 – Clive James, Australian writer, humorist and television personality
- October 8 – Harvey Pekar, American memoirist and graphic-novel scriptwriter
- October 9 – John Pilger, Australian-born journalist and documentary filmmaker
- October 28 – Giulio Angioni, Italian writer and anthropologist
- October 29 – Malay Roy Choudhury, Bengali poet, novelist and creator of the Indian Hungry generation literary and cultural movement
- November 17 – Auberon Waugh, English journalist and novelist
- November 18 – Margaret Atwood, Canadian novelist and poet
- November 25 – Shelagh Delaney, English dramatist
- December 3 – Lee Israel, American biographer and literary forger
- December 11 – Thomas McGuane, American writer
- December 18 – Michael Moorcock, English science fiction writer
Deaths
- January 8 – Caton Theodorian, Romanian dramatist and novelist
- January 27 - Lewis Jones, Welsh miners' leader and novelist
- January 28 – W. B. Yeats, Irish poet
- February 2 – Amanda McKittrick Ros, Irish novelist and poet noted for her purple prose
- February 5 - Teresa Mañé, Spanish teacher, editor and writer
- February 18 – Okamoto Kanoko, Japanese tanka poet
- February 22 – Antonio Machado, Spanish poet
- March 7 – Ludwig Fulda, German playwright and poet, suicide
- March 23 – Richard Halliburton, American travel writer
- April 5 – Sibyl Marvin Huse, French-born American author and teacher.
- April 11 – S. S. Van Dine, American crime novelist and art critic
- May 23 – Margarete Böhme, German novelist
- May 27 – Joseph Roth, Austrian novelist
- June 5 – Solomon Cleaver, Canadian storyteller and novelist
- June 13 – Volter Kilpi, Finnish novelist
- June 14 – Vladislav Khodasevich, Russian poet and critic
- June 26 – Ford Madox Ford, English novelist
- July 5 – Mrs. O. F. Walton, English writer of Christian children's books
- July 8 – Havelock Ellis, English sexual psychologist and writer
- August 7 – Leonard Merrick, English novelist
- August 15 – Federico Gamboa, Mexican diplomat and writer
- August 20 – Agnes Giberne, English children's writer
- August 23
- * Sidney Howard, American writer
- * Robin Hyde, South African-born New Zealand poet and novelist, suicide
- August 31 – Wilhelm Bölsche, German journalist, editor and science writer
- September 6 – Arthur Rackham, English book illustrator
- September 7 - Kyōka Izumi, Japanese author
- September 19 – Ethel M. Dell, English romantic novelist
- October 23 – Zane Grey, American western novelist
- October 29 – Dwight B. Waldo, American educator and historian
- November – Pedro Nolasco Cruz Vergara, Chilean literary critic, novelist, writer, and politician
- November 6 – Eliza D. Keith, American educator, author, and journalist
- December 2 – Llewelyn Powys, English novelist and autobiographer
- December 13 – Frances Brackett Damon, American writer
- unknown dates
- *Anna Braden, American author, editor, elocutionist
- *Mary Frances Dowdall, English novelist and non-fiction writer
- *Culai Neniu, Moldovan folklorist and dramatist
Awards
- Carnegie Medal for children's literature: Eleanor Doorly, The Radium Woman
- James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction: Aldous Huxley After Many a Summer Dies the Swan
- James Tait Black Memorial Prize for biography: David C. Douglas, English Scholars
- Newbery Medal for children's literature: Elizabeth Enright, Thimble Summer
- Nobel Prize in Literature: Frans Eemil Sillanpää
- Pulitzer Prize for Drama: Robert E. Sherwood, Abe Lincoln in Illinois
- Pulitzer Prize for Poetry: John Gould Fletcher, Selected Poems
- Pulitzer Prize for the Novel: Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, ''The Yearling''