1900 in literature

This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1900.

Events

March 5 – New York performances of the play Sapho curbed for immorality.
March 15 – Sarah Bernhardt stars in premiere of Edmond Rostand's l'Aiglon.
May
*Rainer Maria Rilke makes his second visit to Russia with Lou Andreas-Salomé and her husband.
*The first film to feature the detective character Sherlock Holmes, Sherlock Holmes Baffled, is released by the American Mutoscope and Biograph Company.
May 17 – L. Frank Baum's The Wonderful Wizard of Oz is published in Chicago, the first of Baum's books chronicling the fictional Land of Oz for children.
June 24 – The Hanlin Academy in Peking, housing "the oldest and richest library in the world", catches fire and is destroyed during the Boxer Rebellion.
June 25 – The Taoist monk Wang Yuanlu discovers the Dunhuang manuscripts in the Library Cave or Cave for Preserving Scriptures, No. 17 of the Mogao Caves in north-west China, where they have been sealed since the early 11th century.
July 1 – The Net Book Agreement comes into force in the U.K: publishers will supply booksellers only on condition that they do not retail the supplied books at a discounted rate.
October 15 – Mark Twain ends an absence from the United States of some nine years when he returns to New York aboard the Atlantic Transport Line steamship Minnehaha.
November 1 – Ermete Novelli opens the "Casa di Goldoni", a new theatre in imitation of the Comédie Française, at Rome.
November 19 – August Strindberg's To Damascus receives its première at the Royal Dramatic Theatre in Stockholm with August Palme and Harriet Bosse, Strindberg's future wife, in the leading rôles.
unknown dates
*In Austrian-Hungarian Bosnia, Osman Nuri Hadžić issues Behar, the first Bosnian Muslim literary journal, promoting liberal Islam within the Islamic revival movement.
*The first film of Hamlet is an adaptation of the duel scene, with the French actress Sarah Bernhardt playing the title rôle.

New books

Poetry

English Verse 1250–1900
G. K. Chesterton – The Wild Knight and Other Poems
Sir Walter Scott, Bart. – The Poems and Ballads
Ismail Hossain Shiraji – ''Anal Prabaha''

Non-fiction

William "Cocktail" Boothby – The World's Drinks And How To Mix Them
Mirza Muhammad Yusuf Ali – Nur al-Iman
Winston Churchill
*Ian Hamilton's March
*London to Ladysmith via Pretoria
Arthur Conan Doyle – The Great Boer War
Nicolae Iorga
*Opinions sincères
*Opinions pérnicieuses d'un mauvais patriote
Gertrude Jekyll – Home and Garden
Andrew Lang
*A History of Scotland, vol. 1
*Prince Charles Edward
Guide Michelin
Joaquim Nabuco – My Formation
The Nuttall Encyclopaedia
José Enrique Rodó - Ariel
Samuel Marinus Zwemer – ''Arabia: The Cradle of Islam''

Births

January – Elisabeth Inglis-Jones, Welsh novelist and biographer
January 9
*Emmanuel D'Astier, French journalist
*Eve Garnett, English children's writer and illustrator
January 11 – Borden Chase, American writer
January 15 – William Heinesen, Faroese writer
January 21 – Jack Hilton, English writer
January 31 – Clare Hoskyns-Abrahall, English biographer and children's writer
February 4 – Jacques Prévert, French poet
February 19 – Giorgos Seferis, Greek poet
February 22 – Seán Ó Faoláin, Irish short story writer
March 7 – Benn Levy, English playwright and politician
March 15 – Gilberto Freyre, Brazilian author
April 19 – Richard Hughes, English novelist
April 20 – Constantin S. Nicolăescu-Plopșor, Romanian anthropologist, ethnographer and children's writer
April 22 – Vyvyan Adams, English writer and politician
April 24 – Elizabeth Goudge, English novelist and children's author
April 26 – Roberto Arlt, Argentine novelist, playwright and journalist
April 28 – Antonieta Rivas Mercado, Mexican feminist writer and patron of the arts
May 1 – Ignazio Silone, Italian author and politician
May 6 – Garrett Mattingly, American historian
May 24 – Eduardo De Filippo, Italian author
May 28 – Nan Chauncy, English-born Australian children's writer
June 7 – Jan Engelman, Dutch writer
June 11 – Leopoldo Marechal, Argentine writer
June 19 – Ștefan Voitec, Romanian politician and journalist
June 25 – Gerald Drayson Adams, English screenwriter
June 29 – Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, French novelist
July 2 – Tyrone Guthrie, English theatrical director
July 18 – Nathalie Sarraute, Russian-born Francophone lawyer and writer
July 24 – Zelda Fitzgerald, American author
August 10 – Charles Shaw, Australian writer
August 17 – Mary Paik Lee, Korean-American writer
September 7 – Taylor Caldwell, Anglo-American novelist
September 9 – James Hilton, English novelist
September 17 – Martha Ostenso, Norwegian-born Canadian novelist and screenwriter
October 3 – Thomas Wolfe, American novelist
October 16 – Edward Ardizzone, English children's writer and illustrator
October 30 – Xia Yan, Chinese playwright and screenwriter
November 8 – Margaret Mitchell, American novelist
November 19 – Anna Seghers, German writer
December 8 – Ants Oras, Estonian writer
December 16 – V. S. Pritchett, English short story writer
unknown date – Saira Elizabeth Luiza Shah, Scottish writer

Deaths

January 4 – Stanisław Mieroszewski, Polish-born politician, historian and writer
January 11 – James Martineau, English religious philosopher
January 19 – William Larminie, Irish poet and folklorist
January 20
* R. D. Blackmore, English novelist
* John Ruskin, English art critic, social thinker, artist and poet
January 25 – Frederick H. Chapin, American author and explorer
February 6 – Elijah Benamozegh, Italian spiritual writer and rabbi
February 14 – Giovanni Canestrini, Italian scientist, essayist and translator
February 18 – Eugenio Beltrami, Italian mathematician and theorist
February 23 – Ernest Dowson, English poet and novelist
March 11 – Joseph Louis François Bertrand, French mathematics writer
March 30 – David Léon Cahun, French Orientalist and writer
April 5 – Maria Louise Eve, American author
April 12 – James Richard Cocke, American author and hypnotherapist
April 21 – Charles Beecher, American composer, minister and writer
April 23 – Charles Isaac Elton, English historian, politician and writer
April 27 – Francišak Bahuševič, Belarusian poet, writer and lawyer
April 30 – George Campbell, 8th Duke of Argyll, Scottish politician and writer
May 4 – Hugo Badalić, Croatian writer and scholar
May 20 – André Léo, French novelist and journalist
May 28 – Sir George Grove, English writer and lexicographer on music
June 2 – Clarence Cook, American author and art critic
June 3 – Mary Kingsley, English travel writer and explorer
June 4 – Edwards Amasa Park, American theologian, pastor and writer
June 5 – Stephen Crane, American writer, journalist and poet
June 12 – Lucretia Peabody Hale, American journalist and author
June 19 – Salvador Camacho, Colombian economist, politician and writer
July 3 – Fernand Brouez, Belgian editor and founder of La Société Nouvelle
July 6 – Gustav Jacob Born, German medical author and histologist
July 22 – Lucius E. Chittenden, American writer and politician
July 29 – Henry Spencer Ashbee, English writer and bibliographer
August 2 – Sydney Robert Bellingham, Irish-Canadian journalist and politician
August 16 – José Maria de Eça de Queiroz, Portuguese novelist
August 25 – Friedrich Nietzsche, German philosopher and philologist
August 28 – Henry Sidgwick, English philosopher
September 18 – Anne Beale, Welsh novelist and poet
September 29 – Samuel Fenton Cary, American author and prohibitionist
October 13 – Louis Adolphe Cochery, French journalist and politician
October 20
* Naim Frashëri, Albanian poet
* Charles Dudley Warner, American writer
October 27 – James Henry Bowker, South African naturalist
November 12 – F. Burge Griswold, American poet and short story writer
November 12 – Thomas Arnold the Younger, English literary scholar
November 14 – Matthew J. Royal, Canadian novelist and playwright
November 16 – Isidore Barthe, French-Canadian journalist and translator
November 27 – David Carnegie, Australian travel writer
November 30 – Oscar Wilde, Irish poet, dramatist and short story writer
December 15 – Charles Cotesworth Beaman, American lawyer and author
December 30 – Henry Ames Blood, American poet, dramatist and historian
December 31 – Oscar Alin, Swedish historian, politician and author
unknown date – Berdakh, Uzbek poet

1900 in literature

Events

New books

Fiction

Children and young people

Drama

Musicals

Poetry

Non-fiction

Births

Deaths