This article presents lists of the literary events and publications in 1899.
Events
- January 21 – French actress Sarah Bernhardt, having taken over management of the Paris theatre which she renames the Théâtre Sarah-Bernhardt, opens in the title rôle of Victorien Sardou's La Tosca. On May 20 she premières an adaptation of Shakespeare's Hamlet with herself in the title rôle (sic.)
- March 20 – W. H. Davies, "tramp-poet", loses his foot trying to jump a freight train at Renfrew, Ontario.[1]
- April – Karl Kraus establishes the radical periodical Die Fackel ("The Torch") in Vienna.
- April–June – Rainer Maria Rilke (an art student at this time) travels to Moscow to meet Leo Tolstoy.
- May–December – Winston Churchill's only work of fiction, Savrola: A Tale of the Revolution in Laurania, is serialized in Macmillan's Magazine.
- May 8 – The Irish Literary Theatre, founded by W. B. Yeats, Augusta, Lady Gregory, George Moore and Edward Martyn, stages its first performance in Dublin, a version of Yeats' verse drama The Countess Cathleen.
- June 20 – English writer Edward Thomas marries Helen Noble at Fulham register office.
- September 1 – The National Theatre in Norway opens with performances of pieces by Holberg and of Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson's 1862 trilogy Sigurd Slembe.
- September – The British Mutoscope and Biograph Company's King John (a very short silent film starring Herbert Beerbohm Tree) becomes the first known film based on a Shakespeare play.
- November – The oldest surviving Japanese film, Momijigari, is shot by Tsunekichi Shibata in Tokyo as a record of kabuki actors Onoe Kikugorō V and Ichikawa Danjūrō IX performing a scene from the play Momijigari.
- November 6 – William Gillette's play Sherlock Holmes, based on the writings of Arthur Conan Doyle, opens in New York City with himself in the title rôle.
- November 7 (October 26 Old Style) – Anton Chekhov's Uncle Vanya receives its metropolitan première at the Moscow Art Theatre with Konstantin Stanislavski directing and playing the rôle of Astrov and Olga Knipper as Yeléna.
- December 12 – Herbert Putnam is appointed Librarian of Congress in the United States, where he will introduce into practice the Library of Congress Classification scheme.
- December – The imprisoned William Sydney Porter's pseudonym O. Henry first appears over the short story "Whistling Dick's Christmas Stocking" in this month's McClure's Magazine.
- Curtis Brown (literary agents) established in London by American Albert Curtis Brown.
- Edgar Rice Burroughs begins working in his father's business.
- Simon Pokagon's O-gi-maw-kwe Mit-I-gwa-ki (Queen of the Woods) is published, the first novel both by and about Native Americans in the United States.[2]
- Arthur Machen's wife Amy dies after a long illness, an event that has a devastating effect on him.
- Lin Shu's first translation into Chinese from a Western text, The Lady of the Camellias as 巴黎茶花女遺事, is published.
- Leo Tolstoy's last novel, Resurrection («Воскресение», Voskreseniye), is published serially in Niva.
- First series of the Arden Shakespeare under the general editorship of W. J. Craig begins publication by Methuen in London with an edition of Hamlet edited by Edward Dowden.
- Bulgarian language officially codified.[3]
New books
Children and young people
Births
- January 17 – Nevil Shute (Nevil Shute Norway), English novelist (died 1960)
- February 3 – Lao She, Chinese author (died 1966)
- February 23 – Erich Kästner, German children's author (died 1974)
- March 8 – Eric Linklater, Welsh-born Scottish novelist and travel writer (died 1974)
- March 19 – Aksel Sandemose, Danish novelist (died 1965)
- March 25 – Jacques Audiberti, French playwright (died 1965)
- April 22 – Vladimir Nabokov, Russian-born novelist (died 1977)
- May 8 – Friedrich Hayek, Austrian-born social scientist (died 1992)
- May 18 – D. Gwenallt Jones, Welsh poet died 1968)
- May 24
- June 18 – Eugène Vinaver, Russian-born English literary scholar (died 1979)
- July 1 – James Lennox Kerr (Peter Dawlish, Gavin Douglas), Scottish novelist and children's writer (died 1963)
- July 8 – G. B. Edwards, Guernsey-born writer (died 1976)
- July 11 – E. B. White, American children's writer and writer on style (died 1985)
- July 21
- August 9 – P. L. Travers (Helen Lyndon Goff), Australian children's writer (died 1996)
- August 24 – Jorge Luis Borges, Argentinian writer (died 1986)
- August 27 – C. S. Forester, Egyptian-born English adventure novelist (died 1966)
- October 19 - Miguel Ángel Asturias, (died 1974)
- November 10 – Kate Seredy, Hungarian-born American children's writer and illustrator (died 1975)
- November 17 – Roger Vitrac, French surrealist playwright and poet (died 1952)
- December 9 – Jean de Brunhoff, French children's author and illustrator (died 1937)
- December 16
- December 18 – Peter Wessel Zapffe, Norwegian philosopher (died 1990)
- Unknown date
- Laurence Meynell (Valerie Baxter, A. Stephen Tring), English novelist and children's writer (died 1989)
Deaths
- February 10 – Archibald Lampman, Canadian poet (born 1861)
- March 16 – Alexander Balloch Grosart, Scottish literary editor (born 1827)
- May 1 – Ludwig Büchner, German philosopher (born 1824)
- May 16 – Francisque Sarcey, French journalist and theater critic (born 1827)
- June 7 – Augustin Daly, American dramatist and theater manager (born 1838)
- June 30 – E. D. E. N. Southworth, American novelist (born 1819)
- July 18 – Horatio Alger, Jr., American novelist and children's author (born 1832)
- August 27 – Vendela Hebbe, Swedish journalist and novelist (born 1808)
- August 29 – Catharine Parr Traill, English-born Canadian author (born 1802)
- October 25 – Grant Allen, Canadian science writer and novelist (born 1848)
- October 27 – Florence Marryat, English novelist and entertainer (born 1833)
- November 2 – Anna Swanwick, English feminist writer (born 1813)
- November 13 – Arthur Giry, French historian (born 1848)
- December 17 – Bernard Quaritch, German-born English bibliographer and bookseller (born 1819)
- December 18 – Bonifaciu Florescu, Romanian polygraph (ventricular hypertrophy, born 1848)
- December 22 – Dwight L. Moody, American preacher and publisher (born 1837)
References
- ↑ Moult, Thomas (1934). W. H. Davies. London: Thornton Butterworth.
- ↑ MacKay, K. L. "Native American Literature – selected bibliography". Retrieved 2014-02-21.
- ↑ Price, Glanville (2000). Encyclopedia of the Languages of Europe. Wiley-Blackwell. p. 45.
- ↑ Hilary Fraser, "Dilke, Emilia Francis, Lady Dilke (1840–1904)", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford, UK: OUP, 2004) Retrieved 2 September 2017, pay-walled
- ↑ Harold Edgeworth Butler, Arcadia, the Newdigate Prize Poem, 1899. B. H. Blackwell, 1899