1911 in literature

This article presents lists of the literary events and publications in 1911.

Events

• January – The journal Ay Qap begins publication monthly in Troitsk, promoting modern Kazakh literature and progressive thought (in Arabic script).
• February–March – Antisemitic riots in Paris over the staging of Henri Bernstein's Après moi by the Comédie-Française.^[1] Instigated by the far-right Action Française (led by writer Charles Maurras), in conjunction with the far-left Guerre Sociale.^[2]
• March – Filippo Tommaso Marinetti in Paris, announces planned Futurist conference; publishes Le futurisme manifesto at Sansot.^[3]
• April – Hugo Gernsback begins to publish his pioneering science fiction novel Ralph 124C 41+ in his monthly magazine Modern Electrics in the United States.
• c. April 8 – English poet Lascelles Abercrombie and his family move to live near Dymock in rural Gloucestershire, first of the Dymock poets.^[4]
• May 31 – French publishing house Éditions Gallimard founded in Paris by Gaston Gallimard as Les Éditions de la Nouvelle Revue Française (nrf). Its first publication is Paul Claudel's play L'Otage.
• Summer – Jaroslav Hašek begins publishing stories of The Good Soldier Švejk (Dobrý voják Švejk) in the Prague newspaper Karikatura edited by the illustrator Josef Lada.
• September 7 – Wilhelm Apollinaris de Kostrowitzky, who writes as "Guillaume Apollinaire", is suspected in the theft of the Mona Lisa from Louvre museum in Paris on August 21 and imprisoned for six days; this year he also publishes his first book of poetry, Le Bestiaire ou Cortège d'Orphée.^[5]
• October 16 – New building for Mitchell Library opens in Glasgow.^[6]
• October 17 – Rudolf Wilhelm Friedrich Ditzen, the later novelist Hans Fallada, kills his best friend in a suicide pact staged as a duel.
• November
  • The Kalem Company of New York agrees to pay the estate of author Lew Wallace $25,000 in legal settlement for having adapted Ben Hur (1907 film) from his novel without securing prior rights.
  • Virginia Stephen begins to share a London house at 38 Brunswick Square with other members of the Bloomsbury Group: Leonard Woolf (her future husband), Adrian Stephen (her brother), John Maynard Keynes and Duncan Grant.^[7]
• December 16 – The Copyright Act in the United Kingdom consolidates copyright law in the British Empire and confirms the six libraries in each of which a copy of every book published in the U.K. must be deposited by the publisher: the British Museum Library (London); the Bodleian Library (Oxford); the Advocates Library (Edinburgh); the National Library of Wales (Aberystwyth); Trinity College, Dublin; and Cambridge University Library.
• Irish novelist George Moore publishes Ave, the first part of his 3-volume autobiographical Hail and Farewell (last in 1914) in the same year that he leaves Dublin to settle in London.

New books

Births

• January 9 – Eva Alexanderson, Swedish novelist and translator (died 1994)
• January 18 – José María Arguedas, Peruvian author (died 1969)
• January 24
  • C. L. Moore, American science fiction author (died 1987)
  • L. Ron Hubbard, American science fiction writer, founder of Scientology (born 1986)
• February 4 – Geoffrey Willans, English novelist and comic writer (died 1958)
• February 8 – Elizabeth Bishop, American poet, Pulitzer Prize winner (died 1979)
• March 11 – Fitzroy Maclean, Scottish political writer and autobiographer (died 1996)
• March 16 – Sybille Bedford, German-born English novelist and journalist (died 2006)
• March 26 – Tennessee Williams, American playwright (died 1983)
• April 19 – Ursula Moray Williams, English children's writer (died 2006)
• April 8 – Emil Cioran, Romanian-born French philosopher and essayist (died 1995)
• May 15 – Max Frisch, Swiss author (died 1991)
• May 20 – Annie M. G. Schmidt, Dutch children's author (died 1995)
• May 28 – Fritz Hochwälder, Austrian playwright (died 1986)
• June 2 – Xiao Hong (Qiao Yin, 張廼瑩) Chinese author (died 1942)
• June 6 – Verna Aardema (Verna Norberg), American children's author (died 2000)
• June 30 – Czesław Miłosz, Lithuanian-born Polish author, Nobel Prize in Literature winner (died 2004)
• July 17 – Yang Jiang, Chinese playwright, author, and translator (died 2016)
• July 21 – Marshall McLuhan, Canadian media theorist (died 1980)
• July 22 – George Ivașcu, Romanian journalist, literary critic, and communist militant (died 1988)
• October 13 – Millosh Gjergj Nikolla, Albanian poet and writer (died 1938)
• November 2 – Odysseas Elytis, Greek poet, Nobel Prize winner (died 1996)
• November 19 – Mary Elizabeth Counselman, American author and poet (died 1995)
• December 11 – Naguib Mahfouz, Egyptian novelist, Nobel Prize in literature winner (died 2006)
• December 25 – Noel Langley, South African-born American screenwriter (died 1980)

Deaths

• January 23 – David Graham Phillips, American journalist and novelist (murdered, born 1867)
• February 7 – Hannah Whitall Smith, American Quaker author (born 1832)
• February 25 – Friedrich Spielhagen, German novelist, literary theorist and translator (born 1829)
• March 7 – Antonio Fogazzaro, Italian novelist (born 1842)
• April 14 – George Cary Eggleston, American memoirist (born 1839)
• April 25 – Emilio Salgari, Italian novelist (suicide, born 1862)^[8]
• April 30 – Stanisław Brzozowski, Polish philosopher, publicist and critic (tuberculosis, born 1878)
• May 9 – Thomas Wentworth Higginson, American writer, abolitionist and advocate of women's suffrage (born 1823)
• May 29 – W. S. Gilbert, English librettist, dramatist and comic poet (born 1836)
• June 10 – Adolf Wilbrandt, German novelist and dramatist (born 1837)
• July 21 – Philippe Monnier, Swiss writer in French (born 1864)
• September 4 – John Francon Williams, Welsh-born writer, historian, and cartographer (born 1854)
• September 5 – Katherine Thurston, Irish novelist (born 1875)
• September 9 – Francis March, American lexicographer and philologist (born 1825)
• October 8 – Hesba Stretton (Sarah Smith), English children's writer (born 1832)
• October 29 – Joseph Pulitzer, Hungarian-born American journalist and publisher (born 1847)
• November 9 – Howard Pyle, American children's author (born 1853)
• December 1 – Richard Barham Middleton, English poet and fiction writer (born 1882)
• December 13 – Henrietta Stannard, English novelist (writing as John Strange Winter, born 1856)
• December 29 – Rosamund Marriott Watson, English poet (born 1860)

Awards

• Nobel Prize for Literature: Count Maurice (Mooris) Polidore Marie Bernhard Maeterlinck, Belgian poet, playwright, and essayist

References

External links

• "100 years on: The best books of 1911", Stuart Kelly, The Scotsman, 24 December 2011