1934 in literature

This article presents lists of the literary events and publications in 1934.

Events

• January 7 – The first Flash Gordon comic strip is published in the United States.
• January 25 – Following its acquittal the previous month in United States v. One Book Called Ulysses, James Joyce's novel Ulysses is first published in an authorized edition in the Anglophone world by Random House of New York. It has 12,000 advance sales.^[1]
• January – B. Traven's novel The Death Ship (1926) is first published in English.
• February – Stefan Zweig flees Austria and settles in London.
• February 6 – The February 6 riots in France, partly provoked by a performance of Shakespeare's Coriolanus by the Comédie-Française; they will become the focus of a cult in the works far-right authors, notably Death on Credit by Louis-Ferdinand Céline (1936) and Gilles by Pierre Drieu La Rochelle (1939); also in 1934, Drieu announces his conversion to fascism, with the essay Socialisme fasciste.^[2]
• March 16 & October 5 – P. G. Wodehouse's Thank You, Jeeves and Right Ho, Jeeves, the first Jeeves stories written as full-length novels, are published.
• April – F. Scott Fitzgerald's fourth and final completed novel, Tender Is the Night, is published in book form in New York on conclusion of its serialization in the monthly Scribner's Magazine (since January).
• April 3 – English literary biographer Thomas Wright (of Olney) first publishes some facts concerning Charles Dickens' relationship with the actress Ellen Ternan (writing in the Daily Express).^[3]
• April 6 – Rudyard Kipling and W. B. Yeats are awarded the Gothenburg Prize for Poetry.
• May 1 – The first officially designated Thingplatz for the performance of Thingspiele is dedicated in the Brandberge in Halle (Nazi Germany).^[4]
• June
  • A medieval manuscript of Le Morte d'Arthur used by Caxton is identified in the Fellows' Library of Winchester College (England) by schoolmaster and bibliophile Walter Fraser Oakeshott.^[5]
  • English poet Laurie Lee walks out one midsummer morning from his Gloucestershire home bound for Spain.
• July 17 – Circular Manchester Central Library, England, opened.
• August – Boris Pasternak and Korney Chukovsky are among those present at the first Congress of the Soviet Union of Writers.
• September – Henry Miller's novel Tropic of Cancer is published in Paris by the Obelisk Press; the United States Customs Service prohibits its import into the U.S.^[6]
• October 24 – The first of Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe detective novels, Fer-de-Lance, is published in New York (and also abridged in The American Magazine for November under the title "Point of Death.")
• November 20 – Lillian Hellman's first successful play, The Children's Hour, with a theme of accusations of lesbianism, is premiered at the Maxine Elliott Theatre on Broadway in New York where it will run for 2 years.
• December 25 – Romanian novelist Panait Istrati, formerly a communist, begins his collaboration with the quasi-fascist Cruciada Românismului, with a polemic against antisemitism.^[7] The weekly newspaper, edited by Mihai Stelescu and Alexandru Talex, later hosts pieces by Constantin Virgil Gheorghiu.^[8]
• Two notable gentleman detective series characters of the Golden Age of Detective Fiction set in England are introduced:
  • The first book featuring Inspector Roderick Alleyn of Scotland Yard, A Man Lay Dead, is published by Ngaio Marsh (at this time resident in her native New Zealand) in London.
  • The first Sir Henry Merrivale locked room mystery, The Plague Court Murders, is published by John Dickson Carr (at this time resident in England) writing as "Carter Dickson" in New York around early June, followed in December by The White Priory Murders.
• The first three volumes of Mikhail Sholokhov's novel And Quiet Flows the Don are first published in English under this title.

New books

Births

• January 12 – Alan Sharp, Scottish-American screenwriter and author (died 2013)^[10]
• February 10
  • Fleur Adcock, New Zealand-born poet
  • Gordon Lish, American writer, editor and teacher
• February 18 – Audre Lorde, American poet, writer and feminist (died 1992)
• February 27 – N. Scott Momaday, Native American novelist
• March 28 – Jean Louvet, Belgian dramatist
• April 24 – Jayakanthan, Tamil writer, Jnanpith awardee (died 2015)
• May 10 – Richard Peck, American novelist (died 2015)
• May 12 – Elechi Amadi, Nigerian novelist (died 2016)
• May 27 – Harlan Ellison, American science fiction writer
• June 11 – Lady Annabel Goldsmith, English memoirist and socialite
• July 11 – Helen Cresswell, English children's writer and scriptwriter (died 2005)
• July 13 – Wole Soyinka, Nigerian writer, playwright and Nobel laureate
• July 21 – Jonathan Miller, English satirist and non-fiction author
• August 5 – Wendell Berry, American poet, novelist, and activist
• August 6
  • Piers Anthony, English science fiction and fantasy writer
  • Diane di Prima, American poet of the Beat Generation and artist
• August 16 – Diana Wynne Jones, English children's fantasy novelist (died 2011)
• September 11 – Leon Rooke, Canadian novelist
• September 21 – Leonard Cohen, Canadian-born poet, singer-songwriter and novelist (died 2016)
• October 1 – Shakeb Jalali, Pakistani poet in Urdu (suicide 1966)
• October 17 – Alan Garner, English children's novelist
• October 24 – Adrian Mitchell, English poet, playwright, and children's author (died 2008)
• November 9 – Ronald Harwood (Ronald Horwitz), South African-born English dramatist and screenwriter
• November 12 – John McGahern, Irish novelist (died 2006)
• November 19 – Joanne Kyger, American poet
• November 21 – Beryl Bainbridge, English novelist (died 2010)
• December 28 – Alasdair Gray, Scottish novelist and artist
• Unknown dates
  • Muhammad al-Maghut, Syrian Ismaili poet (died 2006)
  • Yaakov Shabtai, Israeli novelist, playwright, and translator (died 1981)

Deaths

• January 1 – Jakob Wassermann, German-Jewish novelist (born 1873)
• January 6 – Dorothy Edwards, Welsh novelist (suicide, born 1903)
• January 8 – Andrei Bely (Boris Nikolaevich Bugaev), Russian novelist, poet and critic (born 1880)
• January 11 – Helen Zimmern, German-born English writer and translator (born 1846)
• January 15 – Hermann Bahr, Austrian dramatist and critic (born 1863)
• February 8 – Ferenc Móra, Hungarian novelist and journalist (born 1879)
• March 10 – Thomas Anstey Guthrie (F. Anstey), English comic novelist and journalist (born 1856)
• April 9 – Safvet-beg Bašagić, Bosnian poet (born 1870)
• April 12 – Robert Clyde Packer, Australian journalist and newspaper magnate (heart failure, born 1879)
• May 1 – Paul Zarifopol, Romanian critic (born 1874)
• June 14 – John Gray, English poet (born 1866)
• June 21 – Thorne Smith, American humorist and fantasy author (heart attack, born 1892)
• June 26 – Naito Torajiro (内藤 虎次郎), Japanese historian (born 1866)
• June 30 – Night of the Long Knives
  • Fritz Gerlich, German journalist (murdered, born 1883)
  • Karl-Günther Heimsoth, Austrian doctor and gay publicist (shot, born 1899)
  • Willi Schmid, German music critic (murdered, born 1893)^[11]
• July 4 – Hayim Nahman Bialik, Hebrew-language poet (born 1873)
• July 21 – Julian Hawthorne, American journalist and novelist (born 1846)
• July 23 – Karl Joel, German philosopher (born 1864)
• July 29 – Frane Bulić, Croatian historian (born 1846)
• August 13 – Mary Hunter Austin, American travel writer (born 1868)
• September 9 – Roger Fry, English art critic (born 1866)
• September 21 – Gheorghe Bogdan-Duică, Romanian literary critic (born 1866)
• November 23 – Arthur Wing Pinero, English dramatist (born 1855)
• December 15 – Gustave Lanson, French historian and literary critic (born 1857)
• December 26 – Wallace Thurman, African American novelist (TB, born 1902)

Awards

• James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction: Robert Graves, I, Claudius and Claudius the God
• James Tait Black Memorial Prize for biography: J. E. Neale, Queen Elizabeth
• King's Gold Medal for Poetry instituted this year with first winner, Laurence Whistler
• Newbery Medal for children's literature: Cornelia Meigs, Invincible Louisa
• Nobel Prize for literature: Luigi Pirandello.
• Pulitzer Prize for Drama: Sidney Kingsley, Men in White
• Pulitzer Prize for Poetry: Robert Hillyer: Collected Verse
• Pulitzer Prize for the Novel: Caroline Miller – Lamb in His Bosom

References