1899 in literature

Moscow Art Theatre production of Uncle Vanya

• January 21 – The French actress Sarah Bernhardt, having taken over management of the Paris theatre she renames the Théâtre Sarah-Bernhardt, opens it 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.
• March 20 – W. H. Davies, "tramp-poet", loses his foot trying to jump on 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, still an art student at the time, travels to Moscow to meet Leo Tolstoy.
• May–December – The only work of fiction by the British politician Winston Churchill, 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, puts on its first production in Dublin, a version of Yeats' verse drama The Countess Cathleen.
• June 20 – The English writer Edward Thomas marries Helen Noble at Fulham register office.
• September 1 – The National Theatre in Norway opens with pieces by Holberg and 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. It records the kabuki actors Onoe Kikugorō V and Ichikawa Danjūrō IX performing a scene from the play Momijigari.

Broadway production of Ben-Hur

• 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 Russian 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 in practice the Library of Congress Classification (LCC) 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.

Uncertain dates

• Curtis Brown (literary agents) is established in London by the 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, is published as 巴黎茶花女遺事.
• Leo Tolstoy's last novel, Resurrection («Воскресение», Voskreseniye), is published serially in Niva.
• The 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.
• The Bulgarian language is officially codified.[3]

• 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
  • Kazi Nazrul Islam, Bengali poet (died 1976)
  • Henri Michaux, Belgian-born poet, writer and painter (died 1984)
• June 7 – Elizabeth Bowen, Irish-born English novelist and short-story writer (died 1973)
• 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
  • Hart Crane, American poet (died 1932)
  • Ernest Hemingway, American novelist (died 1961)
• 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)
• September 30 – Hendrik Marsman, Dutch poet (died 1940)
• 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
  • Harold Walter Bailey, English linguistics scholar (died 1996)
  • Noël Coward, English playwright (died 1973)
• December 18 – Peter Wessel Zapffe, Norwegian philosopher (died 1990)

Uncertain date

• Laurence Meynell (Valerie Baxter, A. Stephen Tring), English novelist and children's writer (died 1989)

• 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)

• Chancellor's Gold Medal – Arthur Cecil Pigou
• Newdigate Prize – Harold Edgeworth Butler[5]