1909 in literature

• January – T. E. Hulme's poems "Autumn" and "A City Sunset" are included in the Poets' Club anthology For Christmas MDCCCCVIII, as the first examples of Imagism.
• January 15 – Filippo Tommaso Marinetti's drama La donna è mobile opens at the Teatro Alfieri, Turin.
• February 1 – The first issue appears of La Nouvelle Revue Française, a literary magazine founded in Paris by André Gide, Jacques Copeau, Jean Schlumberger, Gaston Gallimard, and others.[1]
• February 20 – Filippo Tommaso Marinetti's Futurist Manifesto first appears in the French newspaper Le Figaro.
• March 2 – Katherine Mansfield, while pregnant by another man, marries the singing teacher George Bowden, whom she barely knows. She leaves him the same evening to resume lesbian relations with Ida Baker.[2]
• April
  • The opening night of Filippo Tommaso Marinetti's drama Le Roi bombance (The Feasting King, written 1905) is heckled by the audience and the writer himself.
  • The German periodical Die Tat is founded by Ernst Horneffer.[3]
• April 24 – The Metropolitan Library (京师图书馆, Jīngshī Túshūguǎn) in Beijing, predecessor of the National Library of China, is founded by the Qing government.
• September 6 – Israel Zangwill's play The Melting Pot opens in New York City.
• September 23 – Gaston Leroux's novel The Phantom of the Opera (Le Fantôme de l'Opéra) begins serialization in the Paris newspaper Le Gaulois.
• September 29 – Franz Kafka's short story "The Aeroplanes at Brescia (Die Aeroplane in Brescia)", based on a real event, is published in the Prague newspaper Bohemia, as the first description of airplanes in German literature.[4]
• November – E. M. Forster's science fiction short story "The Machine Stops" is published in The Oxford and Cambridge Review.

Uncertain date

• Rasmus Rasmussen, writing as Regin í Líð, publishes the first Faroese language novel, Babelstornið (The Tower of Babel).

• January 20 – Mae Virginia Cowdery, African American poet (died 1953)
• January 18 – Oskar Davičo, Serbian novelist and poet (died 1989)
• January 29 – Phoebe Hesketh (Phoebe Rayner), English poet (died 2005)
• February 15 – Miep Gies (Hermine Santruschitz), Austrian-born biographer (died 2010)
• February 24 – August Derleth, American anthologist (died 1971)
• March 17 – Margiad Evans, Anglo-Welsh poet, novelist and illustrator (died 1958)
• March 22 – Gabrielle Roy, French Canadian author (died 1983)
• March 28 – Nelson Algren, American novelist (died 1981)
• March 31 – Robert Brasillach, French author (died 1945)
• April 8 – John Fante, American novelist (died 1983)
• May 1 – Yiannis Ritsos, Greek poet (died 1990)
• May 5 – Miklós Radnóti, Hungarian poet (died 1944)
• May 9 – Robert Garioch, Scottish poet (died 1981)
• June 6 – Isaiah Berlin, German philosopher (died 1997)
• June 19 – Osamu Dazai (太宰 治), Japanese author (died 1948)
• June 28 – Eric Ambler, English novelist (died 1998)
• July 1 – Juan Carlos Onetti, Uruguayan writer (died 1994)
• July 8 – Petar Šegedin, Croatian diplomat, novelist and essayist (died 1998)
• July 17 – G. P. Wells, son and co-author of H. G. Wells (died 1985)
• July 28 – Malcolm Lowry, English novelist (died 1957)
• July 29 – Chester Himes, American writer (died 1984)
• July 30 – C. Northcote Parkinson, English historian and author (died 1993)
• August 3 – Walter Van Tilburg Clark, American novelist (died 1971)
• August 11 – Uku Masing, Estonian religious philosopher, linguist and writer (died 1985)
• August 19 – Jerzy Andrzejewski, Polish author (died 1983)
• October 24 – Sheila Watson (Sheila Doherty), Canadian novelist and critic (died 1998)
• November 12 – Laxmi Prasad Devkota, Nepali poet, playwright, and novelist (died 1959)
• November 26 – Eugène Ionesco (Eugen Ionescu), Romanian-born French playwright (died 1994)
• November 27 – James Agee, American writer (died 1955)
• December 14 – Ronald Welch (Ronald Oliver Felton), Welsh novelist and children's writer writing in English
• December 16 – Edgar Mittelholzer, Guyanese novelist (suicide 1965)

• January 14 – William à Beckett, English journalist (born 1844)
• February 11 – Russell Sturgis, American art critic (born 1836)
• March 24 – John Millington Synge, Irish dramatist and poet (born 1871)
• March 27 (probable) – John Davidson, Scottish poet (born 1857)
• April 9
  • Francis Marion Crawford, American novelist (born 1854)
  • Paschal Grousset, French journalist and science fiction writer (born 1844)
• April 12 – Algernon Charles Swinburne, English poet (born 1837)
• April 21 – Denys Corbet, Guernsey poet writing in Guernsey French and English (born 1826)
• April 26 – Marcus Dods, Scottish theologian (born 1834)
• May 18 – George Meredith, English novelist and poet (born 1828)
• June 11 – Jacob Mikhailovich Gordin, American dramatist (born 1853)
• July 8 – Albert Craig (The Surrey Poet), English cricket writer (born 1850)
• July 9 – Rosa Nouchette Carey, English children's writer (born 1840)
• August 15 – Euclides da Cunha, Brazilian writer, shot (born 1866)
• August 18 – Theodore Martin, Scottish-born writer (born 1816)
• August 21 – George Cabot Lodge, American poet (born 1873)[6]
• August 23 – Liu E (劉鶚, Liu O), Chinese scholar, entrepreneur and novelist (born 1857)
• August 26 – George Manville Fenn, English novelist and educationalist (born 1831)
• September 4 – Clyde Fitch, American playwright (born 1865)
• September 19 – József Borovnyák, Slovene writer, politician and priest (born 1826)
• October 16 – Jakub Bart-Ćišinski, Upper Sorbian poet, writer, playwright and translator (born 1856)
• October 24 – Henry Charles Lea, American historian (born 1825)
• November 18 – Renée Vivien, English-born French-language Symbolist poet (born 1877)
• December 14 – Frederick Greenwood, English novelist and journalist (born 1830)

Uncertain date

• H. L. Fischer, Pennsylvania German-language writer and translator (born 1822)

• Nobel Prize in Literature: Selma Lagerlöf (first female recipient)
• Newdigate prize: Frank Ashton-Gwatkin
• Knighthood: Arthur Wing Pinero