1909 in literature

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This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1909.

Events

• 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.
• 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.
• 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.
• 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.
• November – E. M. Forster's science fiction short story "The Machine Stops" is published in The Oxford and Cambridge Review.
• November 2 – First English-language performance of a play by Anton Chekhov opens, The Seagull, translated and directed by George Calderon, by the Glasgow Repertory Theatre company at the Royalty Theatre, Glasgow.
• unknown date – Babelstornið (The Tower of Babel), by Rasmus Rasmussen, writing as Regin í Líð, becomes the first Faroese language novel to be published.

New books

Fiction

• Florence Barclay – The Rosary
• Maurice Barrès – Colette Baudoche
• André Billy – La Derive
• Algernon Blackwood
  • The Education of Uncle Paul
  • Jimbo: A Fantasy
• René Boylesve – La Jeune Fille bien élevée (The Well-raised Girl)
• Hall Caine – The White Prophet
• Gilbert Cannan – Peter Homunculus
• Ion Luca Caragiale – Kir Ianulea
• Robert W. Chambers – The Danger Mark
• Herbert Croly – The Promise of American Life
• Em Kol Chai (Chava Shapiro) – Kovetz Tziurim (קבץ ציורים, A Collection of Sketches)
• Concha Espina – That Luzmela Girl
• Charles Hoy Fort – The Outcast Manufacturers
• Anatole France – Balthazar
• Jacques Futrelle – Elusive Isabel
• John Galsworthy – Fraternity
• Charles Garvice – A Fair Impostor
• Robert Hichens – Bella Donna
• Olha Kobylianska – V Nediliu Rano Zillia Kopala (She Gathered Herbs on Sunday Morning)
• Maurice Leblanc – The Hollow Needle
• Gaston Leroux – Le fauteuil hanté (The Haunted Chair)
• Jack London – Martin Eden
• John Masefield – Multitude and Solitude
• Silas Weir Mitchell – The Red City
• Baroness Orczy
  • The Nest of the Sparrowhawk
  • The Old Man in the Corner
• Randall Parrish – My Lady of the South
• Eden Phillpotts – The Haven
• Luigi Pirandello – I vecchi e i giovani (The Old and the Young, part 1)
• Władysław Reymont – Chłopi (The Peasants; publication completed)
• Stein Riverton – Jernvognen (The Iron Carriage)
• Olivia Shakespear – Uncle Hilary
• Gertrude Stein – Three Lives
• Gene Stratton-Porter – A Girl of the Limberlost
• Hermann Sudermann – The Song of Songs
• Mark Twain – Captain Stormfield's Visit to Heaven (book publication)
• Edgar Wallace
  • Captain Tatham of Tatham Island
  • The Duke in the Suburbs
• Robert Walser – Jakob von Gunten
• Mary Augusta Ward – Daphne
• H. G. Wells
  • Ann Veronica
  • Tono-Bungay
• Mabel Osgood Wright – Poppea of the Post Office

Children and young people

• L. Frank Baum
  • The Road to Oz
  • Aunt Jane's Nieces at Work (as Edith Van Dyne)
• Angela Brazil – The Nicest Girl in the School
• Lucy Maud Montgomery – Anne of Avonlea
• Beatrix Potter
  • The Tale of the Flopsy Bunnies
  • The Tale of Ginger and Pickles
• P. G. Wodehouse – Mike

Drama

Poster by Oskar Kokoschka advertising the première of his play

• Paul Armont and Nicolas Nancey – Théodore et Cie
• Sem Benelli – The Jester's Supper (La cena delle beffe)
• Clyde Fitch – The City
• John Galsworthy – Strife
• Harley Granville-Barker – The Madras House
• Cicely Hamilton – A Pageant of Great Women
• Agha Hashar Kashmiri – Khwab-e-Hasti (The Dream World of Existence)
• Oskar Kokoschka – Murderer, the Hope of Women (Mörder, Hoffnung der Frauen)
• Else Lasker-Schüler – Die Wupper (published)
• André de Lorde – L'horrible expérience
• Ferenc Molnár – Liliom
• Quintero brothers – El patinillo
• George Bernard Shaw – The Shewing-Up of Blanco Posnet

Poetry

Main article: 1909 in poetry

• Guillaume Apollinaire – L'Enchanteur pourrissant (The Putrifying Enchanter)
• François Mauriac – Les Mains jointes (Clasped Hands)
• John Millington Synge – Poems and Translations

Non-fiction

• Henry James – Italian Hours
• William James – A Pluralistic Universe
• Jane's All the World's Aircraft (first annual edition)
• I. M. E. Blandin - History of Higher Education of Women in the South, Prior to 1860
• Daniel Jones – The Pronunciation of English
• C. I. Scofield (ed.) – Scofield Reference Bible
• Charlotte Fell Smith – John Dee, 1527–1608
• Eraclie Sterian – În noaptea nunții (On Your Wedding Night)
• A. E. Waite – The Hidden Church of the Holy Graal
• Alice Zimmern – Women's Suffrage in Many Lands

Births

• 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 6 – Stanisław Jerzy Lec, Polish aphorist and poet (died 1966)
• 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-born philosopher (died 1997)
• June 19 – Osamu Dazai (太宰 治), Japanese author (died 1948)
• June 28 – Eric Ambler, English spy novelist (died 1998)
• June 29 – C. Hamilton Ellis, English writer (died 1987)
• 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, English zoologist, 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)
• September 9 – Noel Barber, British novelist (died 1988)
• 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 7 – Alexandru Talex, Romanian journalist, critic and biographer (died 1998)
• December 14 – Ronald Welch (Ronald Oliver Felton), Welsh novelist and children's writer writing in English (died 1982)
• December 16 – Edgar Mittelholzer, Guyanese novelist (suicide 1965)

Deaths

• January 1 – Mollie Evelyn Moore Davis, American poet, writer, and editor (born 1844)
• January 14 – William à Beckett, English journalist (born 1844)
• January 22 – Hattie Tyng Griswold, American author (born 1842)
• 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)
• June 24 – Sarah Orne Jewett, American writer (born 1849)
• 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)
• 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 5 – H. L. Fischer, Pennsylvania German-language writer and translator (born 1822)
• November 18 – Renée Vivien, English-born French-language Symbolist poet (born 1877)
• December 14 – Frederick Greenwood, English novelist and journalist (born 1830)

Awards

• Chancellor's Gold Medal: Dennis Holme Robertson
• Nobel Prize in Literature: Selma Lagerlöf (first female recipient)
• Newdigate Prize: Frank Ashton-Gwatkin
• Knighthood: Arthur Wing Pinero
• Prix Goncourt: Marius-Ary Leblond, En France