1896 in literature
The year 1896 in literature involved some significant new books.
Events
New books
New drama
Poetry
Non-fiction
Births
- January 7 - Arnold Ridley, dramatist and actor
- January 14 - John Dos Passos, novelist
- February 12 - Dorothy Frooks, author and publisher
- February 18 - André Breton, Surrealist poet and author
- April 16 - Tristan Tzara, poet and essayist
- May 3 - Dodie Smith, novelist and dramatist
- June 6 - R. C. Sherriff, dramatist
- July 19 - A. J. Cronin, novelist
- July 25 - Josephine Tey, crime writer
- August 28 - Liam O'Flaherty, novelist and short-story writer
- September 24 - F. Scott Fitzgerald, American writer (d. 1940)
- October 11 - Roman Jakobson, linguistic theorist
- October 30 - Ruth Gordon, actress and screenwriter (Adam's Rib)
- November 10 - Kate Seredy, children's author
Deaths
- January 8 - Paul Verlaine, poet
- January 17 - Lady Llanover, patron of the arts in Wales
- June 8 - Jules Simon, philosopher
- July 1 - Harriet Beecher Stowe, Uncle Tom's Cabin author
- July 11 - Ernst Curtius, historian
- July 16 - Edmond de Goncourt, dramatist
- August 17 - Mary Abigail Dodge, essayist
- October 3 - William Morris, poet, novelist and designer
- October 8 - George du Maurier, Trilby author
- November 26 - Coventry Patmore, poet
- December 10 - Alfred Nobel, founder of the Nobel Prize for Literature