1929 in literature

The year 1929 in literature involved some significant events and new books.

Events

• January 10 - The Adventures of Tintin: First appearance of Hergé's Belgian comic book hero Tintin as Tintin in the Land of the Soviets (Les Aventures de Tintin, reporter..., au pays des Soviets), begins serialization in children's newspaper supplement, Le Petit Vingtième.
• February–August - Voltaire's Candide (1759) is held to be obscene by the United States Customs Service in Boston.
• July 5 - Scotland Yard seizes 13 nude paintings by D. H. Lawrence from a Mayfair (London) gallery on grounds of indecency under the Vagrancy Act 1838.^[1]
• August - Censorship of Publications Act sets up the Censorship of Publications Board in the Irish Free State.
• Midyear - Serialization begins of one of the first original Thai novels (and the first by a woman) 'Dokmai Sot' (M. L. Bubpha Kunjara Nimmanhemin)'s Sattru Khǫng Čhaolon ("Her Enemy") followed shortly by publication of 'M. C. Akat' (Prince Arkartdam-keung Rapheephat)'s semi-autobiographical Lakhǫn Haeng Chiwit ("The Circus of Life"). Thai writers join with Kulap Saipradit in the Suphapburut literary group.^[2]
• October - Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir become a couple, having met for the first time while he studied at the École Normale Supérieure in Paris. Twenty-one-year-old de Beauvoir becomes the youngest person ever to obtain the agrégation in philosophy, and comes second in the final examination, beaten only by Sartre.
• October 29 - Release (in the United States) of the first sound film adaptation of a Shakespeare play, The Taming of the Shrew, starring Mary Pickford and her husband Douglas Fairbanks.
• December - George Orwell returns to England after living in Paris.
• The first of Margery Allingham's crime novels to feature Albert Campion, The Crime at Black Dudley (U.S. title: The Black Dudley Murder), is published in England.
• The first Ellery Queen mystery novel, The Roman Hat Mystery, is published in New York City.
• The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes is prohibited in the Soviet Union because of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's interest in the occult.
• The Faber and Faber publishing house is established in London by Geoffrey Faber with T. S. Eliot as literary editor.

New books

• Richard Aldington - Death of a Hero
• Hamilton Basso - Relics and Angels
• Vicki Baum - Menschen im Hotel ("People at a Hotel", translated as Grand Hotel)
• Anthony Berkeley
  • The Piccadilly Murder
  • The Poisoned Chocolates Case
• Mary Borden - The Forbidden Zone
• Elizabeth Bowen - The Last September
• Edgar Rice Burroughs - Tarzan and the Lost Empire
• Mateiu Caragiale - Craii de Curtea-Veche
• Agatha Christie
  • The Seven Dials Mystery
  • Partners in Crime (short story collection)
• Jean Cocteau - Les Enfants Terribles
• Colette - Sido
• Aleister Crowley - The Stratagem and other Stories
• Mazo de la Roche - Whiteoaks of Jalna
• Alfred Döblin - Berlin Alexanderplatz
• Lloyd C. Douglas - Magnificent Obsession
• Arthur Conan Doyle - The Maracot Deep
• Susan Ertz - The Milky Way
• William Faulkner - The Sound and the Fury
• Jessie Redmon Fauset - Plum Bun: A Novel Without a Moral
• Edna Ferber - Cimarron
• C. S. Forester - Brown on Resolution
• Zona Gale - Borgia
• Rómulo Gallegos - Doña Bárbara
• Floyd Gibbons - The Red Napoleon
• Henry Green - Living
• Julien Green - The Dark Journey
• Graham Greene - The Man Within
• Dashiell Hammett
  • The Dain Curse
  • Red Harvest
• Ernest Hemingway - A Farewell to Arms
• Richard Hughes - A High Wind in Jamaica
• Erich Kästner - Emil und die Detektive
• Anna Kavan - A Charmed Circle
• Eric P. Kelly - The Trumpeter of Krakow
• Oliver La Farge - Laughing Boy
• Nella Larsen - Passing
• Sinclair Lewis - Dodsworth
• Claude McKay - Banjo
• Alberto Moravia - Gli indifferenti ("Time of Indifference")
• Leopold Myers - The Near and the Far
• Peadar O'Donnell - Adrigool
• Katherine Anne Porter - Flowering Judas
• J. B. Priestley - The Good Companions^[3]
• Ellery Queen - The Roman Hat Mystery
• Erich Maria Remarque - All Quiet on the Western Front (Im Westen nichts Neues; book publication)
• O. E. Rolvaag - Peder Victorious
• John Steinbeck - Cup of Gold: A Life of Sir Henry Morgan, Buccaneer, With Occasional Reference to History
• Wallace Thurman - The Blacker the Berry
• Sigrid Undset - In the Wilderness
• Alison Uttley - The Squirrel, The Hare and the Little Grey Rabbit (introducing Little Grey Rabbit)
• S. S. Van Dine - The Scarab Murder Case
• Thomas Wolfe - Look Homeward, Angel

New drama

• Henri Bernstein - Mélo
• Bertolt Brecht - The Baden-Baden Lesson on Consent
• Patrick Hamilton - Rope
• Agha Hashar Kashmiri - Rustom O Sohrab
• Kaj Munk - I Brændingen
• Stanisława Przybyszewska - The Danton Case
• Elmer Rice - Street Scene
• Jean Giraudoux - Amphitryon 38
• George Bernard Shaw - The Apple Cart

Poetry

• Robinson Jeffers - Dear Judas and Other Poems
• W. B. Yeats - The Winding Stair

Non-fiction

• Ada Boni - Il talismano della felicità (The Talisman of Happiness)
• G. K. Chesterton - The Everlasting Man
• Mahatma Gandhi - The Story of My Experiments with Truth
• Robert Graves - Goodbye to All That
• Walter Lippmann - A Preface to Morals
• A. A. Milne - Those Were the Days
• Charles Kay Ogden - Basic English
• Alice Prin - Kiki's Memoirs
• I. A. Richards - Practical Criticism
• Various authors - Our Exagmination Round His Factification for Incamination of Work in Progress: essays in support of James Joyce
• E. B. White and James Thurber - Is Sex Necessary?
• Alfred North Whitehead - Process and Reality
• Virginia Woolf - A Room of One's Own

Births

• January 9 - Brian Friel, Irish dramatist
• January 26 - Jules Feiffer, American cartoonist and writer
• February 6 - Keith Waterhouse, English journalist and novelist (died 2009)
• February 17 - Chaim Potok, American author (died 2002)
• February 18 - Len Deighton, English novelist
• April 1 - Milan Kundera, Czech-French novelist
• May 16 - Adrienne Rich, American poet and essayist
• June 11 - George Garrett, American poet and novelist (died 2008)
• June 12 - Brigid Brophy, British novelist and critic (died 1995)
• June 20 - Anne Weale, English writer (died 2007)
• July 22 - U. A. Fanthorpe, English poet (died 2009)
• July 31 - Lynne Reid Banks, English novelist
• August 18 - Anatoly Kuznetsov, Russian dissident novelist (died 1979)
• August 21 - X. J. Kennedy, American poet and translator
• August 27 - Ira Levin, American novelist and playwright (died 2007)
• August 29 - Thom Gunn, Anglo-American poet (died 2004)
• October 21 - Ursula K. Le Guin, American science-fiction and fantasy author
• November 7 - Steve Carter, American playwright
• November 13 - Theo Aronson, South African-born British biographer (died 2003)
• December 12 - John Osborne, English playwright and screenwriter (died 1994)
• December 16 - James Moore, Cornish author
• December 19 - Howard Sackler, American dramatist and screenwriter (died 1982)

Deaths

• January 15 - Leonard Cline, novelist, poet and journalist (born 1893; heart failure)^[4]
• January 29 - Hans Prutz, German historian (born 1843)
• March 26 - Katharine Lee Bates, lyricist of "America the Beautiful" (born 1859)
• March 31 - Santeri Nuorteva, Soviet journalist and politician (born 1881)
• April 16 - Sir John Morris-Jones, Welsh grammarian and poet (born 1864)
• April 21 - Lucy Clifford, British novelist (born 1846)
• June 8 - Bliss Carman, Canadian poet (born 1861)
• June 18 - Vedam Venkataraya Sastry, Sanskrit and Telugu poet, critic and dramatist (born 1853)
• June 22 - Alfred Brunswig, German philosopher (born 1877)
• June 25 - Georges Courteline, French dramatist and novelist (born 1858)
• June 28 - Edward Carpenter, English poet (born 1844)
• July 15 - Hugo von Hofmannsthal, Austrian novelist and poet (born 1874)
• July 31 - José de Castro, Portuguese journalist (born 1868)
• August - Mary MacLane, Canadian feminist writer (born 1881)
• September 12 - Rainis, Latvian poet and playwright (born 1865)
• October 8 - Max Lehmann, German historian (born 1845)
• October 19 - Alexandru Davila, Romanian dramatist and diplomat (born 1862)
• December 10 - Harry Crosby, American publisher and poet (born 1898) (suicide)
• date unknown
  • Grace Rhys, Irish novelist and poet (born 1865)
  • Dallas Lore Sharp, American nature writer (born 1870)

Awards

• James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction: J. B. Priestley, The Good Companions
• James Tait Black Memorial Prize for biography: Lord David Cecil, The Stricken Deer: or The Life of Cowper
• Newbery Medal for children's literature: Eric P. Kelly, The Trumpeter of Krakow
• Newdigate prize: Phyllis Hartnoll
• Nobel Prize in literature: Thomas Mann
• O. Henry Award: Dorothy Parker, Big Blonde (short story)
• Pulitzer Prize for Drama: Elmer L. Rice, Street Scene
• Pulitzer Prize for Poetry: Stephen Vincent Benét, John Brown's Body
• Pulitzer Prize for the Novel: Julia Peterkin, Scarlet Sister Mary

References