1899 in literature

The year 1899 in literature involved some significant new books.

Events

Moscow Art Theatre production of Uncle Vanya

• January 21 - French actress Sarah Bernhardt, having taken over management of the Paris theatre which she renames the Théâtre Sarah-Bernhardt, opens 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 (sic.)
• March 20 - W. H. Davies, "tramp-poet", loses his foot trying to jump 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 (an art student at this time) travels to Moscow to meet Leo Tolstoy.
• May–December - Winston Churchill's only work of fiction, 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, stages its first performance in Dublin, a version of Yeats' verse drama The Countess Cathleen.
• June 20 - English writer Edward Thomas marries Helen Noble at Fulham register office.
• September 1 - The National Theatre in Norway opens with performances of pieces by Holberg.
• 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 as a record of kabuki actors Onoe Kikugorō V and Ichikawa Danjūrō IX performing a scene from the play Momijigari.
• November 6 - William Gillette's play Sherlock Holmes, based on the writings of Arthur Conan Doyle, opens in New York City.
• November 7 (October 26 Old Style) - Anton Chekhov's Uncle Vanya receives its metropolitan première at the Moscow Art Theatre with Konstantin Stanislavski directing and playing the role of Astrov and Olga Knipper as Yeléna.
• December 12 - Herbert Putnam is appointed Librarian of Congress in the United States, where he will introduce into practice the Library of Congress Classification 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.
• Curtis Brown (literary agents) established in London by 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.
• The Irish Literary Theatre is founded by William Butler Yeats, Augusta, Lady Gregory, George Moore and Edward Martyn.

New prose fiction

• Anna Adolph - Arqtiq
• Machado de Assis - Dom Casmurro
• L. Frank Baum - Father Goose: His Book
• René Bazin - La terre qui meurt
• René Boylesve - Demoiselle Cloque
• Mary Elizabeth Braddon - His Darling Sin
• Rhoda Broughton - The Game and the Candle
• Charles Waddell Chesnutt - The Conjure Woman
• Mary Cholmondeley - Red Pottage
• Kate Chopin - The Awakening
• Ralph Connor - The Sky Pilot
• Joseph Conrad - serializations in Blackwood's Magazine
  • Heart of Darkness (February–April)
  • Lord Jim (October 1899–November 1900)
• Stephen Crane - The Monster and Other Stories
• Margaret Deland - Old Chester Tales
• Géza Gárdonyi - Eclipse of the Crescent Moon
• Maxim Gorky - Foma Gordyeeff
• G. A. Henty - The Golden Canon
• E. W. Hornung - The Amateur Cracksman
• Henry James - The Awkward Age
• Selma Lagerlöf - The Tale of a Manor
• Octave Mirbeau - The Torture Garden
• A.E.W. Mason - Man and His Kingdom
• Arthur Morrison - To London Town
• Frank Norris
  • Blix
  • McTeague
• George Paston - A Writer of Books
• Władysław Reymont - The Promised Land (Ziemia Obiecana; book publication)
• Somerville and Ross - Some Experiences of an Irish R.M. (collected stories)
• Leo Tolstoy - Resurrection
• Juan Valera y Alcalá-Galiano - Morsamor
• Émile Zola - Fécondité

New drama

• Georges Feydeau - La Dame de chez Maxim
• Clyde Fitch - Barbara Frietchie'
• Leon Kobrin - Minna or, The Ruined Family from Downtown
• Arthur Wing Pinero - The Gay Lord Quex
• William Young (adaptation) - Ben-Hur

Poetry

• Stéphane Mallarmé - Poésies (posthumously published)
• W. B. Yeats - The Wind Amongst the Reeds

Non-fiction

• Qasim Amin - The Liberation of Women
• Edward Bernstein - Evolutionary Socialism
• Houston Stewart Chamberlain - The Foundations of the Nineteenth Century (Die Grundlagen des neunzehnten Jahrhunderts)
• Percy Dearmer - The Parson's Handbook
• John Dewey - The School and Society
• Elbert Hubbard - A Message to Garcia

Births

• 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 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 24
  • Kazi Nazrul Islam, Bengali poet (died 1976)
  • Henri Michaux, Belgian-born poet, writer and painter (died 1984)
• July 8 – G. B. Edwards, Guernsey-born writer (died 1976)
• 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)
• 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 16 – Noël Coward, English playwright (died 1973)
• December 18 – Peter Wessel Zapffe, Norwegian philosopher (died 1990)

Deaths

• 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)
• 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 22 – Dwight L. Moody, American preacher and publisher (born 1837)

Awards

• Chancellor's Gold Medal - Arthur Cecil Pigou
• Newdigate Prize - Harold Edgeworth Butler^[3]

References