1926 in literature

This article presents lists of the literary events and publications in 1926.

Events

• February 8 - Seán O'Casey's play The Plough and the Stars opens at the Abbey Theatre, Dublin. On February 11, the performance is marred by ugly scenes in the audience: one man strikes an actress.
• February 12 - The Irish Free State minister for Justice, Kevin O'Higgins, appoints a Committee on Evil Literature.
• February 26 - The future English novelist Graham Greene is received into the Catholic Church.
• April 1 - Hugo Gernsback launches his pioneering science fiction magazine Amazing Stories in the United States.
• May 11 - C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien meet for the first time in Oxford.^[1]
• October 10 - Mikhail Bulgakov's novel The White Guard (Белая гвардия), partially serialized in Rossiya before the magazine's suppression earlier in the year, opens in a dramatic adaptation, The Days of the Turbins, at the Moscow Art Theatre which is enjoyed by Stalin.
• October 14 - The children's book Winnie-the-Pooh, by A. A. Milne, is published for the first time by Methuen in London, featuring the eponymous bear.
• December 3 - English detective story writer Agatha Christie disappears from her home in Surrey; on December 14 she is found staying at a Harrogate hotel (under her husband's mistress's surname) by journalist Ritchie Calder.
• December - Thomas Mann begins writing Die Geschichten Jaakobs in Munich, first of the tetralogy Joseph and His Brothers (Joseph und seine Brüder) on which he will work until January 1943.
• Antonin Artaud and Roger Vitrac establish the Théatre Alfred-Jarry in Paris for the production of surrealist drama.
• Bread Loaf Writers' Conference is founded in Middlebury, Vermont.
• Ford Madox Ford publishes A Man Could Stand Up --, the third book of a four-volume work titled Parade's End published between 1924 and 1928.
• Vsevolod Meyerhold stages a landmark expressionistic production of Gogol's satirical comedy The Government Inspector (Ревизор, 1836) in Moscow.
• Margaret Mitchell begins writing the novel Gone with the Wind (published 1936).
• The remains of English poet Isaac Rosenberg (k. 1918) are re-interred at Bailleul Road East Cemetery, Plot V, St. Laurent-Blangy, Pas de Calais, France.
• S. S. Van Dine publishes the first Philo Vance mystery novel, The Benson Murder Case.
• Peter Llewelyn Davies establishes the London publishing house Peter Davies Ltd.

New books

• Marcel Arland - Monique
• Roberto Arlt - Mad Toy (El juguete rabioso)
• Isaac Babel - Red Cavalry (Конармия, short stories)
• Henry Bellamann - Petenera's Daughter
• Louis Bromfield - Early Autumn
• Willa Cather - My Mortal Enemy
• Marjorie Bowen - Mistress Nell Gwynne
• Arthur Bowie Chrisman - Shen of the Sea
• Agatha Christie - The Murder of Roger Ackroyd
• James R. Crowell and Samuel C. Hildreth - The Spell of the Turf
• Ramón del Valle-Inclán - Tirano Banderas: novela de tierra caliente ("Tyrant Banderas")
• Arthur Conan Doyle - The Land of Mist
• William Faulkner - Soldiers' Pay
• Ronald Firbank - Concerning the Eccentricities of Cardinal Pirelli
• Ford Madox Ford - A Man Could Stand Up --
• C. S. Forester - Payment Deferred
• Dion Fortune - The Secrets of Dr. Taverner
• Zona Gale - Preface to Life
• Hugo Gernsback - Ralph 124C 41+ (in book form)
• Ellen Glasgow - The Romantic Comedians
• Ricardo Güiraldes - Don Segundo Sombra
• Harold Heslop - Pod vlastu uglya ("Under the Sway of Coal", translation of Goaf)
• Georgette Heyer - These Old Shades
• Ernest Hemingway - The Sun Also Rises
• Mikheil Javakhishvili - The White Collar (თეთრი საყელო, Tetri sakelo)
• Franz Kafka - The Castle
• Yasunari Kawabata - "The Dancing Girl of Izu" (伊豆の踊子, Izu no odoriko, short story)
• D. H. Lawrence - The Plumed Serpent
• Agnes Mure Mackenzie - The Quiet Lady
• A. A. Milne - Winnie-the-Pooh
• George A. Moore - Ulich and Soracha
• Vladimir Nabokov (as V. Sirin) - Mary (Машенька, Mashen'ka)
• Baroness Orczy
  • Unravelled Knots
  • The Celestial City
• Cassiano Ricardo - Vamos caçar papagaios
• Grigol Robakidze - The Snake's Skin (გველის პერანგი)
• 'Sagitta' (John Henry Mackay) - Der Puppenjunge ("The Pansy")
• Dorothy L. Sayers - Clouds of Witness
• Arthur Schnitzler - Dream Story (Traumnovelle)
• Anton Hansen Tammsaare - Tõde ja Õigus ("Truth and Justice", begins publication)
• Sylvia Thompson - The Hounds of Spring
• B. Traven - The Death Ship (Das Totenschiff)
• S. S. Van Dine - The Benson Murder Case
• Edgar Wallace - The Terrible People
• Sylvia Townsend Warner - Lolly Willowes
• H. G. Wells - The World of William Clissold
• Walter F. White - Flight

New drama

• Bertolt Brecht - Man Equals Man (Mann ist Mann)
• Mikhail Bulgakov - Days of the Turbins (Дни Турбиных)
• St. John Greer Ervine - Anthony and Anna
• J. B. Fagan - And So To Bed
• John Galsworthy - Escape
• Sean O'Casey - The Plough and the Stars
• Ben Travers - Rookery Nook
• Sergei Tretyakov - I Want a Baby (Хочу ребёнка)

Short stories

• Marquis de Sade - Dialogue Between a Priest and a Dying Man

Poetry

• Mário de Andrade - Losango cáqui
• Langston Hughes - The Weary Blues
• Robert McAlmon - The Portrait of a Generation
• Hugh MacDiarmid - A Drunk Man Looks at the Thistle
• Vita Sackville-West - The Land

Non-fiction

• Germán List Arzubide - El movimiento estridentista
• Angela Brazil - My Own Schooldays
• T. E. Lawrence - Seven Pillars of Wisdom
• Otto Schmidt (chief editor) - Great Soviet Encyclopedia (Большая советская энциклопедия, Bolshaya sovetskaya entsiklopediya; begins publication)
• R. H. Tawney - Religion and the Rise of Capitalism
• Helen Thomas - As It Was
• W. B. Yeats - Autobiographies
• Paul Zarifopol - Din registrul ideilor gingașe ("A Register of Tender Ideas")

Births

• January 5 – W. D. Snodgrass, American poet (died in 2009)
• January 14 – Tom Tryon, American actor and novelist (died 1991)
• February 3 – Richard Yates, American writer (died 1992)
• February 20 – Richard Matheson, American writer
• March 3 – James Merrill, American poet (died 1995)
• March 24 – Dario Fo, Italian dramatist and actor
• March 27 – Frank O'Hara, American poet (died 1966)
• March 31 – John Fowles, English novelist (died 2005)
• April 3 – Luís de Sttau Monteiro, Portuguese novelist and dramatist (died 1993)
• April 23 – Éva Janikovszky, Hungarian novelist and children's writer (died 2003)
• April 28 – Harper Lee, American novelist
• May 15 – English twins
  • Anthony Shaffer, dramatist and screenwriter (died 2001)
  • Peter Shaffer, dramatist
• May 21 – Robert Creeley, American author (died 2005)
• June 3 – Allen Ginsberg, American Beat Generation poet (died 1997)
• June 13 – Kanam EJ, Malayalam novelist and lyricist (died 1982)
• June 19 – Giangiacomo Feltrinelli, Italian publisher (died 1972)
• July 11 – Frederick Buechner, American author and minister
• July 18 – Elizabeth Jennings, English poet (died 2001)
• August 12 – Wallace Markfield, American comic novelist (died 2002)
• August 14
  • René Goscinny, French writer and co-creator of Asterix (died 1977)
  • Alice Adams, American short story writer (died 1999)
• September 14 – Michel Butor, French writer
• October 2 – Jan Morris (James Morris), Welsh historian and travel writer
• October 15 – Evan Hunter, American author and screenwriter (died 2005)
• November 11 – José Manuel Caballero, Spanish novelist and poet
• November 19 – Barry Reckord, Jamaican playwright (died 2011)
• November 20 – John Gardner, English novelist (died 2007)
• November 25 – Poul Anderson, American science fiction writer (died 2001)
• December 23 – Robert Bly, American writer
• Unknown date – Spencer Holst, American writer and storyteller (died 2001)

Deaths

• January 14
  • René Boylesve, French author (born 1867)
  • August Sedláček, Czech historian (born 1843)
• February 1 – Ishibashi Ningetsu (石橋 忍月), Japanese author and critic (born 1865)
• February 6 – Wolf Wilhelm Friedrich von Baudissin, German theologian (born 1847)
• March 3 – Sir Sidney Lee, English biographer (born 1859)
• May 9 – J. M. Dent, English publisher (born 1849)
• May 21 – Ronald Firbank, English novelist (born 1886)
• May 26 – Srečko Kosovel, Slovenian Expressionist poet (meningitis, born 1904)
• July 8 – Karel Václav Rais, Czech realist novelist (born 1859)
• July 11 – Fran Detela, Slovenian academic and writer (born 1850)
• August 1 – Israel Zangwill, English poet (born 1864)
• October 5 – Javier de Viana, Uruguayan writer (born 1868)
• October 9 – Helena Nyblom, Danish-born poet and writer of fairy tales (born 1843)
• October 11 – Albert Robida, French illustrator and novelist (born 1848)
• November 10 – Lyubov Dostoyevskaya, Russian memoirist (born 1869)
• December 8 – Sarah Doudney, English novelist, children's writer and hymnist (born 1841)
• December 12 – Jean Richepin, French poet, dramatist and novelist (born 1849)
• December 29 – Rainer Maria Rilke, German poet (born 1875)

Awards

• James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction:Radclyffe Hall, Adam's Breed
• James Tait Black Memorial Prize for biography: Reverend Dr H. B. Workman, John Wyclif: A Study of the English Medieval Church
• Newbery Medal for children's literature: Arthur Bowie Chrisman, Shen of the Sea
• Nobel Prize for Literature: Grazia Deledda
• Pulitzer Prize for Drama: George Kelly, Craig's Wife
• Pulitzer Prize for Poetry: Amy Lowell, What's O'Clock
• Pulitzer Prize for the Novel: Sinclair Lewis, Arrowsmith
• Blindman International Poetry Prize: Ruth Manning-Sanders, The City

References