1931 in literature
See also: 1930 in literature, other events of 1931, 1932 in literature, list of years in literature.
Contents |
Events
- Cherokee playwright Lynn Riggs' play Green Grow the Lilacs premiers. It would later be adapted by Rodgers and Hammerstein as Oklahoma!.
- The very first Inspector Maigret novel is published under the title Pietr-le-Letton. Georges Simenon would eventually write 75 novels, as well as 28 short stories, featuring the pipe-smoking detective.
- October 4 - Debut appearance of the Dick Tracy comic strip, created by cartoonist Chester Gould.
New books
- Shmuel Yosef Agnon - The Bridal Canopy
- Margery Allingham - Police at the Funeral
- Pearl S. Buck - The Good Earth
- Edgar Rice Burroughs - A Fighting Man of Mars
- Morley Callaghan - No Man's Meat
- Elizabeth Jane Coatsworth - The Cat Who Went to Heaven
- A.J. Cronin - Hatter's Castle
- E. E. Cummings - CIOPW
- Detection Club - The Floating Admiral
- William Faulkner
- Jessie Redmon Fauset - The Chinaberry Tree
- Emma Goldman - Living My Life
- Dashiell Hammett - The Glass Key
- Georgette Heyer - The Conqueror
- Knud Holmboe - Desert Encounter
- Fannie Hurst - Back Street
- Francis Iles - Malice Aforethought
- Dennis F. Imbert - The Colored Gentlemen, A Product of Modern Civilization
- Erich Kästner - The 35th of May, or Conrad's Ride to the South Seas
- Carolyn Keene - The Secret of Shadow Ranch
- Nancy Mitford - Highland Fling (novel)
- Thomas Mofolo - Chaka
- Leopold Myers - Prince Jali
- Ilf and Petrov - The Little Golden Calf
- Anthony Powell - Afternoon Men
- Ellery Queen - The Dutch Shoe Mystery
- Arthur Ransome - Swallowdale
- Erich Remarque - The Road Back
- Dorothy Sayers - Strong Poison
- George S. Schuyler - Black No More
- Nevil Shute - The Lonely Road
- Georges Simenon - Pietr-le-Letton
- Upton Sinclair - Roman Holiday
- Sigrid Undset - Wild Orchid (novel)
- Hugh Walpole - Judith Paris
- Virginia Woolf - The Waves
- P.G. Wodehouse
- Nathanael West - The Dream Life of Balso Snell
New drama
- Eugene O'Neill - Mourning Becomes Electra
- Dodie Smith - Autumn Crocus
- Thornton Wilder - The Long Christmas Dinner and Other Plays in One Act
Non-fiction
- Ali Akbar Dehkhoda et al - Dehkhoda Dictionary of the Persian language
- Samuel Beckett - Proust
- W. Chapman & V.C.A. Ferraro - A New Theory of Magnetic Storms
- Julius Evola - The Hermetic Tradition
- Irma S. Rombauer - The Joy of Cooking
Births
- January 6 - E. L. Doctorow, author
- January 9 - Algis Budrys, science fiction author
- January 10 - Peter Barnes, playwright
- January 17 - Mark Brandis, journalist and science fiction author
- January 27
- John Hopkins, screenwriter
- Mordecai Richler, author (d. 2001)
- February 10 - Thomas Bernhard, author (d. 1989)
- February 11 - Larry Merchant, author/boxing commentator
- February 12 - Janwillem van de Wetering, crime writer
- February 18
- Johnny Hart, cartoonist
- Toni Morrison, writer, winner 1993 Nobel Prize in literature
- February 19 - Robert Sobel, business writer
- March 2 - Tom Wolfe, novelist
- April 21 - Gabriel de Broglie, historian
- April 29 - Robert Gottlieb, editor
- June 12 - Robin Cook, British novelist
- June 21 - Patricia Goedicke, poet
- July 4 - Sébastien Japrisot, novelist and screenwriter
- July 7 - David Eddings, American novelist
- July 10
- Nick Adams, screenwriter
- Julian May, science fiction author
- August 12 - William Goldman, author
- August 22 - Maurice Gee, novelist
- September 22 - Fay Weldon, novelist
- October 8 - Dennis Silk, friend of Siegfried Sassoon and Edmund Blunden
- October 19 - John le Carré, novelist
- November 18 - Nikoloz Janashia, historian
Deaths
- March 27 - Arnold Bennett, novelist
- April 4 - André Michelin, originator of the Michelin Guide
- April 10 - Khalil Gibran, poet
- August 27 - Frank Harris, author and editor,
- August 31 - Hall Caine, author
- October 13 - Ernst Didring, Swedish writer
- December 26 - Melvil Dewey, inventor of the most widely-used library classification system
- December 27 - Alfred Perceval Graves, author and collector of songs and ballads
Awards
- James Tait Black Memorial Prize: Kate O'Brien, Without My Cloak
- Newbery Medal for children's literature: Elizabeth Coatsworth, The Cat Who Went to Heaven
- Nobel Prize for literature - Erik Axel Karlfeldt
- Pulitzer Prize for Drama: Susan Glaspell, Alison's House
- Pulitzer Prize for Poetry: Robert Frost: Collected Poems
- Pulitzer Prize for the Novel: Margaret Ayer Barnes - Years of Grace
Categories
1931 books