1924 in literature

Last updated November 25, 2025

This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1924.

Events

January
- Writer Miguel de Unamuno is dismissed for the first time from his university posts by the Spanish dictator General Miguel Primo de Rivera and goes into exile on Fuerteventura in the Canary Islands.
- Richard L. Simon and M. Lincoln ("Max") Schuster establish the New York City publisher Simon & Schuster, which initially specializes in crossword puzzle books.^[1]
January 15 – The world's first radio play, Danger by Richard Hughes, is broadcast by the B.B.C. from its London studios.^[2]
February 2 – A largely rewritten version of Roi Cooper Megrue and Walter Hackett's 1914 farce It Pays to Advertise opens in a production by actor-manager Tom Walls, at the Aldwych Theatre in London. It runs until 10 July 1925, a total of 598 performances, as the first in a sequence of twelve Aldwych farces.^[3]^[4]^[5]
March 3 – Seán O'Casey's drama Juno and the Paycock opens at the Abbey Theatre, Dublin.^[6]
March
- Leonard and Virginia Woolf move themselves and the Hogarth Press back to a house in Bloomsbury at 52 Tavistock Square, London.
- Weird Tales magazine publishes H. P. Lovecraft's story "The Rats in the Walls" in the United States.
April – Ford Madox Ford publishes the first of four volumes set around World War I, titled Parade's End . It is completed in 1928.
April 12 – The Indian poet Rabindranath Tagore arrives in China, where his views prove controversial.^[7] While there, he becomes associated with the innovative poets Xu Zhimo and Lin Huiyin.
May 3 – F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald leave New York for France.
June – Ret Marut, perhaps previously Otto Feige and presumed later to be the writer B. Traven, leaves Europe for Mexico.^[8]
June 4 – E. M. Forster's novel A Passage to India is published in the U.K. He will write no further fiction in the remaining 46 years of his life.
September – Buddenbrooks , the first of Thomas Mann's works to appear in English, is published in a translation by the American Helen T. Lowe-Porter. The original German appeared in 1901.
unknown dates
- The Hebrew language poet Hayim Nahman Bialik relocates with his publishing house Dvir from Berlin to Tel Aviv.
- The Argosy Book Store is founded in New York City, United States.^[9]
- Luxemburger Illustrierte newspaper begins publication in Luxembourg (ceased 1931).^[10]

New books

Births

January 30 – Lloyd Alexander, American writer (died 2007)
February 3 – Andrzej Szczypiorski, Polish writer (died 2000)
February 6 – Jin Yong, Chinese wuxia novelist (died 2018)
February 17 – Margaret Truman, American writer and soprano (died 2008)
April 3
- Errol Brathwaite, New Zealand author (died 2005)
- Josephine Pullein-Thompson, English children's novelist (died 2014)
April 8 – Humberto Costantini, Argentinian writer (died 1987)
April 20 – Miroslav Komárek, Czech historical linguist (died 2013)
April 24
- Clement Freud, German-born English writer and broadcaster (died 2009)
- Clive King, English children's writer and academic (died 2018)
April 26 – Solomon Mutswairo, Zimbabwean novelist and poet (died 2005)
May 1 – Terry Southern, American writer (died 1995)
May 3 – Yehuda Amichai, born Ludwig Pfeuffer, German-born Israeli Hebrew-language poet (died 2000)
May 8 – Petru Dumitriu, Romanian novelist (died 2002)
July 1 – Wang Huo, Chinese novelist and screenwriter (died 2025)
July 15 – Finn Bjørnseth, Norwegian novelist (died 1973)
July 30
- William H. Gass, American novelist (died 2017)^[16]
- José Antonio Villarreal, Chicano novelist (died 2010)^[17]
August 3 – Leon Uris, American author (died 2003)
August 6 – James Baldwin, American writer (died 1987)^[18]
August 15 – Robert Bolt, English screenwriter and playwright (died 1995)^[19]
August 17 – Evan S. Connell, American author (died 2013)
August 22 – Ada Jafri, Indian poet writing in Urdu (died 2015)
September 4 – Joan Aiken, English novelist (died 2004)
September 14 – Davidson Nicol, Sierra Leonean diplomat, author (died 1994)
September 27 – Josef Škvorecký, Czech-born novelist and publisher (died 2012)
September 30 – Truman Capote, American fiction writer (died 1984)^[20]
October 1 – Jimmy Carter, author and 39th President of the United States (died 2024)
October 3 – Harvey Kurtzman, American cartoonist and editor (died 1993)
October 5 – José Donoso, Chilean writer (died 1996)
October 29 – Zbigniew Herbert, Polish writer (died 1998)
November 21 – Christopher Tolkien, British academic and editor (died 2020)^[21]
November 22 – Rosamunde Pilcher, English novelist (died 2019)
December 10 – Mitzura Arghezi, Romanian book editor, illustrator, and politician (died 2015)
December 29 – Francisco Nieva, Spanish playwright, novelist and short story writer (died 2016)
unknown dates
- Deirdre Cash (Criena Rohan), Australian novelist (died 1963)^[22]
- Mengistu Lemma, Ethiopian playwright (died 1988)

Deaths

April 21 – Marie Corelli, English author (born 1855)^[23]
May ? – Muhammad bin Fadlallah al-Sarawi, Iranian-Iraqi faqih, religious writer and poet (born c. 1880) ^[24]
May 1 – Lepha Eliza Bailey, American author, lecturer, and social reformer (born 1845)^{[ citation needed ]}
May 4 – E. Nesbit, English children's author (born 1858)^[25]
June 3 – Franz Kafka, German-language author (born 1883)^[26]
June 30 – Jacob Israël de Haan, Dutch-Jewish novelist, poet and journalist (assassinated, born 1881)^[27]
August 3 – Joseph Conrad, Polish-born English novelist (born 1857)^[28]
August 25 – Velma Caldwell Melville, American editor and writer (born 1858)^[29]
August 26 – Julia Carter Aldrich, American author and editor (born 1834)
October 9
- Valery Bryusov, Russian Symbolist poet, dramatist and translator (born 1873)
- Lin Shu, Chinese translator (born 1852)
October 12 – Anatole France, French poet, novelist and journalist (born 1844)^[30]
October 25 – Laura Jean Libbey, American novelist (born 1862)^[31]
October 29 – Frances Hodgson Burnett, English-born children's author (born 1849)^[32]
November 21 – Paul Milliet, French dramatist and librettist (born 1848)
November 22 – Herman Heijermans, Dutch dramatist (born 1864)
December 6 – Gene Stratton-Porter, American novelist and naturalist (born 1863)^[33]
December 26 – Arnold Henry Savage Landor, English writer and artist (born 1865)
December 27 – Jennie Thornley Clarke, American educator, writer, and anthologist (born 1860)
unknown date – Nicolae Velo, Aromanian poet and diplomat in Romania (b. 1882)^[34]

Awards

James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction: E. M. Forster, A Passage to India
James Tait Black Memorial Prize for biography: Rev. William Wilson, The House of Airlie
Newbery Medal for children's literature: Charles Hawes, The Dark Frigate
Nobel Prize in Literature: Władysław Reymont
Pulitzer Prize for Drama: Hatcher Hughes, Hell-Bent Fer Heaven
Pulitzer Prize for Poetry: Robert Frost, New Hampshire: A Poem with Notes and Grace Notes
Pulitzer Prize for the Novel: Margaret Wilson, The Able McLaughlins

References

↑ Allen, Frederick Lewis (1931). Only Yesterday: An Informal History of the 1920s . p. 165. ISBN 0-06-095665-8.{{cite book}}: ISBN / Date incompatibility (help)
↑ "Mining the seams of radio history". The Stage.
↑ "New Play at the Aldwych". The Times . London. 2 February 1924. p. 8.
↑ "Mr. Ralph Lynn". The Times. 10 August 1962. p. 11.
↑ "The Theatres". The Times. 25 June 1925. p. 12.
1 2 "Juno and the Paycock". PlayographyIreland. Dublin: Irish Theatre Institute. Retrieved 2013-11-22.
↑ Das, Sisir Kumar. "The Controversial Guest: Tagore in China". Archived from the original on 2014-08-18. Retrieved 2014-08-21.
↑ Heidi Zogbaum (1992). B. Traven: A Vision of Mexico . SR Books. pp. 3–4. ISBN 978-0-8420-2392-4.
↑ The Publishers Weekly. R. R. Bowker Company. 1937. p. 67.
↑ "History, Philosophy and Newspaper Library Database". www.library.illinois.edu. University of Illinois Board of Trustees. Retrieved 24 April 2024.
↑ Marcel Cornis-Pope; John Neubauer (1 January 2004). History of the Literary Cultures of East-Central Europe: Junctures and Disjunctures in the 19th and 20th Centuries. John Benjamins Publishing. p. 559. ISBN 90-272-3452-3.
↑ Max Saunders (22 April 2010). Self Impression: Life-Writing, Autobiografiction, and the Forms of Modern Literature. OUP Oxford. p. 12. ISBN 978-0-19-161473-6.
↑ Catalog of Copyright Entries. New Series: 1925. Copyright Office, Library of Congress. 1926. p. 194.
↑ Parker, Hershel (Winter 1990). ""Billy Budd, Foretopman" and the Dynamics of Canonization". College Literature. 1. 17 (1): 21–32. JSTOR 25111840.
↑ Tarn, Nathaniel, ed. (1975). Pablo Neruda: Selected Poems. Penguin. p. 14.
↑ H. L. Hix (2002). Understanding William H. Gass. Univ of South Carolina Press. pp. 1–. ISBN 978-1-57003-472-5.
↑ Salem Press (2009). American Ethnic Writers. Salem Press. p. 1053. ISBN 978-1-58765-465-7.
↑ Emmanuel Sampath Nelson (1999). Contemporary African American Novelists: A Bio-bibliographical Critical Sourcebook. Greenwood Publishing Group. p. 12. ISBN 978-0-313-30501-6.
↑ Calder, John (23 February 1995). "Obituary: Robert Bolt" . The Independent . Archived from the original on 2022-05-01. Retrieved 21 July 2016.
↑ Jay Parini (2004). The Oxford Encyclopedia of American Literature. Oxford University Press. p. 228. ISBN 978-0-19-515653-9.
↑ Garth, John (20 January 2020). "Christopher Tolkien obituary". The Guardian. Retrieved 22 January 2020.
↑ William Henry Wilde; Joy W. Hooton; B. G. Andrews (1994). The Oxford Companion to Australian Literature. Oxford University Press. p. 7. ISBN 978-0-19-553381-1.
↑ Eileen Bigland (1953). Marie Corelli, the Woman and the Legend: A Biography. Jarrolds. p. 11.
↑ Al-Jaburi, Kamel Salman (2003). Mu'jam Al-Shuʻarāʼ min Al-'Asr Al-Jahili Hatta Sanat 2002معجم الشعراء من العصر الجاهلي حتى سنة 2002[Dictionary of poets from the pre-Islamic era until 2002] (in Arabic). Vol. 5 (first ed.). Beirut: Dar Al-Kotob Al-Ilmiyah. p. 203.
↑ "E. Nesbit | English author". Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved 31 March 2019.
↑ Brod, Max (1960). Franz Kafka: A Biography . New York: Schocken Books. p. 211. ISBN 978-0-8052-0047-8.{{cite book}}: ISBN / Date incompatibility (help)
↑ Stapert-Eggen, Marijke T. C. "The Rosenthaliana's Jacob Israel de Haan Archive". University of Amsterdam Library. Archived from the original on 2011-05-26. Retrieved 2013-11-22.
↑ Martin Ray (13 September 2010). Joseph Conrad: Interviews and Recollections. University of Iowa Press. p. 230. ISBN 978-1-60938-017-5.
↑ "Mrs. James Melville". The Capital Times. Madison, WI. August 26, 1924. p. 4. Retrieved December 15, 2020– via Newspapers.com.
↑ André Gide (1956). The Journals, 1889-1949: 1889-1924. Vintage Books. p. 3.
↑ "Laura Jean Libbey Dies at Park Slope Home; Famous as a Novelist". The Standard Union . 1924-10-26. pp. 1, 2 . Retrieved 2022-04-20– via Newspapers.com.
↑ Joanne Shattock; Senior Lecturer Department of English Joanne Shattock (1993). The Oxford Guide to British Women Writers. Oxford University Press. p. 76. ISBN 978-0-19-214176-7.
↑ Barbara Olenyik Morrow (2010). Nature's Storyteller: The Life of Gene Stratton-Porter. Indianapolis: Indiana Historical Society. p. 28, 137-9. ISBN 978-0-87195-284-4.
↑ Mladin, Constantin Ioan (2014). "Contacte macedo-române – rememorări, completări, rectificări". Annales Universitatis Apulensis. Series Philologica (in Romanian). 15 (1): 37–48.

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[1] Allen, Frederick Lewis (1931). Only Yesterday: An Informal History of the 1920s . p. 165. ISBN 0-06-095665-8.{{cite book}}: ISBN / Date incompatibility (help)

[2] "Mining the seams of radio history". The Stage.

[3] "New Play at the Aldwych". The Times . London. 2 February 1924. p. 8.

[4] "Mr. Ralph Lynn". The Times. 10 August 1962. p. 11.

[5] "The Theatres". The Times. 25 June 1925. p. 12.

[jp-6] 1 2 "Juno and the Paycock". PlayographyIreland. Dublin: Irish Theatre Institute. Retrieved 2013-11-22.

[7] Das, Sisir Kumar. "The Controversial Guest: Tagore in China". Archived from the original on 2014-08-18. Retrieved 2014-08-21.

[8] Heidi Zogbaum (1992). B. Traven: A Vision of Mexico . SR Books. pp. 3–4. ISBN 978-0-8420-2392-4.

[9] The Publishers Weekly. R. R. Bowker Company. 1937. p. 67.

[10] "History, Philosophy and Newspaper Library Database". www.library.illinois.edu. University of Illinois Board of Trustees. Retrieved 24 April 2024.

[11] Marcel Cornis-Pope; John Neubauer (1 January 2004). History of the Literary Cultures of East-Central Europe: Junctures and Disjunctures in the 19th and 20th Centuries. John Benjamins Publishing. p. 559. ISBN 90-272-3452-3.

[12] Max Saunders (22 April 2010). Self Impression: Life-Writing, Autobiografiction, and the Forms of Modern Literature. OUP Oxford. p. 12. ISBN 978-0-19-161473-6.

[13] Catalog of Copyright Entries. New Series: 1925. Copyright Office, Library of Congress. 1926. p. 194.

[14] Parker, Hershel (Winter 1990). ""Billy Budd, Foretopman" and the Dynamics of Canonization". College Literature. 1. 17 (1): 21–32. JSTOR 25111840.

[15] Tarn, Nathaniel, ed. (1975). Pablo Neruda: Selected Poems. Penguin. p. 14.

[16] H. L. Hix (2002). Understanding William H. Gass. Univ of South Carolina Press. pp. 1–. ISBN 978-1-57003-472-5.

[17] Salem Press (2009). American Ethnic Writers. Salem Press. p. 1053. ISBN 978-1-58765-465-7.

[18] Emmanuel Sampath Nelson (1999). Contemporary African American Novelists: A Bio-bibliographical Critical Sourcebook. Greenwood Publishing Group. p. 12. ISBN 978-0-313-30501-6.

[19] Calder, John (23 February 1995). "Obituary: Robert Bolt" . The Independent . Archived from the original on 2022-05-01. Retrieved 21 July 2016.

[20] Jay Parini (2004). The Oxford Encyclopedia of American Literature. Oxford University Press. p. 228. ISBN 978-0-19-515653-9.

[21] Garth, John (20 January 2020). "Christopher Tolkien obituary". The Guardian. Retrieved 22 January 2020.

[22] William Henry Wilde; Joy W. Hooton; B. G. Andrews (1994). The Oxford Companion to Australian Literature. Oxford University Press. p. 7. ISBN 978-0-19-553381-1.

[23] Eileen Bigland (1953). Marie Corelli, the Woman and the Legend: A Biography. Jarrolds. p. 11.

[24] Al-Jaburi, Kamel Salman (2003). Mu'jam Al-Shuʻarāʼ min Al-'Asr Al-Jahili Hatta Sanat 2002معجم الشعراء من العصر الجاهلي حتى سنة 2002[Dictionary of poets from the pre-Islamic era until 2002] (in Arabic). Vol. 5 (first ed.). Beirut: Dar Al-Kotob Al-Ilmiyah. p. 203.

[25] "E. Nesbit | English author". Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved 31 March 2019.

[26] Brod, Max (1960). Franz Kafka: A Biography . New York: Schocken Books. p. 211. ISBN 978-0-8052-0047-8.{{cite book}}: ISBN / Date incompatibility (help)

[27] Stapert-Eggen, Marijke T. C. "The Rosenthaliana's Jacob Israel de Haan Archive". University of Amsterdam Library. Archived from the original on 2011-05-26. Retrieved 2013-11-22.

[28] Martin Ray (13 September 2010). Joseph Conrad: Interviews and Recollections. University of Iowa Press. p. 230. ISBN 978-1-60938-017-5.

[29] "Mrs. James Melville". The Capital Times. Madison, WI. August 26, 1924. p. 4. Retrieved December 15, 2020– via Newspapers.com.

[30] André Gide (1956). The Journals, 1889-1949: 1889-1924. Vintage Books. p. 3.

[31] "Laura Jean Libbey Dies at Park Slope Home; Famous as a Novelist". The Standard Union . 1924-10-26. pp. 1, 2 . Retrieved 2022-04-20– via Newspapers.com.

[32] Joanne Shattock; Senior Lecturer Department of English Joanne Shattock (1993). The Oxford Guide to British Women Writers. Oxford University Press. p. 76. ISBN 978-0-19-214176-7.

[33] Barbara Olenyik Morrow (2010). Nature's Storyteller: The Life of Gene Stratton-Porter. Indianapolis: Indiana Historical Society. p. 28, 137-9. ISBN 978-0-87195-284-4.

[34] Mladin, Constantin Ioan (2014). "Contacte macedo-române – rememorări, completări, rectificări". Annales Universitatis Apulensis. Series Philologica (in Romanian). 15 (1): 37–48.

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1924 in literature

Contents

Events

New books

Fiction

Children and young people

Drama

Poetry

Non-fiction

Births

Deaths

Awards

References