1902 in literature

The year 1902 in literature involved some significant new books.

Events

• April - Mark Twain purchases a home in Terrytown, New York.
• June 4 - Mark Twain receives an honorary doctorate of literature degree from the University of Missouri.
• June 16 - Bertrand Russell writes to Gottlob Frege informing him of the mathematical problem that will become known as Russell's paradox.^[1]
• The Irish Literary Theatre becomes the Irish National Theatre Society.^[2]

New books

• L. Frank Baum - The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus
• Arnold Bennett - Anna of the Five Towns
• Arnold Bennett - The Grand Babylon Hotel
• Rhoda Broughton - Lavinia
• Joseph Conrad - Heart of Darkness
• Marie Corelli - Temporal Power: A Study in Supremacy
• Arthur Conan Doyle - The Hound of the Baskervilles
• Paul Laurence Dunbar - The Sport of the Gods
• Hamlin Garland - The Captain of the Gray-Horse Troop
• André Gide - The Immoralist
• Ellen Glasgow - The Battle-Ground
• Theodor Herzl - The Old New Land
• Violet Jacob - The Sheepstealers
• Henry James - The Wings of the Dove
• Alfred Jarry - Supermale
• Mary Johnston - Audrey
• Rudyard Kipling - Just So Stories
• Jack London - A Daughter of the Snows
• George Barr McCutcheon - Brewster's Millions
• Charles Major - Dorothy Vernon of Haddon Hall
• W. Somerset Maugham - Mrs Craddock
• Dmitri Merejkowski - The Romance of Leonardo da Vinci
• Arthur Morrison - The Hole in the Wall
• E. Nesbit - Five Children and It
• Luigi Pirandello - Il Turno
• Beatrix Potter - The Tale of Peter Rabbit
• Jules Verne - The Kip Brothers
• Edith Wharton - The Valley of Decision
• Owen Wister - The Virginian

New drama

• J. M. Barrie - The Admirable Crichton
• Maxim Gorky - The Lower Depths
• Maurice Maeterlinck - Monna Vanna
• William Butler Yeats - Cathleen Ní Houlihan
• Frank Wedekind - King Nicolo

Poetry

• Edwin James Brady - The Earthen Floor

Non-fiction

• Hilaire Belloc - The Path to Rome.
• Michael Fairless - The Roadmender
• William James - The Varieties of Religious Experience.
• Bertrand Russell - A Free Man's Worship.
• John A. Hobson - Imperialism (Hobson).
• Jane Addams - Democracy and Social Ethics.

Births

• January 5 - Stella Gibbons, novelist (died 1989)
• January 20 - Nazim Hikmet, lyricist and dramatist (died 1963)
• January 30 - Nikolaus Pevsner, author of a series of architectural guides (died 1983)
• February 1 - Langston Hughes, poet and novelist (died 1967)
• February 19 – Kay Boyle, writer, educator, political activist (died 1992)
• February 27 - John Steinbeck, US writer (died 1968)
• March 10 - Stefan Inglot, Polish historian (died 1994)
• March 29 - Marcel Aymé, French author (died 1967)
• April 6 - Julien Torma, poet and dramatist (died 1933)
• April 9 - Lord David Cecil, English literary critic and biographer (died 1986)
• April 23 - Halldór Laxness, Icelandic novelist (died 1998)
• July 10 - Nicolás Guillén, Afro-Cuban poet (died 1989)
• August 15 - Katharine Brush, short story writer (died 1952)
• August 16 – Georgette Heyer, British novelist (died 1974)
• August 19 - Ogden Nash, US poet (died 1971)
• October 13 - Arna Bontemps, poet (died 1973)
• October 26 - Beryl Markham, memoirist (died 1986)
• October 31 - Carlos Drummond de Andrade, Brazilian poet (died 1987)
• November 2 - Gyula Illyés, Hungarian author (died 1983)
• November 29 - Carlo Levi, Italian writer (died 1975)

Deaths

• January 7 - Wilhelm Hertz
• April 20 - Frank R. Stockton, writer and humorist
• May 6 - Bret Harte, author, poet
• June 10 - Jacint Verdaguer, Catalan poet
• June 18 - Samuel Butler, novelist
• September 11 - Ernst Dümmler, historian
• September 29
  • Emile Zola, French author
  • William Topaz McGonagall, notoriously bad poet
• October 7 - George Rawlinson, historian
• October 13 - John George Bourinot, Canadian historian
• October 25 - Frank Norris, novelist
• November 16 - G. A. Henty, novelist

Awards

• Nobel Prize for Literature: Christian Matthias Theodor Mommsen

References