1903 in literature

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The year 1903 in literature involved some significant new books.

Events

• October 24 - Mark Twain moves to Florence.
• The first Goncourt Prize for French literature is awarded to John Antoine Nau.
• The Ambassadors by Henry James is serialized in twelve installments, from January to December.
• Jack London's novel The Call of the Wild is serialized in the Saturday Evening Post.

New books

• L. Frank Baum - The Enchanted Island of Yew
• René Boylesve - Enfant à la Balustrade
• Samuel Butler - The Way of All Flesh
• Robert Erskine Childers - The Riddle of the Sands
• Joseph Conrad - Typhoon and Other Stories
• John Fox, Jr. - The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come
• Mary E. Wilkins Freeman - The Wind in the Rose Bush
• George Gissing - The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft
• Henry James - The Ambassadors
• Jack London - The Call of the Wild
• John Antoine Nau - Force ennemie
• Frank Norris - The Pit
• Marmaduke Pickthall - Said the Fisherman
• Beatrix Potter - The Tale of Squirrel Nutkin
• Bram Stoker - The Jewel of Seven Stars
• Jules Verne - Traveling Scholarships
• Mary Augusta Ward - Lady Rose's Daughter
• Kate Douglas Wiggin - Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm
• Emile Zola - Vérité

New drama

• Dusé Mohamed Ali - The Jew's Revenge
• J.M. Synge - In the Shadow of the Glen

Poetry

• Giovanni Pascoli - Canti di Castelvecchio
• Thomas Traherne - Poetical Works (posthumous)
• W. B. Yeats - In the Seven Woods, being poems of the Irish heroic age

Non-fiction

• Ada Cambridge - Thirty Years in Australia
• W. E. B. Du Bois - The Souls of Black Folk
• G. E. Moore - Principia Ethica
• W. B. Yeats - Ideas of Good and Evil (essays)

Births

• February 11 - Alan Paton, South African writer (died 1988)
• February 13 - Georges Simenon, Belgian writer (died 1989)
• February 21 - Raymond Queneau, French poet (died 1976)
• February 22 - Morley Callaghan, Canadian writer (died 1990)
• June 8 - Marguerite Yourcenar, Belgian novelist (died 1987)
• June 18 - Raymond Radiguet, French author (died 1923)
• July 10 - John Wyndham, British writer (died 1969)
• October 17 - Nathanael West, US novelist and screenwriter (died 1940)

Deaths

• January 22 - Augustus Hare, biographer and travel writer
• February 8 - Ada Ellen Bayly, novelist
• March 6 - Gaston Paris, literary critic and scholar
• March 14 - Ernest Legouvé, dramatist
• May 12 - Richard Henry Stoddard, critic and poet
• May 25 - Max O'Rell, journalist
• April 29 - Paul du Chaillu, travel writer
• July 11 - William Henley, British poet
• September 1 - Charles Bernard Renouvier, philosopher
• October 4 - Otto Weininger, philosopher
• November 1 - Theodor Mommsen, German classical scholar and historian
• December 28 - George Gissing, British novelist

Awards

• Goncourt Prize: John Antoine Nau for Force ennemie
• Nobel Prize for Literature: Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson