1914 in literature

The year 1914 in literature involved some significant events and new books.

Events

• The literature of World War I makes its first appearance.
• November 7 - The first issue of The New Republic magazine is published.
• George Moore (novelist) publishes the final of his 3-volume Hail and Farewell (first in 1911).
• Thomas Hardy married Florence Dugdale.
• Hilaire Belloc becomes editor of Land and Water.
• Charles Taze Russell founder of the Watchtower Society (Jehovah's Witnesses) predicts October 2nd as the date for the end of the world with statements such as in Studies In the Scriptures Series II - The Time Is At Hand (1889ed.) pp.99, 101 “True, it is expecting great things to claim, as we do, that within the coming twenty-six years all present governments will be overthrown and dissolved …. In view of this strong Bible evidence concerning the Times of the Gentiles, we consider it an established truth that the final end of the kingdoms of this world, and the full establishment of the Kingdom of God, will be accomplished at the end of A. D. 1914…."

New books

• L. Frank Baum - Tik-Tok of Oz
  • - Aunt Jane's Nieces Out West (as "Edith Van Dyne")
• Rhoda Broughton - Concerning a Vow
• Edgar Rice Burroughs - Tarzan of the Apes
• G. K. Chesterton - The Flying Inn
• Theodore Dreiser - The Titan
• James Elroy Flecker - The King of Alsander
• Anatole France - The Revolt of the Angels
• Henry James - Notes of a Son and Brother
• James Joyce - Dubliners
• Wassily Kandinsky - Concerning the Spiritual in Art
• Stephen Leacock - Arcadian Adventures with the Idle Rich
• Sinclair Lewis - Our Mr. Wrenn
• Harold MacGrath - The Adventures of Kathlyn
• Frank Norris - Vandover and the Brute
• Baroness Orczy - The Laughing Cavalier
  • - Unto Cæsar
• Raymond Roussel - Locus Solus
• Saki - Beasts and Super-Beasts
• Carl Sandburg - Chicago
• Paul Scheerbart - The Gray Cloth
• Natsume Sōseki - Kokoro
• Robert Tressell - The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists
• Mary Augusta Ward - Delia Blanchflower
• H. G. Wells - The World Set Free
• Harry Leon Wilson - Ruggles of Red Gap

New drama

• John Howard Lawson - Atmosphere
• Elmer Rice - On Trial
• Harley Granville-Barker - Vote By Ballot

Non-fiction

• Hall Caine - King Albert's Book
• Paul Scheerbart - Glass Architecture

Poetry

• Robert Frost North of Boston

Births

• January 8 - Norman Nicholson, poet (d. 1987)
• February 5 - William S. Burroughs, author (d. 1997)
• March 1 - Ralph Ellison, scholar, writer (d. 1994)
• March 28 - Bohumil Hrabal, author (d. 1997)
• March 31 - Octavio Paz, 1990 Nobel Prize-winning author (d. 1998)
• April 26 - Bernard Malamud, novelist (d. 1986)
• May 6 - Randall Jarrell, poet (d. 1965)
• May 8 - Romain Gary, writer (d. 1980)
• June 15 - Lena Kennedy, novelist (d. 1986)
• June 17 - Julián Marías, philosopher and author (d. 2005)
• June 26 - Laurie Lee, poet and novelist (d. 1997)
• July 15 - Hammond Innes, adventure novelist (d. 1998)
• July 15 - Gavin Maxwell, naturalist and author (d. 1969)
• August 9 - Tove Jansson, children's author (d. 2001)
• October 27 - Dylan Thomas, poet and author (d. 1953)
• December 12 - Patrick O'Brian, historical novelist (d. 2000)
• date unknown
  • Leah Bodine Drake, poet (d. 1964)
  • John Masters, novelist (d. 1983)

Deaths

• March 25 - Frédéric Mistral, Nobel Prize-winning author (b. 1830)
• April 2 - Paul von Heyse, Nobel Prize-winning author (b. 1830)
• April 7 - Edith Maude Eaton, author (b. 1865)
• May 19 - William Aldis Wright, writer and editor (b. 1831)
• May 29 - Laurence Irving, dramatist and novelist (drowned) (b. 1871)
• June 21 - Bertha von Suttner, pacifist writer (b. 1843)
• July 23 - Charlotte Forten Grimké, poet (b. 1837)
• September 22 - Alain-Fournier, novelist (b. 1886)
• November 3 - Georg Trakl, poet (b. 1887)

Awards

• Nobel Prize for Literature: not awarded