1922 in literature

The year 1922 in literature involved some significant events and new books.

Under the current U.S. copyright law, all works published before January 1, 1923 with a proper copyright notice entered the public domain no later than 75 years from the date of the copyright. Hence books published in 1922 or earlier are now in the public domain.

Events

• The first Newbery Medal is awarded to authors of distinguished books for children.
• T. S. Eliot founds Criterion magazine, and has The Waste Land published by Virginia and Leonard Woolf's Hogarth Press.
• The Modernist classic Ulysses by James Joyce is published.
• Jacob's Room by Virginia Woolf is published; between Joyce, Woolf and Eliot, high modernism is enters its full swing.

New books

• Ernest Bramah - Kai Lung's Golden Hours
• Edgar Rice Burroughs - At the Earth's Core
• Karel Čapek
  • The Absolute at Large
  • Krakatit
• Willa Cather - One of Ours
• Colette - La Maison de Claudine
• Richmal Crompton - Just William
• Aleister Crowley - Diary of a Drug Fiend
• E.E. Cummings - The Enormous Room
• E. R. Eddison - The Worm Ouroboros
• F. Scott Fitzgerald - The Beautiful and Damned
• David Garnett - Lady into Fox
• Hermann Hesse - Siddhartha
• James Joyce - Ulysses
• Sinclair Lewis - Babbitt
• Victor Margueritte - La Garçonne (English translation The Bachelor Girl, 1923)
• W. Somerset Maugham - On a Chinese Screen
• A. A. Milne - The Red House Mystery
• Baroness Orczy
  • The Triumph of the Scarlet Pimpernel
  • Nicolette: A Tale of Old Provence
• Boris Pilnyak - The Naked Year
• Ernest Raymond - Tell England
• Rafael Sabatini - Captain Blood
• May Sinclair - Life and Death of Harriett Frean
• Sigrid Undset - The Cross
• Carl Van Vechten Peter Whiffle
• Elizabeth Von Arnim - Enchanted April
• Margery Williams - The Velveteen Rabbit or How Toys Become Real
• Virginia Woolf - Jacob's Room

New drama

• Arnolt Bronnen - Parricide
• Karel Čapek - The Makropulos Affair
• Jean Cocteau - The Eiffel Tower Wedding Party
• Hugo von Hofmannsthal - The Great World Theatre
• Eugene O'Neill - The Hairy Ape
• Luigi Pirandello - Henry IV
• Carl Sternheim - The Fossil
• Ernst Toller - The Machine-Wreckers
• Ben Travers - The Dippers

Poetry

• Mário de Andrade - Paulicéia Desvairada (Hallucinated City)
• T. S. Eliot - The Waste Land
• A. E. Housman - Last Poems
• Birger Sjöberg - Fridas Bok
• César Vallejo - Trilce

Non-fiction

• E. E. Cummings - The Enormous Room
• James George Frazer - The Golden Bough
• T. E. Lawrence - Seven Pillars of Wisdom (private edition)
• Walter Lippmann - Public Opinion
• Hans Prinzhorn - Artistry of the Mentally Ill
• Hendrik Willem van Loon - The Story of Mankind
• Ludwig Wittgenstein - Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus

Births

• January 23 - Vernon Scannell, British poet (d. 2007)
• February 6 - Denis Norden, English comedy writer
• February 18 - Helen Gurley Brown, American editor & publisher
• March 12 - Jack Kerouac, American author of On the Road (d. 1969)
• March 27 - Dick King-Smith, English children's author
• April 13 - John Braine, English novelist (d. 1986)
• April 16 - Kingsley Amis, English novelist (d. 1995)
• April 28 - Alistair MacLean, Scottish novelist (d. 1987)
• May 6 - Alan Ross, British poet & editor (d. 2001)
• May 27 - Sidney Keyes, English poet (d. 1943)
• May 30 - Hal Clement, American science fiction writer (d. 2003)
• June 11 - Erving Goffman, Canadian sociologist (d. 1982)
• June 29 - Vasko Popa, Yugoslav poet (d. 1991)
• July 12 - Michael Ventris, English translator (d. 1956)
• July 17 - Donald Davie, English poet (d. 1995)
• August 9 - Philip Larkin, English poet (d. 1985)
• August 18 - Alain Robbe-Grillet, French novelist (d. 2008)
• September 12 - Jackson Mac Low, American poet (d. 2004)
• November 11 - Kurt Vonnegut, American novelist (d. 2007)
• November 16 - José Saramago, Portuguese writer
• December 29 - William Gaddis, American novelist (d. 1998)

Deaths

• January 3 - Berthold Delbrück, German linguist (b. 1842)
• January 12 - Thomas Gibson Bowles, founder of The Lady & Vanity Fair (b. 1841)
• January 27 - Nellie Bly, American journalist (b. 1864)
• February 3 - John Butler Yeats, Irish poet (b. 1839)
• June 12 - Wolfgang Kapp, Prussian journalist (b. 1858)
• June 28 - Velimir Khlebnikov, Russian writer (b. 1885)
• July 8 - Mori Ōgai, Japanese novelist & poet (b. 1862)
• August 14 - Alfred Harmsworth, 1st Viscount Northcliffe, newspaper proprietor (b. 1865)
• August 29 - Georges Sorel, French philosopher (b. 1847)
• September 2 - Henry Lawson, Australian poet (b. 1867)
• September 10 - Wilfrid Scawen Blunt, English poet (b. 1840)
• October 30 - Géza Gárdonyi, Hungarian historical novelist (b. 1863)
• November 18 - Marcel Proust, French author (b. 1871)
• November 24 - Robert Erskine Childers, Irish historian & novelist (b. 1870)
• November 27 - Alice Meynell, English poet (b. 1847)
• December 13 - Hannes Hafstein, Icelandic poet & prime minister (b. 1861)
• date unknown
  • Edward George Honey, Australian journalist (b. 1885)
  • Ehrman Syme Nadal, American author (b. 1843)

Awards

• Hawthornden Prize for poetry: Edmund Blunden
• James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction: David Garnett, Lady into Fox
• James Tait Black Memorial Prize for biography: Percy Lubbock, Earlham
• Newbery Medal for children's literature: Hendrik Willem van Loon, The Story of Mankind
• Nobel Prize for Literature: Jacinto Benavente
• Pulitzer Prize for Drama: Eugene O'Neill, Anna Christie
• Pulitzer Prize for Poetry: Edwin Arlington Robinson: Collected Poems
• Pulitzer Prize for the Novel : Booth Tarkington - Alice Adams