1937 in literature

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The year 1937 in literature involved some significant events and new books.

Events

• January 9 - The first issue of Look magazine goes on sale in the United States.
• Thomas Quinn Curtiss meets Klaus Mann.

New prose fiction

• Eric Ambler - Uncommon Danger
• Georges Bernanos - Diary of a Country Priest
• Morley Callaghan - More Joy in Heaven
• John Dickson Carr writing as "Carter Dickson" - The Ten Teacups
• Agatha Christie
  • Dumb Witness
  • Death on the Nile
  • Murder in the Mews
• Murray Constantine - Swastika Night
• A. J. Cronin - The Citadel
• Isak Dinesen - Out of Africa
• Max Frisch - An Answer from the Silence
• Zona Gale - Light Woman
• Witold Gombrowicz - Ferdydurke
• Ernest Hemingway - To Have and Have Not
• Zora Neale Hurston - Their Eyes Were Watching God
• Meyer Levin - The Old Bunch
• Cameron McCabe - The Face on the Cutting-Room Floor
• Elliot Paul - Life and Death of a Spanish Town
• Ellery Queen - The Door Between
• Arthur Ransome - We Didn't Mean To Go To Sea
• Katharine Hull and Pamela Whitlock - The Far-Distant Oxus
• Ruth Sawyer - Roller Skates
• Dorothy L. Sayers - Busman's Honeymoon
• Olaf Stapledon - Star Maker
• John Steinbeck - Of Mice and Men
• Rex Stout - The Red Box
• Phoebe Atwood Taylor
  • Figure Away
  • Octagon House
  • Beginning with a Bash (as by Alice Tilton)
• J. R. R. Tolkien - The Hobbit
• Virginia Woolf - The Years

New drama

• Karel Čapek - The White Disease
• J. B. Priestley - Time and the Conways

Non-fiction

• Hilaire Belloc - The Crusades: the World's Debate
• Alf K. Berle and L. Sprague de Camp - Inventions and Their Management
• Napoleon Hill - Think and Grow Rich
• Walter Lippmann - The Good Society
• George Orwell - The Road to Wigan Pier
• Eric Partridge - A Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English

Births

• January 1 - John Fuller, poet
• January 7 - Ian La Frenais, TV comedy writer
• January 8 - Leon Forrest, novelist and essayist
• January 9 - Judith Krantz, bestselling novelist
• January 22 - Joseph Wambaugh, novelist and non-fiction writer
• February 21 - Jilly Cooper, novelist and journalist
• April 29 - Jill Paton Walsh, novelist
• May 8 - Thomas Pynchon, novelist
• May 13 - Roger Zelazny, American writer of fantasy and science fiction
• May 13 - Roch Carrier, novelist and short-story writer
• June 16 - Erich Segal, Love Story author (died 2010)
• July 3 - Tom Stoppard, dramatist
• August 5 - Carla Lane, comedy writer
• August 19 - Richard Ingrams, editor
• September 5 - Dick Clement, TV comedy writer
• October 7 - Christopher Booker, journalist and editor
• November 9 - Roger McGough, poet
• November 17 - Peter Cook, comedian, satirist and writer (died 1995)
• December 3 - Binod Bihari Verma, Maithili littérateur
• December 22 - David F. Case, American writer
• date unknown - Jan Karon, novelist

Deaths

• February 19 - Horacio Quiroga, short story writer
• March 15 - H. P. Lovecraft, horror writer (born 1890)
• March 25 - John Drinkwater, poet and novelist
• June 19 - J. M. Barrie, novelist and dramatist (born 1860)
• August 11 - Edith Wharton, writer (born 1862)
• September 13 - Ellis Parker Butler, novelist
• October 22 - Nakahara Chuya, poet
• October 31 - Ralph Connor, novelist
• December 24 - Elizabeth Haldane
• December 26 - Ivor Gurney, war poet
• December 29 - Don Marquis, poet
• date unknown
  • Frederic Taber Cooper, editor
  • Gerald Duckworth, publisher
  • Edward Garnett, critic
  • W. F. Harvey, short story writer
  • William F. Lloyd, newspaper editor
  • H. C. McNeile ("Sapper"), "Bulldog Drummond" novelist

Awards

• Carnegie Medal for children's literature: Eve Garnett, The Family From One End Street
• James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction: Neil M. Gunn, Highland River
• James Tait Black Memorial Prize for biography: Lord Eustace Percy, John Knox
• Newbery Medal for children's literature: Ruth Sawyer, Roller Skates
• Nobel Prize for literature: Roger Martin du Gard
• Pulitzer Prize for Drama: Moss Hart, George S. Kaufman, You Can't Take It With You
• Pulitzer Prize for Poetry: Robert Frost: A Further Range
• Pulitzer Prize for the Novel: Margaret Mitchell - Gone with the Wind
• King's Gold Medal for Poetry: W. H. Auden