1942 in literature

The year 1942 in literature involved some significant events and new books.

Events

• André Gide leaves France to live in Tunis.
• Robertson Davies becomes editor of the Peterborough Examiner.
• Thomas Mann emigrates to California.
• James Hilton wins an Oscar for the screenplay of Mrs. Miniver.
• The New York Times launches influential New York Times Best Seller list.

New fiction books

• Samuel Hopkins Adams - The Harvey Girls
• Henry Bellamann - Floods of Spring
• Earle Birney - David
• Taylor Caldwell - The Strong City
• Albert Camus - The Stranger (L'Étranger)
• John Dickson Carr
  • The Emperor's Snuff-Box
  • The Gilded Man (as by Carter Dickson)
• Joyce Cary - To Be a Pilgrim
• Raymond Chandler - The High Window
• Agatha Christie
  • The Body in the Library
  • Five Little Pigs
  • The Moving Finger
• Lloyd C. Douglas - The Robe
• Daphne du Maurier - Frenchman's Creek
• Rachel Field - And Now Tomorrow
• F. Scott Fitzgerald - The Last Tycoon
• Robert A. Heinlein - Beyond This Horizon
• Kalki Krishnamurthy - Parthiban Kanavu
• C. S. Lewis - The Screwtape Letters
• Janette Sebring Lowrey - The Poky Little Puppy
• Sándor Márai - Embers
• Beryl Markham - West with the Night
• Robert Musil - The Man Without Qualities
• Annie Greene Nelson - After The Storm
• Ellery Queen - Calamity Town
• Raymond Queneau - Pierrot mon ami
• Clayton Rawson - No Coffin for the Corpse
• Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings - Cross Creek
• Nevil Shute - Pied Piper
• Curt Siodmak - Donovan's Brain
• Clark Ashton Smith - Out of Space and Time
• Eleanor Smith
  • Caravan
  • The Man in Grey
• John Steinbeck - The Moon is Down
• Rex Stout - Black Orchids
• Phoebe Atwood Taylor
  • The Six Iron Spiders
  • Three Plots for Asey Mayo
• Vercors - Le Silence de la mer
• Evelyn Waugh - Put Out More Flags
• Cornell Woolrich - Black Alibi

New drama

• Jean Anouilh - Antigone
• Kaj Munk - Niels Ebbesen
• Eugene O'Neill - A Touch of the Poet (written)

Poetry

• T. S. Eliot - Little Gidding

Non-fiction

• Elizabeth Bowen - Bowen's Court
• Albert Camus - The Myth of Sisyphus (Le Mythe de Sisyphe)
• Salvador Dalí - The Secret Life of Salvador Dalí
• Edith Hamilton - Mythology
• Richard Hillary - The Last Enemy
• Aldous Huxley - The Art of Seeing
• C. S. Lewis - A Preface to Paradise Lost
• Elliot Paul - The Last Time I Saw Paris
• Adam Clayton Powell, Sr. - Picketing Hell
• Antoine de Saint-Exupéry - Flight to Arras
• Rebecca West - Black Lamb and Grey Falcon

Births

• January 31 - Derek Jarman, director, writer (died 1994)
• February 1 - Terry Jones, comedian and writer
• March 2 - John Irving, novelist
• April 1 - Samuel R. Delany, novelist and critic
• April 4 - Kitty Kelley, journalist and biographer
• April 6 - Barry Levinson, screenwriter, director and producer
• August 2 - Isabel Allende, novelist
• August 7 - Garrison Keillor, Lake Wobegon Days author
• October 23 - Michael Crichton, author (died 2008)
• October 23 - Douglas Dunn, poet
• November 24 - Craig Thomas, novelist (died 2011)
• December 6 - Peter Handke, Austrian novelist
• date unknown - Gladys Cardiff, poet

Deaths

• April 24 - Lucy Maud Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables novelist
• May 26 - Libero Bovio, Neapolitan dialect poet
• June 30 - Léon Daudet, journalist
• July 20 - Moses Annenberg, publisher
• September 19 - Condé Nast, magazine publisher
• September 26 - Oskar Kraus, philosopher
• October 14 - Cosmo Hamilton, dramatist and novelist
• October 20 - Friedrich Münzer, classical scholar
• November 4 - Eleanor Stackhouse Atkinson, Greyfriars Bobby author
• December 23 - Konstantin Bal'mont, poet

Awards

• Carnegie Medal for children's literature: Denys Watkins-Pitchford, The Little Grey Men
• Frost Medal: Edgar Lee Masters
• James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction: Arthur Waley, Translation of Monkey by Wu Cheng'en
• James Tait Black Memorial Prize for biography: Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede, Henry Ponsonby: Queen Victoria's Private Secretary
• Newbery Medal for children's literature: Walter D. Edmonds, The Matchlock Gun
• Nobel Prize for literature: not awarded
• Pulitzer Prize for Drama: not awarded
• Pulitzer Prize for Poetry: William Rose Benet, The Dust Which Is God
• Pulitzer Prize for the Novel: Ellen Glasgow, In This Our Life