1909 in literature

The year 1909 in literature involved some significant new books.

Events

New books

*L. Frank Baum — "The Road to Oz"
*André Billy — "La Derive"
*René Boylesve — "La Jeune Fille bien élevée"
*Hall Caine — "The White Prophet"
*Herbert Croly — "The Promise of American Life"
*Charles Hoy Fort — "The Outcast Manufacturers"
*Anatole France — "Balthazar"
*Jacques Futrelle — "Elusive Isabel"
*John Galsworthy — "Fraternity"
*Jack London — "Martin Eden"
*John Masefield — "Multitude and Solitude"
*Lucy Maud Montgomery — "Anne of Avonlea"
*Baroness Orczy
**"The Old Man In the Corner
**"The Nest of the Sparrowhawk
*Gertrude Stein — "Three Lives"
*Gene Stratton-Porter — "A Girl of the Limberlost"
*Hermann Sudermann — "The Song of Songs"
*Robert Walser — "Jakob von Gunten"
*Mary Augusta Ward — "Daphne"
*H.G. Wells
**"Ann Veronica"
**"Tono-Bungay"

New drama

*John Galsworthy — "Strife"
*George Bernard Shaw — "The Shewing-up Of Blanco Posnet"

Poetry

*Guillaume Apollinaire — "L'Enchanteur Pourrissant"
*François Mauriac — "Les Mains Jointes (Clasped Hands)"
*John Millington Synge — "Poems and Translations"

Non-fiction

*Henry James - "Italian Hours"
*William James - "A Pluralistic Universe"

Births

* January 29 - Phoebe Hesketh, British poet (d. 2005)
* February 24 - August Derleth, anthologist
* March 28 - Nelson Algren, novelist
* April 8 - John Fante, novelist
* May 9 - Robert Garioch, poet (d. 1981)
* June 6 - Sir Isaiah Berlin, philosopher
* June 28 - Eric Ambler, novelist
* July 1 – Juan Carlos Onetti, Uruguayan writer (d. 1994)
*July 17 - G. P. Wells, son and co-author of H. G. Wells (d. 1985)
* July 28 - Malcolm Lowry, British novelist
* July 30 - C. Northcote Parkinson, British historian and author
* August 3 — Walter Van Tilburg Clark, novelist (The Ox-Bow Incident)
* Miep Gies, Anne Frank friend, biographer

Deaths

*January 14 - Arthur William à Beckett, journalist
*February 11 - Russell Sturgis, art critic
*March 24 - John Millington Synge, dramatist and poet
*March 27 (probable) - John Davidson, poet
*April 9 - Francis Marion Crawford, novelist
*April 12 - Algernon Charles Swinburne, British poet
* April 26 - Marcus Dods, theologian
* May 18 - George Meredith, novelist and poet
*June 11 - Jacob Gordin, dramatist
*July 8 - Albert Craig, "The Surrey Poet", cricket writer
*August 23 - Liu E, novelist
*October 24 - Henry Charles Lea, historian
*December 14 - Frederick Greenwood, journalist
*"date unknown"
**H. L. Fischer, translator
**Paschal Grousset, journalist and science fiction writer

Awards

* Nobel Prize for Literature: Selma Lagerlöf
*Newdigate prize: Frank Ashton-Gwatkin