1929 in literature

The year 1929 in literature involved some significant events and new books.

Events

*"Candide" by Voltaire is declared obscene by the United States Customs and seized in 1930.
*"The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes" is banned in the USSR because of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's interest in the occult.
*George Orwell returns to the UK after living in Paris.
*Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir meet for the first time at the École Normale.
*Ellery Queen publishes his first mystery novel.

New books

*Richard Aldington - "Death of a Hero"
*Hamilton Basso - "Relics and Angels"
*Anthony Berkeley - "The Poisoned Chocolates Case"
*Mary Borden - "The Forbidden Zone"
*Edgar Rice Burroughs - "Tarzan and the Lost Empire"
*Mateiu Caragiale - "Craii de Curtea-Veche"
*Jean Cocteau - "Les Enfants Terribles"
*Colette - "Sido"
*Aleister Crowley - "The Stratagem and other Stories"
*Alfred Döblin - "Berlin Alexanderplatz"
*Lloyd C. Douglas - "Magnificent Obsession"
*Arthur Conan Doyle - "The Maracot Deep"
*William Faulkner - "The Sound and the Fury"
*Jessie Redmon Fauset - ""
*Edna Ferber - "Cimarron"
*C. S. Forester - "Brown on Resolution"
*Zona Gale - "Borgia"
*Rómulo Gallegos - "Doña Bárbara"
*Floyd Gibbons - "The Red Napoleon"
*Henry Green - "Living"
*Julien Green - "The Dark Journey"
*Dashiell Hammett
**"The Dain Curse"
**"Red Harvest"
*Ernest Hemingway - "A Farewell to Arms"
*Richard Hughes - "A High Wind in Jamaica"
*Anna Kavan - "A Charmed Circle"
*Eric P. Kelly - "The Trumpeter of Krakow"
*Oliver La Forge - "Laughing Boy"
*Nella Larsen - "Passing"
*Sinclair Lewis - "Dodsworth"
*Claude McKay - "Banjo"
*Alberto Moravia - "Gli indifferenti" ("Time of Indifference")
*Leopold Myers - "The Near and the Far"
*Katherine Anne Porter - "Flowering Judas"
*Ellery Queen - "The Roman Hat Mystery"
*Erich Maria Remarque - "All Quiet on the Western Front" ("Im Westen nichts Neues")
*Elmer Rice - "Street Scene
*O. E. Rolvaag - "Peder Victorious"
*John Steinbeck - ""
*Wallace Thurman - "The Blacker the Berry"
*Sigrid Undset - "In the Wilderness"
*S. S. Van Dine - "The Scarab Murder Case"
*Thomas Wolfe - "Look Homeward, Angel"

New drama

*Patrick Hamilton - "Rope"
*Kaj Munk - "I Brændingen"
*Stanisława Przybyszewska" - "The Danton Case"
*Elmer Rice - "Street Scene"
*George Bernard Shaw - "The Apple Cart"

Poetry

*Robinson Jeffers - "Dear Judas and Other Poems"

Non-fiction

*Ada Boni - "Il talismano della felicità" ("The Talisman of Happiness")
*G. K. Chesterton - "The Everlasting Man"
*Mahatma Gandhi - "The Story of My Experiments with Truth"
*Robert Graves - "Goodbye to All That"
*Walter Lippmann - "A Preface to Morals"
*A. A. Milne - "Those Were the Days"
*Alice Prin - "Kiki's Memoirs"
*Various authors - "Our Exagmination Round His Factification for Incamination of Work in Progress": essays in support of James Joyce
*E. B. White & James Thurber - "Is Sex Necessary?"
*Alfred North Whitehead - "Process and Reality"
*Virginia Woolf - "A Room of One's Own"

Births

*January 26 - Jules Feiffer, American cartoonist & writer
*February 17 - Chaim Potok, American author (d. 2002)
*February 18 - Len Deighton, British novelist
*April 1 - Milan Kundera, Czech-French novelist
*June 11 - George Garrett, American poet & novelist (d. 2008)
*July 31 - Lynne Reid Banks, British author
*August 18 - Anatoly Kuznetsov, Russian dissident novelist (d. 1979)
*August 21 - X. J. Kennedy, American poet & translator
*August 27 - Ira Levin, American novelist & playwright (d. 2007)
*August 29 - Thom Gunn, Anglo-American poet (d. 2004)
*November 13 - Theo Aronson, British biographer (d. 2003)
*December 12 - John Osborne, English playwright & screenwriter (d. 1994)
*December 16 - James Moore, Cornish author
*December 19 - Howard Sackler, American dramatist & screenwriter (d. 1982)
*"date unknown"
**Steve Carter, American playwright

Deaths

*March 26 - Katharine Lee Bates, lyricist of "America the Beautiful" (b. 1859)
*April 16 - Sir John Morris-Jones, Welsh grammarian & poet (b. 1864)
*April 21 - Lucy Clifford, British novelist (b. 1846)
*June 8 - Bliss Carman, Canadian poet (b. 1861)
*June 22 - Alfred Brunswig, German philosopher (b. 1877)
*June 25 - Georges Courteline, French dramatist & novelist (b. 1858)
*July 15 - Hugo von Hofmannsthal, Austrian novelist & poet (b. 1874)
*July 31 - José de Castro, Portuguese journalist (b. 1868)
*"date unknown"
**Max Lehmann, German historian (b. 1845)
**Hans Prutz, German historian (b. 1843)
**Grace Rhys, Irish novelist & poet (b. 1865)
**Dallas Lore Sharp, American nature writer (b. 1870)

Awards

*James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction: J. B. Priestley, "The Good Companions"
*James Tait Black Memorial Prize for biography: Lord David Cecil, "The Stricken Deer: or The Life of Cowper"
*Newbery Medal for children's literature: Eric P. Kelly, "The Trumpeter of Krakow"
*Newdigate prize: Phyllis Hartnoll
*Nobel Prize in literature: Thomas Mann
*O. Henry Award: Dorothy Parker for "Big Blonde" (short story)
*Pulitzer Prize for Drama: Elmer L. Rice, "Street Scene"
*Pulitzer Prize for Poetry: Stephen Vincent Benét: "John Brown's Body"
*Pulitzer Prize for the Novel: Julia Peterkin - "Scarlet Sister Mary"