1940 in literature

The year 1940 in literature involved some significant events and new books.

Events

*Aldous Huxley is a screenwriter for the movie adaptation of "Pride and Prejudice".
*Jean-Paul Sartre is taken prisoner by the Germans.
*Robertson Davies joins the Old Vic repertory company.

New books

*Giorgio Bassani - "Una città di pianura
*Henry Bellamann - "King's Row"
*Adolfo Bioy Casares - "The Invention of Morel"
*Karin Boye - "Kallocain"
*Edgar Rice Burroughs - "Synthetic Men of Mars"
*Dino Buzzati - "The Tartar Steppe (Il deserto dei Tartari)"
*Erskine Caldwell - "Trouble in July"
*Taylor Caldwell - "The Earth is the Lord's"
*John Dickson Carr writing as "Carter Dickson" - "And So To Murder"
*John Dickson Carr writing as "Carter Dickson" - "Murder in the Submarine Zone"
*Willa Cather - "Sapphira And The Slave"
*Raymond Chandler - "Farewell, My Lovely"
* Walter Clark - "The Ox-bow Incident"
*James Daugherty - "Daniel Boone"
*Georges Duhamel - "Les Maîtres"
*Graham Greene - "The Power and the Glory"
*Georgette Heyer - "The Corinthian"
*Arthur Koestler - "Darkness at Noon"
*Dorothy Kunhardt- "Pat the Bunny"
*John M. Lee - "Counter-Clockwise"
*Carson McCullers - "The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter"
*John O'Hara - "Pal Joey"
*Raymond Postgate - "Verdict of Twelve"
*Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings - "When the Whippoorwill"
*Clayton Rawson -- "The Headless Lady"
*Mikhail Sholokov - "The Don Flows Home to the Sea"
*Dr. Seuss - "Horton Hatches the Egg"
*C. P. Snow - "George Passant" (first of the "Strangers and Brothers" series)
*Christina Stead - "The Man Who Loved Children"
*Rex Stout - "Over My Dead Body"
*Rex Stout - "Where There's a Will"
*Richard Wright -"Native Son"

New drama

*Agatha Christie - "Peril at End House"
*Jean Cocteau - "Le Bel Indifférent"
*Lawrence Riley - "Return Engagement"
*George Shiels - "The Rugged Path"

Non-fiction

*"Cato" (Michael Foot and others) - "Guilty Men"
*G. H. Hardy - "A Mathematician's Apology"
*C. S. Lewis - "The Problem of Pain"
*A. A. Milne - "War with Honour"
*Edmund Wilson - "To the Finland Station"

Births

* January 14 - Sir Trevor Nunn, theatre director
* February 4 - George Romero, horror movie writer, producer, director
* February 29 - Edward Frederic Benson, American writer
* March 16 - Bernardo Bertolucci, Italian writer and film director
* March 28 - Russell Banks, novelist
* April 15 - Jeffrey Archer, novelist
* May 7 - Angela Carter, English magical realist author
* May 8 - Peter Benchley, novelist
* May 13 - Bruce Chatwin, travel writer
* May 28 - Maeve Binchy, novelist
* July 17 - Tim Brooke-Taylor, comedy writer and actor
* October 20 - Robert Pinsky, poet
* December 5 - Peter Pohl, novelist

Deaths

* January 5 - Humbert Wolfe, poet and epigrammist
* January 27 - Isaac Babel, journalist and dramatist
* February 29 - E. F. Benson, novelist
* March 7 - Edwin Markham, poet
* March 10 - Mikhaïl Boulgakov, Russian writer
* March 16
**Selma Lagerlöf, writer
**Thomas Heath, historian and translator
* June 10 - Marcus Garvey, journalist and publisher
* June 20 - Charley Chase, screenwriter
* September - W. H. Davies, poet and "Supertramp"
* December 21 - F Scott Fitzgerald
* December 22 - Nathanael West
* "date unknown" - T. O'Conor Sloane, editor of "Amazing Stories"

Awards

* James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction: Charles Morgan, "The Voyage"
* James Tait Black Memorial Prize for biography: Hilda F. M. Prescott, "Spanish Tudor: Mary I of England"
* Newbery Medal for children's literature: James Daugherty, "Daniel Boone"
* Nobel Prize for literature: not awarded
* Pulitzer Prize for Drama: William Saroyan, "The Time of Your Life"
* Pulitzer Prize for Poetry: Mark Van Doren: "Collected Poems"
* Pulitzer Prize for the Novel: John Steinbeck - "The Grapes of Wrath"
* King's Gold Medal for Poetry: Michael Thwaites