1939 in literature
This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1939.
Events
- Early – The Pocket Books mass-market paperback imprint is launched in the United States. The first of the nationally distributed titles is James Hilton's Lost Horizon.
- January
- *American literary magazine The Kenyon Review is founded and edited by John Crowe Ransom.
- *The American pulp science fiction magazine Startling Stories appears, edited by Mort Weisinger. It includes The Black Flame by Stanley G. Weinbaum as lead novel.
- *Eando Binder's story "I, Robot" appears in the U.S. science fiction magazine Amazing Stories.
- *The Criterion, a British literary quarterly, is founded and edited by T. S. Eliot.
- *W. H. Auden and Christopher Isherwood set sail from England for the United States.
- January/February – Poetry London: a Bi-Monthly of Modern Verse and Criticism, founded and edited by Tambimuttu, is first published.
- February 6 – Raymond Chandler's California private detective Philip Marlowe is introduced in his first full-length work of crime fiction, The Big Sleep, which reworks elements from earlier short stories. It is published by Alfred A. Knopf in the United States.
- March – Isaac Asimov's first published short story, "Marooned off Vesta", appears in Astounding Science-Fiction magazine.
- March 4 – BBC Television broadcasts one of the first specially written television plays, Condemned To Be Shot by R. E. J. Brooke, live from its London studios at Alexandra Palace. The production notably uses a camera as the first-person view by the play's unseen central character.
- March 31 – The 20th Century Fox releases a film version of The Hound of the Baskervilles, first of a Sherlock Holmes film series starring Basil Rathbone as Sherlock Holmes and Nigel Bruce as Dr Watson.
- April 13 – The United Artists film version of Wuthering Heights, starring Merle Oberon and Laurence Olivier, is released.
- May – Jorge Luis Borges' first short story in his later characteristic style, "Pierre Menard, autor del Quijote", is published in the Buenos Aires literary magazine Sur.
- May 4 – James Joyce's last work, Finnegans Wake, is published in full by Faber and Faber in London.
- May 15 – Russian writer Isaac Babel is arrested by the NKVD at his dacha as part of the Great Purge in the Soviet Union, and incarcerated in the Lubyanka Building in Moscow.
- c. August – Ernest Vincent Wright publishes his lipogrammatic novel Gadsby, "a story of over 50,000 words without using the letter 'E'", in Los Angeles a few months before his death on October 7.
- August
- *Mikhail Bulgakov, while secretly working on The Master and Margarita, prepares the propaganda play Batumi, to romanticize events in Joseph Stalin's youth. The project is shelved by Stalin himself, once Bulgakov announces he will interview witnesses personally.
- *Robert A. Heinlein's first published short story, "Life-Line", appears in Astounding Science-Fiction.
- Before September – After a pledge drive led by Renaud de Jouvenel and Lucien Lévy-Bruhl, the Romanian poet Benjamin Fondane is naturalized French and in September conscripted into the French Army, to serve in the Phony War.
- September 2 – Jean-Paul Sartre is conscripted into the French Army, where he will serve as a meteorologist.
- September 18 – The Polish painter, playwright and novelist Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz commits suicide after the Soviet invasion of Poland.
- September/October – Famous Fantastic Mysteries, a pulp magazine reprinting American science fiction and fantasy, begins publication in New York.
- Fall – Frank Herbert lies about his age to get his first job as a local newspaper reporter.
- November – The teenage Brendan Behan is arrested in Liverpool for possessing explosives.
- November 8 – Lindsay and Crouse's stage adaptation of Clarence Day's Life with Father opens at the Empire Theatre in New York. Running until 12 July 1947, it becomes the all-time longest-running non-musical play in Broadway theatre.
- Late – Captain Marvel makes his first appearance, in Whiz Comics #2.
New books
Fiction
- Eric Ambler – The Mask of Dimitrios
- Sholem Asch – The Nazarene
- William Attaway – Let Me Breathe Thunder
- H. E. Bates – My Uncle Silas
- Arna Wendell Bontemps – Drums at Dusk
- Pearl S. Buck – The Patriot
- Karel Čapek – Život a dílo skladatele Foltýna
- Joyce Carey – Mister Johnson
- John Dickson Carr
- *The Black Spectacles
- *The Problem of the Wire Cage
- *The Reader is Warned
- *Drop to His Death
- Aimé Césaire – "Cahier d'un retour au pays natal"
- Raymond Chandler – The Big Sleep
- James Hadley Chase – No Orchids for Miss Blandish
- Agatha Christie
- *Murder is Easy
- *The Regatta Mystery and Other Stories
- *Ten Little Niggers
- Jeffrey Dell – Nobody Ordered Wolves
- Pierre Drieu La Rochelle – Gilles
- John Fante – Ask the Dust
- William Faulkner – If I Forget Thee Jerusalem
- Vardis Fisher – Children of God
- Zona Gale – Magna
- Konstantine Gamsakhurdia – The Right Hand of the Grand Master
- Henry Green – Party Going
- Yaroslav Halan – The Mountains are Smoking
- Ernest Hemingway – The Snows of Kilimanjaro
- Rayner Heppenstall – The Blaze of Noon
- Zora Neale Hurston – Moses, Man of the Mountain
- Aldous Huxley – After Many a Summer
- Christopher Isherwood – Goodbye to Berlin
- James Joyce – Finnegans Wake
- Arthur Koestler – The Gladiators
- Richard Llewellyn – How Green Was My Valley
- H. P. Lovecraft – The Outsider and Others
- Henry Miller – Tropic of Capricorn
- Christopher Morley – Kitty Foyle
- Ian Niall – Wigtown Ploughman
- Flann O'Brien – At Swim-Two-Birds
- John O'Hara – Files on Parade
- George Orwell – Coming Up for Air
- Elliot Paul – The Mysterious Mickey Finn
- Ellery Queen – The Dragon's Teeth
- Katherine Anne Porter – Pale Horse, Pale Rider
- Clayton Rawson – The Footprints on the Ceiling
- Seymour Reit- The Friendly Ghost
- Jean Rhys – Good Morning, Midnight
- Dorothy L. Sayers – In the Teeth of the Evidence
- Pierre Schaeffer – Chlothar Nicole
- John Steinbeck – The Grapes of Wrath
- Rex Stout – Some Buried Caesar
- Jan Struther – Mrs. Miniver
- Phoebe Atwood Taylor
- *Spring Harrowing
- *Cold Steal
- Dalton Trumbo – Johnny Got His Gun
- S. S. Van Dine – The Winter Murder Case
- Simon Vestdijk – Sint Sebastiaan
- Elio Vittorini – Conversations in Sicily
- Nathanael West – The Day of the Locust
- Ernest Vincent Wright – Gadsby
- Francis Brett Young – The City of Gold
- Marguerite Yourcenar – Coup de Grâce
Children and young people
- Ludwig Bemelmans – Madeline
- Enid Blyton – The Enchanted Wood
- Edgar Rice Burroughs – Tarzan the Magnificent
- Lavinia R. Davis – Hobby Horse Hill
- Hardie Gramatky – Little Toot
- Carolyn Haywood – "B" is for Betsy
- Robert Lawson – Ben and Me: An Astonishing Life of Benjamin Franklin By His Good Mouse Amos
- Hilda Lewis – The Ship That Flew
- Lucy Maud Montgomery – Anne of Ingleside
- Violet Needham – The Black Riders
- Carola Oman – Alfred, King of the English
- Arthur Ransome – We Didn't Mean To Go To Sea
- Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings – The Yearling
- Joan G. Robinson – A Stands for Angel
- Felix Salten – Bambis Kinder, eine Familie in Walde
- Alison Uttley – A Traveller in Time
- Laura Ingalls Wilder – By the Shores of Silver Lake
- Ursula Moray Williams – Adventures of the Little Wooden Horse
Drama
- Philip Barry – The Philadelphia Story
- Bertolt Brecht
- *Life of Galileo
- *Mother Courage and Her Children
- Mikhail Bulgakov – Batumi
- T. S. Eliot – The Family Reunion
- Jean Giraudoux – Ondine
- Ian Hay – Little Ladyship
- Frank Harvey – Saloon Bar
- Lillian Hellman – The Little Foxes
- N.C. Hunter – Grouse in June
- George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart – The Man Who Came to Dinner
- Joseph Kesselring – Arsenic and Old Lace
- Clare Boothe Luce – Margin of Error
- Barré Lyndon – The Man in Half Moon Street
- William Saroyan – The Time of Your Life
Poetry
- W. H. Auden
- *Journey to a War
- *"September 1, 1939"
- Aimé Césaire – Cahier d'un retour au pays natal
- T. S. Eliot – Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats
- José Gorostiza – Muerte sin fin
- Javier del Granado – Rosas Pálidas
- Changampuzha Krishna Pillai – Rahtapuspangal
- Christopher Smart – Jubilate Agno
Non-fiction
- Adrian Bell – Men and the Fields
- Lord David Cecil – The Young Melbourne and the Story of his Marriage with Caroline Lamb
- Savitri Devi – A Warning to the Hindus
- Norbert Elias – The Civilizing Process
- Mary Lascelles – Jane Austen and Her Art
- Erwin Panofsky – Studies in Iconology
- Ed Ricketts – Between Pacific Tides
- Antoine de Saint-Exupéry – Wind, Sand and Stars
- Ronald Syme – The Roman Revolution
- Bill W. and Dr. Bob – The Big Book
- Gamel Woolsey – Death's Other Kingdom
Births
- January 12 – Jacques Hamelink, Dutch poet, novelist and literary critic, best known for short stories
- January 29 – Germaine Greer, Australian-born feminist author
- February 19 – Erin Pizzey, English novelist and founder of world's first domestic violence shelter
- February 25 – Gerald Murnane, Australian novelist
- March 15 – Alicia Freilich, Venezuelan novelist
- March 25 – Toni Cade Bambara, African-American writer
- April 10 – Penny Vincenzi, née Hannaford, English novelist
- April 12 – Alan Ayckbourn, English dramatist
- April 13 – Seamus Heaney, Irish poet
- May 4 – Amos Oz, né Klausner, Israeli author
- June 5 – Margaret Drabble, English novelist
- June 14 – Penelope Farmer, English children's writer
- June 15 – Brian Jacques, English writer
- July 2 – Ferdinand Mount, English journalist and novelist
- August 1 – Robert James Waller, American novelist
- September 6 – Dan Cragg, American science-fiction author
- September 9 – Ed Victor, American-born literary agent
- October 6 – Melvyn Bragg, English novelist, critic and broadcast presenter
- October 7 – Clive James, Australian writer, humorist and television personality
- October 8 – Harvey Pekar, American memoirist and graphic-novel scriptwriter
- October 9 – John Pilger, Australian-born journalist and documentary filmmaker
- November 17 – Auberon Waugh, English journalist and novelist
- November 18 – Margaret Atwood, Canadian novelist and poet
- November 25 – Shelagh Delaney, English dramatist
- December 3 – Lee Israel, American biographer and literary forger
- December 11 – Thomas McGuane, American writer
- December 18 – Michael Moorcock, English science fiction writer
Deaths
- January 8 – Caton Theodorian, Romanian dramatist and novelist
- January 28 – W. B. Yeats, Irish poet
- February 2 – Amanda McKittrick Ros, Irish novelist and poet noted for her purple prose
- February 18 – Okamoto Kanoko, Japanese tanka poet
- February 22 – Antonio Machado, Spanish poet
- March 7 – Ludwig Fulda, German poet and playwright
- March 23 – Richard Halliburton, American travel writer
- April 11 – S. S. Van Dine, American crime novelist and art critic
- May 23 – Margarete Böhme, German novelist
- May 27 – Joseph Roth, Austrian novelist
- June 13 – Volter Kilpi, Finnish novelist
- June 14 – Vladislav Khodasevich, Russian poet and critic
- June 26 – Ford Madox Ford, English novelist
- July 5 – Mrs. O. F. Walton, English writer of Christian children's books
- July 8 – Havelock Ellis, American sexual psychologist and writer
- August 7 – Leonard Merrick, English novelist
- August 20 – Agnes Giberne, English children's writer
- August 23 – Robin Hyde, South African-born New Zealand poet and novelist
- September 6 – Arthur Rackham, English book illustrator
- September 19 – Ethel M. Dell, English romantic novelist
- October 23 – Zane Grey, American western novelist
- December 2 – Llewelyn Powys, English novelist and autobiographer
- unknown dates
- *Solomon Cleaver, Canadian storyteller and novelist
- *Mary Frances Dowdall, English novelist and non-fiction writer
Awards
- Carnegie Medal for children's literature: Eleanor Doorly, The Radium Woman
- James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction: Aldous Huxley After Many a Summer Dies the Swan
- James Tait Black Memorial Prize for biography: David C. Douglas, English Scholars
- Newbery Medal for children's literature: Elizabeth Enright, Thimble Summer
- Nobel Prize in literature: Frans Eemil Sillanpää
- Pulitzer Prize for Drama: Robert E. Sherwood, Abe Lincoln in Illinois
- Pulitzer Prize for Poetry: John Gould Fletcher, Selected Poems
- Pulitzer Prize for the Novel: Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, The Yearling