Puneet Varma (Editor)

1937 in literature

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This article presents lists of the literary events and publications in 1937.

Contents

Events

  • January 9 – The first issue of Look magazine goes on sale in the United States.
  • January 19 – BBC Television broadcasts The Underground Murder Mystery by J. Bissell Thomas from its London station, the first play written for television.
  • April – Irish writers Elizabeth Bowen and Seán Ó Faoláin first meet, in London.
  • May 14 – BBC Television broadcasts a 30-minute excerpt of Twelfth Night, the first known instance of a Shakespeare play televised. Among the cast are Peggy Ashcroft and Greer Garson.
  • May 21 – Penguin Books launches its Pelican Books sixpenny paperback non-fiction imprint in the U.K. with a 2-volume edition of Bernard Shaw's The Intelligent Woman's Guide to Socialism and Capitalism.
  • June – John Cowper Powys visits Sycharth, birthplace of Owain Glyndŵr, which becomes the inspiration for his 1940 novel Owen Glendower.
  • June 30 – Poems of colonial American pastor Edward Taylor (d. 1729), discovered by Thomas H Johnson, are published in The New England Quarterly.
  • Summer – American-born writer Thomas Quinn Curtiss meets German-born novelist Klaus Mann in Europe and they form a relationship.
  • July
  • Establishment of Buchenwald concentration camp in Nazi Germany around the Goethe Oak.
  • American academic librarian Randolph Greenfield Adams, in a controversial Library Quarterly essay "Librarians as Enemies of Books", complains about librarians de-emphasizing books and scholarship in favor of other responsibilities.
  • July 4 – The Lost Colony historical drama by Paul Green is first performed at an outdoor theater in the location where it is set, Roanoke Island, North Carolina.
  • July 31 – Stephen Vincent Benét's post-apocalyptic short story "By the Waters of Babylon", inspired by April's Bombing of Guernica, is published in The Saturday Evening Post (U.S.) as "The Place of the Gods".
  • September 10 – Soviet playwright Sergei Tretyakov commits suicide while under sentence of death at Butyrka prison in Moscow as part of the Great Purge.
  • September 21 – J. R. R. Tolkien's juvenile fantasy novel The Hobbit, or There and Back Again is published in England by George Allen & Unwin on the recommendation of young Rayner Unwin.
  • September 29 – French playwright Antonin Artaud is expelled from Ireland.
  • October 6 – The fictional character 'Mrs. Miniver' first appears in the column on domestic life written by 'Jan Struther' for The Times (London).
  • November 11 (Armistice Day) – BBC Television broadcasts Journey's End by R. C. Sherriff (1928, set on the Western Front (World War I) in 1918), the first full-length television adaptation of a stage play. Reginald Tate plays the lead, a rôle he has performed extensively in the theatre.
  • Undated
  • The National Library of Iran is inaugurated in Tehran.
  • The future novelist Angus Wilson becomes a book cataloguer at the British Museum Library in London.

    • Fiction

  • Felix Aderca – Orașele înecate
  • Eric Ambler – Uncommon Danger
  • Bibhutibhushan Bandyopadhyay – Chander Pahar (চাঁদের পাহড়, Mountain of the Moon)
  • Vicki Baum – Love and Death in Bali (Liebe und Tod auf Bali)
  • Georges Bernanos – Mouchette
  • Morley Callaghan – More Joy in Heaven
  • John Dickson Carr (as Carter Dickson) – The Ten Teacups
  • Agatha Christie
  • Dumb Witness
  • Death on the Nile
  • Murder in the Mews
  • Stuart Cloete – Turning Wheels
  • Murray Constantine – Swastika Night
  • A. J. Cronin – The Citadel
  • James Curtis – There Ain't No Justice
  • Isak Dinesen – Out of Africa
  • Pierre Drieu La Rochelle – Rêveuse bourgeoisie
  • Lawrence Durrell writing as Charles Norden – Panic Spring
  • Hans Fallada – Wolf Among Wolves (Wolf unter Wölfen)
  • Max Frisch – An Answer from the Silence (Antwort aus der Stille)
  • Zona Gale – Light Woman
  • Witold Gombrowicz – Ferdydurke
  • Sadegh Hedayat – The Blind Owl (بوف کور, Boof-e koor)
  • Ernest Hemingway – To Have and Have Not
  • Katharine Hull and Pamela Whitlock – The Far-Distant Oxus
  • Zora Neale Hurston – Their Eyes Were Watching God
  • Michael Innes – Hamlet, Revenge!
  • Franz Kafka (posthumously translated by Willa and Edwin Muir) – The Trial (first English translation of Der Process)
  • Irmgard Keun – After Midnight (Nach Mitternacht)
  • Kalki Krishnamurthy – Kalvaninn Kaadhali
  • Halldór Laxness – Ljós heimsins (The Light of the World) — Part I, Heimsljós (World Light)
  • Alexander Lernet-Holenia
  • Der Mann im Hut
  • Mona Lisa
  • Meyer Levin – The Old Bunch
  • A.E.W. Mason – The Drum
  • Cameron McCabe – The Face on the Cutting-Room Floor
  • Compton Mackenzie – The East Wind of Love (first in The Four Winds of Love series of six books)
  • W. Somerset Maugham – Theatre
  • R. K. Narayan – The Bachelor of Arts
  • Elliot Paul – Life and Death of a Spanish Town
  • Robert Prechtl – Titanic
  • Ellery Queen – The Door Between
  • "Kurban Said" – Ali und Nino
  • Ruth Sawyer – Roller Skates
  • Dorothy L. Sayers – Busman's Honeymoon
  • Bruno Schulz – Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass (Sanatorium Pod Klepsydrą)
  • Naoya Shiga (志賀 直哉) – A Dark Night's Passing (暗夜行路, An'ya Kōro)
  • Olaf Stapledon – Star Maker
  • John Steinbeck – Of Mice and Men
  • Rex Stout – The Red Box
  • Antal Szerb – Journey by Moonlight (Utas és holdvilág)
  • Phoebe Atwood Taylor
  • Figure Away
  • Octagon House
  • Beginning with a Bash (as by Alice Tilton)
  • Mika Waltari – A Stranger Came to the Farm (Vieras mies tuli taloon)
  • Winifred Watson – Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day
  • Charles Williams – Descent into Hell
  • Virginia Woolf – The Years

    • Children and young people

  • Enid Blyton – The Adventures of the Wishing-Chair
  • C. S. Forester – The Happy Return (also as Beat to Quarters)
  • Eve Garnett – The Family from One End Street
  • Kornel Makuszyński – Awantura o Basię (Argument about Basia)
  • Carola Oman – Robin Hood
  • Arthur Ransome – We Didn't Mean To Go To Sea
  • Kate Seredy – The White Stag
  • J. R. R. Tolkien – The Hobbit
  • Henry Winterfeld (as Manfred Michael) – Timpetill – Die Stadt ohne Eltern (Timpetill – Parentless City, translated 1963 as Trouble at Timpetill)
  • Laura Ingalls Wilder – On the Banks of Plum Creek

    • Drama

  • Bertolt Brecht with Margarete Steffin – Die Gewehre der Frau Carrar (adapted from J. M. Synge's Señora Carrar's Rifles)
  • Karel Čapek – The White Disease (Bílá nemoc)
  • Paul Vincent Carroll – Shadow and Substance
  • Arthur Kober – "Having Wonderful Time"
  • Robert McLellan – Jamie the Saxt
  • Robert Morley – Goodness, How Sad
  • J. B. Priestley – Time and the Conways
  • Hella Wuolijoki writing as Juhani Tervapää – Juurakon Hulda
  • John Ferguson, editor – Seven Famous One-Act Plays (published)

    • Non-fiction

  • Oscar Bagnall – The Origin and Properties of the Human Aura
  • Hilaire Belloc – The Crusades: the World's Debate
  • Alf K. Berle and L. Sprague de Camp – Inventions and Their Management
  • Robert Byron – The Road to Oxiana
  • Manuel Chaves Nogales – A sangre y fuego: Héroes, bestias y mártires de España (Fire and sword: heroes, beasts and martyrs of Spain)
  • Napoleon Hill – Think and Grow Rich
  • Walter Lippmann – The Good Society
  • George Orwell – The Road to Wigan Pier
  • Eric Partridge – A Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English

    • Births

  • January 1 – John Fuller, English poet
  • January 7 – Ian La Frenais, English TV comedy writer
  • January 8 – Leon Forrest, African American novelist and essayist
  • January 9 – Judith Krantz, American novelist
  • January 13 – Jean D'Costa, Jamaican children's novelist
  • January 22 – Joseph Wambaugh, American mystery novelist and non-fiction writer
  • January 23 – Juan Radrigán, Chilean playwright (died 2016)
  • February 11 – Maryse Condé, Guadeloupe historical fiction writer
  • February 21 – Jilly Cooper, English novelist and journalist
  • March 15 – Valentin Rasputin, Russian writer (died 2015)
  • April 10 – Bella Akhmadulina, Russian poet (died 2010)
  • April 29 – Jill Paton Walsh (Gillian Bliss), English novelist
  • May 8 – Thomas Pynchon, American novelist
  • May 13
  • Roger Zelazny, American writer of fantasy and science fiction
  • Roch Carrier, Canadian novelist and short-story writer
  • June 1 – Colleen McCullough, Australian novelist (died 2015)
  • June 16 – Erich Segal, American novelist (died 2010)
  • July 3 – Tom Stoppard (Tomáš Straussler), Czech-born English dramatist
  • August 5 – Carla Lane (Romana Barrack), English comedy writer
  • August 19
  • Richard Ingrams, English editor
  • Alexander Vampilov, Russian dramatist (drowned 1972)
  • September 5 – Dick Clement, English TV comedy writer
  • October 4 – Jackie Collins, English-born romance novelist (died 2015)
  • October 7 – Christopher Booker, English journalist and editor
  • November 9 – Roger McGough, English poet
  • November 17 – Peter Cook, English comedian, satirist and writer (died 1995)
  • December 3 – Binod Bihari Verma, Maithili man of letters
  • December 11 – Jim Harrison, American novelist and poet
  • December 22
  • David F. Case, American novelist and short story writer
  • Charlotte Lamb (Sheila Holland, Sheila Coates, etc.), English romantic novelist (died 2000)
  • Unknown dates
  • Jan Karon (Janice Wilson), American novelist and children's writer
  • Parijat (Bishnu Kumari Waiba), Nepalese novelist and poet (died 1993)

    • Deaths

  • February 19
  • Edward Garnett, English critic (born 1868)
  • Horacio Quiroga, Uruguayan short story writer (suicide, born 1878)
  • March 7 – Tomas O'Crohan, Irish Gaelic writer and fisherman (born 1856)
  • March 8 – Albert Verwey, Dutch poet (born 1865)
  • March 15 – H. P. Lovecraft, American horror writer (intestinal cancer, born 1890)
  • March 25 – John Drinkwater, poet and dramatist (born 1882)
  • May 20 – Frederic Taber Cooper, American editor and writer (born 1864)
  • June 13 – William F. Lloyd, English-born Newfoundland journalist and prime minister (born 1864)
  • June 19 – J. M. Barrie, Scottish novelist and dramatist (born 1860)
  • June 22 – Jean-Joseph Rabearivelo, Malagasy poet (suicide, born 1901 or 1903)
  • July 18 – Julian Bell, English poet (killed in Spanish Civil War, born 1908)
  • August 11 – Edith Wharton (Edith Newbold Jones), American novelist and short-story writer (born 1862)
  • August 14 – H. C. McNeile (Sapper), English novelist and soldier (born 1888)
  • September 13 – Ellis Parker Butler, American novelist and essayist (born 1869)
  • October 16 – Jean de Brunhoff, French children's author and illustrator (born 1899)
  • October 17 – Florence Dugdale, English children's writer, widow of Thomas Hardy (cancer, born 1879)
  • October 22 – Chūya Nakahara (中原 中也), Japanese poet (meningitis, born 1907)
  • October 31 – Ralph Connor, Canadian novelist (born 1860)
  • December 24 – Elizabeth Haldane, Scottish author, philosopher and suffragist (born 1862)
  • December 26 – Ivor Gurney, English war poet and composer (tuberculosis, born 1890)
  • December 29 – Don Marquis, American poet (stroke, born 1878)
  • Unknown date – W. F. Harvey, English short-story writer (born 1885)

    • Awards

  • Carnegie Medal for children's literature: Eve Garnett, The Family From One End Street
  • James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction: Neil M. Gunn, Highland River
  • James Tait Black Memorial Prize for biography: Lord Eustace Percy, John Knox
  • Newbery Medal for children's literature: Ruth Sawyer, Roller Skates
  • Nobel Prize for literature: Roger Martin du Gard
  • Pulitzer Prize for Drama: Moss Hart, George S. Kaufman, You Can't Take It with You
  • Pulitzer Prize for Poetry: Robert Frost: A Further Range
  • Pulitzer Prize for the Novel: Margaret Mitchell – Gone with the Wind
  • King's Gold Medal for Poetry: W. H. Auden

    • References

    1937 in literature Wikipedia
    (Text) CC BY-SA


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