Trisha Shetty (Editor)

1938 in literature

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This article presents lists of the literary events and publications in 1938.

Contents

Events

  • January – The trilogy U.S.A., by John Dos Passos, is published, containing his three novels The 42nd Parallel (1930), 1919 (1932), and The Big Money (1936).
  • February 21 – Gay American writer and composer Paul Bowles marries lesbian American writer Jane Auer at a Reformed Church in Manhattan.
  • March 7 – Samuel Beckett's first completed novel Murphy is published in London.
  • July 11 – The first live drama adaptation in Orson Welles' The Mercury Theatre on the Air series on CBS Radio in the United States is broadcast, Bram Stoker's Dracula.
  • September 13 – First performance in Britain of a play by Bertolt Brecht, Mrs Carrar's Rifles, opens at the Unity Theatre, London.
  • October 30 – Orson Welles' radio adaptation of The War of the Worlds is broadcast in The Mercury Theatre on the Air series.
  • December 24 – Jorge Luis Borges is injured in an accident and develops blood poisoning. While recovering in the following year he will write the first short story in his later characteristic style.
  • First complete performance of both parts of Goethe's Faust (1808/32), unabridged, at the Goetheanum in Dornach, Switzerland.
  • Avant-garde musician and theoretician Pierre Schaeffer begins his writing career as an essayist for a number of French musical journals.

    • Fiction

  • Margery Allingham – The Fashion in Shrouds
  • Eric Ambler
  • Cause for Alarm
  • Epitaph for a Spy
  • Vladimir Bartol – Alamut
  • Elizabeth Bowen – The Death of the Heart
  • Edgar Rice Burroughs – Tarzan and the Forbidden City
  • Taylor Caldwell – Dynasty of Death
  • John Dickson Carr
  • The Four False Weapons, Being the Return of Bencolin
  • To Wake the Dead
  • The Crooked Hinge
  • The Judas Window (as by Carter Dickson)
  • Death in Five Boxes (as by Carter Dickson)
  • Peter Cheyney – Can Ladies Kill?
  • Agatha Christie
  • Hercule Poirot's Christmas
  • Appointment with Death
  • Albert Cohen – Nailcruncher
  • René Daumal – A Night of Serious Drinking (La Grande Beuverie)
  • John Dos Passos – The Big Money (completing the U.S.A. trilogy)
  • Daphne du Maurier – Rebecca
  • Lawrence Durrell – The Black Book
  • Mircea Eliade – Marriage in Heaven (Nuntă în cer)
  • William Faulkner – The Unvanquished
  • Rachel Field – All This and Heaven Too
  • Julien Gracq – The Castle of Argol (Au château d'Argol)
  • Robert Graves – Count Belisarius
  • Graham Greene – Brighton Rock
  • Xavier Herbert – Capricornia
  • Robin Hyde – The Godwits Fly (semi-autobiographical)
  • Emilio Lussu – Un anno sull'altopiano
  • C. S. Lewis – Out of the Silent Planet
  • Norman Lindsay – Age of Consent
  • Henry Miller – Tropic of Capricorn
  • Vladimir Nabokov
  • The Gift (Дар)
  • Invitation to a Beheading (Приглашение на казнь; serialization concludes)
  • Kate O'Brien – Pray for the Wanderer
  • John O'Hara – Hope of Heaven
  • Ellery Queen
  • The Devil to Pay
  • The Four of Hearts
  • Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings – The Yearling
  • Clayton Rawson – Death from a Top Hat
  • Ayn Rand – Anthem
  • Joseph Roth – The Emperor's Tomb
  • Jean-Paul Sartre – Nausea (La Nausée)
  • Georges Simenon – The Man Who Watched the Trains Go By (L'Homme qui regardait passer les trains)
  • Esphyr Slobodkina – Caps for Sale: A Tale of a Peddler, Some Monkeys and Their Monkey Business
  • John Steinbeck – The Long Valley
  • Rex Stout – Too Many Cooks
  • Phoebe Atwood Taylor
  • The Annulet of Gilt
  • Banbury Bog
  • The Cut Direct (as by Alice Tilton)
  • Murder at the New York World's Fair (as by Freeman Dana)
  • B. Traven – The Bridge in the Jungle
  • S. S. Van Dine – The Gracie Allen Murder Case
  • Evelyn Waugh – Scoop
  • T. H. White – The Sword in the Stone
  • Gale Wilhelm – Torchlight to Valhalla

    • Children and young people

  • Claire Huchet Bishop – The Five Chinese Brothers
  • Enid Blyton – The Secret Island
  • C. S. Forester
  • A Ship of the Line
  • Flying Colours
  • Eleanor Graham – The Children Who Lived in a Barn
  • Joan Kahn – "Ladies and Gentlemen," said the Ringmaster
  • Eric Knight – Lassie Come-Home
  • Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings – The Yearling
  • Kate Seredy – The White Stag
  • Noel Streatfeild – The Circus Is Coming
  • T. H. White – The Sword in the Stone
  • John F. C. Westerman – John Wentley Takes Charge (first in the John Wentley series of three books)
  • Ursula Moray Williams – Adventures of the Little Wooden Horse

    • Drama

  • Jean Anouilh – Thieves' Carnival (Le Bal des Voleurs)
  • Robert Ardrey – Casey Jones
  • Patrick Hamilton – Gas Light
  • Esther McCracken – Quiet Wedding
  • Kaj Munk – Han sidder ved Smeltediglen
  • J. B. Priestley – When We Are Married
  • Robert E. Sherwood – Abe Lincoln in Illinois
  • Dodie Smith – Dear Octopus
  • Rodolfo Usigli – El gesticulador
  • Theodore Ward – Big White Fog
  • Thornton Wilder – Our Town
  • Emlyn Williams – The Corn is Green

    • Poetry

  • Alfred Kreymborg – The Planets: A Modern Allegory (radio play in verse)

    • Non-fiction

  • Hall Caine (died 1931) – Life of Christ
  • Cyril Connolly – Enemies of Promise
  • Geoffrey Faber – The Romance of a Bookshop 1904–1938
  • Edgar Innes Fripp (died 1931) – Shakespeare, Man and Artist
  • Elie Halévy – The Era of Tyrannies
  • Jomo Kenyatta – Facing Mount Kenya
  • Anne Morrow Lindbergh – Listen! The Wind
  • Robert McAlmon – Being Geniuses Together, 1920–1930
  • Thomas Mann – The Coming Victory of Democracy
  • George Orwell – Homage to Catalonia
  • Virginia Woolf – Three Guineas

    • Births

  • January 5 – Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o (also known as James Ngigi), Kenyan novelist
  • January 20 – Liz Calder, English publisher and editor
  • February 9 – Jovette Marchessault, French Canadian writer and artist (died 2012)
  • February 12
  • Judy Blume, American children's author
  • Tor Obrestad, Norwegian novelist, poet and documentary writer
  • February 22 – Ishmael Reed, American poet, essayist and novelist
  • March 1 – Michael Kurland, American author of sci-fi and detective fiction
  • March 14 – Eleanor Bron, English humorous writer and actress
  • March 24 – Ian Hamilton, English critic, biographer and poet (died 2001)
  • April 29 – Larry Niven, American sci-fi author
  • May 13 – Norma Klein, American author (died 1989)
  • May 25
  • Raymond Carver, American short-story writer and poet (died 1988)
  • Margaret Forster, English novelist and biographer (died 2016)
  • May 26 – Lyudmila Petrushevskaya, Russian novelist and playwright
  • June 16 – Joyce Carol Oates, American novelist
  • June 24 – Lawrence Block, American crime writer
  • July 19
  • Nicholas Bethell, English historian and politician (died 2007)
  • Dom Moraes, Indian poet and columnist (died 2004)
  • Tom Raworth, English poet
  • August 21 – Mudrooroo (Colin Johnson), Australian novelist
  • September 3 – Caryl Churchill, English dramatist
  • September 15 – Charles L. Mee, American dramatist
  • October 12 – Anne Perry (Juliet Marion Hulme), English historical novelist
  • October 13 – Hugo Young, English journalist (died 2003)
  • October 17 – Les Murray, Australian poet
  • October 19 – Allan Massie, Singapore-born Scottish writer
  • December 9 – Willi Glasauer, German artist and illustrator
  • December 14 – Leonardo Boff (Genézio Darci Boff), Brazilian philosopher and theologian
  • December 31 – Basudeb Dasgupta, Bengali novelist (died 2005)
  • Unknown dates
  • M. K. Wren (Martha Kay Renfroe), American novelist
  • Gabriel Ruhumbika, Tanzanian novelist
  • Hansjörg Schneider, Swiss novelist

    • Deaths

  • January 4 – Paola Drigo, Italian writer (born 1876)
  • January 16 – Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay (Sarat Chandra Chattergee), Bengali novelist (born 1876)
  • January 19 – Branislav Nušić, Serbian novelist and dramatist (born 1864)
  • January 29 – Armando Palacio Valdés, Spanish novelist and critic (born 1853)
  • February 13 – Momčilo Nastasijević, Serbian poet, novelist and dramatist (born 1894)
  • March 1 – Gabriele D'Annunzio, Italian poet and novelist (born 1863)
  • April 19 – Sir Henry Newbolt, English poet (born 1862)
  • April 21 – Lady Ottoline Morrell, English literary hostess (born 1873)
  • May 26 – James Forbes, Canadian American dramatist and screenwriter (born 1871)
  • June 9 – Ovid Densusianu, Romanian poet, philologist, and literary historian (born 1873)
  • June 26
  • James Weldon Johnson, American politician, poet and activist (born 1871)
  • E. V. Lucas, English essayist and biographer, 70
  • August 7 – Konstantin Stanislavski, Russian theatre director (born 1863)
  • August 26 – Millosh Gjergj Nikolla, Albanian poet and writer (tuberculosis, born 1911)
  • September 15 – Thomas Wolfe, American novelist (tuberculosis, born 1900)
  • October 27 – Lascelles Abercrombie, English poet and literary critic (born 1881)
  • December 23 – Robert Herrick, American realist novelist (born 1868)
  • December 25 – Karel Čapek, Czech science fiction author and dramatist (pneumonia, born 1890)
  • December 27 – Osip Mandelstam, Russian poet and essayist (in detention, born 1891)

    • Awards

  • Carnegie Medal for children's literature: Noel Streatfeild, The Circus Is Coming
  • Hawthornden Prize – David Jones for In Parenthesis
  • James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction: C. S. Forester, A Ship of the Line and Flying Colours
  • James Tait Black Memorial Prize for biography: Sir Edmund Chambers, Samuel Taylor Coleridge
  • Newbery Medal for children's literature: Kate Seredy, The White Stag
  • Newdigate prize: Michael Thwaites
  • Nobel Prize for literature: Pearl S. Buck
  • Pulitzer Prize for Drama: Thornton Wilder, Our Town
  • Pulitzer Prize for Poetry: Marya Zaturenska: Cold Morning Sky
  • Pulitzer Prize for the Novel: John Phillips Marquand – The Late George Apley

    • References

    1938 in literature Wikipedia
    (Text) CC BY-SA


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