1915 in literature

Template:Short description Template:Year nav topic5 This article contains information about the literary persons, events and publications of 1915.

Events

January – The Geração de Orpheu launch the short-lived magazine Orpheu, introducing literary modernism to Portugal.<ref>Template:Citation</ref>
January 13 – "Reminiscences of Sergeant Michael Cassidy", the first known story by Captain H. C. McNeile, Royal Engineers, writing as "Sapper", begins in the Daily Mail (London).<ref>p. 4. Template:Cite journal</ref>
March – Ford Madox Ford's novel The Good Soldier: A tale of passion is published by John Lane – The Bodley Head in London under this title, and under the author's original name, Ford Madox Hueffer, although he had intended it to be called The Saddest Story.
March 26 – Virginia Woolf's first novel, The Voyage Out, is published in London by the firm of her half-brother, Gerald Duckworth.
April 6 – The American Ezra Pound's poetry collection Cathay, "translations... for the most part of the Chinese of Rihaku, from the notes of the late Ernest Fenollosa, and the decipherings of the Professors Mori and Ariga", is published in London by Elkin Mathews.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
April 23 – English poet and writer Rupert Brooke, having sailed on February 28 with the British Mediterranean Expeditionary Force for the Gallipoli campaign, dies age 27 on a hospital ship of streptococcal sepsis from an infected mosquito bite off the Greek island of Skyros<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> in the Aegean, where he is buried this evening with fellow poet Patrick Shaw-Stewart in charge of the firing party. Brooke came to public attention as a war poet on March 11 when The Times Literary Supplement published two sonnets ("IV: The Dead" and "V: The Soldier"); the latter was then read from the pulpit of St Paul's Cathedral on Easter Sunday (April 4). His collection of poetry, containing all five sonnets, 1914 & Other Poems, is first published posthumously in May and runs to 11 further impressions this year alone.
April 24 – Deportation of Armenian notables from Constantinople begins. Among the writers, poets, teachers and literary critics killed are Dikran Chökürian, Armen Dorian, Melkon Giurdjian, Ardashes Harutiunian, Jacques Sayabalian, Ruben Sevak, Siamanto, and Rupen Zartarian. (Survivors include Yervant Odian and Alexander Panossian.)
May 3 – The rondeau "In Flanders Fields" by the Canadian poet John McCrae is written; it is first published on December 8 in the London magazine Punch.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
May 7 – The Sinking of the RMS Lusitania claims 1,198 victims. The Americans among them in this torpedo attack on a civilian passenger liner include the writer and playwright Justus Miles Forman (born 1875), the theatrical producer Charles Frohman (born 1856), the writer and philosopher Elbert Hubbard (born 1856) and his second wife Alice Moore Hubbard (born 1861), and the playwright Charles Klein (born 1867). The survivors include the British-born writer and educator Ian Holbourn and the bookseller Charles E. Lauriat, Jr.
May 13 – As Julian Grenfell stands talking with other officers, a shell lands some yards away and a splinter hits him in the head. He is taken to a hospital in Boulogne, where he dies 13 days later. His poem "Into Battle" is published in The Times the following day.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> His younger brother Gerald William (Billy) Grenfell is killed in action two months later.
c. May – Publication of the first modern book illustrated with wood engravings, Frances Cornford's Spring Morning, from the Poetry Bookshop, London, has engravings by her cousin Gwen Raverat.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
June 24 – The Widener Library at Harvard University is dedicated.
June 26 – August 14 – P. G. Wodehouse's novel Something Fresh is serialized in The Saturday Evening Post (U.S.), introducing the character of Lord Emsworth of Blandings Castle. It first appears in book form on September 3 in New York, from D. Appleton & Company, and on September 16 in London, from Methuen.<ref name=PGWCBC>Template:Cite book</ref>
August/September – John Buchan's thriller The Thirty-Nine Steps, set just before the outbreak of war and introducing as hero Richard Hannay, is serialised in Blackwood's Magazine. Book publication follows in October by William Blackwood and Sons in Edinburgh.
August–December – Ezra Pound completes the early sections of his poem The Cantos.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
September 15
- P. G. Wodehouse's story "Extricating Young Gussie" is published in The Saturday Evening Post (U.S.). It introduces as characters Jeeves and Bertie.
- New Culture Movement: Chen Duxiu establishes the New Youth magazine in Shanghai, China.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
September 30 – Methuen, publishers of D. H. Lawrence's new novel The Rainbow, are prosecuted in London under the Obscene Publications Act 1857 and its sale is banned. The U.S. edition appears in November without any legal challenge.<ref name="Library1985">Template:Cite book</ref>
October – Franz Kafka's seminal novella The Metamorphosis (Die Verwandlung) is first published in Die Weißen Blätter (Leipzig).<ref>Jg. 2 pp. 1177–1230.</ref> Kafka finishes writing The Trial (Der Process) this year, but it will not be published until 1925, the year after his death.
October 15 – Detective Story Magazine is first published by Street & Smith of New York, a successor to Nick Carter Stories.
October 27 – Leonid Andreyev's play He Who Gets Slapped premieres at the Moscow Art Theatre<ref name="jester">Template:Cite book</ref>
November – The German author Heinrich Mann's essay on Émile Zola in Die Weißen Blätter marks Zola's political commitment and attacks the economic causes of the war. This temporarily disrupts Mann's relations with his younger brother, the novelist Thomas Mann.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
unknown dates
- James Joyce, Tristan Tzara and Vladimir Lenin all take up residence in Zurich, in a coincidence to be exploited in Tom Stoppard's 1974 play Travesties.
- Alfred A. Knopf, Sr. establishes the publishers Alfred A. Knopf in New York City.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
- The Goudy Old Style serif typeface is created by Frederic Goudy for American Type Founders.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

New books

C. J. Dennis – The Songs of a Sentimental Bloke (verse novel)
John Drinkwater – Swords and Ploughshares
T. S. Eliot – The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
H. B. Elliott, ed. – Lest We Forget: A War Anthology<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
Geoffrey Faber – Interflow, Poems Mainly Lyrical
Rudyard Kipling – "My Boy Jack"
Francis Ledwidge – Songs of the Fields
Vladimir Mayakovsky – A Cloud in Trousers
Alice Meynell – Poems of the War
Barbu Nemțeanu – Stropi de soare
Fernando Pessoa – Opiário and Ode Marítima
Jessie Pope – Jessie Pope's War Poems and More War Poems

Non-fiction

John Hay Beith – The First Hundred Thousand
John Buchan – Nelson's History of the War (begun)
Hall Caine – The Drama of 365 Days: Scenes in the Great War
Maxim Gorky – In the World (В людях)
Rudyard Kipling – The Fringes of the Fleet (essays and poems)
Hugo Krabbe – Die moderne staatsidee
Friedrich Naumann – Mitteleuropa
May Sinclair – A Journal of Impressions in Belgium
Percy Sykes – A History of Persia<ref name="WDL">Template:Cite web</ref>
Zhonghua Da Zidian (中華大字典) (Great Chinese Dictionary)

Births

January 1 – Branko Ćopić, Bosnian Serb writer (suicide 1984)<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
January 6 – Alan Watts, British/American philosopher (died 1973)<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
January 28 – Nien Cheng, Chinese-born American writer (died 2009)<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
February 2 – Khushwant Singh, Indian novelist and journalist (died 2014)<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
February 11 – Patrick Leigh Fermor, British author (died 2011)<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
March 8 – Drue Heinz, born Doreen English, British-American patron (died 2018)
March 13 – Protiva Bose (Ranu Shome), Bengali singer and writer (died 2006)Template:Cn
March 18 – Richard Condon, American novelist (died 1996)
March 26 – Hwang Sun-won, Korean fiction writer (died 2000)<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
April 12 – Július Tomin, Czech writer known for promoting Interlingua (died 2003)
April 15 – Hilda Bernstein, English-born author, artist, and anti-apartheid activist (died 2006)<ref>Template:Cite web Template:Cbignore</ref>
April 24 – Salvador Borrego, Mexican journalist, historical revisionist and neo-nazi writer (d. 2018)
May 5 – Emanuel Litvinoff, Anglo-Jewish writer (died 2011)<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
May 8 – Milton Meltzer, American historian and author (died 2009)<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
May 10 – Monica Dickens, English novelist (died 1992)<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
May 12 – Joe David Brown, American novelist and journalist (died 1976)
May 27 – Herman Wouk, American novelist (died 2019)<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
June 10 – Saul Bellow, American writer (died 2005)<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
June 21 – Jesús Arango Cano, Colombian economist, diplomat, anthropologist, archaeologist and writer (died 2015)
June 22 – Thomas Quinn Curtiss, American writer, and film and theatre critic (died 2000)
July 1
- Alun Lewis, Welsh poet in English (died 1944)<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
- Jean Stafford, American fiction writer (died 1979)
July 7 – Margaret Walker, American poet and novelist (died 1998)<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
July 14 – Jerome Lawrence, American dramatist (died 2004)
July 31 – Herbert Aptheker, American historian (died 2003)
August 13 – Muhammad Ibrahim Joyo, Pakistani teacher, writer, scholar, and Sindhi nationalist (died 2017)<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
August 19 – Ring Lardner, Jr., American journalist and screenwriter (died 2000)<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
August 28 – Claude Roy, French poet (died 1997)
August 30 – Jack Simmons, English historian (died 2000)
September 8 – Benoît Lacroix, Canadian theologian and philosopher (died 2016)<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
September 17 – Adolfo Sánchez Vázquez, Spanish-born philosopher (2011)<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
September 21 – Gertrude Poe, American journalist (died 2017)<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
September 27 – Marjorie Chibnall, English medievalist, biographer and translator (died 2012)<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
October 17 – Arthur Miller, American dramatist (died 2005)<ref>Template:Cite book Template:Dead link</ref>
October 24 – Marghanita Laski, English biographer, novelist and broadcaster (died 1988)
November 8 – G. S. Fraser, Scottish poet and critic (died 1980)
November 12 – Roland Barthes, French literary theorist (died 1980)<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
November 16 – Jean Fritz, American children's writer (died 2017)<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
November 26 – Emilio D'Amore, Italian writer, journalist, and politician (died 2017)<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
December 6 – Nilawan Pintong, Thai writer (died 2017)<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
December 13 – Ross Macdonald, American-Canadian writer (died 1983)
December 22 – David Martin, Hungarian-born Australian poet (died 1997)
December 27 – John Cornford, English poet (died 1936)

Deaths

January 3 – James Elroy Flecker, English poet, novelist and dramatist (tuberculosis, born 1884)<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
January 19 – Elizabeth Boynton Harbert, American author, lecturer, reformer (born 1843)
February 4 – Mary Elizabeth Braddon, English popular novelist (born 1837)
April 8 – Louis Pergaud, French novelist (killed in action, born 1882)
April 19 – Julia Evelyn Ditto Young, American poet and novelist (born 1857)<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
April 23 – Rupert Brooke, English war poet (blood poisoning, born 1887)
May 7 (passengers drowned in the sinking of the Lusitania)
- Justus Miles Forman, American writer (born 1875)<ref name=Lusitania>Template:Cite news</ref>
- Charles Frohman, American theater producer (born 1856)<ref name=Lusitania/>
- Elbert Hubbard, American writer and philosopher (born 1856)<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
- Alice Moore Hubbard, American wife of Elbert Hubbard (born 1861)
- Charles Klein, American playwright (born 1867)<ref>"Mr. Charles Klein", The Lusitania Resource, accessed June 9, 2019</ref>
May 11 – Lucy Bethia Walford, Scottish-born novelist and artist (born 1845)
May 26 – Julian Grenfell, English war poet (killed in action, born 1888)<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
June 4 – George Calderon, English dramatist and translator (killed in action on Gallipoli campaign, born 1868)
July 5 – Aurelio Tolentino, Filipino dramatist (born 1867)
August 19 – Tevfik Fikret, Ottoman Turkish poet and journalist (diabetes, born 1867).
September 1 – August Stramm, German Expressionist poet and playwright (killed in action, born 1874)
September 27 – Remy de Gourmont, French Symbolist poet, novelist, and critic (stroke, born 1858)
October 17 – Edmond Laforest, Haitian French-language poet (suicide, born 1876)<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
November 14 – Booker T. Washington, American writer and educator (born 1856)<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
December 23 – Roland Leighton, English war poet (died of wounds, born 1895)<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Awards

Nobel Prize for Literature: Romain Rolland (French)

References

Template:Reflist

Events

New books

Fiction

Children and young people

Drama

Poetry

Non-fiction

Births

Deaths

Awards

References

See also