1902 in literature explained

This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1902.

Events

• January 5
  • The political drama Danton's Death (Dantons Tod, completed and published in 1835) by Georg Büchner (died 1837), is first performed, at the Belle-Alliance-Theater in Berlin by the Vereins Neue Freie Volksbühne.^[1]
  • George Bernard Shaw's controversial 1893 play Mrs. Warren's Profession receives its first performance at a private London club.^[2]
• January 23 – The first example of a Sherlockian game – a study of inconsistencies of dates in Arthur Conan Doyle's The Hound of the Baskervilles (the serialisation of which in The Strand Magazine concludes in April) by publisher Frank Sidgwick – appears in The Cambridge Review.^[3]
• April – Mark Twain buys a home in Tarrytown, New York. On June 4 he receives an honorary doctorate of literature from the University of Missouri.
• June 16 – Bertrand Russell writes to Gottlob Frege about the mathematical problem to become known as Russell's paradox.^[4]
• July 1 – The Romanian language literary review Luceafărul begins publication in Budapest.
• August 6 – În sat sau la oraș (In the Village or in the City), by the Romanian peasant leader Constantin Dobrescu-Argeș, is performed in his native Mușătești, in front of an audience comprising Education Minister Spiru Haret^[5] and some 2,000 villagers.^[6]
• September 9 – P. G. Wodehouse leaves his job at the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Company in London to become a freelance writer. On September 18, his first published novel, the St. Austin's school story The Pothunters, is published in London by A & C Black, as a truncation of the version in their Public School Magazine from January to March.

• Early October – Beatrix Potter's self-illustrated children's book The Tale of Peter Rabbit (originally published privately a year earlier) appears in its first trade edition with Frederick Warne & Co in London. It sells 28,000 copies by the end of the year.^[7]
• October 5 – Thousands attend the funeral of the French novelist Émile Zola at the Cimetière de Montmartre, Paris. They include Alfred Dreyfus, given special permission by Mme Zola to attend.^[8]
• November 4 – J. M. Barrie's comedy The Admirable Crichton is first performed, at the Duke of York's Theatre in London, starring H. B. Irving, Henry Kemble and Irene Vanbrugh. It runs for 828 performances.
• December 5 – Leo Tolstoy's drama The Power of Darkness («Власть тьмы», Vlast' t'my, written in 1886) has its Russian-language première at the Moscow Art Theatre by Konstantin Stanislavski with some success, although Stanislavski is self-critical.^[9]
• December 18 – Maxim Gorky's drama The Lower Depths – Scenes from Russian Life («На дне», Na dne) is first performed, at the Moscow Art Theatre, as a first major success for Konstantin Stanislavsky as director and star.
• unknown date – The poet Ștefan Petică's cycle Fecioara în alb is published, marking a maturing of Romanian Symbolism.^[10]

New books

Fiction

• Azorín – La voluntad (Volition)
• Jane Barlow – The Founding of Fortunes
• Pío Baroja – Camino de perfección (pasión mística) (Road to Perfection)
• Edward Harold Begbie (as Caroline Lewis) – Clara in Blunderland
• Arnold Bennett
  • Anna of the Five Towns^[2]
  • The Grand Babylon Hotel
• Rhoda Broughton – Lavinia^[11]
• Joseph Conrad
  • Typhoon (serialized in The Pall Mall Magazine January–March and US book publication)^[12]
  • Youth: a Narrative, and Two Other Stories, incorporating Youth: a Narrative (1898) and Heart of Darkness (first 1899)^[2]
  • The End of the Tether
• Marie Corelli – Temporal Power: A Study in Supremacy
• Miguel de Unamuno – Amor y pedagogía
• Ramón del Valle-Inclán – Sonatas: Memorias del Marqués de Bradomín – Sonata de otoño (Sonatas: The Pleasant Memories of the Marquis of Bradomín – Autumn Sonata)
• Arthur Conan Doyle – The Hound of the Baskervilles^[2]
• Paul Laurence Dunbar – The Sport of the Gods
• Hamlin Garland – The Captain of the Gray-Horse Troop
• André Gide – L'immoraliste^[13]
• Ellen Glasgow – The Battle-Ground
• Annie French Hector – Kitty Costello^[14]
• Theodor Herzl – The Old New Land
• Violet Jacob – The Sheepstealers
• W. W. Jacobs – The Lady of the Barge (short stories, including "The Monkey's Paw")
• Henry James – The Wings of the Dove^[2]
• Alfred Jarry – Supermale (Le Surmâle: roman moderne)
• Mary Johnston – Audrey
• Olha Kobylianska – Zemlya (Land)
• Liang Qichao – Xin Zhongguo weilai ji (新中國未來記, The Future of New China; unfinished)
• Jack London – A Daughter of the Snows
• George Barr McCutcheon – Brewster's Millions
• Charles Major – Dorothy Vernon of Haddon Hall
• A. E. W. Mason – The Four Feathers^[15]
• W. Somerset Maugham – Mrs Craddock
• Dmitri Merejkowski – The Romance of Leonardo da Vinci
• Frank Norris – The Pit (serialization)
• Luigi Pirandello – Il Turno^[16]
• W. Heath Robinson – The Adventures of Uncle Lubin
• Saki – The Westminster Alice
• Percy Sykes – Ten Thousand Miles in Persia^[17]
• Jules Verne – The Kip Brothers (Les Frères Kip)
• Eduard Vilde – Mahtra sõda (The War at Mahtra)^{[18] [19]}
• Owen Wister – The Virginian^[20]

Children and young people

• L. Frank Baum – The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus
• J. M. Barrie – The Little White Bird (includes the story "Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens")
• Edith Ogden Harrison – Prince Silverwings and other fairy tales
• William Dean Howells – The Flight of Pony Baker
• Rudyard Kipling – Just So Stories for Little Children^[2]
• Bessie Marchant – Fleckie: A Story of the Desert, etc.
• E. Nesbit – Five Children and It
• Beatrix Potter – The Tale of Peter Rabbit^[2]
• Edward Stratemeyer – The Young Volcano Explorers
• Mrs George de Horne Vaizey – A Houseful of Girls
• C. N. and A. M. Williamson – The Lightning Conductor: the Strange Adventures of a Motor-car^[21]
• P. G. Wodehouse – The Pothunters

Drama

• J. M. Barrie – The Admirable Crichton
• Gordon Bottomley – The Crier by Night
• Gaston Arman de Caillavet and Robert de Flers – Le Cœur a ses raisons^[22]
• Constantin Dobrescu-Argeș – În sat sau la oraș (In the Village or in the City, first performance)^[5]
• Clyde Fitch – The Girl with the Green Eyes
• Cosmo Gordon-Lennox – The Marriage of Kitty^[23]
• Maxim Gorky – The Lower Depths^[24]
• Haralamb Lecca – Septima. Câiniĭ
• Maurice Maeterlinck – Monna Vanna
• Frank Wedekind – King Nicolo
• W. B. Yeats – Cathleen Ní Houlihan

Poetry

See main article: article and 1902 in poetry.

• Edwin James Brady – The Earthen Floor
• Walter de la Mare (as Walter Ramal) – Songs of Childhood^{[25] [26]}
• Ștefan Petică – Fecioara în alb

Non-fiction

• Jane Addams – Democracy and Social Ethics
• James Allen – As a Man Thinketh
• Hilaire Belloc – The Path to Rome^[27]
• Euclides da Cunha – Os Sertões (translated as Rebellion in the Backlands)^[28]
• Arthur Conan Doyle – The War in South Africa: Its Cause and Conduct
• Michael Fairless (pseudonym of Margaret Barber) – The Roadmender
• John A. Hobson – Imperialism: a study^[2]
• William James – The Varieties of Religious Experience
• Vilfredo Pareto – Les Systèmes socialistes
• Bertrand Russell – A Free Man's Worship
• Southern Education Board – Educational Conditions in the Southern Applachians
• William Wynn Westcott – Collectanea Hermetica (finishes publication)

Births

• January 1 - Muhammad Zaki Abd al-Qadir, Egyptian journalist and writer (d. 1981) ^[29]
• January 5 – Stella Gibbons, English novelist (died 1989)
• January 20 – Nazim Hikmet, Turkish lyricist and dramatist (died 1963)
• January 30 – Nikolaus Pevsner, German-born architectural historian (died 1983)
• February 1 – Langston Hughes, African-American poet and novelist (died 1967)
• February 16 – Ion Călugăru, Romanian novelist, short story writer and journalist (died 1956)
• February 19 – Kay Boyle, American writer, educator and political activist (died 1992)
• February 27 – John Steinbeck, American novelist and journalist (died 1968)
• March 9 – Thomas Owen Beachcroft, English novelist (died 1988)
• March 10 – Stefan Inglot, Polish historian (died 1994)
• March 29 – Marcel Aymé, French novelist and short-story writer (died 1967)^[30]
• April 2 – Jan Tschichold, German-born typographer (died 1974)
• April 6 – Julien Torma, French poet and dramatist (died 1933)
• April 9 – Lord David Cecil, English literary critic and biographer (died 1986)
• April 23 – Halldór Laxness, Icelandic novelist (died 1998)^[31]
• June 5 – Hugo Huppert, Austrian poet, writer and translator (died 1982)
• July 10 – Nicolás Guillén, Afro-Cuban poet (died 1989)
• July 8 – Gwendolyn B. Bennett, African American writer and artist (died 1981)
• July 27 - Yaroslav Halan, Ukrainian playwright, translator, and publicist (died 1949)
• August 15 – Katharine Brush, American short story writer (died 1952)
• August 16 – Georgette Heyer, English novelist (died 1974)^[32]
• August 19 – Ogden Nash, American poet and humorist (died 1971)^[33]
• August 24
  • Felipe Alfau, Spanish-American fiction writer, poet and translator (died 1999)^[34]
  • Fernand Braudel, French historian (died 1985)
• September 21 – Luis Cernuda, Spanish poet (died 1963)
• September 25 – Ernst von Salomon, German writer (died 1972)
• October 13 – Arna Bontemps, African American poet (died 1973)
• October 23 – Dadie Rylands (George Rylands), English Shakespeare scholar (died 1999)
• October 26 – Beryl Markham (Beryl Clutterbuck), English-born Kenyan adventurer and memoirist (died 1986)^[35]
• October 31 – Carlos Drummond de Andrade, Brazilian poet (died 1987)^[36]
• November 1 – Nordahl Grieg, Norwegian poet and author (killed in action 1943)^[37]
  • • November 2 Hu Feng (胡风), Chinese novelist (died 1985)
  • Gyula Illyés, Hungarian author (died 1983)
• November 29 – Carlo Levi, Italian writer (died 1975)
• December 7 – Nicolae Crevedia, Romanian poet, novelist and journalist (died 1978)
• December 20 – Jolán Földes, Hungarian novelist and playwright (died 1963)^[38]

Deaths

• January 7 – Wilhelm Hertz, German poet and translator (born 1835)
• April 6 – Gleb Uspensky, Russian writer (born 1843)^[39]
• April 20 – Frank R. Stockton, American writer and humorist (born 1834)
• April 21 – Ethna Carbery, Irish poet (born 1866)^[40]
• April 27 – Nancy H. Adsit, American art lecturer, art educator, and writer of art literature (born 1825)
• May 5 – Bret Harte, American author and poet (born 1836)^[41]
  • • May 6 Martha Perry Lowe, American social activist and organizer (born 1829)
  • Emma Augusta Sharkey, American dime novelist (born 1858)^[42]
• May 17/18 — Harriet Abbott Lincoln Coolidge, American philanthropist, author and reformer (b. 1849)
• June 10 – Jacint Verdaguer, Catalan poet (born 1845)^[43]
• June 18 – Samuel Butler, English novelist (born 1835)^[44]
• July 10 – Annie French Hector (pseudonym Mrs Alexander), Irish-born novelist (born 1825)
• August 31
• August 31
  • Grace Hinsdale, American religious writer (born 1832)
  • Mathilde Wesendonck, German poet (born 1828)^[45]
• September 11 – Ernst Dümmler, German historian (born 1830)
• September 19 – Masaoka Shiki (正岡 子規), Japanese haiku poet (born 1867)^[46]
• September 29
  • William McGonagall, Scottish doggerel poet (born 1825)^[47]
  • Émile Zola, French novelist (carbon monoxide poisoning, born 1840)^[48]
• October 7 – George Rawlinson, English historian (born 1812)
• October 13 – John George Bourinot, Canadian historian (born 1836)
• October 25 – Frank Norris, American novelist (peritonitis, born 1870)^[49]
• October 31 – Cornélie Huygens, Dutch writer, social democrat and feminist (born 1848)^[50]
• November 16 – G. A. Henty, English historical novelist (born 1832)^[51]
• December 26 – Mary Hartwell Catherwood, American author and poet (born 1849)^[52]

Awards

• Nobel Prize for Literature

Christian Matthias Theodor Mommsen

Notes and References

1. Book: The Genius of the German Theater. 1968. 425.
2. Book: Williams, Hywel . Cassell's Chronology of World History . registration . London . Weidenfeld & Nicolson . 2005 . 0-304-35730-8 . 460–461.
3. Frank . Sidgwick . An Open Letter to Dr Watson . The Cambridge Review . 1902-01-23 . 2020-01-25.
4. Book: Frege, Gottlob . The Frege Reader . 253 . 1997 . 978-0-631-19445-3 . Beaney, Michael . Oxford . Blackwell.
5. Book: Vrânceanu, Mircea . 1947 . Însemnările unui răsvrătit . Bucharest . Editura Socialistă . 62.
6. Liviu . Cernăianu . Tradiții culturale la Mușătești . Albina. Revistă Săptămînală a Așezămintelor Culturale . 70 . 1029 . 5.
7. Book: Lear, Linda . 2007 . Beatrix Potter: A Life in Nature . New York . St. Martin's Press . 978-0-312-36934-7 .
8. News: Thousands March At Funeral of Emile Zola: Municipal Guards Line the Route to Preserve Order. Dreyfus Attends After All, Is Unnoticed by the Crowd – Mme. Zola Gave Him Back His Promise to Stay Away – Very Little Disorder . . 1902-10-06.
9. Book: Stanislavsky, Constantin . . 1924 . Geoffrey Bles . London . 400–403, 577.
10. Book: Cernat, Paul . Paul Cernat

    . Paul Cernat . Avangarda românească și complexul periferiei: primul val . Cartea Românească . Bucharest . 2007 . 15.

11. Book: The Palgrave Encyclopedia of Victorian Women's Writing. Springer International Publishing. 2022. 9783030783181. 679.
12. Book: The Cambridge Companion to Joseph Conrad . Cambridge University Press . The Short Fiction . Gail Fraser . J. H. Stape . 1996 . 2004 . 38-39] . 0521484847 .
13. Book: Gale, Cengage Learning. A Study Guide for Andre Gide's "The Immoralist". 29 June 2016. Gale, Cengage Learning. 978-1-4103-4931-6. 3.
14. Book: Peter Berresford Ellis. Peter Tremayne. Henry Rider Haggard. H. Rider Haggard: A Voice from the Infinite. 1978. Routledge & K. Paul. 978-0-7100-0026-2. 147.
15. Book: John C. Tibbetts. James M. Welsh. The Encyclopedia of Novels Into Film. 2005. 136–159.
16. Book: Fiora A. Bassanese. Understanding Luigi Pirandello. University of South Carolina Press. 1997. 9781570030819. 172.
17. Web site: A History of Persia . . 1921 . 2013-10-01.
18. Book: Twentieth-Century Eastern European Writers: Second series, Volume 2 . 2000 . Steven Serafin . Detroit . 310.
19. Book: Hasselblatt . Cornelius . Geschichte der estnischen Literatur: von den Anfängen bis zur Gegenwart . 2008 . De Gruyter . Berlin . 311.
20. Wister, Owen (1902). The Virginian: A Horseman of the Plains. New York: Gramercy Books.
21. Book: Richardson, Angelique . The new woman in fiction and in fact: fin-de-siècle feminisms . Palgrave Macmillan, in association with Institute for English Studies, University of London . Basingstoke, Hampshire; New York . 2002 . 9781349656035 . 75.
22. Book: Catalog of the Theatre and Drama Collections. G. K. Hall. 1967. 980.
23. Book: Alan Goble. The Complete Index to Literary Sources in Film. Walter de Gruyter. 1999. 111.
24. Book: Naturalism and Symbolism in European Theatre 1850-1918.. Claude Schumacher. Glynne W. Wickham. John Northam. Cambridge University Press. 1996. 218.
25. Book: Cox, Michael . The Concise Oxford Chronology of English Literature . Oxford University Press . 2004 . 0-19-860634-6 .
26. Web site: A Time-Line of Poetry in English . Representative Poetry Online . . 2008-12-20 . https://web.archive.org/web/20081228024145/http://rpo.library.utoronto.ca/timeline/ . 28 December 2008 . live.
27. Book: Hilaire Belloc. The Path to Rome. 1911. G. Allen. iv.
28. Book: Historical Abstracts: Modern history abstracts, 1775-1914. Part A. 2000. American Bibliographical Center. 130.
29. Web site: محمد زكي عبد القادر . maspero.eg . 20 July 2022 . ar.
30. Book: Christopher Lloyd. Marcel Aymé: Uranus, La Tête Des Autres. 1994. University of Glasgow French and German Publications. 978-0-85261-445-7. 8.
31. Book: Peter Hallberg. Halldor Laxness. 1971. Ardent Media. 27.
32. Book: Contemporary Popular Writers. St. James Press. 1997. 9781558622166. 197.
33. Book: Cleveland Amory. International Celebrity Register. 1959. Celebrity Register. 543.
34. Book: Regina Galasso. Translating New York: The City's Languages in Iberian Literatures. Liverpool University Press. 2018. 9781786948670. 29.
35. Book: Margo McLoone. Jacquelyn L. Beyer. Women Explorers of the Air: Harriet Quimby, Bessie Coleman, Amelia Earhart, Beryl Markham, Jacqueline Cochran. Capstone Books. 1999. 9780736803106. 33.
36. Book: John Nist. The Modernist Movement in Brazil: A Literary Study. University of Texas Press. 2014. 9781477304525. 129.
37. Book: 20th-century Plays in Synopsis. T. Y. Crowell Company. 1966. 476.
38. Book: Ursula Seeber. Alisa Douer. Edith Blaschitz. Kleine Verbündete: vertriebene österreichische Kinder- und Jugendliteratur. 1998. Picus. 978-3-85452-276-8. de.
39. Book: Nikita Prut︠s︡kov. Gleb Uspensky. Twayne. 1972. 154.
40. News: Death of Mrs Seamus MacManus. Freeman's Journal. 21 April 2017.
41. News: Bret Harte Dead. Newburgh Daily Journal. May 6, 1902. January 28, 2022.
42. Book: Kaser, James A.. The New Orleans of Fiction: A Research Guide. July 29, 2014. Scarecrow Press. 978-0-8108-9204-0. 295.
43. Book: Baedeker's Barcelona . Prentice Hall Travel . New York . 1992 . 9780130635617 . 43.
44. Book: Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Volume 8 . 2004 . Oxford University Press . 216 . 0-19-861359-8. Article by Elinor Shaffer.
45. Book: Wolf, Hugo . Letters to Melanie Köchert . University of Wisconsin Press . Madison, Wis . 2003 . 9780299194444 . xxxvii.
46. Book: Kodansha Encyclopedia of Japan. Kodansha. 1983. 124.
47. 40706. McGonagall, William . William . Donaldson . 2004.
48. Web site: The Strange Death of Emile Zola . History Today Volume 52 . 9 September 2002. 21 February 2017.
49. Web site: Frank Norris, the novelist, died to-day as the result of an operation for appendicitis performed three days ago. The New York Times. October 26, 1902. January 28, 2022.
50. Web site: Cornélie Huygens . DBNL . 29 May 2019 . nl.
51. Book: Biographical History of Gonville and Caius College, 1349-1897: Admissions since January 1, 1899. Chronicle of the College estates. 1912. University Press. 126.
52. Book: Robert, Price. Catherwood, Mary Hartwell. Edward T.. James. Notable American Women, 1607-1950: A Biographical Dictionary. 1. 1971. 978-0-67462-734-5. 308.