1915 in literature

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This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1915.

Events

January – The Geração de Orpheu launch the short-lived magazine Orpheu, introducing literary modernism to Portugal.^[1]
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).^[2]
February 28 – Rupert Brooke sails with the British Mediterranean Expeditionary Force, but develops sepsis from an infected mosquito bite. This ends with his death in a hospital ship off Skyros.^[3] His collection 1914 & Other Poems, including the sonnet "The Soldier", appears posthumously in May.
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", by Elkin Mathews, is published in London.^[4]
April 24 – Deportation begins of Armenian notables from Istanbul. Among the literary deportees killed in the Armenian genocide are Dikran Chökürian, Armen Dorian, Melkon Giurdjian, Ardashes Harutiunian, Jacques Sayabalian, Ruben Sevak, Siamanto, Rupen Zartarian and actor Yenovk Shahen. 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.^[5]
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.^[6] 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.^[7]
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.^[8]
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.^[9]
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.
September 30 – D. H. Lawrence's novel The Rainbow is prosecuted on its appearance in London under the Obscene Publications Act 1857, and suppressed by his publisher, Methuen. The U.S. edition appears in November without any legal challenge.
October – Franz Kafka's seminal novella The Metamorphosis (Die Verwandlung) is first published in Die Weißen Blätter (Leipzig).^[10] 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.
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.^[11]
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.^[12]
- The Goudy Old Style serif typeface is created by Frederic Goudy for American Type Founders.^[13]

New books

Poetry

C. J. Dennis – The Songs of a Sentimental Bloke (verse novel)
T. S. Eliot – The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock
H. B. Elliott, ed. – Lest We Forget: A War Anthology
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
Rudyard Kipling – The Fringes of the Fleet (essays and poems)
Friedrich Naumann – Mitteleuropa
May Sinclair – A Journal of Impressions in Belgium
Percy Sykes – A History of Persia^[14]
Zhonghua Da Zidian (中華大字典) (Great Chinese Dictionary)

Births

January 1 – Branko Ćopić, Bosnian Serb writer (suicide 1984)
February 2 – Khushwant Singh, Indian novelist and journalist (died 2014)
March 8 – Drue Heinz, born Doreen English, British-American patron (died 2018)
March 13 – Protiva Bose (Ranu Shome), Bengali singer and writer (died 2006)
March 18 – Richard Condon, American novelist (died 1996)
March 26 – Hwang Sun-won, Korean fiction writer (died 2000)
May 8 – Milton Meltzer, American historian and author (died 2009)
May 10 – Monica Dickens, English novelist (died 1992)
May 12 – Joe David Brown, American novelist and journalist (died 1976)
May 27 – Herman Wouk, American novelist (died 2019)
June 10 – Saul Bellow, American writer (died 2005)
July 1
- Alun Lewis, Welsh poet in English (died 1944)
- Jean Stafford, American fiction writer (died 1979)
July 7 – Margaret Walker, American poet and novelist (died 1998)
July 14 – Jerome Lawrence, American dramatist (died 2004)
July 31 – Herbert Aptheker, American historian (died 2003)
August 19 – Ring Lardner, Jr., American journalist and screenwriter (died 2000)
August 28 – Claude Roy, French poet (died 1997)
August 30 – Jack Simmons, English historian (died 2000)
September 27 – Marjorie Chibnall, English medievalist, biographer and translator (died 2012)
October 17 – Arthur Miller, American dramatist (died 2005)
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)^[15]
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)
February 4 – Mary Elizabeth Braddon, English popular novelist (born 1837)
April 8 – Louis Pergaud, French novelist (killed in action, born 1882)
April 23 – Rupert Brooke, English war poet (blood poisoning, born 1887)
May 11 – Lucy Bethia Walford, Scottish novelist and artist (born 1845)
May 26 – Julian Grenfell, English war poet (killed in action, born 1888)
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)^[16]
November 14 – Booker T. Washington, American writer and educator (born 1856)^[17]
December 23 – Roland Leighton, English war poet (died of wounds, born 1895)^[18]

Awards

Nobel Prize for Literature: Romain Rolland (French)

References

^ Ferro, António, ed. (Jan–Mar 1915), Orpheu (in Portuguese), Lisboa: Orpheu, Lda.
^ p. 4. Jaillant, Lise (2011). "Sapper, Hodder & Stoughton, and the Popular Literature of the Great War". Book History. 14. Johns Hopkins University Press: 140. ISSN 1098-7371.
^ "Royal Naval Division service record (extract)". The National Archives. Retrieved 11 November 2007.
^ Moody, David A. (2007). Ezra Pound, Poet: A Portrait of the Man and His Work, Volume I, The Young Genius 1885–1920. Oxford University Press. p. 266. ISBN 978-0-19-957146-8.
^ Gillmor, Don (2001). Canada: A People's History. Vol. 2. Toronto, Ontario: McClelland & Stewart. p. 93. ISBN 0-7710-3341-9.
^ Mosley, Nicholas (1976). Julian Grenfell: His Life and the Times of his Death 1888–1915. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson. ISBN 0297770934.
^ Balston, Thomas (1949). Wood-engraving in Modern English Books. London: National Book League.
^ McIlvaine, Eileen; Sherby, Louise S.; Heineman, James H. (1990). P. G. Wodehouse: A comprehensive bibliography and checklist. New York: James H. Heineman. pp. 27–28. ISBN 0-87008125-X.
^ "BK. Ezra Pound and the Invention of Japan". Japonisme, Orientalism, Mysticism. Retrieved 2015-01-13.
^ Jg. 2 pp. 1177–1230.
^ Liukkonen, Petri. "Heinrich Mann". Books and Writers. Finland: Kuusankoski Public Library. Archived from the original on 4 September 2013.
^ Gale Group (December 1998). Business Leader Profiles for Students. Gale. p. 81. ISBN 978-0-7876-2935-9.
^ American Printer and Lithographer. Moore Publishing Company. 1948. pp. 19–20.
^ "A History of Persia". World Digital Library. 1921. Retrieved 2013-10-01.
^ Graham Allen (2 June 2004). Roland Barthes. Routledge. p. 1. ISBN 978-1-134-50340-7.
^ Donald E. Herdeck; Maurice Alcibiade Lubin; Margaret Herdeck (1979). Caribbean Writers: A Bio-bibliographical-critical Encyclopedia. Three Continents Press. p. 413. ISBN 978-0-914478-74-4.
^ Robert A. Hill; Marcus Garvey; Universal Negro Improvement Association (4 November 1983). The Marcus Garvey and Universal Negro Improvement Association Papers, Vol. I: 1826-August 1919. University of California Press. p. 166. ISBN 978-0-520-04456-2.
^ Helen McPhail; Philip Guest (12 August 1998). Wilfred Owen: On the Trail of the Poets of the Great War. Pen and Sword. p. 47. ISBN 978-1-4738-2078-4.

Events

New books

Fiction

Children and young people

Drama

Poetry

Non-fiction

Births

Deaths

Awards

References

See also