1904 in literature explained
This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1904.
Events
- January
- January 17 – Anton Chekhov's last play, The Cherry Orchard («Вишнëвый сад», Vishnevyi sad), opens at the Moscow Art Theatre directed by Constantin Stanislavski.
- February 25 – J. M. Synge's tragedy Riders to the Sea is first performed at Molesworth Hall, Dublin, by the Irish National Theatre Society.
- March 1 – Sophie Radford de Meissner's translation of Aleksey Konstantinovich Tolstoy's 1863 historical drama Ivan the Terrible is first played at the New Amsterdam Theatre on Broadway, New York City, by Richard Mansfield.[1]
- April 24 – A Lithuanian press ban in the Russian Empire is lifted. Petras Vileišis installs a printing press in his Vileišis Palace in Vilnius.
- April 25 – Herbert Beerbohm Tree establishes what will become the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, at His Majesty's Theatre in the London's Haymarket.[2]
- May 10 – Virginia Woolf suffers a mental breakdown after the death on February 22 of her father, Sir Leslie Stephen.
- June 16 – The original "Bloomsday", the day James Joyce first walks out with his future wife Nora Barnacle (a chambermaid he first met on June 10), to the Dublin suburb of Ringsend. He sets the action of his novel Ulysses (1922) on this date.[3]
- June 28 – Chekhov, suffering from tuberculosis at Badenweiler, writes to his sister Masha saying his health is improving.[4] He dies just over two weeks later.
- September – Mark Twain buys a home at 21 Fifth Avenue, New York City.
- November 1
- November – Hall Caine's novel The Prodigal Son is published by Heinemann in London and opens in a dramatic adaptation at the Grand Theatre, Douglas, Isle of Man.
- December – The only known surviving copy of the first quarto edition of Shakespeare's play Titus Andronicus (published in London, 1594) is discovered in Sweden.
- December 21 – The first of Virginia Woolf's published writings, "Haworth, November 1904", an account of a visit to the Brontë family home, appears anonymously in a women's supplement to a clerical journal, The Guardian.[6] [7] (A book review written later has appeared in the same journal a week earlier.)[8]
- December 24 – The Coliseum Theatre in London opens.
- December 27
New books
Fiction
Children and young people
Drama
Poetry
See main article: 1904 in poetry.
Non-fiction
Births
- January 14 – Robert Speaight, English actor, biographer and essayist (died 1976)
- January 22 – Arkady Gaidar, Russian children's writer (died 1941)
- January 23 – Louis Zukofsky, American modernist poet (died 1978)
- February 1 – S. J. Perelman, American humorist and author (died 1979)
- February 4 – MacKinlay Kantor, American historian (died 1977)
- February 19 – Maurice O'Sullivan (Muiris Ó Súilleabháin), Irish memoirist (drowned 1950)
- March 2 – Dr. Seuss (Theodor Seuss Geisel), American children's writer (died 1991)
- March 26 – Joseph Campbell, American author and expert on mythology (died 1987)
- April 4 – Soeman Hs, Indonesian (East Indies) novelist and short story writer (died 1999)[15]
- April 27 – Cecil Day-Lewis, Anglo-Irish poet (died 1972)
- May 6 – Harry Martinson, Swedish author and Nobel laureate (died 1978)
- May 20
- May 22 – Anne de Vries, Dutch novelist (died 1964)
- June 16 – Eileen Colwell, English children's librarian (died 2002)
- July 13 – Pablo Neruda, Chilean poet and Nobel laureate (died 1973)
- July 21 – Ion Biberi, Romanian social scientist, novelist, and essayist (died 1990)
- August 4 – Witold Gombrowicz, Polish playwright and novelist (died 1969)
- August 10 – Dorothy B. Hughes, American crime writer and critic (died 1993)
- August 24 – Gwyn Williams, Welsh writer and poet (died 1990)
- September – Abdulla Goran, Kurdish poet (died 1962)
- September 27 – John Gwilym Jones, Welsh dramatist and writer (died 1988)
- October 2 – Graham Greene, English novelist and journalist (died 1991)
- October 12 – Ding Ling (丁玲), born Jiang Bingzhi, Chinese fiction writer (died 1986)
- November 25 – Ba Jin (巴金), born Li Yaotang, Chinese novelist (died 2005)
- November 28 – Nancy Mitford, English novelist and biographer (died 1973)
- December 13 – Glen Byam Shaw, English theatrical director (died 1986)
- December 21 – Johannes Edfelt, Swedish poet, translator and critic (died 1997)
- December 26 – Alejo Carpentier, Swiss-born Cuban novelist (died 1980)
Deaths
- January 3 – Larin Paraske, Finnish folk poet (born 1833)
- January 20 – Hermann Eduard von Holst, German historian of the United States (born 1841)
- February 3 – Olive E. Dana, American author (born 1859)
- February 8 – Alfred Ainger, English biographer and critic (born 1837)
- February 22 – Sir Leslie Stephen, English essayist and critic (born 1832)
- March 2 – Mary C. Billings, American writer, evangelist, missionary (born 1824)
- April 16 – Samuel Smiles, British reformer and writer, advocate of self-help (born 1812)
- May 5 – Mór Jókai, Hungarian dramatist and novelist (born 1825)
- June 5 – Olivia Langdon Clemens, American editor (born 1845)
- July 3 – Theodor Herzl, Austro-Hungarian journalist (cardiac sclerosis, born 1860)
- July 6 – Abai Qunanbaiuly, Kazakh poet, philosopher and cultural reformer (born 1845)
- July 14 – Anton Chekhov, Russian playwright and short story writer (tuberculosis, born 1860)
- August 22 – Kate Chopin (Kate O'Flaherty), American novelist and short story writer (brain hemorrhage, born 1850)
- September 26 – Lafcadio Hearn (Koizumi Yakumo, 小泉 八雲), Greek-born writer in English on Japan (heart failure, born 1850)[16]
- October 11
Awards
George Bell, "Delphi"
Frédéric Mistral, José Echegaray y Eizaguirre
Notes and References
- Web site: Ivan the Terrible . IBDB Internet Broadway Database . 2014-01-04.
- Book: Simon Trussler. The Cambridge Illustrated History of British Theatre. 21 September 2000. Cambridge University Press. 978-0-521-79430-5. 270.
- Web site: The First Bloomsday Celebrations . 2016-02-11 . 2016-03-04 . https://web.archive.org/web/20160304053716/http://members.ozemail.com.au/~maelduin/firstbloom.html . dead .
- https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/6408 Letters of Anton Chekhov
- Book: Nicolson, Nigel . Nigel Nicolson . The Flight of the Mind: The Letters of Virginia Woolf. Vol. I: 1888–1912 (Virginia Stephen) . London . . 1975 . 0701204036.
- Web site: "Haworth, November 1904" by Virginia Woolf .
- Lyndall Gordon . Lyndall . Gordon . Woolf, (Adeline) Virginia (1882–1941) . May 2005 . 2015-02-08 . 10.1093/ref:odnb/37018.
- Book: Bell, Quentin . Quentin Bell . Virginia Woolf: A Biography . registration . London . . 1972 . 0-7012-0846-5. 93n.
- Book: Penguin Pocket On This Day . Penguin Reference Library . 0-14-102715-0 . 2006.
- Book: Green, Peter. Beyond the Wild Wood: the world of Kenneth Grahame, author of The Wind in the Willows. Exeter. Webb & Bower. 1982. 0-906671-44-2. 161.
- Book: Montefiore, Simon Sebag . Simon Sebag Montefiore . Jerusalem. The Biography . Phoenix . London . 2011 . 461 . 978-1-7802-2025-3.
- Book: Sir Hall Caine. The Prodigal Son. 1904. D. Appleton and Company.
- Book: Donald Haase. The Greenwood Encyclopedia of Folktales and Fairy Tales: G-P. 2008. Greenwood Publishing Group. 978-0-313-33443-6. 675.
- Book: Beatrix Potter. Tale of Two Bad Mice: Gold Centenary Edition. August 2004. Penguin Books, Limited. 978-0-7232-4957-3.
- Book: Indarti Yuni Astuti. Ensiklopedi sastrawan Indonesia. 2008. Permata Equator Media. 978-602-8266-43-7. 54.
- Book: Sukehiro Hirakawa. Lafcadio Hearn in International Perspectives. 29 March 2007. Global Oriental. 978-90-04-21347-0. 7.