1909 in literature

This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1909.

Events

 * January – T. E. Hulme's poems "Autumn" and "A City Sunset" are included in the Poets' Club anthology For Christmas MDCCCCVIII, as the first examples of Imagism.
 * January 15 – Filippo Tommaso Marinetti's drama La donna è mobile opens at the Teatro Alfieri, Turin.
 * February 1 – The first issue appears of La Nouvelle Revue Française, a literary magazine founded in Paris by André Gide, Jacques Copeau, Jean Schlumberger, Gaston Gallimard, and others.
 * February 20 – Filippo Tommaso Marinetti's Futurist Manifesto first appears in the French newspaper Le Figaro.
 * March 2 – Katherine Mansfield, while pregnant by another man, marries the singing teacher George Bowden, whom she barely knows. She leaves him the same evening to resume lesbian relations with Ida Baker.
 * April
 * The opening night of Filippo Tommaso Marinetti's drama Le Roi bombance (The Feasting King, written 1905) is heckled by the audience and the writer himself.
 * The German periodical Die Tat is founded by Ernst Horneffer.
 * April 24 – The Metropolitan Library (京师图书馆, Jīngshī Túshūguǎn) in Beijing, predecessor of the National Library of China, is founded by the Qing government.
 * September 6 – Israel Zangwill's play The Melting Pot opens in New York City.
 * September 23 – Gaston Leroux's novel The Phantom of the Opera (Le Fantôme de l'Opéra) begins serialization in the Paris newspaper Le Gaulois.
 * September 29 – Franz Kafka's short story "The Aeroplanes at Brescia (Die Aeroplane in Brescia)", based on a real event, is published in the Prague newspaper Bohemia, as the first description of airplanes in German literature.
 * November – E. M. Forster's science fiction short story "The Machine Stops" is published in The Oxford and Cambridge Review.
 * unknown date – Babelstornið (The Tower of Babel), by Rasmus Rasmussen, writing as Regin í Líð, becomes the first Faroese language novel to be published.

Fiction

 * Florence Barclay – The Rosary
 * Maurice Barrès – Colette Baudoche
 * André Billy – La Derive
 * Algernon Blackwood
 * The Education of Uncle Paul
 * Jimbo: A Fantasy
 * René Boylesve – La Jeune Fille bien élevée (The Well-raised Girl)
 * Hall Caine – The White Prophet
 * Gilbert Cannan – Peter Homunculus
 * Ion Luca Caragiale – Kir Ianulea
 * Robert W. Chambers – The Danger Mark
 * Herbert Croly – The Promise of American Life
 * Em Kol Chai (Chava Shapiro) – Kovetz Tziurim (קבץ ציורים, A Collection of Sketches)
 * Concha Espina – That Luzmela Girl
 * Charles Hoy Fort – The Outcast Manufacturers
 * Anatole France – Balthazar
 * Jacques Futrelle – Elusive Isabel
 * John Galsworthy – Fraternity
 * Charles Garvice – A Fair Impostor
 * Robert Hichens – Bella Donna
 * Olha Kobylianska – V Nediliu Rano Zillia Kopala (She Gathered Herbs on Sunday Morning)
 * Maurice Leblanc – The Hollow Needle
 * Gaston Leroux – Le fauteuil hanté (The Haunted Chair)
 * Jack London – Martin Eden
 * John Masefield – Multitude and Solitude
 * Silas Weir Mitchell – The Red City
 * Baroness Orczy
 * The Nest of the Sparrowhawk
 * The Old Man in the Corner
 * Randall Parrish – My Lady of the South
 * Eden Phillpotts – The Haven
 * Luigi Pirandello – I vecchi e i giovani (The Old and the Young, part 1)
 * Władysław Reymont – Chłopi (The Peasants; publication completed)
 * Stein Riverton – Jernvognen (The Iron Carriage)
 * Olivia Shakespear – Uncle Hilary
 * Gertrude Stein – Three Lives
 * Gene Stratton-Porter – A Girl of the Limberlost
 * Hermann Sudermann – The Song of Songs
 * Mark Twain – Captain Stormfield's Visit to Heaven (book publication)
 * Edgar Wallace
 * Captain Tatham of Tatham Island
 * The Duke in the Suburbs
 * Robert Walser – Jakob von Gunten
 * Mary Augusta Ward – Daphne
 * H. G. Wells
 * Ann Veronica
 * Tono-Bungay

Children and young people

 * L. Frank Baum
 * The Road to Oz
 * Aunt Jane's Nieces at Work (as Edith Van Dyne)
 * Angela Brazil – The Nicest Girl in the School
 * Lucy Maud Montgomery – Anne of Avonlea
 * Beatrix Potter
 * The Tale of the Flopsy Bunnies
 * The Tale of Ginger and Pickles
 * P. G. Wodehouse – Mike

Drama

 * Paul Armont and Nicolas Nancey – Théodore et Cie
 * Sem Benelli – The Jester's Supper (La cena delle beffe)
 * Clyde Fitch – The City
 * John Galsworthy – Strife
 * Harley Granville-Barker – The Madras House
 * Cicely Hamilton – A Pageant of Great Women
 * Agha Hashar Kashmiri – Khwab-e-Hasti (The Dream World of Existence)
 * Oskar Kokoschka – Murderer, the Hope of Women (Mörder, Hoffnung der Frauen)
 * Else Lasker-Schüler – Die Wupper (published)
 * André de Lorde – L'horrible expérience
 * Ferenc Molnár – Liliom
 * Quintero brothers – El patinillo
 * George Bernard Shaw – The Shewing-Up of Blanco Posnet

Poetry

 * Guillaume Apollinaire – L'Enchanteur pourrissant (The Putrifying Enchanter)
 * François Mauriac – Les Mains jointes (Clasped Hands)
 * John Millington Synge – Poems and Translations

Non-fiction

 * Henry James – Italian Hours
 * William James – A Pluralistic Universe
 * Jane's All the World's Aircraft (first annual edition)
 * Isabella Margaret Elizabeth Blandin - History of Higher Education of Women in the South, Prior to 1860
 * Daniel Jones – The Pronunciation of English
 * C. I. Scofield (ed.) – Scofield Reference Bible
 * Charlotte Fell Smith – John Dee, 1527–1608
 * Eraclie Sterian – În noaptea nunții (On Your Wedding Night)
 * A. E. Waite – The Hidden Church of the Holy Graal
 * Alice Zimmern – Women's Suffrage in Many Lands

Births

 * January 20 – Mae Virginia Cowdery, African American poet (died 1953)
 * January 18 – Oskar Davičo, Serbian novelist and poet (died 1989)
 * January 29 – Phoebe Hesketh (Phoebe Rayner), English poet (died 2005)
 * February 15 – Miep Gies (Hermine Santruschitz), Austrian-born biographer (died 2010)
 * February 24 – August Derleth, American anthologist (died 1971)
 * March 6 – Stanisław Jerzy Lec, Polish aphorist and poet (died 1966)
 * March 17 – Margiad Evans, Anglo-Welsh poet, novelist and illustrator (died 1958)
 * March 22 – Gabrielle Roy, French Canadian author (died 1983)
 * March 28 – Nelson Algren, American novelist (died 1981)
 * March 31 – Robert Brasillach, French author (died 1945)
 * April 8 – John Fante, American novelist (died 1983)
 * May 1 – Yiannis Ritsos, Greek poet (died 1990)
 * May 5 – Miklós Radnóti, Hungarian poet (died 1944)
 * May 9 – Robert Garioch, Scottish poet (died 1981)
 * June 6 – Isaiah Berlin, German-born philosopher (died 1997)
 * June 19 – Osamu Dazai (太宰 治), Japanese author (died 1948)
 * June 28 – Eric Ambler, English spy novelist (died 1998)
 * June 29 – C. Hamilton Ellis, English writer (died 1987)
 * July 1 – Juan Carlos Onetti, Uruguayan writer (died 1994)
 * July 8 – Petar Šegedin, Croatian diplomat, novelist and essayist (died 1998)
 * July 17 – G. P. Wells, English zoologist, son and co-author of H. G. Wells (died 1985)
 * July 28 – Malcolm Lowry, English novelist (died 1957)
 * July 29 – Chester Himes, American writer (died 1984)
 * July 30 – C. Northcote Parkinson, English historian and author (died 1993)
 * August 3 – Walter Van Tilburg Clark, American novelist (died 1971)
 * August 11 – Uku Masing, Estonian religious philosopher, linguist and writer (died 1985)
 * August 19 – Jerzy Andrzejewski, Polish author (died 1983)
 * September 9 – Noel Barber, British novelist (died 1988)
 * October 24 – Sheila Watson (Sheila Doherty), Canadian novelist and critic (died 1998)
 * November 12 – Laxmi Prasad Devkota, Nepali poet, playwright, and novelist (died 1959)
 * November 26 – Eugène Ionesco (Eugen Ionescu), Romanian-born French playwright (died 1994)
 * November 27 – James Agee, American writer (died 1955)
 * December 7 – Alexandru Talex, Romanian journalist, critic and biographer (died 1998)
 * December 14 – Ronald Welch (Ronald Oliver Felton), Welsh novelist and children's writer writing in English (died 1982)
 * December 16 – Edgar Mittelholzer, Guyanese novelist (suicide 1965)

Deaths

 * January 1 – Mollie Evelyn Moore Davis, American poet, writer, and editor (born 1844)
 * January 14 – William à Beckett, English journalist (born 1844)
 * January 22 – Hattie Tyng Griswold, American author (born 1842)
 * February 11 – Russell Sturgis, American art critic (born 1836)
 * March 24 – John Millington Synge, Irish dramatist and poet (born 1871)
 * March 27 (probable) – John Davidson, Scottish poet (born 1857)
 * April 9
 * Francis Marion Crawford, American novelist (born 1854)
 * Paschal Grousset, French journalist and science fiction writer (born 1844)
 * April 12 – Algernon Charles Swinburne, English poet (born 1837)
 * April 21 – Denys Corbet, Guernsey poet writing in Guernsey French and English (born 1826)
 * April 26 – Marcus Dods, Scottish theologian (born 1834)
 * May 18 – George Meredith, English novelist and poet (born 1828)
 * June 11 – Jacob Mikhailovich Gordin, American dramatist (born 1853)
 * June 24 – Sarah Orne Jewett, American writer (born 1849)
 * July 8 – Albert Craig (The Surrey Poet), English cricket writer (born 1850)
 * July 9 – Rosa Nouchette Carey, English children's writer (born 1840)
 * August 15 – Euclides da Cunha, Brazilian writer, shot (born 1866)
 * August 18 – Theodore Martin, Scottish-born writer (born 1816)
 * August 21 – George Cabot Lodge, American poet (born 1873)
 * August 23 – Liu E (劉鶚, Liu O), Chinese scholar, entrepreneur and novelist (born 1857)
 * August 26 – George Manville Fenn, English novelist and educationalist (born 1831)
 * September 4 – Clyde Fitch, American playwright (born 1865)
 * September 19 – József Borovnyák, Slovene writer, politician and priest (born 1826)
 * October 16 – Jakub Bart-Ćišinski, Upper Sorbian poet, writer, playwright and translator (born 1856)
 * October 24 – Henry Charles Lea, American historian (born 1825)
 * November 5 – H. L. Fischer, Pennsylvania German-language writer and translator (born 1822)
 * November 18 – Renée Vivien, English-born French-language Symbolist poet (born 1877)
 * December 14 – Frederick Greenwood, English novelist and journalist (born 1830)

Awards

 * Chancellor's Gold Medal: Dennis Holme Robertson
 * Nobel Prize in Literature: Selma Lagerlöf (first female recipient)
 * Newdigate Prize: Frank Ashton-Gwatkin
 * Knighthood: Arthur Wing Pinero
 * Prix Goncourt: Marius-Ary Leblond, En France