1937 in literature

This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1937.

Events

 * January 9 – The first issue of Look magazine goes on sale in the United States.
 * January 19 – BBC Television broadcasts The Underground Murder Mystery by J. Bissell Thomas from London, the first play to be written for television.
 * February 6 – John Steinbeck's novella of the Great Depression, Of Mice and Men, appears in the United States.
 * April – The Irish writers Elizabeth Bowen and Seán Ó Faoláin first meet, in London.
 * May 14 – BBC Television broadcasts a 30-minute excerpt of Twelfth Night, the first known television broadcast of a Shakespeare piece. The cast includes Peggy Ashcroft and Greer Garson.
 * May 21 – Penguin Books in the U.K. launches Pelican Books, a sixpenny paperback non-fiction imprint, with a two-volume edition of George Bernard Shaw's The Intelligent Woman's Guide to Socialism and Capitalism.
 * June
 * The British science fiction magazine Tales of Wonder first appears.
 * John Cowper Powys visits Sycharth, birthplace of Owain Glyndŵr, which inspires his 1940 novel Owen Glendower.
 * June 30 – The New England Quarterly prints poems by a colonial American pastor, Edward Taylor (died 1729), discovered by Thomas H. Johnson.
 * Summer – American-born writer Thomas Quinn Curtiss meets German-born novelist Klaus Mann in Europe and they start a relationship.
 * July
 * Buchenwald concentration camp in Nazi Germany is established around the Goethe Oak.
 * Rex Ingamells and other poets initiate the Jindyworobak Movement in Australian literature, in the magazine Venture.
 * The American academic librarian Randolph Greenfield Adams writes a controversial Library Quarterly essay, "Librarians as Enemies of Books", complaining of librarians downgrading books and scholarship in favor of other tasks.
 * July 4 – The Lost Colony a historical drama by Paul Green, is first performed at an outdoor theater in the place where it is set: Roanoke Island, North Carolina.
 * July 31 – Stephen Vincent Benét's post-apocalyptic short story By the Waters of Babylon, inspired by April's Bombing of Guernica, is published in the U.S. The Saturday Evening Post as "The Place of the Gods".
 * September 10 – The Soviet playwright Sergei Tretyakov commits suicide while under sentence of death at Butyrka prison in Moscow as part of the Great Purge.
 * September 21 – J. R. R. Tolkien's juvenile fantasy novel The Hobbit, or There and Back Again is published in England by George Allen & Unwin on the recommendation of young Rayner Unwin.
 * September 29 – The French playwright Antonin Artaud is expelled from Ireland.
 * October 6 – The fictional Mrs. Miniver appears in a column on domestic life by Jan Struther for The Times, London.
 * November 11 (Armistice Day)
 * BBC Television broadcasts Journey's End by R. C. Sherriff, 1928, set on the Western Front (World War I) in 1918, as the first full-length television adaptation of a stage play. Reginald Tate plays the lead, having long performed it in the theater.
 * Caesar, Orson Welles's modern-dress bare-stage adaptation of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, premieres as the first production of the Mercury Theatre in New York City.
 * December 21 – Dr. Seuss's first book, And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street, is published by Vanguard Press.
 * unknown dates
 * The National Library of Iran is inaugurated in Tehran.
 * The future novelist Angus Wilson becomes a book cataloguer at the British Museum Library in London.

Fiction

 * Felix Aderca – Orașele înecate (Sunken Cities)
 * Eric Ambler – Uncommon Danger
 * Bibhutibhushan Bandyopadhyay – Chander Pahar (চাঁদের পাহড়, Mountain of the Moon)
 * Vicki Baum – Love and Death in Bali (Liebe und Tod auf Bali)
 * Anthony Berkeley – Trial and Error
 * Georges Bernanos – Mouchette
 * Ion Biberi – Oameni în ceață (People in the Fog)
 * Phyllis Bottome – The Mortal Storm
 * John Bude – The Cheltenham Square Murder
 * Morley Callaghan – More Joy in Heaven
 * John Dickson Carr (as Carter Dickson) – The Ten Teacups
 * Agatha Christie – Hercule Poirot stories
 * Death on the Nile
 * Dumb Witness
 * Murder in the Mews
 * Stuart Cloete – Turning Wheels
 * J.J. Connington – A Minor Operation
 * Murray Constantine – Swastika Night
 * Freeman Wills Crofts – Found Floating
 * A. J. Cronin – The Citadel
 * James Curtis – There Ain't No Justice
 * Ludovic Dauș – O jumătate de om (Half a Man)
 * Cecil Day-Lewis – There's Trouble Brewing
 * Isak Dinesen – Out of Africa
 * Pierre Drieu La Rochelle – Rêveuse bourgeoisie
 * Lawrence Durrell (as Charles Norden) – Panic Spring
 * Hans Fallada – Wolf Among Wolves (Wolf unter Wölfen)
 * Max Frisch – An Answer from the Silence (Antwort aus der Stille)
 * Zona Gale – Light Woman
 * Anthony Gilbert
 * The Man Who Wasn't There
 * Murder Has No Tongue
 * Witold Gombrowicz – Ferdydurke
 * Sadegh Hedayat – The Blind Owl (بوف کور, Boof-e koor)
 * Ernest Hemingway – To Have and Have Not
 * Robert Hichens – Daniel Airlie
 * Katharine Hull and Pamela Whitlock – The Far-Distant Oxus
 * Zora Neale Hurston – Their Eyes Were Watching God
 * Michael Innes – Hamlet, Revenge!
 * Margaret Irwin – The Stranger Prince
 * Franz Kafka (posthumously translated by Willa and Edwin Muir) – The Trial (first English translation of Der Process)
 * Irmgard Keun – After Midnight (Nach Mitternacht)
 * Kalki Krishnamurthy – Kalvaninn Kaadhali
 * Halldór Laxness – Ljós heimsins (The Light of the World) – Part I, Heimsljós (World Light)
 * Alexander Lernet-Holenia
 * Der Mann im Hut
 * Mona Lisa
 * Meyer Levin – The Old Bunch
 * E. C. R. Lorac
 * Bats in the Belfry
 * These Names Make Clues
 * Ngaio Marsh – Vintage Murder
 * A. E. W. Mason – The Drum
 * Cameron McCabe – The Face on the Cutting-Room Floor
 * Compton Mackenzie – The East Wind of Love (first in The Four Winds of Love series of six books)
 * W. Somerset Maugham – Theatre
 * Oscar Millard – Uncensored
 * Gladys Mitchell – Come Away, Death
 * R. K. Narayan – The Bachelor of Arts
 * Elliot Paul – Life and Death of a Spanish Town
 * Robert Prechtl – Titanic
 * Ellery Queen – The Door Between
 * "Kurban Said" – Ali and Nino (Ali und Nino)
 * Ruth Sawyer – Roller Skates
 * Dorothy L. Sayers – Busman's Honeymoon
 * Margery Sharp – The Nutmeg Tree
 * Bruno Schulz – Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass (Sanatorium Pod Klepsydrą)
 * Naoya Shiga (志賀 直哉) – A Dark Night's Passing (暗夜行路, An'ya Kōro)
 * "Siburapha" – Behind the Painting (ข้างหลังภาพ, Khang Lang Phap)
 * Olaf Stapledon – Star Maker
 * John Steinbeck – Of Mice and Men
 * Rex Stout – The Red Box
 * Cecil Street
 * Death at the Club
 * Death in the Hopfields
 * Death on the Board
 * Murder in Crown Passage
 * Proceed with Caution
 * Antal Szerb – Journey by Moonlight (Utas és holdvilág)
 * Phoebe Atwood Taylor
 * Figure Away
 * Octagon House
 * Beginning with a Bash (as by Alice Tilton)
 * Henry Wade – The High Sheriff
 * Mika Waltari – A Stranger Came to the Farm (Vieras mies tuli taloon)
 * Ethel Lina White – The Elephant Never Forgets
 * Charles Williams – Descent into Hell
 * Virginia Woolf – The Years
 * Francis Brett Young
 * Portrait of a Village
 * They Seek a Country

Children and young people

 * Enid Blyton – The Adventures of the Wishing-Chair
 * C. S. Forester – The Happy Return (also as Beat to Quarters)
 * Eve Garnett – The Family from One End Street
 * Hergé – The Broken Ear (L'Oreille cassée)
 * Kornel Makuszyński – Argument About Basia (Awantura o Basię)
 * Carola Oman – Robin Hood
 * Arthur Ransome – We Didn't Mean To Go To Sea
 * Kate Seredy – The White Stag
 * Dr. Seuss – And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street
 * J. R. R. Tolkien – The Hobbit
 * Laura Ingalls Wilder – On the Banks of Plum Creek
 * Henry Winterfeld (as Manfred Michael) – Timpetill – Die Stadt ohne Eltern (Timpetill – Parentless City, translated 1963 as Trouble at Timpetill)

Drama

 * Bertolt Brecht with Margarete Steffin – Die Gewehre der Frau Carrar (adapted from J. M. Synge's Señora Carrar's Rifles)
 * Karel Čapek – The White Disease (Bílá nemoc)
 * Paul Vincent Carroll – Shadow and Substance
 * Jeffrey Dell – Blondie White
 * Reginald Denham and Edward Percy Smith – The Last Straw
 * Ian Hay – The Gusher
 * Margaret Kennedy – Autumn
 * Arthur Kober – "Having Wonderful Time"
 * Richard Llewellyn – Poison Pen
 * W.P. Lipscomb – Thank You, Mr. Pepys!
 * Robert McLellan – Jamie the Saxt
 * Robert Morley – Goodness, How Sad
 * J. B. Priestley – Time and the Conways
 * Walter Charles Roberts – Red Harvest
 * Gerald Savory – George and Margaret
 * Dodie Smith – Bonnet Over the Windmill
 * John Van Druten – Gertie Maude
 * Louis Verneuil – The Train for Venice
 * Hella Wuolijoki writing as Juhani Tervapää – Juurakon Hulda
 * John Ferguson, editor – Seven Famous One-Act Plays (published)

Poetry

 * David Jones – In Parenthesis (part prose)
 * Isaac Rosenberg (killed in action 1918) – Collected Works

Non-fiction

 * Hilaire Belloc – The Crusades: the World's Debate
 * Alf K. Berle and L. Sprague de Camp – Inventions and Their Management
 * Robert Byron – The Road to Oxiana
 * Jean Giono – Les Vraies Richesses
 * Napoleon Hill – Think and Grow Rich
 * Carl Jung – Dream Symbols of the Individuation Process
 * Walter Lippmann – The Good Society
 * John Neal – American Writers: A Series of Papers Contributed to Blackwood's Magazine (1824-1825) (edited by Fred Lewis Pattee)
 * Manuel Chaves Nogales – A sangre y fuego: Héroes, bestias y mártires de España (Fire and sword: heroes, beasts and martyrs of Spain)
 * George Orwell – The Road to Wigan Pier
 * Eric Partridge – A Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English
 * N. Porsenna – Regenerarea neamului românesc (Regeneration of the Romanian People)
 * A. L. Zissu – Logos, Israel, Biserica (Logos, Israel, The Church)

Births

 * January 1 – John Fuller, English poet
 * January 7 – Ian La Frenais, English television comedy writer
 * January 8 – Leon Forrest, African-American novelist and essayist (died 1997)
 * January 9 – Judith Krantz, American novelist (died 2019)
 * January 13 – Jean D'Costa, Jamaican children's novelist
 * January 14 – J. Bernlef, born Hendrik Jan Marsman, Dutch poet, novelist and translator (died 2012)
 * January 22 – Joseph Wambaugh, American mystery novelist and non-fiction writer
 * January 23 – Juan Radrigán, Chilean playwright (died 2016)
 * February 11 – Maryse Condé, Guadeloupe historical fiction writer
 * February 20 – George Leonardos, Greek journalist and novelist
 * February 21 – Jilly Cooper, English novelist and journalist
 * February 27 – Peter Hamm, German poet, author, journalist, editor and literary critic (died 2019)
 * March 14 – Jan Karon (Janice Wilson), American novelist and children's writer
 * March 15 – Valentin Rasputin, Russian writer (died 2015)
 * March 20 - Lois Lowry, American children's and young-adult writer
 * April 10 – Bella Akhmadulina, Russian poet (died 2010)
 * April 29 – Jill Paton Walsh (Gillian Bliss), English novelist (died 2020)
 * May 8 – Thomas Pynchon, American novelist
 * May 13
 * Roch Carrier, Canadian novelist and short-story writer
 * Roger Zelazny, American writer of fantasy and science fiction (died 1995)
 * June 1 – Colleen McCullough, Australian novelist (died 2015)
 * June 16 – Erich Segal, American novelist (died 2010)
 * July 3 – Tom Stoppard (Tomáš Straussler), Czech-born English dramatist
 * July 6 – Bessie Head, South African-born Botswanan fiction writer (died 1986)
 * August 3 – Peter van Gestel, Dutch writer (died 2019)
 * August 5 – Carla Lane (Romana Barrack), English comedy writer (died 2016)
 * August 19
 * Richard Ingrams, English editor
 * Alexander Vampilov, Russian dramatist (drowned 1972)
 * September 5 – Dick Clement, English television comedy writer
 * October 4 – Jackie Collins, English-born romance novelist (died 2015)
 * October 7 – Christopher Booker, English journalist and editor (died 2019)
 * November 9
 * Roger McGough, English poet
 * S. Abdul Rahman, Tamil poet (died 2017)
 * November 17 – Peter Cook, English comedian, satirist and writer (died 1995)
 * December 11 – Jim Harrison, American novelist and poet (died 2016)
 * December 22
 * David F. Case, American novelist and short story writer
 * Charlotte Lamb (Sheila Holland, Sheila Coates, etc.), English romantic novelist (died 2000)
 * unknown date – Parijat (Bishnu Kumari Waiba), Nepalese novelist and poet (died 1993)

Deaths

 * January 5 – Alberto de Oliveira, Brazilian poet (born 1857)
 * January 11 – Emma A. Cranmer, American author, reformer, suffragist (born 1858)
 * February 19
 * Edward Garnett, English critic (born 1868)
 * Horacio Quiroga, Uruguayan short story writer (suicide, born 1878)
 * March 7 – Tomas O'Crohan, Irish Gaelic writer and fisherman (born 1856)
 * March 8 – Albert Verwey, Dutch poet (born 1865)
 * March 15 – H. P. Lovecraft, American horror writer (intestinal cancer, born 1890)
 * March 25 – John Drinkwater, English poet and dramatist (born 1882)
 * May 20 – Frederic Taber Cooper, American editor and writer (born 1864)
 * June 4 – W. F. Harvey, English horror-story writer (born 1885)
 * June 13 – William F. Lloyd, English-born Newfoundland journalist and prime minister (born 1864)
 * June 19 – J. M. Barrie, Scottish novelist and dramatist (born 1860)
 * June 22 – Jean-Joseph Rabearivelo, Malagasy poet (suicide, born 1901 or 1903)
 * July 18 – Julian Bell, English poet (killed in Spanish Civil War, born 1908)
 * July 29 — Ella Maria Ballou, American writer (born 1852)
 * August 11 – Edith Wharton (Edith Newbold Jones), American novelist and short-story writer (born 1862)
 * August 14 – H. C. McNeile (Sapper), English novelist and soldier (born 1888)
 * September 13 – Ellis Parker Butler, American humorist, novelist and essayist (born 1869)
 * October 13 – Dmitrii Milev, Soviet Moldovan shorty story writer and critic (shot, born 1887)
 * October 15 – Samuil Lehtțir, Soviet Moldovan poet, critic and literary theorist (shot, born 1901)
 * October 16 – Jean de Brunhoff, French children's author and illustrator (born 1899)
 * November 3 – Mykola Kulish, Ukrainian writer (shot with many other Ukrainian intellectuals at Sandarmokh, born 1892)
 * November 3 – Mykola Zerov, Ukrainian poet, translator, classical and literary scholar and critic (shot at Sandarmokh, born 1890)
 * November 3 – Valerian Pidmohylny, Ukrainian writer, (shot at Sandarmokh, born 1901)
 * November 3 – Hryhorii Epik, Ukrainian writer and journalist (shot at Sandarmokh, born 1901)
 * November 3 – Myroslav Irchan, Ukrainian storywriter and playwright (shot at Sandarmokh, born 1897)
 * October 17 – Florence Dugdale, English children's writer, widow of Thomas Hardy (cancer, born 1879)
 * October 22 – Chūya Nakahara (中原 中也), Japanese poet (meningitis, born 1907)
 * October 31 – Ralph Connor, Canadian novelist (born 1860)
 * c. December – Filimon Săteanu, Soviet Moldovan poet (shot, born 1907)
 * December 9 – Frances Nimmo Greene, American novelist, short story writer, children's writer, playwright (born 1867)
 * December 24 – Elizabeth Haldane, Scottish author, philosopher and suffragist (born 1862)
 * December 26
 * Ivor Gurney, English war poet and composer (tuberculosis, born 1890)
 * Mrs. Alex. McVeigh Miller, American novelist (born 1850)


 * December 29 – Don Marquis, American poet (stroke, born 1878)
 * unknown date — Clara H. Hazelrigg, American author, educator and reformer (born 1859)

Awards

 * Carnegie Medal for children's literature: Eve Garnett, The Family From One End Street
 * James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction: Neil M. Gunn, Highland River
 * James Tait Black Memorial Prize for biography: Lord Eustace Percy, John Knox
 * Newbery Medal for children's literature: Ruth Sawyer, Roller Skates
 * Nobel Prize in literature: Roger Martin du Gard
 * Pulitzer Prize for Drama: Moss Hart, George S. Kaufman, You Can't Take It with You
 * Pulitzer Prize for Poetry: Robert Frost, A Further Range
 * Pulitzer Prize for the Novel: Margaret Mitchell, Gone with the Wind
 * King's Gold Medal for Poetry: W. H. Auden