1923 in literature

Children and young people

• Victor Appleton – Tom Swift and his Flying Boat (26th in the original series)
• Cicely Mary Barker – Flower Fairies of the Spring (first in the Flower Fairies series of at least ten books)
• Vitaly Bianki – Whose Nose is Better? (Чей нос лучше?)
• Edgar Rice Burroughs – Tarzan and the Golden Lion
• Charles Boardman Hawes – The Dark Frigate
• Hugh Lofting – Doctor Dolittle's Post Office (third in the Doctor Dolittle series of 13 books)
• Lucy Maud Montgomery – Emily of New Moon (first in the Emily series of three books)
• Felix Salten – Bambi, A Life in the Woods (Bambi. Eine Lebensgeschichte aus dem Walde)
• Ruth Plumly Thompson – The Cowardly Lion of Oz (17th in the Oz series overall and the third written by her)
• Else Ury – Nesthäkchen and Her Chicks
• Hugh Walpole – Jeremy and Hamlet (second in the Jeremy series of three books)

Drama

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• Dorothy Brandon – The Outsider
• Bertolt Brecht – In the Jungle of Cities
• Gerald du Maurier – The Dancers
• Ian Hay – Good Luck
• Garnet Holme (adapted from Helen Hunt Jackson) – The Ramona Pageant
• Georg Kaiser – Side by Side (Nebeneinander)
• Charles McEvoy – The Likes of Her
• Seán O'Casey – The Shadow of a Gunman
• Elmer Rice – The Adding Machine
• Arnold Ridley – The Ghost Train
• Jules Romains – Doctor Knock (Knock, ou le Triomphe de la médecine)
• George Bernard Shaw – Saint Joan
• Marie Stopes – Our Ostriches
• Ernst Toller – Hinkemann
• Sergei Tretyakov
• Do You Hear, Moscow? (Слышишь, Москва?!)
• Earth in Turmoil
• Sutton Vane – Outward Bound
• Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz
• The Crazy Locomotive (Szalona lokomotywa)
• Janulka, Daughter of Fizdejko (Janulka, córka Fizdejki)
• The Madman and the Nun (Wariat i zakonnica)</onlyinclude>

Poetry

• Louise Bogan – Body of This Death: Poems
• E. E. Cummings – Tulips and Chimneys
• Robert Frost – New Hampshire (including "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening")
• Pablo Neruda – Crepusculario
• Sukumar Ray – Abol Tabol
• Wallace Stevens – Harmonium
• David Vogel – Lifney Hasha'ar Ha'afel (Before the Dark Gate)
• William Carlos Williams
• Go Go
• Spring and All

Non-fiction

• Vladimir Arsenyev – Dersu Uzala
• Godfrey Benson, 1st Baron Charnwood – Theodore Roosevelt
• Algernon Blackwood – Episodes Before Thirty
• J. B. Bury – A History of the Later Roman Empire from the Death of Theodosius I to the Death of Justinian
• E. K. Chambers – The Elizabethan Stage
• Winston Churchill – The World Crisis (volumes 1 & 2 specifically)
• Le Corbusier – Toward an Architecture (Vers une architecture)
• Sigmund Freud – The Ego and the Id
• Maxim Gorky – My Universities (Мои университеты)
• Laura Thornburgh and Don Carlos Ellis - Motion Pictures in Education
• Robert Henri – The Art Spirit
• Rudyard Kipling – The Irish Guards in the Great War
• D. H. Lawrence – Studies in Classic American Literature
• Arthur Moeller van den Bruck – Das Dritte Reich
• Mihai Ralea – L'Idée de la révolution dans les doctrines socialistes
• Mary Roberts Rinehart – The Out Trail
• Arthur Moeller van den Bruck – Das Dritte Reich
• Max Weber – Wirtschaftsgeschichte
• Rose Wilder Lane – The Peaks of Shala

Births

• January 2 – Rachel Waterhouse, English historian and author (died 2020)
• January 6 – Jacobo Timerman, Argentine writer (died 1999)
• January 9 – David Holbrook, English novelist, poet and academic (died 2011)
• January 10 – Ingeborg Drewitz, German novelist and dramatist (died 1986)
• January 16 – Anthony Hecht, American poet (died 2004)
• January 29 – Paddy Chayefsky, American screenwriter (died 1981)
• January 31 – Norman Mailer, American writer and journalist (died 2007)
• February 2 – James Dickey, American poet and author (died 1997)
• February 9 – Brendan Behan, Irish writer and playwright (died 1964)
• February 12 – Alan Dugan, American poet and author (died 2003)
• February 23 – Mary Francis Shura, American writer (died 1991)
• February 25 – Harry Leslie Smith, English writer and political commentator (died 2018)
• March 1 – Shantabai Kamble, Indian Marathi writer and activist (died 2023)
• March 2 – Harriet Frank Jr., American film writer and producer (died 2020)
• March 24 – Michael Legat, English writer and editor (died 2011)
• March 26 – Elizabeth Jane Howard, English novelist (died 2014)
• March 27
• Shusaku Endo (遠藤 周作), Japanese novelist (died 1996)
• Louis Simpson, Jamaican-born American poet (died 2012)
• March 30 – Milton Acorn, Canadian poet, writer, and playwright (died 1986)
• April 3
• Daniel Hoffman, American poet (died 2013)
• John Ormond, Welsh poet (died 1990)
• April 19 – Stuart H. Walker, American Olympic yachtsman and writer (died 2018)
• April 20 – Bill Spence, English novelist (died 2024)
• April 21 – John Mortimer, English dramatist, screenwriter and barrister (died 2009)
• April 22 – Paula Fox, American writer (died 2017)
• April 23 – Manuel Mejía Vallejo, Colombian novelist (died 1998)
• May 1
• Joseph Heller, American novelist (died 1999)
• Ralph Senensky, American television director and writer (died 2025)
• May 21 – Dorothy Hewett, Australian poet, playwright and novelist (died 2002)
• May 22 – Aline Griffith, Dowager Countess of Romanones, Spanish-American cipher clerk, aristocrat, socialite and writer (died 2017)
• May 24 – Knut Ahnlund, Swedish literary historian and writer (died 2012)
• May 29 - Stanley Green, American theatre and film historian and writer (died 1990)
• June 7 – Martyn Goff, English author and bookseller (died 2015)
• June 14 – Judith Kerr, German-born English children's writer (died 2019)
• June 23 – John E. Sarno, American medical writer (died 2017)
• June 24 – Yves Bonnefoy, French poet and essayist (died 2016)
• July 2 – Wisława Szymborska, Polish poet and essayist (died 2012)
• July 5
• Naomi Long Madgett, American poet (died 2020)
• Mitsuye Yamada, Japanese-American activist, feminist, essayist, poet, story writer, editor, and teacher
• July 12 – James E. Gunn, American science fiction writer (died 2020)
• July 17 – James Purdy, American writer (died 2009)
• August 21 – Emma Smith (Elspeth Hallsmith), English novelist and autobiographer (died 2018)
• September 13 – Miroslav Holub, Czech poet (died 1998)
• September 22 – Dannie Abse, Welsh poet and writer (died 2014)
• October 5 – Stig Dagerman, Swedish author and journalist (died 1954)
• October 15 – Italo Calvino, Italian writer (died 1985)
• October 21 – Mihai Gafița, Romanian editor, literary historian and children's novelist (died 1977)
• October 24 – Denise Levertov, English-born American poet (died 1997)
• November 20 – Nadine Gordimer, South African writer (died 2014)
• November 23 – Gloria Whelan, American poet, short story writer, and novelist
• December 14 – Gerard Reve, Dutch novelist and poet (died 2006)
• December 21 – Richard Hugo, American poet and educator (died 1982)
• unknown date – Qu Bo (曲波), Chinese novelist (died 2002)

Deaths

• January 3 – Jaroslav HaÅ¡ek, Czech novelist (born 1883)
• January 9 – Katherine Mansfield, New Zealand-born fiction writer (born 1888)
• February 1 – Ernst Troeltsch, German theologian (born 1865)
• February 8 – Bernard Bosanquet, English philosopher and political theorist (born 1848)
• February 15 – Minnie Willis Baines, American eauthor (born 1845)
• February 25 – Emeline S. Burlingame, American editor and reformer (born 1836)
• March 6 – William Boyle, Irish dramatist and short story writer (born 1853)
• March 26 – Sarah Bernhardt, French actress (born 1844)
• March 29 – J. Smeaton Chase, English-born American author and photographer (born 1864)
• April 30 – Emerson Hough, American fiction author (born 1857)
• May 10 – Ulderiko Donadini, Croatian novelist, dramatist and short story writer (suicide, born 1894)
• May 23 – Henry Bradley, English philologist and lexicographer (born 1845)
• June 3 – Estelle Mendell Amory, American educator and author (born 1846)
• June 4 – Hume Nisbet, Scottish thriller writer, poet and painter (born 1849)
• June 10
• Louis Couperus, Dutch novelist and poet (born 1863)
• Pierre Loti, French novelist and travel writer (born 1850)
• June 22 – Morris Rosenfeld, Yiddish poet (born 1862)
• June 24 – Edith Södergran, Finnish Swedish poet (born 1892)
• July 9 – Florence Caddy, English non-fiction writer (born 1837)
• July 16
• Louis Couperus, Dutch writer of fiction, non-fiction and poetry (born 1863)
• Charles Boardman Hawes, American writer of fiction and non-fiction (born 1889)
• August 19 – Vilfredo Pareto, Italian economist, political scientist and philosopher (born 1848)
• August 24 – Kate Douglas Wiggin, American children's author (born 1856)
• October 6

• October 8 – Florence Montgomery, English novelist and children's writer (born 1843)
• October 12 – John Cadvan Davies, Welsh poet and Wesleyan Methodist minister (born 1846)
• October 14 – Marcellus Emants, Dutch novelist (born 1848)
• November 18 – George Wharton James, English-born American journalist (born 1858)
• November 23 – Urmuz, Romanian short prose writer (suicide, born 1883)
• December 1 – Virginie Loveling, Flemish poet and novelist (born 1836)
• December 4 – Maurice Barrès, French novelist and journalist (born 1862)
• December 12 – Raymond Radiguet, French novelist and poet (born 1903)

Awards

• James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction: Arnold Bennett, Riceyman Steps
• James Tait Black Memorial Prize for biography: Sir Ronald Ross, Memoirs, Etc.
• Newbery Medal for children's literature: Hugh Lofting, The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle
• Nobel Prize in Literature: William Butler Yeats
• Prix Goncourt: Lucien Fabre, Rabevel ou Le mal des ardents
• Pulitzer Prize for Drama: Owen Davis, Icebound
• Pulitzer Prize for Poetry: Edna St. Vincent Millay, The Ballad of the Harp-Weaver: A Few Figs from Thistles: Eight Sonnets in American Poetry, 1922. A Miscellany
• Pulitzer Prize for the Novel: Willa Cather, One of Ours

Notes

References