This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1937.
Events
- January 9 â The first issue of Look magazine goes on sale in the United States.
- January 19 â BBC Television broadcasts The Underground Murder Mystery by J. Bissell Thomas from London, the first play to be written for television.
- February 6 â John Steinbeck's novella of the Great Depression, Of Mice and Men, appears in the United States.
- April â The Irish writers Elizabeth Bowen and Seán àFaoláin first meet, in London.
- May 14 â 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 â 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 GlyndÃ
µr, which inspires his 1940 novel Owen Glendower.
- June 30 â The New England Quarterly prints poems by a colonial American pastor, Edward Taylor (died 1729), discovered by Thomas H. Johnson.
- Summer â 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 â 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 â 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 â 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 â 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 â The French playwright Antonin Artaud is expelled from Ireland.
- October 6 â 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 theatre.
- 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 â 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.
New books
Fiction
Children and young people
Drama
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Poetry
Non-fiction
Births
- January 1 â John Fuller, English poet
- January 7 â Ian La Frenais, English television comedy writer
- January 8 â Leon Forrest, African-American novelist and essayist (died 1997)
- January 9 â Judith Krantz, American novelist (died 2019)
- January 13 â Jean D'Costa, Jamaican children's novelist
- January 14 â J. Bernlef, born Hendrik Jan Marsman, Dutch poet, novelist and translator (died 2012)
- January 22 â Joseph Wambaugh, American mystery novelist and non-fiction writer (died 2025)
- January 23 â Juan Radrigán, Chilean playwright (died 2016)
- February 7 â Doris Gercke, German writer (died 2025)
- February 11 â Maryse Condé, Guadeloupe historical fiction writer (died 2024)
- February 20 â George Leonardos, Greek journalist and novelist
- February 21 â Jilly Cooper, English author and journalist (died 2025)
- February 24 â Sonallah Ibrahim, Egyptian writer (died 2025)
- February 27 â Peter Hamm, German poet, author, journalist, editor and literary critic (died 2019)
- March 14 â Jan Karon (Janice Wilson), American novelist and children's writer
- March 15 â Valentin Rasputin, Russian writer (died 2015)
- March 20 â Lois Lowry, American children's and young-adult writer
- April 10 â Bella Akhmadulina, Russian poet (died 2010)
- April 29 â Jill Paton Walsh (Gillian Bliss), English novelist (died 2020)
- May 8 â 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)
- May 20 â Maria Teresa Horta, Portuguese feminist poet, novelist, journalist and activist (died 2025)
- June 1 â Colleen McCullough, Australian novelist (died 2015)
- June 16 â Erich Segal, American novelist (died 2010)
- July 3 â Tom Stoppard (TomáÃ
¡ Sträussler), Czech-born English dramatist (died 2025)
- July 6 â Bessie Head, South African-born Botswanan fiction writer (died 1986)
- August 3 â Peter van Gestel, Dutch writer (died 2019)
- August 5 â Carla Lane (Romana Barrack), English comedy writer (died 2016)
- August 19
- Richard Ingrams, English editor
- Alexander Vampilov, Russian dramatist (drowned 1972)
- September 5 â Dick Clement, English television comedy writer
- September 23 â Jacques Poulin, Canadian novelist (died 2025)
- September 26 â Marina Colasanti, Brazilian writer (died 2025)
- October 4 â Jackie Collins, English-born romance novelist (died 2015)
- October 7 â Christopher Booker, English journalist and editor (died 2019)
- November 9
- Roger McGough, English poet
- S. Abdul Rahman, Tamil poet (died 2017)
- November 17 â Peter Cook, English comedian, satirist and writer (died 1995)
- December 11 â Jim Harrison, American novelist and poet (died 2016)
- December 22
- David F. Case, American novelist and short story writer (died 2018)
- Charlotte Lamb (Sheila Holland, Sheila Coates, etc.), English romantic novelist (died 2000)
- unknown date â Parijat (Bishnu Kumari Waiba), Nepalese novelist and poet (died 1993)
Deaths
- January 5 â Alberto de Oliveira, Brazilian poet (born 1857)
- January 11 â 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 â Tomas O'Crohan, Irish Gaelic writer and fisherman (born 1856)
- March 8 â Albert Verwey, Dutch poet (born 1865)
- March 15 â H. P. Lovecraft, American horror writer (intestinal cancer, born 1890)
- March 25 â John Drinkwater, English poet and dramatist (born 1882)
- May 20 â Frederic Taber Cooper, American editor and writer (born 1864)
- June 4 â W. F. Harvey, English horror-story writer (born 1885)
- June 13 â William F. Lloyd, English-born Newfoundland journalist and prime minister (born 1864)
- June 19 â J. M. Barrie, Scottish novelist and dramatist (born 1860)
- June 22 â Jean-Joseph Rabearivelo, Malagasy poet (suicide, born 1901 or 1903)
- July 18 â Julian Bell, English poet (killed in Spanish Civil War, born 1908)
- July 29 â Ella Maria Ballou, American writer (born 1852)
- August 11 â Edith Wharton (Edith Newbold Jones), American novelist and short-story writer (born 1862)
- August 14 â H. C. McNeile (Sapper), English novelist and soldier (born 1888)
- September 13 â Ellis Parker Butler, American humorist, novelist and essayist (born 1869)
- October 13 â Dmitrii Milev, Soviet Moldovan shorty story writer and critic (shot, born 1887)
- October 15 â Samuil LehtÃÂir, Soviet Moldovan poet, critic and literary theorist (shot, born 1901)
- October 16 â Jean de Brunhoff, French children's author and illustrator (born 1899)
- November 3 â Mykola Kulish, Ukrainian writer (shot with many other Ukrainian intellectuals at Sandarmokh, born 1892)
- November 3 â Mykola Zerov, Ukrainian poet, translator, classical and literary scholar and critic (shot at Sandarmokh, born 1890)
- November 3 â Valerian Pidmohylny, Ukrainian writer, (shot at Sandarmokh, born 1901)
- November 3 â Hryhorii Epik, Ukrainian writer and journalist (shot at Sandarmokh, born 1901)
- November 3 â Myroslav Irchan, Ukrainian storywriter and playwright (shot at Sandarmokh, born 1897)
- October 17 â Florence Dugdale, English children's writer, widow of Thomas Hardy (cancer, born 1879)
- October 22 â ChÃ
«ya Nakahara (ä¸Âå ä¸Âä¹Â), Japanese poet (meningitis, born 1907)
- October 31 â Ralph Connor, Canadian novelist (born 1860)
- c. December â Filimon SÃÂteanu, Soviet Moldovan poet (shot, born 1907)
- December 9 â Frances Nimmo Greene, American novelist, short story writer, children's writer, playwright (born 1867)
- December 24 â 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)
Awards
References
External links