# 1902 in literature

This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1902.

## Events

* January 5
** The political drama Danton's Death (Dantons Tod, completed and published in 1835) by Georg Büchner (died 1837), is first performed, at the Belle-Alliance-Theater in Berlin by the Vereins Neue Freie Volksbühne.
** George Bernard Shaw's controversial 1893 play Mrs. Warren's Profession receives its first performance at a private London club.
* January 23 – The first example of a Sherlockian game – a study of inconsistencies of dates in Arthur Conan Doyle's The Hound of the Baskervilles (the serialisation of which in The Strand Magazine concludes in April) by publisher Frank Sidgwick – appears in The Cambridge Review.
* April – Mark Twain buys a home in Tarrytown, New York. On June 4 he receives an honorary doctorate of literature from the University of Missouri.
* June 16 – Bertrand Russell writes to Gottlob Frege about the mathematical problem to become known as Russell's paradox.
* July 1 – The Romanian language literary review Luceafărul begins publication in Budapest.
* August 6 – În sat sau la oraș (In the Village or in the City), by the Romanian peasant leader Constantin Dobrescu-Argeș, is performed in his native Mușătești, in front of an audience comprising Education Minister Spiru Haret and some 2,000 villagers.
* September 9 – P. G. Wodehouse leaves his job at the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Company in London to become a freelance writer. On September 18, his first published novel, the St. Austin's school story The Pothunters, is published in London by A & C Black, as a truncation of the version in their Public School Magazine from January to March.
* Early October – Beatrix Potter's self-illustrated children's book The Tale of Peter Rabbit (originally published privately a year earlier) appears in its first trade edition with Frederick Warne & Co in London. It sells 28,000 copies by the end of the year.
* October 5 – Thousands attend the funeral of the French novelist Émile Zola at the Cimetière de Montmartre, Paris. They include Alfred Dreyfus, given special permission by Mme Zola to attend.
* November 4 – J. M. Barrie's comedy The Admirable Crichton is first performed, at the Duke of York's Theatre in London, starring H. B. Irving, Henry Kemble and Irene Vanbrugh. It runs for 828 performances.
* December 5 – Leo Tolstoy's drama The Power of Darkness («Власть тьмы», Vlast' t'my, written in 1886) has its Russian-language première at the Moscow Art Theatre by Konstantin Stanislavski with some success, although Stanislavski is self-critical.
* December 18 – Maxim Gorky's drama The Lower Depths – Scenes from Russian Life («На дне», Na dne) is first performed, at the Moscow Art Theatre, as a first major success for Konstantin Stanislavsky as director and star.
* unknown date – The poet Ștefan Petică's cycle Fecioara în alb is published, marking a maturing of Romanian Symbolism.

## New books
### Fiction

* Azorín – La voluntad (Volition)
* Jane Barlow – The Founding of Fortunes
* Pío Baroja – Camino de perfección (pasión mística) (Road to Perfection)
* Edward Harold Begbie (as Caroline Lewis) – Clara in Blunderland
* Arnold Bennett
** Anna of the Five Towns
** The Grand Babylon Hotel
* Rhoda Broughton – Lavinia
* Joseph Conrad
** Typhoon (serialized in The Pall Mall Magazine January–March and US book publication)
** Youth: a Narrative, and Two Other Stories, incorporating Youth: a Narrative (1898) and Heart of Darkness (first 1899)
** The End of the Tether
* Marie Corelli – Temporal Power: A Study in Supremacy
* Miguel de Unamuno – Amor y pedagogía
* Ramón del Valle-Inclán – Sonatas: Memorias del Marqués de Bradomín – Sonata de otoño (Sonatas: The Pleasant Memories of the Marquis of Bradomín – Autumn Sonata)
* Arthur Conan Doyle – The Hound of the Baskervilles
* Paul Laurence Dunbar – The Sport of the Gods
* Hamlin Garland – The Captain of the Gray-Horse Troop
* André Gide – L'immoraliste
* Ellen Glasgow – The Battle-Ground
* Annie French Hector – Kitty Costello
* Theodor Herzl – The Old New Land
* Violet Jacob – The Sheepstealers
* W. W. Jacobs – The Lady of the Barge (short stories, including "The Monkey's Paw")
* Henry James – The Wings of the Dove
* Alfred Jarry – Supermale (Le Surmâle: roman moderne)
* Mary Johnston – Audrey
* Olha Kobylianska – Zemlya (Land)
* Liang Qichao – Xin Zhongguo weilai ji (新中國未來記, The Future of New China; unfinished)
* Jack London – A Daughter of the Snows
* George Barr McCutcheon – Brewster's Millions
* Charles Major – Dorothy Vernon of Haddon Hall
* A. E. W. Mason – The Four Feathers
* W. Somerset Maugham – Mrs Craddock
* Dmitri Merejkowski – The Romance of Leonardo da Vinci
* Frank Norris – The Pit (serialization)
* Luigi Pirandello – Il Turno
* W. Heath Robinson – The Adventures of Uncle Lubin
* Saki – The Westminster Alice
* Percy Sykes – Ten Thousand Miles in Persia
* Jules Verne – The Kip Brothers (Les Frères Kip)
* Eduard Vilde – Mahtra sõda (The War at Mahtra)
* Owen Wister – The Virginian

### Children and young people

* L. Frank Baum – The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus
* J. M. Barrie – The Little White Bird (includes the story "Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens")
* Edith Ogden Harrison – Prince Silverwings and other fairy tales
* William Dean Howells – The Flight of Pony Baker
* Rudyard Kipling – Just So Stories for Little Children
* Bessie Marchant – Fleckie: A Story of the Desert, etc.
* E. Nesbit – Five Children and It
* Beatrix Potter – The Tale of Peter Rabbit
* Edward Stratemeyer – The Young Volcano Explorers
* Mrs George de Horne Vaizey – A Houseful of Girls
* C. N. and A. M. Williamson – The Lightning Conductor: the Strange Adventures of a Motor-car
* P. G. Wodehouse – The Pothunters

### Drama

* J. M. Barrie – The Admirable Crichton
* Gordon Bottomley – The Crier by Night
* Gaston Arman de Caillavet and Robert de Flers – Le Cœur a ses raisons
* Constantin Dobrescu-Argeș – În sat sau la oraș (In the Village or in the City, first performance)
* Clyde Fitch – The Girl with the Green Eyes
* Cosmo Gordon-Lennox – The Marriage of Kitty
* Maxim Gorky – The Lower Depths
* Haralamb Lecca – Septima. Câiniĭ
* Maurice Maeterlinck – Monna Vanna
* Frank Wedekind – King Nicolo
* W. B. Yeats – Cathleen Ní Houlihan

### Poetry

* Edwin James Brady – The Earthen Floor
* Walter de la Mare (as Walter Ramal) – Songs of Childhood
* Ștefan Petică – Fecioara în alb

### Non-fiction

* Jane Addams – Democracy and Social Ethics
* James Allen – As a Man Thinketh
* Hilaire Belloc – The Path to Rome
* Euclides da Cunha – Os Sertões (translated as Rebellion in the Backlands)
* Arthur Conan Doyle – The War in South Africa: Its Cause and Conduct
* Michael Fairless (pseudonym of Margaret Barber) – The Roadmender
* John A. Hobson – Imperialism: a study
* William James – The Varieties of Religious Experience
* Vilfredo Pareto – Les Systèmes socialistes
* Bertrand Russell – A Free Man's Worship
* Southern Education Board – Educational Conditions in the Southern Applachians
* William Wynn Westcott – Collectanea Hermetica (finishes publication)

## Births

* January 1 - Muhammad Zaki Abd al-Qadir, Egyptian journalist and writer (d. 1981)
* January 5 – Stella Gibbons, English novelist (died 1989)
* January 20 – Nazim Hikmet, Turkish lyricist and dramatist (died 1963)
* January 30 – Nikolaus Pevsner, German-born architectural historian (died 1983)
* February 1 – Langston Hughes, African-American poet and novelist (died 1967)
* February 16 – Ion Călugăru, Romanian novelist, short story writer and journalist (died 1956)
* February 19 – Kay Boyle, American writer, educator and political activist (died 1992)
* February 27 – John Steinbeck, American novelist and journalist (died 1968)
* March 9 – Thomas Owen Beachcroft, English novelist (died 1988)
* March 10 – Stefan Inglot, Polish historian (died 1994)
* March 29 – Marcel Aymé, French novelist and short-story writer (died 1967)
* April 2 – Jan Tschichold, German-born typographer (died 1974)
* April 6 – Julien Torma, French poet and dramatist (died 1933)
* April 9 – Lord David Cecil, English literary critic and biographer (died 1986)
* April 23 – Halldór Laxness, Icelandic novelist (died 1998)
* June 5 – Hugo Huppert, Austrian poet, writer and translator (died 1982)
* July 10 – Nicolás Guillén, Afro-Cuban poet (died 1989)
* July 8 – Gwendolyn B. Bennett, African American writer and artist (died 1981)
* July 27 - Yaroslav Halan, Ukrainian playwright, translator, and publicist (died 1949)
* August 15 – Katharine Brush, American short story writer (died 1952)
* August 16 – Georgette Heyer, English novelist (died 1974)
* August 19 – Ogden Nash, American poet and humorist (died 1971)
* August 24
** Felipe Alfau, Spanish-American fiction writer, poet and translator (died 1999)
** Fernand Braudel, French historian (died 1985)
* September 21 – Luis Cernuda, Spanish poet (died 1963)
* September 25 – Ernst von Salomon, German writer (died 1972)
* October 13 – Arna Bontemps, African American poet (died 1973)
* October 23 – Dadie Rylands (George Rylands), English Shakespeare scholar (died 1999)
* October 26 – Beryl Markham (Beryl Clutterbuck), English-born Kenyan adventurer and memoirist (died 1986)
* October 31 – Carlos Drummond de Andrade, Brazilian poet (died 1987)
* November 1 – Nordahl Grieg, Norwegian poet and author (killed in action 1943)
* November 2
** Hu Feng (胡风), Chinese novelist (died 1985)
** Gyula Illyés, Hungarian author (died 1983)
* November 29 – Carlo Levi, Italian writer (died 1975)
* December 7 – Nicolae Crevedia, Romanian poet, novelist and journalist (died 1978)
* December 20 – Jolán Földes, Hungarian novelist and playwright (died 1963)

## Deaths

* January 7 – Wilhelm Hertz, German poet and translator (born 1835)
* April 6 – Gleb Uspensky, Russian writer (born 1843)
* April 20 – Frank R. Stockton, American writer and humorist (born 1834)
* April 21 – Ethna Carbery, Irish poet (born 1866)
* April 27 – Nancy H. Adsit, American art lecturer, art educator, and writer of art literature (born 1825)
* May 5 – Bret Harte, American author and poet (born 1836)
* May 6
** Martha Perry Lowe, American social activist and organizer (born 1829)
** Emma Augusta Sharkey, American dime novelist (born 1858)
* May 17/18 — Harriet Abbott Lincoln Coolidge, American philanthropist, author and reformer (b. 1849)
* June 10 – Jacint Verdaguer, Catalan poet (born 1845)
* June 18 – Samuel Butler, English novelist (born 1835)
* July 10 – Annie French Hector (pseudonym Mrs Alexander), Irish-born novelist (born 1825)
* August 31
* August 31
** Grace Hinsdale, American religious writer (born 1832)
** Mathilde Wesendonck, German poet (born 1828)
* September 11 – Ernst Dümmler, German historian (born 1830)
* September 19 – Masaoka Shiki (正岡 子規), Japanese haiku poet (born 1867)
* September 29
** William McGonagall, Scottish doggerel poet (born 1825)
** Émile Zola, French novelist (carbon monoxide poisoning, born 1840)
* October 7 – George Rawlinson, English historian (born 1812)
* October 13 – John George Bourinot, Canadian historian (born 1836)
* October 25 – Frank Norris, American novelist (peritonitis, born 1870)
* October 31 – Cornélie Huygens, Dutch writer, social democrat and feminist (born 1848)
* November 16 – G. A. Henty, English historical novelist (born 1832)
* December 26 – Mary Hartwell Catherwood, American author and poet (born 1849)

## Awards

* Nobel Prize for Literature: Christian Matthias Theodor Mommsen