1899 in literature

Events

• January 21 – The French actress Sarah Bernhardt, having taken over management of the Paris theatre she renames the Théâtre Sarah-Bernhardt, opens it in the title rôle of Victorien Sardou's La Tosca. On May 20 she premières an adaptation of Shakespeare's Hamlet, with herself in the title rôle.
• March 20 – W. H. Davies, "tramp-poet", loses his foot trying to jump on a freight train at Renfrew, Ontario.
• April – Karl Kraus establishes the radical periodical Die Fackel in Vienna.
• April–June – Rainer Maria Rilke, still an art student at the time, travels to Moscow to meet Leo Tolstoy.
• May–December – The only work of fiction by the British politician Winston Churchill, Savrola: A Tale of the Revolution in Laurania, is serialized in Macmillan's Magazine.
• May 8 – The Irish Literary Theatre, founded by W. B. Yeats, Augusta, Lady Gregory, George Moore and Edward Martyn, puts on its first production in Dublin, a version of Yeats' verse drama The Countess Cathleen.
• June 20 – The English writer Edward Thomas marries Helen Noble at Fulham register office.
• September 1 – The National Theatre in Norway opens with pieces by Holberg and Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson's 1862 trilogy Sigurd Slembe.
• September – The British Mutoscope and Biograph Company's King John becomes the first known film based on a Shakespeare play.
• November – The oldest surviving Japanese film, Momijigari, is shot by Tsunekichi Shibata in Tokyo. It records the kabuki actors Onoe Kikugorō V and Ichikawa Danjūrō IX performing a scene from the play Momijigari.
• November 6 – William Gillette's play Sherlock Holmes, based on the writings of Arthur Conan Doyle, opens in New York City with himself in the title rôle.
• November 7 – Anton Chekhov's Uncle Vanya receives its Russian metropolitan première at the Moscow Art Theatre, with Konstantin Stanislavski directing and playing the rôle of Astrov, and Olga Knipper as Yeléna.
• December 12 – Herbert Putnam is appointed Librarian of Congress in the United States, where he will introduce in practice the Library of Congress Classification scheme.
• December – The imprisoned William Sydney Porter's pseudonym O. Henry first appears over the short story "Whistling Dick's Christmas Stocking" in this month's McClure's Magazine.

• Curtis Brown is established in London by the American Albert Curtis Brown.
• Edgar Rice Burroughs begins working in his father's business.
• Simon Pokagon's O-gi-maw-kwe Mit-I-gwa-ki is published, the first novel both by and about Native Americans in the United States.
• Arthur Machen's wife Amy dies after a long illness, an event that has a devastating effect on him.
• Lin Shu's first translation into Chinese from a Western text, The Lady of the Camellias, is published as 巴黎茶花女遺事.
• Leo Tolstoy's last novel, Resurrection, is published serially in Niva.
• The first series of the Arden Shakespeare under the general editorship of W. J. Craig begins publication by Methuen in London with an edition of Hamlet edited by Edward Dowden.
• The Bulgarian language is officially codified.

  New books

Fiction

• Anna Adolph – Arqtiq
• Victor Anestin – În anul 4000 sau O călătorie la Venus
• Machado de Assis – Dom Casmurro
• René Bazin – La terre qui meurt
• René Boylesve – Demoiselle Cloque
• Mary Elizabeth Braddon – His Darling Sin
• Rhoda Broughton – The Game and the Candle
• Charles Waddell Chesnutt – The Conjure Woman
• Mary Cholmondeley – Red Pottage
• Kate Chopin – The Awakening
• Ralph Connor – The Sky Pilot
• Joseph Conrad – serializations in Blackwood's Magazine
• *Heart of Darkness
• *Lord Jim
• Stephen Crane – The Monster and Other Stories
• Margaret Deland – Old Chester Tales
• Maxim Gorky – Foma Gordyeeff
• G. A. Henty – The Golden Canon
• Robert Hichens – The Slave
• E. W. Hornung – The Amateur Cracksman
• Henry James – The Awkward Age
• Selma Lagerlöf – The Tale of a Manor
• Octave Mirbeau – The Torture Garden
• A. E. W. Mason – Man and His Kingdom
• Arthur Morrison – To London Town
• Frank Norris
• *Blix
• *McTeague
• George Paston – A Writer of Books
• Władysław Reymont – The Promised Land
• Somerville and Ross – Some Experiences of an Irish R.M.
• Leo Tolstoy – Resurrection
• Juan Valera y Alcalá-Galiano – Morsamor
• Émile Zola – Fécondité

  Children and young people

• Helen Bannerman – Little Black Sambo
• L. Frank Baum –
• Tom Bevan – The Thane of the Dean: A Tale of the Time of the Conqueror
• Géza Gárdonyi – Eclipse of the Crescent Moon
• E. Nesbit – The Story of the Treasure Seekers
• Ethel Pedley – Dot and the Kangaroo
• Josephine Pollard
• *Bible Stories for Children
• *History of The Old Testament in Words of One Syllable
• *History of The New Testament in Words of One Syllable
• Edward Stratemeyer as Arthur M. Winfield
• *The Rover Boys at School
• *The Rover Boys on the Ocean
• *The Rover Boys in the Jungle

  Drama

• Arnold Denham – The Kelly Gang
• Georges Feydeau – La Dame de chez Maxim
• Clyde Fitch – Barbara Frietchie
• Leon Kobrin – Minna or, The Ruined Family from Downtown
• *Mulshankar Mulani – Ajabkumari
• Arthur Wing Pinero – The Gay Lord Quex
• Stanisław Wyspiański
• *Klątwa
• *Meleager
• *Protesilas i Leodamia
• William Young – Ben-Hur

  Poetry

• Stéphane Mallarmé – Poésies
• W. B. Yeats – The Wind Amongst the Reeds

  Non-fiction

• Qasim Amin – The Liberation of Women
• Edward Bernstein – Evolutionary Socialism
• Eliza Brightwen – Rambles with Nature Students
• Houston Stewart Chamberlain – The Foundations of the Nineteenth Century
• Auguste Choisy – Histoire de l'architecture
• Percy Dearmer – The Parson's Handbook
• John Dewey – The School and Society
• Emilia, Lady Dilke – French Painters of the Eighteenth Century
• Edward Bruce Hamley – National Defence
• Elbert Hubbard – A Message to Garcia
• Gertrude Jekyll – Wood and Garden
• Thorstein Veblen – The Theory of the Leisure Class

  Births

• January 17 – Nevil Shute, English novelist
• February 3 – Lao She, Chinese author
• February 23 – Erich Kästner, German children's author
• March 8 – Eric Linklater, Welsh-born Scottish novelist and travel writer
• March 19 – Aksel Sandemose, Danish novelist
• March 25 – Jacques Audiberti, French playwright
• April 22 – Vladimir Nabokov, Russian-born novelist
• May 8 – Friedrich Hayek, Austrian-born social scientist
• May 18 – D. Gwenallt Jones, Welsh poet
• May 24
• *Kazi Nazrul Islam, Bengali poet
• *Henri Michaux, Belgian-born poet, writer and painter
• June 7 – Elizabeth Bowen, Irish-born English novelist and short-story writer
• June 18 – Eugène Vinaver, Russian-born English literary scholar
• July 1 – James Lennox Kerr, Scottish novelist and children's writer
• July 8 – G. B. Edwards, Guernsey-born writer
• July 11 – E. B. White, American children's writer and writer on style
• July 21
• *Hart Crane, American poet
• *Ernest Hemingway, American novelist
• August 9 – P. L. Travers, Australian children's writer
• August 24 – Jorge Luis Borges, Argentinian writer
• August 27 – C. S. Forester, Egyptian-born English adventure novelist
• September 30 – Hendrik Marsman, Dutch poet
• October 19 - Miguel Ángel Asturias,
• November 10 – Kate Seredy, Hungarian-born American children's writer and illustrator
• November 17 – Roger Vitrac, French surrealist playwright and poet
• December 9 – Jean de Brunhoff, French children's author and illustrator
• December 16
• *Harold Walter Bailey, English linguistics scholar
• *Noël Coward, English playwright
• December 18 – Peter Wessel Zapffe, Norwegian philosopher

• Laurence Meynell, English novelist and children's writer

  Deaths

• February 10 – Archibald Lampman, Canadian poet
• March 16 – Alexander Balloch Grosart, Scottish literary editor
• May 1 – Ludwig Büchner, German philosopher
• May 16 – Francisque Sarcey, French journalist and theater critic
• June 7 – Augustin Daly, American dramatist and theater manager
• June 30 – E. D. E. N. Southworth, American novelist
• July 18 – Horatio Alger, Jr., American novelist and children's author
• August 27 – Vendela Hebbe, Swedish journalist and novelist
• August 29 – Catharine Parr Traill, English-born Canadian author
• October 25 – Grant Allen, Canadian science writer and novelist
• October 27 – Florence Marryat, English novelist and entertainer
• November 2 – Anna Swanwick, English feminist writer
• November 13 – Arthur Giry, French historian
• December 17 – Bernard Quaritch, German-born English bibliographer and bookseller
• December 18 – Bonifaciu Florescu, Romanian polygraph
• December 22 – Dwight L. Moody, American preacher and publisher

  Awards

• Chancellor's Gold Medal – Arthur Cecil Pigou
• Newdigate Prize – Harold Edgeworth Butler