Calendar of Literary Facts
1939
- Lionel Trilling publishes Matthew Arnold, a critical study
- John Steinbeck publishes The Grapes of Wrath
- Henry Miller publishes Tropic of Capricorn
- Carl Sandburg receives the Pulitzer Prize in history for Abraham Lincoln: The War Years
- The Soviets and Finland fight the “Winter War,” with Finland ceding territory to the Russians
- William Saroyan publishes The Time of Your Life
- H. P. Lovecraft’s The Outsider, and Others is published
- Carl Sandburg publishes Abraham Lincoln: The War Years
- Robert E. Sherwood’s Abe Lincoln in Illinois is produced
- World War II is fought in Europe and the Western Pacific, pitting the Allies against the Axis Powers
- Christopher Smart’s Rejoice in the Lamb is published
- Poland and Britain sign a treaty of mutual assistance
- Raymond Chandler introduces tough-guy detective Philip Marlowe in the novel The Big Sleep
- Frans Eemil Sillanpää receives the Nobel Prize for Literature
- Mark Van Doren publishes his Collected Poems, 1922-1928
- John Gould Fletcher receives the Pulitzer Prize in poetry for Selected Poems
- Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings receives the Pulitzer Prize in fiction for The Yearling
- Italian forces invade Albania
- James Joyce publishes Finnegans Wake
- Thomas Wolfe’s novel The Web and the Rock is published
- German forces occupy Bohemia and annex Memel
- Juan Carlos Onetti publishes El pozo
- Robert James Waller is born (August 1)
- German and Russian armed forces advance into Poland, beginning World War II in Europe (September 1)
- Kathleen E. Woodiwiss is born (June 3)
- Terrence McNally is born (November 3)
- Amos Oz is born (May 4)
- Margaret Drabble is born (June 5)
- Marie-Claire Blais is born (October 5)
- Clive James is born (October 7)
- W. D. Valgardson is born (May 7)
- Charles Alexander Eastman dies (January 8)
- Alan Ayckbourn is born (April 12)
- Seamus Heaney is born (April 13)
- Lillian Hellman’s drama The Little Foxes is produced (February 15)
- Robert Nye is born (March 15)
- Breyten Breytenbach is born (September 16)
- Auberon Waugh is born (November 17)
- Carl Dennis is born (September 17)
- Ed Sanders is born (August 17)
- David French is born (January 18)
- Margaret Atwood is born (November 18)
- Luther Standing Bear dies (February 19)
- Peter Beagle is born (April 20)
- Jason Miller is born (April 22)
- Sidney Howard dies (August 23)
- Germany and the Soviet Union form an alliance, signing the Molotov-Ribbentrop-brokered “Non-aggression Pact” (August 23)
- Zane Grey dies (October 23)
- Paula Gunn Allen is born (October 24)
- Shelagh Delaney is born (November 25)
- Ted Kooser is born (April 25)
- Toni Cade Bambara is born (March 25)
- Ford Madox Ford dies (July 26)
- Patrick Lane is born (March 26)
- Barbara Chase-Riboud is born (June 26)
- William Butler Yeats dies (January 28)
- Ayi Kwei Armah is born (October 28)
- José Emilio Pacheco is born (June 30)
- Dennis Lee is born (August 31)
- Israel Horovitz is born (March 31)
- Al Young is born (May 31)
