1912 | Literature
Literature
Nonfiction: Essays in Radical Empiricism by the late William James; The Meaning of God in Human Experience by Cleveland-born philosopher William Ernest Hocking, 39, who has studied under William James and Josiah Royce at Harvard; Development of Religion and Thought in Ancient Egypt by J. H. Breasted; A History of the Roman Empire from the Fall of Irene to the Accession of Basil I by J. B. Bury; Journal by English baroness Lady Alice Hillingdon, now 55, who has written, "I am happy now that Charles calls on my bedchamber less frequently than of old. As it is, I now endure but two calls a week and when I hear his steps outside my door I lie down on my bed, close my eyes, open my legs, and think of England"; The Four Men by Hilaire Belloc describes a walk through Sussex; The Yosemite by John Muir; Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town by Stephen Leacock; The Day of the Saxon by Homer Lea, who warns of attacks by Oriental peoples upon the British Empire.
Soldier and author Homer Lea is stricken with paralysis and dies at Ocean Park outside Los Angeles November 1 at age 35.
Fiction: The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man by poet-essayist James Weldon Johnson of 1899 "Lift Every Voice and Sing" fame (he will not acknowledge authorship until 1927); Jean-Christophe by French novelist-playwright Romain Rolland, 46; The Sea and the Jungle by London Morning Leader staff writer H. M. (Henry Major) Tomlinson, 39; Twixt Land and Sea (stories) by Joseph Conrad includes "The Secret Sharer" and "The Inn of the Two Witches"; The Unbearable Bassington and The Chronicles of Clovis by Saki (H. H. Munro); The Financier by Theodore Dreiser is based on the life of the late Charles T. Yerkes; Riders of the Purple Sage by former New York dentist Zane Grey, 37; The Serious Game (Den allvarsamma leken) by Hjalmar Soderberg; Daddy Long-Legs by Fredonia, N.Y.-born novelist Jean (née Alice Jane Chandler) Webster, 36; "Tarzan, Lord of the Apes" by Chicago-born writer Edgar Rice Burroughs, 37, takes up almost the entire October issue of All-Story magazine and creates a sensation. Burroughs has worked as a cowboy, gold miner, railroad policeman, and Seventh Cavalry trooper in Arizona; his story about a young English noblemen raised by apes is only the third piece that he has ever submitted for publication, but he is able to turn out words at a fast pace and his writing will give him the wherewithal to support his wife and family in comfort.
Novelist Bram Stoker dies at London April 20 at age 64.
Poetry: Duino Elegies by Rainer Maria Rilke, who will say that the wind dictated the first lines to him in January of this year on the terrace of the castle of Duino near Trieste. He enters a period of existential self-revelation and will not complete the Elegies until 1922 after "wrestling" it to the ground in 3 "hurricane" days in his tower at Muzot, Switzerland; Ripostes by Idaho-born émigré poet Ezra (Loomis) Pound, 27, who went abroad to live 4 years ago and published his first book at Venice a year later under the title A lume spento. Pound pioneers an antipoetical imagism but will abandon it in 2 years for a vorticism that will relate to painting and sculpture (see 1925); A Dome of Many-Coloured Glass by Boston poet Amy Lowell, 36, sister of Harvard president Abbott Lawrence Lowell. Barely five feet tall and weighing 250 pounds, the poet defies convention by smoking cigars, cursing in public, and taking another woman into her life and home; "Les Blesseurs" by French-language Canadian poet Jean Charbonneau, 37; The Magic Lantern (Volshebnyi fonar': Vtororaia knige stikhov) by Marina Tsvetaeva; Evening (Vecher) by Russian poet Anna Akhmatova (Anna Andreyevna Gorenko), 24; Lis Oulivado by Frédéric Mistral, now 81; Constab Ballads by Claude McKay, who emigrates to the United States.
Poetry magazine begins publication in October. Founder Harriet Monroe, 51, received a $1,000 commission 20 years ago to write the "Columbian Ode" for the World's Columbian Exposition of 1893 in Chicago, has found backers and solicited work from more than 50 poets, and will continue publication until her death in 1936.
Juvenile: The Tale of Mr. Tod by Beatrix Potter.