1929 - Literature

Literature

The first volume of the Italian Encyclopedia of Science, Letters, and Arts (Enciclopedia italiana di scienze, lettre ed arti) is published at Rome after 4 years' work. Philosopher Giovanni Gentile, now 54, has planned the project while serving as a member of the Fascist Grand Council; additional volumes will appear until by 1936 there will be 35 plus a one-volume index, the lavishly illustrated text having been written by leading scholars and political leaders.

The scholarly journal Annales d'histoire économique et social (later Annales: économiques, sociétés, civilisations) is founded by University of Strasbourg historians Lucien Febvre and Marc Bloch with a view to surmounting disciplinary and national boundaries and promoting a more human, accessible approach to history.

The New York Public Library acquires the black-history collection of Puerto Rican-born Harlem collector Arthur Alphonzo Schomburg, who will work as curator of the library's 135th Street branch from 1932 until his death in 1938.

Nonfiction: Middletown—A Study in Contemporary American Culture by Indiana-born Columbia University sociologist Robert Staughton Lynd, 37, and his wife, Helen (née Merrell), 32, who break new ground in American sociology by applying to the Midwestern city of Muncie, Ind., methods and approaches used in studying primitive peoples; Basic English by philologist C. K. Ogden, now 40, proposes universal adoption of a basic international vocabulary of 850 English words that he has developed after working with I. A. Richards, now 36, on their 1923 book The Meaning of Meaning. Ogden points out that 30 percent of the world's population has English as its mother tongue or as the government language (he has India in mind) and says his easily-learned Basic English could help promote world peace; Mark Twain's America by Bernard De Voto, who challenges the conventional view by showing that Twain's writings reflected the social and cultural environment of his time; History of Experimental Psychology by Philadelphia-born Harvard psychologist Edwin G. (Garrigues) Boring, 42; The Great Apes: A Study of Anthropoid Life by Robert M. Yerkes and his wife, Ada, who have organized the Yale Laboratories of Primate Biology (it will be called the Yerkes Laboratories beginning in 1942) at Orange Park, Fla.; What Is Metaphysics? by Martin Heidegger, who supports his country's National Socialist Party; The Adventurous Heart (Das abenteuerliche Herz) (essays) by Ernst Jünger, whose ideas have been taken over in part by the Nazis; Goodbye to All That (autobiography) by London-born critic-novelist Robert (von Ranke) Graves, 34, whose grim memoirs of trench warfare (he was severely wounded) earn so much money that he is able to make a permanent home on the island of Majorca; Not Without Laughter by Langston Hughes; A Vaquero of the Brush Country by Texas historian J. (James) Frank Dobie, 40; Is Sex Necessary? by New Yorker magazine writers E. B. White and James Thurber, who write, "Woman, observing that her mate went out of his way to make himself entertaining, rightly surmised that sex had something to do with it. From that she logically concluded that sex was recreational rather than procreational. (The small hardy band of girls who failed to get this point were responsible for the popularity of women's field hockey.)"

Literary historian Vernon Parrington dies suddenly at Winchcombe, Gloucestershire, June 16 at age 57; social scientist Thorstein Veblen in his cabin retreat near Palto Alto, Calif., August 3 at age 72.

Fiction: The Time of Indifference (Gli indifferenti) by Italian novelist Alberto Moravia (Alberto Pincherle), 22, whose portrayal of petty middle-class corruption in Rome is interpreted by many as a criticism of Italian society under Benito Mussolini. The government has persuaded the literary establishment to avoid references to real problems and issues and the Moravia novel creates a sensation; The Holy Terrors (Les Enfants Terribles) by Jean Cocteau; All Quiet on the Western Front (Im Westen nichts Neues) by German novelist Erich Maria Remarque, 30, whose novel sells 2.5 million copies in 25 languages in 18 months; Berlin-Alexanderplatz (Alexanderplatz, Berlin) by Alfred Döblin, now 51; Look Homeward, Angel: The Story of a Buried Life by NYU English instructor Thomas (Clayton) Wolfe, 29 (Scribner's editor Maxwell (Evarts) Perkins, 45, who has also been F. Scott Fitzgerald's mentor, organizes and edits Wolfe's inchoate autobiographical typescript about the Gant [Wolfe] family of Asheville, N.C.); Sartoris by William Faulkner, who depicts the fictional town of Jefferson in the fictional Yoknapatawpha County of Mississippi and begins an account of antebellum society's fall and the rise of the unscrupulous Snopes clan; The Sound and the Fury by Faulkner; A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway; The Last September by Irish-born English novelist Elizabeth Bowen, 30; Living by Henry Green; Wolf Solent by John Cowper Powys, now 57; The Innocent Voyage by English novelist Richard Hughes, 29, whose novel will be retitled A High Wind in Jamaica next year; The Near and the Far by English novelist L. H. (Leo Hamilton) Myers, 48; I Thought of Daisy by New Jersey-born New Republic magazine critic-novelist Edmund Wilson, 34; The Magnificent Obsession by Indiana-born clergyman-novelist Lloyd (Cassel) Douglas, 52; Dodsworth by Sinclair Lewis; Dawn Ginsbergh's Revenge (magazine pieces) by New York humorist S. J. (Sidney Joseph) Perelman, 25; The Bride's House by Dawn Powell; Harriet Hume: A London Fantasy by Rebecca West, whose illegitimate 14-year-old son Anthony was fathered by novelist H. G. Wells; White Man's Saga and Poet's Pub by Welsh-born Scottish novelist Eric Linklater, 30, who served as a private in the Black Watch during the Great War, worked as a journalist for the Times of India, returned to Aberdeen 2 years ago, and came to America last year on a Commonwealth fellowship; The Dark Journey (Léviathan) by Julian Green; Sido by Colette; "The Green Salamander" ("Sanshōuo") by Japanese short-story writer Masuji Ibuse, 31; Whiteoaks by Mazo de la Roche; Relics and Angels by New Orleans-born New York novelist (Joseph) Hamilton Basso, 28, who will move to North Carolina; Hudson River Bracketed by Edith Wharton, now 67; Banjo by Claude McKay; Claudia by Texas-born novelist Rose Franken (née Lewin), 33; Hitty: Her First 100 Years by New York-born novelist Rachel (Lyman) Field, 34; The Black Dudley Murder (in England, Crime at Black Dudley) by London-born mystery novelist Margery Allingham, 25, introduces the gentleman sleuth Albert Campion; The Poisoned Chocolates Case by Anthony Berkeley, who last year (as A. B. Cox) founded London's Detective Club; The Man in the Queue by Inverness-born mystery novelist Josephine Tey (Elizabeth Mackintosh), 33; Red Harvest and The Dain Curse by Maryland-born former Pinkerton detective (Samuel) Dashiell Hammett, 35; The Roman Hat Mystery by New York advertising and publicity writers Frederick Dannay and Manfred (Bennington) Lee, both 29, who write under the name Ellery Queen.

Poetry: Blind Fireworks by Irish poet Louis MacNeice, 22, expresses social protest; Animulae by T. S. Eliot; Poets, Farewell by Edmund Wilson; Gold Coast Customs by Edith Sitwell; Angels and Earthly Creatures by the late Elinor Wylie; Angel Arms by Illinois-born New York avant-garde poet-author Kenneth (Flexner) Fearing, 27; Dark Summer by Louise Bogan includes her long poems "The Flume" and "Summer Wish"; Fire Head by Lola Ridge, who wrote her 218-page poem about the Crucifixion in 2½ months at Yaddo in Saratoga Springs, N.Y.

Juvenile: Emil and the Detectives (Emil und die Detektive) by Dresden-born Berlin journalist-author Erich Kästner, 30; Magic for Marigold by L. M. Montgomery.