1930 | Literature
Literature
Nonfiction: The Revolt of the Masses (La rebelion de las masas) by José Ortega y Gasset; "A Room of One's Own" (essay) by Virginia Woolf champions the cause of independence for women: "Women have served all these centuries as looking-glasses possessing the magic and delicious power of reflecting the figure of a man at twice its natural size"; Liberty in the Modern State by Harold J. Laski; The Skeptical Biologist by Joseph Needham; Social Organization of Manua and Growing Up in New Guinea by Margaret Mead; The Human Mind by Menninger Clinic psychiatrist Karl Menninger explains that psychiatry is a legitimate and relatively uncomplicated source of help for mentally disturbed persons, it popularizes a previously arcane subject, and although written for medical students finds a wide market (see 1925); Seductio Ad Absurdum: The Principles and Practices of Seduction—A Beginner's Guide by St. Louis-born author Emily Hahn, 25; The Greek Way by former Bryn Mawr Preparatory School headmistress Edith Hamilton, 63; Spinoza's Critique of Religion (Die religionskritik Spinozas als grundlage seiner Bibelwissenschaft) by Berlin philosopher Leo Strauss, 32; The Practice of Philosophy by Radcliffe philosophy professor Susanne (Katherina) Langer (née Knauth), 34; Bring 'Em Back Alive by Texas-born zoo and circus supplier Frank Buck, 46, who has been making expeditions since 1911 to capture wild birds and animals.
Fiction: As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner; Flowering Judas (stories) by Texas-born author Katherine Anne Porter, 40; Brief Candles by Aldous Huxley; Vile Bodies by Evelyn Waugh; Thy Servant a Dog (stories) by Rudyard Kipling; The Apes of God by Wyndham Lewis; The Kaiser's Coolies (Des Kaisers Kulis) and Twelve Men and a Captain (Zwölf Mann und ein Kapitän) by Berlin-born novelist Theodor Plievier, 38, who participated as a communist in the German Navy mutiny of 1918; East Wind, West Wind by West Virginia-born novelist Pearl Comfort Sydenstricker Buck, 38, who was raised in China by her Presbyterian missionary parents and wrote the book aboard ship en route to America; Mitsou by Colette; Dance Night by Dawn Powell; Cimarron by Edna Ferber, who writes, "If American politics are too dirty for women to take part in, there's something wrong with American politics"; Laughing Boy by New York-born novelist Oliver (Hazard Perry) La Farge, 28, who writes about the Navajo; Destry Rides Again by Seattle-born pulp fiction writer Max Brand (Frederick Schiller Faust), 38, who averages roughly two books per month; "When the Atoms Failed" (story) by New Jersey-born science fiction pioneer John W. (Wood) Campbell (Jr.), 20, who gives one of the first depictions of computers; Enter the Saint by Leslie Charteris, who will emigrate to America in 1932 and work as a Hollywood screenwriter; It Walks by Night by Uniontown, Pa.-born English detective novelist John Dickson Carr, 25, who will sometimes write as Carter Dickson or Carr Dickson; The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett; Murder at the Vicarage by Agatha Christie, whose detective Jane Marple will appear in 14 other mystery novels; Seeds of Murder by Boston-born novelist (Francis) Van Wyck Mason, 28, who introduces the army intelligence officer Hugh North; While the Patient Slept by Lincoln, Neb.-born mystery novelist Mignon G. (Good) Eberhart, 31.
Novelist D. H. Lawrence dies of tuberculosis at Vence, France, March 2 at age 44. His ashes are buried in the mountains outside Taos, N.M.; A. Conan Doyle dies at Crowborough, Sussex, July 7 at age 71.
Poetry: "Ash Wednesday" by T. S. Eliot is a religious poem of self-abnegation (the first three parts are published in French, U.S., and English magazines. Eliot's poem Marina appears in book form as one of his "Ariel Poems"; 20 Poems by Stephen Spender; "A Dream in the Luxembourg" by Richard Aldington; The Cantos (III) by Ezra Pound; The Bridge by Hart Crane, who has taken the 47-year-old Brooklyn Bridge as a symbol of man's creative power. The book's many poems explore the essence of the American destiny, but its mixed reception contributes to the poet's growing insecurity; John Deth by Conrad Aiken; The Gates of the Compass: A Poem in Four Parts, Together with Twenty-Two Shorter Pieces by Robert Hillyer; Chelsea Rooming House by Milwaukee-born poet-critic Horace Gregory, 32, who expresses scorn for middle-class mores; Intellectual Things by Worcester, Mass.-born poet Stanley (Jasspon) Kunitz, 25; The New Found Land by Archibald MacLeish; Les Poésies de Gérard d'Houville by French poet Marie Louise Antoinette de Heredia, 55, who has written under a nom de plume; Metropolitan Museum by Robert Guy Choquette; "Spring Comes to Murray Hill" by New York poet Ogden Nash, 28, appears in the New Yorker magazine May 3. Nash will soon join the magazine's staff and be celebrated for such verses as "Candy is dandy/ But liquor is quicker," which will often be misattributed to Dorothy Parker; Laments for the Living by Dorothy Parker.
Poet Laureate Robert Seymour Bridges dies at Boar's Hill, Oxford, April 21 at age 85.
Juvenile: The Cat Who Went to Heaven by Buffalo, N.Y.-born author Elizabeth (Jane) Coatsworth, 38, is based on a Japanese folk story; The Secret of the Old Clock by Carolyn Keene (Iowa-born author Mildred Wirt Benson [née Augustine], 25) features the adventures of 16-year-old amateur detective Nancy Drew, who motors about in a blue roadster. The first woman to receive a master's degree from the University of Iowa, Benson has written the book on an old Underwood typewriter, received about $125, will write 22 more of the first 30 Nancy Drew mysteries, and will never receive any royalties from the Stratemeyer Syndicate (see 1899), whose founder, Edward Stratemeyer, has died at Newark, N.J., May 10 at age 67 after developing the Nancy Drew character. His daughter Harriet Stratemeyer Adams, 37, takes over the business of producing Bobbsey Twins books under the name Laura Lee Hope, Tom Swift books under the name Victor Appleton, Hardy Boys books under the name Franklin W. Dixon, and Rover Boys books as well. Insisting on moral stories with no epithets stronger than "gosh," Adams will update the Nancy Drew mysteries beginning in 1959 (changing their heroine's age to 18 so that she may drive legally in every state, eliminating ethnic slurs) and will still be writing when she dies in March 1982 at age 89.