The Calendar of Literary Facts contains more than 6,500 events in literary history.
1933 Literary Facts
Antonin Artaud publishes his manifesto Le Theatre de la cruaute
Erle Stanley Gardner introduces his fictional attorney Perry Mason, in the novel The Case of the Velvet Claws
Maxwell Anderson’s Both Your Houses is produced
André Malraux publishes La Condition humaine (Man’s Fate)
Octavio Paz publishes Luna silvestre
Maxwell Anderson receives Pulitzer Prize in drama for Both Your Houses
James Thurber publishes My Life and Hard Times
Erskine Caldwell publishes God’s Little Acre
Nazi Propaganda Minister Josef Goebbels oversees the burning of approximately 20,000 books in Berlin
A severe famine decimates the population of the U.S.S.R.
U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt introduces his “New Deal,” instituting massive federal relief programs for unemployed Americans
Adolf Hitler is named Reich Chancellor in Germany, which embarks on a program of statism and rearmament
The German Reichstag burns under mysterious circumstances; the Nazis blame German Jews and Communists and then tighten their control, granting Hitler total control
The first German concentration camps are built for incarcerating perceived enemies of the state
At the urging of the German government, “non-German” books are burned publicly
Dorothy Parker publishes After Such Pleasures
T. S. Stribling receives the Pulitzer Prize in fiction for The Store
Ivan Bunin receives the Nobel Prize for Literature
Caroline Miller publishes Lamb in His Bosom
The Holocaust takes place in Europe, at the behest of Adolf Hitler and Nazi Germany; six million Jews die in this genocidal event
James Hilton publishes Lost Horizon
Robert Hillyer publishes his Collected Verse
John Kingsley (“Joe”) Orton is born
Explore: Entertaining Mr. Sloane, Joe Orton
Ernest J. Gaines is born
Explore: A Lesson before Dying, Ernest J. Gaines
Alden Nowlan is born
Explore: Alden Nowlan
Susan Sontag is born
Explore: The Way We Live Now, Against Interpretation and Other Essays, On Photography, Susan Sontag, What are the main points of Sontag's "Illness as Metaphor"?
John Galsworthy dies
Explore: The Japanese Quince, Justice, Loyalties, John Galsworthy
Reynolds Price is born
Explore: A Long and Happy Life, Three Gospels, Reynolds Price
Penelope Lively is born
Explore: Moon Tiger, The Road To Lichfield, Penelope Lively
Philip Roth is born
Explore: The Ghost Writer, Philip Roth
Vine Deloria Jr. is born
Explore: Vine Deloria, Jr., Custer Died for Your Sins
Germany’s Nazi government decrees a general boycott of all Jewish-owned businesses
C. P. Cavafy dies
Explore: Ithaka, C. P. Cavafy
Barbara Taylor Bradford is born
Andrei Voznesensky is born
Explore: Andrei Voznesensky
Elena Poniatowska is born
Explore: Dear Diego, Here's to You, Jesusa!, Elena Poniatowska
Max Eastman publishes “Bull in the Afternoon,” a retrospective article attacking Ernest Hemingway’s craft which enraged Hemingway and eventually led to a scuffle between critic and author
Peter Blue Cloud is born
Explore: Who was Peter Blue Cloud and what was his contribution to literature?
Jerzy Kosinski is born
Explore: The Painted Bird, Being There, Jerzy Kosinski
Donald E. Westlake is born
Explore: Donald E. Westlake
David Storey is born
Explore: This Sporting Life, David Storey
German Jews of East European birth are stripped of their citizenship by the Nazis
Yevgeny Yevtushenko is born
Explore: Yevgeny Yevtushenko, A Precocious Autobiography, Babii Yar, What are some themes in Yevgeny Yevtushenko's poem "The City of Yes and the City of No"?
Cormac McCarthy is born
Explore: The Road, Cormac McCarthy, Opinions and feelings about The Road by Cormac McCarthy
John Gardner Jr. is born
Explore: Grendel, John Gardner
Michael Frayn is born
Explore: Michael Frayn
Ring Lardner dies
Explore: Ring Lardner, The Golden Honeymoon, Haircut
Sidney Kingsley’s drama Men in White is first performed
Explore: Men in White, Sidney Kingsley
Beryl Bainbridge is born
Explore: Beryl Bainbridge, Winter Garden