1912 in literature

The year 1912 in literature involved some significant events and new books.

Events

• Virginia Stephen marries Leonard Woolf.
• Frieda von Richthofen meets D. H. Lawrence.

New books

• Mary Antin - The Promised Land
• Rhoda Broughton - Between Two Stools
• Edgar Rice Burroughs - A Princess of Mars
• Willa Cather - Alexander's Bridge
• Joseph Conrad - The Secret Sharer
• Sir Arthur Conan Doyle - The Lost World
• Theodore Dreiser - The Financier
• Sarah Grand - Adnams Orchard
• Zane Grey - Riders of the Purple Sage
• James Weldon Johnson - The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man
• D. H. Lawrence - The Trespasser
• Stephen Leacock - Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town
• Thomas Mann - Death in Venice (Der Tod in Venedig)
• Baroness Orczy
• The Traitor
• The Good Patriots
• Fire in Stubble
• Meadowsweet
• Saki - The Unbearable Bassington
• James Stephens - The Crock of Gold
• Sui Sin Far - Mrs. Spring Fragrance
• H. G. Wells - Marriage
• Edith Wharton - The Reef
• Stefan Żeromski - The Faithful River

New drama

• Hugo von Hofmannsthal - Jedermann

Poetry

• Edwin James Brady
• Bells and Hobbles
• The King's Caravan
• Georgian Poetry 1911-12
• Amy Lowell - A Dome of Many-Coloured Glass

Non-fiction

• Alexander Berkman - Prison Memoirs of an Anarchist
• Carl Jung - Theory of Psychoanalysis
• Bertrand Russell - The Problems of Philosophy

Births

• January 7 - Charles Addams, cartoonist (d. 1988)
• January 14 - Rudolf Hagelstange, German lyricist, narrator and essayist (d. 1984)
• January 30 - Barbara Tuchman, historian (d. 1989)
• February 11 - Roy Fuller English poet/novelist (d. 1991)
• February 12 - R. F. Delderfield, novelist and historian (d. 1972)
• February 17 - Andre Norton, sci-fi and fantasy author
• February 20 - Pierre Boulle, novelist (d. 1994)
• February 27 - Lawrence Durrell, poet and novelist
• March 12 - Kylie Tennant, novelist, dramatist and historian
• May 3 - May Sarton, American writer (d. 1995)
• May 16 - Studs Terkel, writer and broadcaster
• May 20 - J. L. Carr, novelist and publisher
• May 27 - John Cheever, writer (d. 1982)
• May 29 - Pamela Hansford Johnson, poet, novelist and critic, and wife of C. P. Snow
• June 20 - Anthony Buckeridge, children's author
• June 29 - John Toland, Pulitzer-winning historian and biographer
• July 6 - Heinrich Harrer, explorer and author (Seven Years in Tibet)
• July 14 - Northrop Frye, critic
• August 4 - Virgilio Piñera, poet and short-story writer
• September 12 - J. F. Hendry, poet
• November 24 - Garson Kanin, dramatist and screenwriter
• November 26 - Eugène Ionesco, playwright (d. 1994)
• date unknown - George Mikes, humorist
• date unknown - Monica Edwards, children's author
• date unknown - Francis Durbridge, dramatist

Deaths

• January 28 - Gustave de Molinari, economist
• March 1 - George Grossmith, co-author of Diary of a Nobody
• April 6 - Giovanni Pascoli, Italian poet
• April 10 - Gabriel Monod, historian
• April 15 – Jacques Futrelle, American author, died on the RMS Titanic
• April 15 - William Thomas Stead, journalist, also on the Titanic
• April 20 - Bram Stoker, author
• May 14 - August Strindberg, dramatist
• July 20 - Andrew Lang, poet, novelist and critic
• August 29 - Theodor Gomperz, philosopher
• date unknown - James Allen, author of As a Man Thinketh
• date unknown - Hafiz Ibrahim, Egyptian poet

Awards

• Nobel Prize for Literature: Gerhart Hauptmann