1952 in literature

This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1952.

Events

• February – The historical periodical Past & Present is launched in Oxford, U.K.
• February 29 – Derek J. de Solla Price reveals his discovery of a lost medieval scientific work entitled Equatorie of the Planetis, initially attributed to Geoffrey Chaucer, in the Times Literary Supplement.^[1]
• March 3 – J. L. Carr takes over as Headmaster of Highfields Primary School, Kettering, which will later feature in his novel The Harpole Report.^[2]
• May – The works of André Gide are placed on the Catholic Church's Index of Forbidden Books by Pope Pius XII.^[3]
• July 10 – The first issue appears of Mad, edited by Harvey Kurtzman and published by William M. Gaines' EC Comics.
• August 12 – The Night of the Murdered Poets brings the execution of 13 Soviet Jews in Lubyanka Prison, Moscow, including several writers.
• September 6 – The Universal Copyright Convention is adopted at Geneva.
• October 17 – Samuel Beckett's play Waiting For Godot is published in Paris as En attendant Godot by Les Éditions de Minuit.
• October 28 – E. E. Cummings delivers the first of his Charles Eliot Norton lectures at Harvard University.^[4]
• November 25 – Agatha Christie's play The Mousetrap opens at the New Ambassadors Theatre, London. It will still be running 68 years later, next door at St Martin's Theatre from 1974.^[5]
• unknown dates
  • The publisher Diogenes Verlag is founded in Zurich, Switzerland, by Daniel Keel.
  • The National Library of Burma is established in Rangoon.

New books

Fiction

• Isaac Asimov
  • The Currents of Space
  • Foundation and Empire
• H. E. Bates – Love for Lydia
• John Bingham – My Name Is Michael Sibley^[6]
• Pearl S. Buck – The Hidden Flower
• Ivan Bunin – The Life of Arseniev
• Italo Calvino
  • The Argentine Ant (La Formica Argentina)
  • The Cloven Viscount (l visconte dimezzato, first of the Our Ancestors trilogy)
• John Dickson Carr
  • The Nine Wrong Answers
  • Behind the Crimson Blind (as Carter Dickson)
• Louis-Ferdinand Céline – Fable for Another Time
• Agatha Christie
  • Mrs McGinty's Dead
  • They Do It with Mirrors
  • A Daughter's a Daughter (as Mary Westmacott)
• Brian Cleeve – The Far Hills
• Branko Ćopić – Prolom (The Break-out)
• Thomas B. Costain – The Silver Chalice
• A. J. Cronin – Adventures in Two Worlds
• August Derleth
  • Three Problems for Solar Pons
  • Night's Yawning Peal: A Ghostly Company (as editor)
• David F. Dodge – To Catch a Thief
• Jean Dutourd – The Best Butter
• Ralph Ellison – Invisible Man
• Edna Ferber – Giant
• C. S. Forester – Lieutenant Hornblower
• Paul Gallico – The Small Miracle
• Jean Giono – The Malediction
• Richard Gordon – Doctor in the House
• Winston Graham – Fortune Is a Woman
• Vasily Grossman – Stalingrad («Сталингра́д»)
• Han Suyin – A Many-Splendoured Thing
• Robert A. Heinlein – The Rolling Stones
• Ernest Hemingway – The Old Man and the Sea
• Willem Frederik Hermans – Het behouden huis (The House of Refuge or An Untouched House, novella)
• Patricia Highsmith (as Claire Morgan) – The Price of Salt
• Hammond Innes – Campbell's Kingdom
• Ernst Jünger – Visit to Godenholm
• Frances Parkinson Keyes – Steamboat Gothic
• David H. Keller – Tales from Underwood
• Arthur Koestler – Arrow in the Blue
• Halldór Laxness – Gerpla
• Doris Lessing – Martha Quest
• Compton Mackenzie – The Rival Monster
• Bernard Malamud – The Natural
• Ana Maria Matute – Fiesta al noroeste
• Harry Mulisch – Archibald Strohalm
• C. L. Moore – Judgment Night (science fiction short stories)
• R. K. Narayan – The Financial Expert
• Flannery O'Connor – Wise Blood
• Vin Packer – Spring Fire
• Anthony Powell – A Buyer's Market
• Barbara Pym – Excellent Women
• Ellery Queen – The King is Dead
• Lucien Rebatet – Les Deux étendards
• Charles Shaw – Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison
• Howard Spring – The Houses in Between
• John Steinbeck – East of Eden
• Rex Stout
  • Triple Jeopardy
  • Prisoner's Base
• A. C. Swinburne (died 1909) – Lesbia Brandon (completed c.1868)
• Edith Templeton – The Island of Desire
• Jim Thompson – The Killer Inside Me
• Agnes Sligh Turnbull – The Gown of Glory
• Amos Tutuola – The Palm-Wine Drunkard
• Sachchidananda Vatsyayan (Agyeya) – Nadi ke dweep (Islands in the stream)
• Vercors – Les Animaux dénaturés
• Arved Viirlaid – Ristideta hauad (Graves Without Crosses)
• Kurt Vonnegut – Player Piano
• Evelyn Waugh – Men at Arms
• Hillary Waugh – Last Seen Wearing...
• Angus Wilson – Hemlock and After
• Frank Yerby – The Saracen Blade

Children and young people

• Enid Blyton – Noddy and Big Ears
• Bruce Carter – The Perilous Descent (Into a Strange Lost World)
• Alice Dalgliesh – The Bears on Hemlock Mountain
• Dorothy Edwards – My Naughty Little Sister. Stories from "Listen With Mother"
• Rumer Godden – Mouse House
• C. S. Lewis – The Voyage of the Dawn Treader
• Eloise Jarvis McGraw – Moccasin Trail
• Farley Mowat – People of the Deer
• Mary Norton – The Borrowers (first in the eponymous series of 6 books)
• Rhoda Power – Redcap Runs Away
• William Matthew Scott – The Cherrys of River House (first in The Cherrys series of 14 books)
• Louis Slobodkin – The Space Ship Under the Apple Tree
• Geoffrey Trease – The Crown of Violet (also Web of Traitors)
• E. B. White – Charlotte's Web

Drama

• Rodney Ackland – The Pink Room
• Jean Anouilh
  • The Lark (L'Alouette)
  • The Waltz of the Toreadors (La Valse des toréadors)
• Jacinto Benavente – Ha llegado Don Juan
• Alice Childress – Gold Through the Trees
• Noël Coward – Quadrille
• Constance Cox – Lord Arthur Savile's Crime
• Robertson Davies – A Masque of Aesop
• Henry de Montherlant – La Ville dont le prince est un enfant (The City Whose Prince is a Child; first performance in first published version)
• Friedrich Dürrenmatt – The Marriage of Mr. Mississippi (Die Ehe des Herrn Mississippi, first performance)
• Charles Langbridge Morgan – The River Line
• J.B. Priestley and Jacquetta Hawkes – Dragon's Mouth
• Terence Rattigan – The Deep Blue Sea
• Dodie Smith – Letter from Paris
• Ben Travers – Wild Horses
• John Van Druten – I've Got Sixpence

Poetry

• Paul Celan – Poppy and Memory (German: Mohn und Gedächtnis)^[7]
• David Jones – The Anathemata: fragments of an attempted writing
• Gabriela Mistral – Los sonetos de la muerte y otros poemas elegíacos^[8]
• Sean O Riordain – Eireaball Spideoige^[9]

Non-fiction

• Roland Bainton – The Reformation of the Sixteenth Century
• L. Sprague de Camp and Willy Ley – Lands Beyond
• Dorothy Day – The Long Loneliness
• Lawrence Gowing – Vermeer
• Heinrich Harrer – Sieben Jahre in Tibet. Mein Leben am Hofe des Dalai Lama (Seven Years in Tibet, 1954)
• Aldous Huxley
  • The Devils of Loudun
  • Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow
• Maurice Nicoll – Psychological Commentaries on the Teachings of G. I. Gurdjieff and P. D. Ouspensky
• Norman Vincent Peale – The Power of Positive Thinking
• Gwen Raverat – Period Piece
• P. R. Reid – The Colditz Story
• Jean-Paul Sartre – Saint Genet, comédien et martyr
• Pierre Schaeffer – In Search of a Concrete Music (À la Recherche d'une Musique Concrète)
• F. Sherwood Taylor – The Alchemists
• Paul Tillich – Courage To Be
• Immanuel Velikovsky – Ages in Chaos
• J. M. Wallace-Hadrill – The Barbarian West, 400–1000
• Raymond Williams – Drama from Ibsen to Eliot

Births

• January 4 – Michele Wallace, American feminist author
• January 12 – Walter Mosley, American novelist
• January 21 – Louis Menand, American author and academic
• February 10 – Gail Rebuck, English publisher
• February 19
  • Ryū Murakami (村上 龍), Japanese novelist, essayist and filmmaker
  • Amy Tan, American novelist
• February 29 – Tim Powers, American fantasy author
• March 5 – Robin Hobb (Margaret Astrid Lindholm Ogden, Megan Lindholm), American fantasy author
• March 7 – William Boyd, Gold Coast-born Scottish novelist and screenwriter
• March 11 – Douglas Adams, English science fiction author (died 2001)
• March 13 – Ágnes Rapai, Hungarian poet, writer and translator
• March 26 – T. A. Barron, American novelist
• May 5 – Hafsat Abdulwaheed, Nigerian author and poet
• June 7 – Orhan Pamuk, Turkish novelist and Nobel laureate
• June 20
  • Vince Gotera, American poet and critic
  • Vikram Seth, Indian novelist
• June 29 – Breece D'J Pancake (Breece Dexter Pancake), American short story writer (suicide 1979)
• July 3 – Rohinton Mistry, Indian-born Canadian novelist
• July 10 – Candice F. Ransom, American children's and young adult author
• July 18 – Per Petterson, Norwegian novelist
• August 28 – Rita Dove, American poet
• October 18 – Bảo Ninh, Vietnamese author
• November 15 – Rick Atkinson, American journalist, historian and author
• November 21 – Pedro Lemebel, Chilean novelist
• December 19 – Sean O'Brien, English poet
• December 22 – Mick Inkpen, English children's writer and illustrator

Deaths

• January 22 – Roger Vitrac, French poet and dramatist (born 1899)
• January 26 – Lodewijk van Deyssel, Dutch novelist (born 1864)
• February 7 – Norman Douglas, Austrian-born Scottish novelist (born 1868)
• February 13 – Josephine Tey (Elizabeth MacKintosh), Scottish crime novelist (born 1896)
• February 19 – Knut Hamsun, Norwegian novelist and Nobel laureate (born 1859)
• March 1
  • Mariano Azuela, Mexican novelist, dramatist and critic (born 1873)
  • Masao Kume (久米 正雄), Japanese playwright, novelist and haiku poet (born 1891)
• March 27 – Ioan A. Bassarabescu, Romanian short story writer and politician (born 1870)
• April 1 – Ferenc Molnár (Ferenc Neumann), Hungarian dramatist and novelist (born 1878)
• May 17 – Paul Bujor, Romanian politician, zoologist and short story writer (born 1862)
• May 26 – Eugene Jolas, American/French writer, literary translator and critic (born 1894)
• June 1 – John Dewey, American philosopher and psychologist (born 1859)
• July 1 – A. S. W. Rosenbach, American book collector (born 1876)
• July 8 – August Alle, Estonian writer (born 1890)
• August 9 – Jeffery Farnol, English historical novelist (born 1878)
• August 22 – H. J. Massingham, English countryside writer (born 1888)
• September 26 – George Santayana, Spanish philosopher, poet and novelist writing in English (born 1863)
• October 4 – Keith Murdoch, Australian journalist (born 1885)
• October 6 – Teffi (Nadezhda Alexandrovna Buchinskaya), Russian humorist (born 1872)
• November 3 – Louis Verneuil, French playwright (suicide, born 1893)
• November 4 – Gilbert Frankau, English novelist (born 1884)
• November 13 – Margaret Wise Brown, American children's author (embolism, born 1910)
• November 16 – Charles Maurras, French poet and critic (born 1868)
• November 18 – Paul Éluard, French surrealist poet (heart attack, born 1895)
• November 23 – Aaro Hellaakoski, Finnish poet (born 1893)
• December 6 – Cicely Hamilton, English dramatist and suffragist (born 1872)

Awards

• Carnegie Medal for children's literature: Mary Norton, The Borrowers
• Frost Medal: Carl Sandburg
• James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction: Evelyn Waugh, Men at Arms
• James Tait Black Memorial Prize for biography: G. M. Young, Stanley Baldwin
• National Book Award: James Jones, From Here to Eternity.
• Newbery Medal for children's literature: Eleanor Estes, Ginger Pye
• Newdigate prize: Donald Hall
• Nobel Prize for Literature: François Mauriac
• Premio Nadal: María Medio Estrada, Nosotros, los Rivero
• Pulitzer Prize for Drama: Joseph Kramm, The Shrike
• Pulitzer Prize for Fiction: Herman Wouk – The Caine Mutiny
• Pulitzer Prize for Poetry: Marianne Moore, Collected Poems
• King's Gold Medal for Poetry: Andrew Young
• National Book Award for Fiction: James Jones – From Here to Eternity

References