1929 in literature

The year 1929 in literature involved some significant events and new books.

Events

 * Candide by Voltaire is declared obscene by the United States Customs and seized in 1930.
 * The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes is banned in the USSR because of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's interest in the occult.
 * George Orwell returns to the UK after living in Paris.
 * Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir meet for the first time at the École Normale. Twenty-one-year-old de Beauvoir becomes the youngest person ever to obtain the agrégation in philosophy, and comes second in the final exam, beaten only by Sartre.
 * Ellery Queen publishes his first mystery novel.

New books

 * Richard Aldington - Death of a Hero
 * Hamilton Basso - Relics and Angels
 * Anthony Berkeley
 * The Poisoned Chocolates Case
 * The Piccadilly Murder
 * Mary Borden - The Forbidden Zone
 * Edgar Rice Burroughs - Tarzan and the Lost Empire
 * Mateiu Caragiale - Craii de Curtea-Veche
 * Agatha Christie
 * The Seven Dials Mystery
 * Partners in Crime
 * Jean Cocteau - Les Enfants Terribles
 * Colette - Sido
 * Aleister Crowley - The Stratagem and other Stories
 * Alfred Döblin - Berlin Alexanderplatz
 * Lloyd C. Douglas - Magnificent Obsession
 * Arthur Conan Doyle - The Maracot Deep
 * William Faulkner - The Sound and the Fury
 * Jessie Redmon Fauset - Plum Bun: A Novel Without a Moral
 * Edna Ferber - Cimarron
 * C. S. Forester - Brown on Resolution
 * Zona Gale - Borgia
 * Rómulo Gallegos - Doña Bárbara
 * Floyd Gibbons - The Red Napoleon
 * Henry Green - Living
 * Julien Green - The Dark Journey
 * The Dain Curse
 * Red Harvest
 * Graham Greene - The Man Within
 * Ernest Hemingway - A Farewell to Arms
 * Richard Hughes - A High Wind in Jamaica
 * Erich Kästner - Emil und die Detektive
 * Anna Kavan - A Charmed Circle
 * Eric P. Kelly - The Trumpeter of Krakow
 * Oliver La Farge - Laughing Boy
 * Nella Larsen - Passing
 * Sinclair Lewis - Dodsworth
 * Claude McKay - Banjo
 * Alberto Moravia - Gli indifferenti (Time of Indifference)
 * Leopold Myers - The Near and the Far
 * Katherine Anne Porter - Flowering Judas
 * Ellery Queen - The Roman Hat Mystery
 * Erich Maria Remarque - All Quiet on the Western Front (Im Westen nichts Neues)
 * Elmer Rice - ''Street Scene
 * O.E. Rolvaag - Peder Victorious
 * John Steinbeck - Cup of Gold: A Life of Sir Henry Morgan, Buccaneer, With Occasional Reference to History
 * Wallace Thurman - The Blacker the Berry
 * Sigrid Undset - In the Wilderness
 * S.S. Van Dine - The Scarab Murder Case
 * Thomas Wolfe - Look Homeward, Angel

New drama

 * Henri Bernstein - Mélo
 * Bertolt Brecht - The Baden-Baden Lesson on Consent
 * Patrick Hamilton - Rope
 * Kaj Munk - I Brændingen
 * Stanisława Przybyszewska - The Danton Case
 * Elmer Rice - Street Scene
 * Jean Giraudoux - Amphitryon 38
 * George Bernard Shaw - The Apple Cart

Poetry

 * Robinson Jeffers - Dear Judas and Other Poems
 * W.B. Yeats - The Winding Stair

Non-fiction

 * Ada Boni - Il talismano della felicità (The Talisman of Happiness)
 * G.K. Chesterton - The Everlasting Man
 * Mahatma Gandhi - The Story of My Experiments with Truth
 * Robert Graves - Goodbye to All That
 * Walter Lippmann - A Preface to Morals
 * A.A. Milne - Those Were the Days
 * Alice Prin - Kiki's Memoirs
 * Various authors - Our Exagmination Round His Factification for Incamination of Work in Progress: essays in support of James Joyce
 * E.B. White & James Thurber - Is Sex Necessary?
 * Alfred North Whitehead - Process and Reality
 * Virginia Woolf - A Room of One's Own

Births

 * January 26 - Jules Feiffer, American cartoonist & writer
 * February 17 - Chaim Potok, American author (d. 2002)
 * February 18 - Len Deighton, British novelist
 * April 1 - Milan Kundera, Czech-French novelist
 * May 16 - Adrienne Rich, American poet and essayist
 * June 11 - George Garrett, American poet & novelist (d. 2008)
 * July 31 - Lynne Reid Banks, British author
 * August 18 - Anatoly Kuznetsov, Russian dissident novelist (d. 1979)
 * August 21 - X.J. Kennedy, American poet & translator
 * August 27 - Ira Levin, American novelist & playwright (d. 2007)
 * August 29 - Thom Gunn, Anglo-American poet (d. 2004)
 * November - Steve Carter, American playwright
 * November 13 - Theo Aronson, British biographer (d. 2003)
 * December 12 - John Osborne, English playwright & screenwriter (d. 1994)
 * December 16 - James Moore, Cornish author
 * December 19 - Howard Sackler, American dramatist & screenwriter (d. 1982)

Deaths

 * March 26 - Katharine Lee Bates, lyricist of "America the Beautiful" (b. 1859)
 * April 16 - Sir John Morris-Jones, Welsh grammarian & poet (b. 1864)
 * April 21 - Lucy Clifford, British novelist (b. 1846)
 * June 8 - Bliss Carman, Canadian poet (b. 1861)
 * June 22 - Alfred Brunswig, German philosopher (b. 1877)
 * June 25 - Georges Courteline, French dramatist & novelist (b. 1858)
 * July 15 - Hugo von Hofmannsthal, Austrian novelist & poet (b. 1874)
 * July 31 - José de Castro, Portuguese journalist (b. 1868)
 * August - Mary MacLane, Canadian feminist writer (b. 1881)
 * December 10 - Harry Crosby, American publisher and poet (b. 1898) (suicide)
 * date unknown
 * Max Lehmann, German historian (b. 1845)
 * Hans Prutz, German historian (b. 1843)
 * Grace Rhys, Irish novelist & poet (b. 1865)
 * Dallas Lore Sharp, American nature writer (b. 1870)

Awards

 * James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction: J. B. Priestley, The Good Companions
 * James Tait Black Memorial Prize for biography: Lord David Cecil, The Stricken Deer: or The Life of Cowper
 * Newbery Medal for children's literature: Eric P. Kelly, The Trumpeter of Krakow
 * Newdigate prize: Phyllis Hartnoll
 * Nobel Prize in literature: Thomas Mann
 * O. Henry Award: Dorothy Parker for Big Blonde (short story)
 * Pulitzer Prize for Drama: Elmer L. Rice, Street Scene
 * Pulitzer Prize for Poetry: Stephen Vincent Benét: John Brown's Body
 * Pulitzer Prize for the Novel: Julia Peterkin - Scarlet Sister Mary