1942 in literature

The year 1942 in literature involved some significant events and new books.

Events

 * André Gide leaves France to live in Tunis.
 * Robertson Davies becomes editor of the Peterborough Examiner.
 * Thomas Mann emigrates to California.
 * James Hilton wins an Oscar for the screenplay of Mrs. Miniver.
 * The New York Times launches influential New York Times Best Seller list.

New fiction books

 * Samuel Hopkins Adams - The Harvey Girls
 * Henry Bellamann - Floods of Spring
 * Earle Birney - David
 * Taylor Caldwell - The Strong City
 * Albert Camus - The Stranger (L'Étranger)
 * John Dickson Carr
 * The Emperor's Snuff-Box
 * The Gilded Man (as by Carter Dickson)
 * Joyce Cary - To Be a Pilgrim
 * Raymond Chandler - The High Window
 * Agatha Christie
 * The Body in the Library
 * Five Little Pigs
 * The Moving Finger
 * Lloyd C. Douglas - The Robe
 * Daphne du Maurier - Frenchman's Creek
 * Rachel Field - And Now Tomorrow
 * F. Scott Fitzgerald - The Last Tycoon
 * Robert A. Heinlein - Beyond This Horizon
 * Kalki Krishnamurthy - Parthiban Kanavu
 * C. S. Lewis - The Screwtape Letters
 * Janette Sebring Lowrey - The Poky Little Puppy
 * Beryl Markham - West with the Night
 * Robert Musil - The Man Without Qualities
 * Annie Greene Nelson - After The Storm
 * Ellery Queen - Calamity Town
 * Raymond Queneau - Pierrot mon ami
 * Clayton Rawson - No Coffin for the Corpse
 * Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings - Cross Creek
 * Nevil Shute - Pied Piper
 * Curt Siodmak - Donovan's Brain
 * Clark Ashton Smith - Out of Space and Time
 * Eleanor Smith
 * Caravan
 * The Man in Grey
 * John Steinbeck - The Moon is Down
 * Rex Stout - Black Orchids
 * Phoebe Atwood Taylor
 * The Six Iron Spiders
 * Three Plots for Asey Mayo
 * Vercors - Le Silence de la mer
 * Evelyn Waugh - Put Out More Flags
 * Cornell Woolrich - Black Alibi

New drama

 * Jean Anouilh - Antigone
 * Kaj Munk - Niels Ebbesen
 * Eugene O'Neill - A Touch of the Poet (written)

Poetry

 * T.S. Eliot - Little Gidding

Non-fiction

 * Albert Camus - The Myth of Sisyphus (Le Mythe de Sisyphe)
 * Salvador Dalí - The Secret Life of Salvador Dalí
 * Edith Hamilton - Mythology
 * Aldous Huxley - The Art of Seeing
 * C. S. Lewis - A Preface to Paradise Lost
 * Elliot Paul - The Last Time I Saw Paris
 * Adam Clayton Powell, Sr. - Picketing Hell
 * Antoine de Saint-Exupéry - Flight to Arras
 * Rebecca West - Black Lamb and Grey Falcon

Births

 * January 31 - Derek Jarman, director, writer (d. 1994)
 * February 1 - Terry Jones, comedian and writer
 * March 2 - John Irving, novelist
 * April 1 - Samuel R. Delany, novelist and critic
 * April 4 - Kitty Kelley, journalist and biographer
 * April 6 - Barry Levinson, screenwriter, director and producer
 * August 2 - Isabel Allende, novelist
 * August 7 - Garrison Keillor, Lake Wobegon Days author
 * October 23 - Michael Crichton, author (d. 2008)
 * October 23 - Douglas Dunn, poet
 * December 6 - Peter Handke, Austrian novelist
 * date unknown - Gladys Cardiff, poet
 * date unknown - Craig Thomas, novelist

Deaths

 * April 24 - Lucy Maud Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables novelist
 * May 26 - Libero Bovio, Neapolitan dialect poet
 * June 30 - Léon Daudet, journalist
 * July 20 - Moses Annenberg, publisher
 * September 19 - Condé Nast, magazine publisher
 * September 26 - Oskar Kraus, philosopher
 * October 14 - Cosmo Hamilton, dramatist and novelist
 * October 20 - Friedrich Münzer, classical scholar
 * 23 December - Konstantin Bal'mont, poet
 * date unknown - Eleanor Stackhouse Atkinson, Greyfriars Bobby author

Awards

 * Carnegie Medal for children's literature: Denys Watkins-Pitchford, The Little Grey Men
 * Frost Medal: Edgar Lee Masters
 * James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction: Arthur Waley, Translation of Monkey by Wu Cheng'en
 * James Tait Black Memorial Prize for biography: Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede, Henry Ponsonby: Queen Victoria's Private Secretary
 * Newbery Medal for children's literature: Walter D. Edmonds, The Matchlock Gun
 * Nobel Prize for literature: not awarded
 * Pulitzer Prize for Drama: not awarded
 * Pulitzer Prize for Poetry: William Rose Benet, The Dust Which Is God
 * Pulitzer Prize for the Novel: Ellen Glasgow, In This Our Life