1952 in literature

The year 1952, in literature involved some significant events and new literary publications.

Events

 * J. L. Carr takes over as headmaster of Highfields Primary School, Kettering, which will eventually furnish the subject matter for his novel, The Harpole Report.
 * November 25 - Agatha Christie's play The Mousetrap opens in London.
 * The works of André Gide are placed on the Catholic Church's Index of Forbidden Books.
 * Launch of the influential periodical, Past and Present.
 * E. E. Cummings is appointed to a Charles Eliot Norton Professorship at Harvard.
 * Discovery of a lost scientific work by Geoffrey Chaucer entitled Equatorie of the Planetis.

New books

 * Isaac Asimov
 * The Currents of Space
 * Foundation and Empire
 * Pearl S. Buck - The Hidden Flower
 * Italo Calvino - La Formica Argentina
 * John Dickson Carr
 * The Nine Wrong Answers
 * Behind the Crimson Blind (as by Carter Dickson)
 * Agatha Christie
 * Mrs McGinty's Dead
 * They Do It with Mirrors
 * A Daughter's a Daughter (as by Mary Westmacott)
 * Brian Cleeve - The Far Hills
 * Thomas B. Costain - The Silver Chalice
 * A. J. Cronin - Adventures in Two Worlds
 * August Derleth - Three Problems for Solar Pons
 * August Derleth editor - Night's Yawning Peal: A Ghostly Company
 * David F. Dodge - To Catch a Thief
 * Ralph Ellison - Invisible Man
 * Edna Ferber - Giant
 * Paul Gallico - The Small Miracle
 * Richard Gordon - Doctor in the House
 * Han Suyin - A Many-splendoured Thing
 * Robert A. Heinlein - The Rolling Stones
 * Ernest Hemingway - The Old Man and the Sea
 * Patricia Highsmith (as Claire Morgan) - The Price of Salt
 * Frances Parkinson Keyes - Steamboat Gothic
 * David H. Keller - Tales from Underwood
 * Arthur Koestler - Arrow in the Blue
 * Doris Lessing - Martha Quest
 * C. S. Lewis - The Voyage of the Dawn Treader
 * Bernard Malamud - The Natural
 * Harry Mulisch - Archibald Strohalm
 * C. L. Moore - Judgment Night
 * R. K. Narayan - The Financial Expert
 * Vin Packer - Spring Fire
 * Anthony Powell - A Buyer's Market
 * Barbara Pym - Excellent Women
 * Ellery Queen - ''The King is Dead
 * Charles Shaw - Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison
 * Howard Spring - The Houses in Between
 * John Steinbeck - East of Eden
 * Rex Stout - Triple Jeopardy
 * Rex Stout - Prisoner's Base
 * Edith Templeton - The Island of Desire
 * Agnes Sligh Turnbull - The Gown of Glory
 * Amos Tutuola - The Palm-Wine Drinkard
 * Evelyn Waugh - Men at Arms
 * Hillary Waugh - Last Seen Wearing ...
 * E.B. White - Charlotte's Web
 * Angus Wilson - Hemlock and After
 * Frank Yerby - The Saracen Blade

New drama

 * Robertson Davies - A Masque of Aesop
 * Charles Langbridge Morgan - The River Line
 * Terence Rattigan - The Deep Blue Sea

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
 * Aldous Huxley – The Devils of Loudun; Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow
 * Norman Vincent Peale – The Power of Positive Thinking
 * Gwen Raverat – Period Piece
 * P.R. Reid – The Colditz Story
 * 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

 * February 19 - Amy Tan, novelist
 * February 29 - Tim Powers, American fantasy author
 * March 11 - Douglas Adams, science fiction author (d. 2001)
 * June 7 - Orhan Pamuk, Turkish novelist, Nobel Prize in Literature 2006
 * June 20 - Vikram Seth, Indian novelist
 * date unknown - Margaret Astrid Lindholm Ogden, author of fantasy novels under the pennames Robin Hobb and Megan Lindholm

Deaths

 * February 7 - Norman Douglas, novelist
 * February 13 - Josephine Tey, crime novelist
 * February 19 - Knut Hamsun, author
 * March 1 - Mariano Azuela, novelist, dramatist and critic
 * May 26 - Eugene Jolas, writer, literary translator and critic
 * April 1 - Ferenc Molnár, dramatist and novelist
 * June 1 - John Dewey, philosopher and psychologist
 * July 1 - A. S. W. Rosenbach, book collector
 * August 9 - Jeffery Farnol, historical romance novelist
 * August 15 - Dora Diamant, lover of Franz Kafka
 * September 29 – George Santayana, writer
 * October 4 - Keith Murdoch, journalist, father of Rupert Murdoch
 * November 4 - Gilbert Frankau, novelist
 * November 13 - Margaret Wise Brown, children's author
 * November 16 - Charles Maurras, poet
 * November 18 - Paul Éluard, Surrealist poet
 * November 23 – Aaro Hellaakoski, Finnish poet
 * December 6 - Cicely Hamilton, dramatist
 * date unknown - H. J. Massingham, "ruralist" writer
 * date unknown - Roger Vitrac, poet and dramatist

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