1903 in literature

The year 1903 in literature involved some significant new books.

Events

 * October 24 - Mark Twain moves to Florence.
 * The first Goncourt Prize for French literature is awarded to John Antoine Nau.
 * The Ambassadors by Henry James is serialized in twelve installments, from January to December.
 * Jack London's novel The Call of the Wild is serialized in the Saturday Evening Post.

New books

 * L. Frank Baum - The Enchanted Island of Yew
 * René Boylesve - Enfant à la Balustrade
 * Samuel Butler - The Way of All Flesh
 * Robert Erskine Childers - The Riddle of the Sands
 * Joseph Conrad - Typhoon and Other Stories
 * John Fox, Jr. - The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come
 * Mary E. Wilkins Freeman - The Wind in the Rose Bush
 * George Gissing - The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft
 * Henry James - The Ambassadors
 * Jack London - The Call of the Wild
 * John Antoine Nau - Force ennemie
 * Frank Norris - The Pit
 * Marmaduke Pickthall - Said the Fisherman
 * Beatrix Potter - The Tale of Squirrel Nutkin
 * Bram Stoker - The Jewel of Seven Stars
 * Jules Verne - Traveling Scholarships
 * Mary Augusta Ward - Lady Rose's Daughter
 * Kate Douglas Wiggin - Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm
 * Emile Zola - Vérité

New drama

 * Dusé Mohamed Ali - The Jew's Revenge
 * J.M. Synge - ''In the Shadow of the Glen

Poetry

 * Giovanni Pascoli, Canti di Castelvecchio
 * Thomas Traherne, Poetical Works (posthumous)
 * William Butler Yeats, In the Seven Woods, Ideas of Good and Evil

Non-fiction

 * Ada Cambridge - Thirty Years in Australia
 * W. E. B. Du Bois - The Souls of Black Folk
 * G. E. Moore - Principia Ethica

Births

 * February 11 - Alan Paton, South African writer (d. 1988)
 * February 13 - Georges Simenon, Belgian writer (d. 1989)
 * February 21 - Raymond Queneau, French poet (d. 1976)
 * February 22 - Morley Callaghan, Canadian writer (d. 1990)
 * June 8 - Marguerite Yourcenar, Belgian novelist (d. 1987)
 * June 18 - Raymond Radiguet, French author (d. 1923)
 * July 10 - John Wyndham, British writer (d. 1969)
 * October 17 - Nathanael West, US novelist and screenwriter (d. 1940)

Deaths

 * January 22 - Augustus Hare, biographer and travel writer
 * February 8 - Ada Ellen Bayly, novelist
 * March 6 - Gaston Paris, literary critic and scholar
 * March 14 - Ernest Legouvé, dramatist
 * May 12 - Richard Henry Stoddard, critic and poet
 * May 25 - Max O'Rell, journalist
 * April 29 - Paul du Chaillu, travel writer
 * July 11 - William Henley, British poet
 * September 1 - Charles Bernard Renouvier, philosopher
 * October 4 - Otto Weininger, philosopher
 * November 1 - Theodor Mommsen, German classical scholar and historian
 * December 28 - George Gissing, British novelist

Awards

 * Goncourt Prize: John Antoine Nau for Force ennemie
 * Nobel Prize for Literature: Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson