1897 in literature

The year 1897 in literature involved some significant new books.

Events

 * January 2 - Newspapers in London, England erroneously report the death of Mark Twain. It is believed that the rumors began when Twain's cousin had become ill. Twain makes his famous statement "the report of my death was an exaggeration."
 * July 25 - Writer Jack London sails to join the Klondike Gold Rush where he will write his first successful stories.
 * The comedy play Im weißen Rößl (The White Horse Inn) by Oscar Blumenthal and Gustav Kadelburg opens in Berlin. Decades later it will be turned into a popular and successful musical play.
 * Benito Pérez Galdós is elected to the Real Academia Española.

New books

 * John Kendrick Bangs - Pursuit of the House-Boat
 * L. Frank Baum - Mother Goose in Prose
 * Richard Doddridge Blackmore - Dariel
 * Rhoda Broughton - Dear Faustina
 * Hall Caine - The Christian
 * Kate Chopin - A Night in Acadie
 * Joseph Conrad - The Nigger of the 'Narcissus'
 * Mary E. Wilkins Freeman - Jerome
 * George Gissing - The Whirlpool
 * Ellen Glasgow - The Descendant
 * Sarah Grand - The Beth Book
 * Thomas Hardy - The Well-Beloved
 * Henry James -
 * The Spoils of Poynton
 * What Maisie Knew
 * Fred T. Jane - To Venus in Five Seconds
 * Rudyard Kipling - Captains Courageous
 * Camille Lemonnier - L'Homme en Amour
 * W. Somerset Maugham - Liza of Lambeth
 * Robert Louis Stevenson - St. Ives
 * Bram Stoker - Dracula
 * Jules Verne - An Antarctic Mystery
 * Lew Wallace - The Wooing of Malkatoon
 * H.G. Wells - The Invisible Man
 * Richard Marsh - The Beetle

New drama

 * Gabriele D'Annunzio - Il Sogno di un mattino di primavera
 * Octave Mirbeau - Les Mauvais bergers (The Bad Shepherds)
 * Edmond Rostand - Cyrano de Bergerac
 * Arthur Schnitzler - La Ronde (not performed until 1921)

Poetry

 * Þorsteinn Erlingsson - Þyrnar ("Thorns")

Non-fiction

 * Grant Allen - The Evolution of the Idea of God

Births

 * January 11 - Bernard DeVoto, historian
 * January 19 - Natacha Rambova, dramatist and wife of Rudolph Valentino
 * March 23 - Béla Hamvas, philosopher
 * July 1 - Edward Wyndham Tennant, poet
 * July 15 - R.J. Yeatman, humorous author
 * August 11
 * Enid Blyton, children's author
 * Louise Bogan, poet
 * September 25 - William Faulkner, novelist
 * October 22 - Marjorie Flack, children's author
 * November 1 - Naomi Mitchison, novelist and poet
 * November 7 - Herman J. Mankiewicz, screenwriter
 * November 8 - Dorothy Day, journalist
 * December 3 - Kate O'Brien, novelist and dramatist
 * date unknown - Iris Tree, poet

Deaths

 * March 7 - Harriet Ann Jacobs, African-American writer
 * March 11 - Henry Drummond, evangelist and writer on natural history
 * June 25 - Margaret Oliphant, writer
 * July 28 - Étienne Vacherot, philosophical writer
 * August 5 - James Hammond Trumbull, philologist
 * August 8 - Jacob Burkhardt, Swiss historian (b. 1818)
 * August 25 - Émile Théodore Léon Gautier, historian
 * September 17 - Ferenc Pulszky, political writer
 * October 24 - Francis Turner Palgrave, anthologist
 * December 17 - Alphonse Daudet, novelist