1934 in literature

See also: 1933 in literature, other events of 1934, 1935 in literature, list of years in literature.

Events

• First Flash Gordon comic strip published
• A Handful of Dust by Evelyn Waugh is published.
• Tender Is the Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald is published.
• Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller is published.

New books

• Appointment in Samarra – John O'Hara
• Call It Sleep – Henry Roth
• A Cool Million – Nathaniel West
• The Death Ship – B. Traven (first English publication)
• An Experiment in Autobiography – H. G. Wells
• Frost in May – Antonia White
• A Handful of Dust – Evelyn Waugh
• I, Claudius – Robert Graves
• Invincible Louisa: The Story of the Author of Little Women – Cornelia Meigs
• Jonah's Gourd Vine: A Novel – Zora Neale Hurston
• Lust for Life – Irving Stone
• More Pricks Than Kicks – Samuel Beckett
• Murder on the Orient Express – Agatha Christie
• The Postman Always Rings Twice – James M. Cain
• Rajah Amar – Leopold Myers
• Une Semaine de Bonte – Max Ernst
• Seven Gothic Tales – Isak Dinesen
• Ship without Sails – Barbara Barclay Carter
• Such is My Beloved – Morley Callaghan
• Tender Is the Night – F. Scott Fitzgerald
• Tropic of Cancer – Henry Miller
• The 12.30 from Croydon – Freeman Wills Crofts

Births

• February 10 – Fleur Adcock, poet
• March 28 – Jean Louvet, dramatist
• May 27 – Harlan Ellison, US science-fiction writer.
• July 21 – Jonathan Miller, satirist and non-fiction author
• August 6 – Piers Anthony, English writer of science fiction and fantasy
• November 9 – Ronald Harwood, dramatist
• November 21 – Beryl Bainbridge, novelist
• Jayakanthan, Tamil writer, Jnanpith awardee

Deaths

• January 30 – Frank Nelson Doubleday, publisher
• March 10 – F. Anstey, Vice Versa author
• August 13 – Mary Hunter Austin, travel writer
• September 9 – Roger Fry, art critic
• November 23 – Arthur Wing Pinero, dramatist

Awards

• Newbery Medal for children's literature: Cornelia Meigs, Invincible Louisa
• Nobel Prize for literature: Luigi Pirandello.
• Pulitzer Prize for Drama: Sidney Kingsley, Men in White
• Pulitzer Prize for Poetry: Robert Hillyer: Collected Verse
• Pulitzer Prize for the Novel: Caroline Miller – Lamb in His Bosom