Literature of the 20th century refers to world literature produced during the 20th century (1901 to 2000).
The main periods in question are often grouped by scholars as Modernist literature, Postmodern literature, flowering from roughly 1900 to 1940 and 1960 to 1990Lewis, Barry. "Postmodernism and Literature." The Routledge Companion to Postmodernism NY: Routledge, 2002, p. 121. respectively, roughly using World War II as a transition point. After 1960, the somewhat malleable term "contemporary literature" widely appears.
Although these terms (modern, contemporary and postmodern) are generally applicable to and stem from Western literary history, scholars often use them in reference to Asian, Latin American and African literatures. Non-western writers, in particular in Postcolonial literature, have been at the forefront of literary evolution during the twentieth century.
Technological advances facilitated lower production cost for books, coupled with rising populations and literacy rates, which resulted in a significant rise in production of popular literature and trivial literature, comparable to the similar developments in music. The division of "popular literature" and "high literature" in the 20th century is overlapped by genres such as detectives or science fiction, despite being largely ignored by mainstream literary criticism for most of the century. These genres developed their own establishments and critical awards; these include the Nebula Award (since 1965), the British Fantasy Award (since 1971) or the Mythopoeic Awards (since 1971).
Towards the end of the 20th century, electronic literature grew in importance in light of the development of hypertext and later the World Wide Web.
The Nobel Prize in Literature was awarded annually throughout the century (with the exception of 1914, 1918, 1935 and 1940–1943), the first laureate (1901) being Sully Prudhomme. The New York Times Best Seller list has been published since 1942.
The best-selling literary works of the 20th century are estimated to be The Lord of the Rings (1954/55, 150 million copies), Le Petit Prince (The Little Prince, 1943, 140 million copies), Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (1997, 120 million copies) and And Then There Were None (1939, 115 million copies). The Lord of the Rings was also voted "book of the century" in various surveys. Perry Rhodan (1961 to present) proclaimed as the best-selling book series, with an estimated total of 1 billion copies sold.
1901–1918
The Fin de siècle movement of the Belle Époque persisted into the 20th century, but was brutally cut short with the outbreak of World War I (an effect depicted e.g. in Thomas Mann's The Magic Mountain, published 1924). The Dada movement of 1916–1920 was at least in part a protest against the bourgeois nationalist and colonialist interests which many Dadaists believed were the root cause of the war; the movement heralded the Surrealism movement of the 1920s.
1900 Lord Jim by Joseph Conrad (Poland, England) The Knights of the Cross by Henryk Sienkiewicz (Poland) Genre fiction The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum (US)
1901 Buddenbrooks by Thomas Mann (Germany) The Inheritors by Joseph Conrad and Ford Madox Ford (England) Kim by Rudyard Kipling (India, England) Genre fiction The Purple Cloud by M. P. Shiel (Montserrat, England) The First Men in the Moon by H. G. Wells (England)
1902 Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad The Immoralist by André Gide (France) The Wings of the Dove by Henry James (US, England) The Grand Babylon Hotel by Arnold Bennett (England) Genre fiction The Hound of the Baskervilles by Arthur Conan Doyle (Scotland) Just So Stories by Rudyard Kipling Plays Man and Superman by George Bernard Shaw (Ireland) The Lower Depths by Maxim Gorky
1903 Romance by Joseph Conrad and Ford Madox Ford The Ambassadors by Henry James The Pit by Frank Norris (US) In Wonderland by Knut Hamsun (Norway) Genre fiction The Call of the Wild by Jack London (US) The Riddle of the Sands by Erskine Childers (England, Ireland)
1904 The Golden Bowl by Henry James Nostromo by Joseph Conrad The Napoleon of Notting Hill by G. K. Chesterton (England) The Peasants by Władysław Reymont (Poland) Genre fiction The Food of the Gods by H. G. Wells The Sea-Wolf by Jack London Green Mansions by William Henry Hudson (Argentina, England) Plays John Bull's Other Island by George Bernard Shaw The Cherry Orchard by Anton Chekhov
1905 Hadrian the Seventh by Frederick Rolfe aka Baron Corvo (England, Italy) Where Angels Fear to Tread by E. M. Forster (England) Kipps by H. G. Wells Songs of Life and Hope by Rubén Darío (Nicaragua) The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton (US) The Club of Queer Trades by G. K. Chesterton
1906 The Jungle by Upton Sinclair (US) The Confusions of Young Törless by Robert Musil (Austria) Mother by Maxim Gorky Genre fiction Puck of Pook's Hill by Rudyard Kipling Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens by J. M. Barrie (Scotland) Time and the Gods by Lord Dunsany (Ireland, England) White Fang by Jack London Plays The Aran Islands by John Millington Synge (Ireland) The Morality of Mrs. Dulska by Gabriela Zapolska (Poland)
1907 Bardidi by Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay (India) The Secret Agent by Joseph Conrad The Longest Journey by E. M. Forster The Tanners by Robert Walser (Swiss) Genre fiction The Listener and Other Stories by Algernon Blackwood (England) – contains The Willows, one of the first 'cosmic horror' stories The Hill of Dreams by Arthur Machen (England) Plays The Playboy of the Western World by John Millington Synge Poetry Cautionary Tales for Children by Hilaire Belloc (France, England)
1908 The Man Who Was Thursday by G. K. Chesterton A Room with a View by E. M. Forster The Iron Heel by Jack London Hell by Henri Barbusse (France, Russia) Penguin Island by Anatole France (France) The Assistant by Robert Walser (Swiss) The Magician by Somerset Maugham (England, France) – based on the author's meeting with Aleister Crowley Genre fiction The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame (England) Poetry Personae by Ezra Pound (US, England, Italy) – one of the first examples of 'modernist' poetry
1909 Martin Eden by Jack London Sparrows: the story of an unprotected girl by Horace W C Newte Tono-Bungay by H. G. Wells Three Lives by Gertrude Stein (US, France) Poetry Exultations by Ezra Pound Poems by William Carlos Williams (US) Plays The Blue Bird by Maurice Maeterlinck (Belgium)
1910 Howards End by E. M. Forster The Card by Arnold Bennett The History of Mr Polly by H. G. Wells
1911 Zuleika Dobson by Max Beerbohm (England) In a German Pension by Katherine Mansfield (England) – short stories Under Western Eyes by Joseph Conrad The White Peacock by D. H. Lawrence (England) Jennie Gerhardt by Theodore Dreiser (US) In Desert and Wilderness by Henryk Sienkiewicz (Poland) Genre fiction Peter and Wendy by J. M. Barrie (Scotland)
1912 The Trespasser by D. H. Lawrence Death in Venice by Thomas Mann (Germany) Genre fiction Riders of the Purple Sage by Zane Grey (US) The Lost World by Arthur Conan Doyle Tarzan of the Apes by Edgar Rice Burroughs (US) Plays Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw
1913 Petersburg by Andrei Bely (Russia) Swann's Way by Marcel Proust (France) Le Grand Meaulnes by Alain-Fournier (France) Sons and Lovers by D. H. Lawrence Chance by Joseph Conrad Genre fiction A Prisoner in Fairyland by Algernon Blackwood – adapted into a play, it later became the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical Starlight Express The Mystery of Dr. Fu-Manchu by 'Sax Rohmer' (England) Poetry Alcools by Guillaume Apollinaire (Poland, France) – dada poems Gitanjali by Rabindranath Tagore
1914 Dubliners by James Joyce (Ireland, France, Italy) – short stories The Prussian Officer and Other Stories by D. H. Lawrence – short stories Der Untertan by Heinrich Mann The Vatican Cellars by André Gide Tender Buttons by Gertrude Stein The Golem by Gustav Meyrink (Austria) Mist by Miguel de Unamuno (Spain) Maurice by E. M. Forster – unpublished Sinister Street by Compton Mackenzie (Scotland, Greece) The Flying Inn by G. K. Chesterton The Ragged-Trousered Philanthropists by Robert Noonan (UK) Poetry North of Boston by Robert Frost (US)
1915 The Good Soldier by Ford Madox Ford The Rainbow by D. H. Lawrence The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka Of Human Bondage by Somerset Maugham The Underdogs by Mariano Azuela (Mexico) Victory by Joseph Conrad Pointed Roofs by Dorothy Richardson The Voyage Out by Virginia Woolf (England) Vainglory by Ronald Firbank (England) Rashōmon by Ryūnosuke Akutagawa Genre fiction The Thirty-Nine Steps by John Buchan (Scotland, Canada)
1916 A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce Women in Love by D. H. Lawrence – initially banned, published in 1920 Genre fiction Greenmantle by John Buchan Poetry Salt-Water Poems and Ballads by John Masefield (England) Mountain Interval by Robert Frost
1917 Under Fire by Henri Barbusse (France, Russia) Walpurgis Night by Gustav Meyrink Growth of the Soil by Knut Hamsun The Shadow-Line by Joseph Conrad Caprice by Ronald Firbank Devdas by Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay Poetry Dulce et Decorum est and Anthem for Doomed Youth by Wilfred Owen (England) – published posthumously Prufrock and Other Observations by T. S. Eliot (US, England) Non-fiction The State and Revolution by Vladimir Lenin
1918 Tarr by Wyndham Lewis (Canada, England) Man of Straw by Heinrich Mann (Germany) Poetry Calligrammes by Guillaume Apollinaire – dada poetry Non-fiction Eminent Victorians by Lytton Strachey (England) Reflections of a Nonpolitical Man by Thomas Mann (Germany)
Interwar period
The 1920s were a period of literary creativity, and works of several notable authors appeared during the period. D. H. Lawrence's novel Lady Chatterley's Lover was a scandal at the time because of its explicit descriptions of sex. James Joyce's novel, Ulysses, published in 1922 in Paris, was one of the most important achievements of literary modernism.
1919 Within a Budding Grove by Marcel Proust Night and Day by Virginia Woolf Winesburg, Ohio by Sherwood Anderson (US) – the first 'lost generation' novel Valmouth by Ronald Firbank Bazaar-e-Husn by Premchand (publ. in Hindi as Seva-sadan) Genre fiction Dope by Sax Rohmer – inspired by the true story of Limehouse dope-dealer Brilliant Chang Dope Darling by Leda Burke (David Garnett) (England)
1920 We by Yevgeny Zamyatin (Russia) Limbo by Aldous Huxley (England) – short stories The Lost Girl by D. H. Lawrence This Side of Paradise by F. Scott Fitzgerald (US) The London Venture by Michael Arlen (Armenia, England) Storm of Steel by Ernst Jünger (Germany) A Voyage to Arcturus by David Lindsay (Scotland) Main Street by Sinclair Lewis (US) The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton (US) Plays Six Characters in Search of an Author by Luigi Pirandello (Italy) Beyond the Horizon and Anna Christie by Eugene O'Neill – Pulitzer prize winner
1921 The Guermantes Way by Marcel Proust Crome Yellow by Aldous Huxley England, My England and Other Stories by D. H. Lawrence – short stories The Forsyte Saga by John Galsworthy (England) – pentalogy, first volume published in 1906 My Life and Loves by Frank Harris (England, US) – four volumes of quasi-factual sex gossip, the fifth completed by Alex Trocchi Plays Back to Methuselah by George Bernard Shaw R.U.R. (Rossum's Universal Robots) by Karel Čapek – from which the term 'robot' was coined
1922 Ulysses by James Joyce Jacob's Room by Virginia Woolf Sodom and Gomorrah by Marcel Proust Croatian God Mars by Miroslav Krleža The Enormous Room by E. E. Cummings (US) Futility by William Gerhardie (Russia, England) The Beautiful and Damned by F. Scott Fitzgerald Mortal Coils by Aldous Huxley – short stories Aaron's Rod by D. H. Lawrence Kim The Garden Party by Katherine Mansfield – short stories