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The year 1920 in literature involved some significant events and new books.

Events

• "Hercule Poirot" makes his first appearance.
• Beyond the Horizon, Eugene O'Neill's first full-length play, opens at a special matinee at the Morosco Theater on February 2 – partly as an experiment on the part of the producer, partly to quiet the pleading of actor Richard Bennett who has demanded a chance to play the lead role. Reviewers hail the play and O'Neill becomes famous. The Emperor Jones is staged in November.
• This Side of Paradise by F. Scott Fitzgerald is published. It is a sensation, immediately establishing Fitzgerald as a writer and celebrity. Though the book's reputation will dim in later years, Dorothy Parker will recall that it was regarded as an innovative work when it first appeared.
• The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton is published.
• Main Street by Sinclair Lewis is published.
• D. H. Lawrence publishes Women in Love.
• Hart Crane publishes his poem My Grandmother's Love Letters in The Dial. This is his first real step towards recognition as a poet.
• Van Wyck Brooks publishes The Ordeal of Mark Twain, arguing that Twain's genius was perverted by the conditions and culture of late 19th-century America. This is the beginning of the reassessment of Mark Twain, who until this point has been regarded primarily as a humorous entertainer. The 1920s will force a reconsideration of many 19th-century writers, most importantly Melville and Dickinson.

New books

• Sherwood Anderson — Poor White
• L. Frank Baum — Glinda of Oz
• Marjorie Bowen — The Burning Glass
• Rhoda Broughton — A Fool in Her Folly
• Edgar Rice Burroughs — Tarzan the Untamed
• Agatha Christie — The Mysterious Affair at Styles (first Hercule Poirot mystery)
• Colette — Chéri
• John Dos Passos — Three Soldiers
• F. Scott Fitzgerald — This Side Of Paradise
• Robert Frost — Mountain Interval
• Zona Gale — Miss Lulu Bett
• John Galsworthy - In Chancery
• D. H. Lawrence — Women in Love
• Sinclair Lewis — Main Street
• David Lindsay — A Voyage to Arcturus
• Hugh Lofting — The Story of Doctor Dolittle
• H. L. Mencken — Prejudices: Second Series
• E. Phillips Oppenheim — The Great Impersation
• Dowell Philip O'Reilly — Five Corners
• Sigrid Undset — The Bridal Wreath
• Mary Augusta Ward — Harvest
• Edith Wharton — The Age of Innocence
• Owen Wister — A Straight Deal
• Zara Wright — Black and White Tangled Threads

New drama

• Karel Čapek - R.U.R. (Rossum's Universal Robots)
• Nikolai Evreinov - The Storming of the Winter Palace
• John Galsworthy - The Skin Game
• Georg Kaiser - Gas II
• Vladimir Mayakovsky - The Championship of the Universal Class Struggle
• Eugene O'Neill - The Emperor Jones
• Ernst Toller - Man and Masses
• Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz - They

Poetry

• Robert Bridges - October and Other Poems
• T. S. Eliot - Poems (Twelve poems including “Lune de Miel” and “The Hippopotamus”)
• Robert Frost - Miscellaneous Poems
• Ezra Pound - Hugh Selwyn Mauberly
• Carl Sandburg - Smoke and Steel
• Siegfried Sassoon - Picture Show
• Edna St. Vincent Millay - A Few Figs From Thistles

Non-fiction

• Frederick Jackson Turner — The Frontier in American History
• H. G. Wells - The Outline of History

Births

Isaac Asimov.

• January 2 - Isaac Asimov, author (d. 1992)
• January 24 - Keith Douglas, English poet (d. 1944)
• February 11 - Daniel F. Galouye, American science fiction author (d. 1976)
• February 19 - Jaan Kross, Estonian writer (d. 2007)
• February 21 - Ishigaki Rin, Japanese poet (d. 2004)
• February 29 - Howard Nemerov, American poet (d. 1991)
• March 10 - Boris Vian, French novelist (d. 1959)
• March 11 - D. J. Enright, English writer (d. 2002)
• April 5 - Arthur Hailey, novelist (d. 2004)
• June 8 - Gwen Harwood, Australian poet (d. 1995)
• June 18 - Rosemary Dobson, Australian poet
• June 20 - Amos Tutuola, Nigerian writer (d. 1997)
• July 12 - Pierre Berton, Canadian author (d. 2004)
• August 3 - P. D. James, English author
• August 16 - Charles Bukowski, American writer (d. 1994)
• August 22 - Ray Bradbury, American science fiction writer
• October 8 - Frank Herbert, American science fiction author (d. 1986)
• October 15 - Mario Puzo, author of The Godfather (d. 1999)
• November 23 - Paul Celan, poet (d. 1970)
• December 15 - Albert Memmi, Tunisian writer
• December 20 - Väinö Linna, Finnish author (d. 1992)

Deaths

• January 2 - Paul Adam, French novelist (b. 1862
• January 4 - Benito Pérez Galdós, Spanish novelist (b. 1843))
• January 18 - Giovanni Capurro, Italian poet (b. 1825)
• March 15 - Edith Holden, diarist and illustrator (b. 1871) (drowned)
• March 26 - Mary Augusta Ward, novelist (b. 1981)
• May 11 - William Dean Howells, American writer (b. 1837)
• May 21 - Eleanor H. Porter, American novelist (b. 1868)
• June 5
  • Rhoda Broughton, Welsh novelist (b. 1840)
  • Julia A. Moore, American poet (b. 1847)
• June 14 - Max Weber, German political economist (b. 1864)
• June 27 - Adolphe Basile Routhier, Canadian poet (b. 1839)
• October 19 - John Reed, American journalist (b. 1887)
• November 22 - Manuel Pérez y Curis, Uruguayan poet (b. 1884)

Awards

• James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction: D. H. Lawrence, The Lost Girl
• James Tait Black Memorial Prize for biography: G. M. Trevelyan, Lord Grey of the Reform Bill
• Nobel Prize for Literature: Knut Hamsun
• Pulitzer Prize for the Novel: no award given
• Pulitzer Prize for Poetry: no award given
• Pulitzer Prize for Drama: Eugene O'Neill, Beyond the Horizon