1903 in literature#New drama

File:1903 06 20 Call-of-the-Wild-Sat-Eve-Post-Cover.jpg advertising The Call of the Wild, first episode]]

• January–December – Henry James's novel The Ambassadors is published as a serial in the monthly North American Review.
• May 22 – Japanese philosophy student Misao Fujimura (藤村操, born 1886) carves a poem into a tree at Kegon Falls before committing suicide over unrequited love.[http://www.japanpen.or.jp/e-bungeikan/guest/essay/fujimuramisao.html Suicide note (in Japanese).] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141226102500/http://www.japanpen.or.jp/e-bungeikan/guest/essay/fujimuramisao.html |date=2014-12-26 }}
• June 20 – Jack London's novel The Call of the Wild begins serial publication in the Saturday Evening Post.{{cite journal | last = Dyer | first = Daniel | title = Answering the Call of the Wild |date=April 1988 | journal = The English Journal | publisher = National Council of Teachers of English | volume = 77 | issue = 4 | pages = 61 | doi = 10.2307/819308 | jstor = 819308 | ref = {{sfnRef|Dyer}} }}
• October 24 – Mark Twain sets out for Florence (Italy).{{cite book|author=Mark Twain|title=The Complete Works of Mark Twain|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=pV01DwAAQBAJ&pg=PT8501|date=20 July 2017|publisher=e-artnow|isbn=978-80-268-7815-5|pages=8501–}}
• December – The Prix Goncourt for French literature is awarded for the first time, to John Antoine Nau for his novel Force ennemie.
• December 16 – The London County Council erects a plaque to novelist Charles Dickens (d. 1870) on his former home in Doughty Street.
• December 19 – The first of G. K. Chesterton's short stories in the series The Club of Queer Trades, "The Tremendous Adventures of Major Brown", appears in Harper's Weekly.
• unknown date – William Foyle and his brother Gilbert establish the London bookselling business of Foyles.{{cite book|author1=Giōrgos Daniēl|author2=George Thaniel|title=Seferis and Friends: Some of George Seferis' Friends in the English-speaking World|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=OoOlmuCm0a8C|year=1994|publisher=Mercury Press|isbn=978-1-55128-008-0|page=39}}

• Pío Baroja – El Mayorazgo de Labraz (Lord of Labraz, second of La Tierra Vasca – The Basque Country trilogy, 1900–1909)
• Ioan A. Bassarabescu – Nuvele
• Thio Tjin Boen – Tjerita Oeij Se
• René Boylesve – Enfant à la Balustrade
• Samuel Butler (died 1902) – The Way of All Flesh
• Erskine Childers – The Riddle of the Sands
• Joseph Conrad – Typhoon and Other Stories (U. K. book publication)
• Joseph Conrad and Ford Madox Hueffer – Romance
• Florence Converse – Long Will
• Grazia Deledda – Elias Portolu
• Isabelle Eberhardt – Trimardeur (serialization begins)
• 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 (died 1902) – The Pit
• Marmaduke Pickthall – Said the Fisherman
• Bram Stoker – The Jewel of Seven Stars
• Jules Verne – Travel Scholarships (Bourses de voyage)
• Mary Augusta Ward – Lady Rose's Daughter
• Émile Zola – Vérité
• Jerzy Żuławski – Na Srebrnym Globie (On the Silver Globe, first in the Trylogia Księżycowa – Lunar Trilogy)

• L. Frank Baum – The Enchanted Island of Yew
• Beatrix Potter
• The Tale of Squirrel Nutkin
• The Tailor of Gloucester
• Herminie Templeton – Darby O'Gill and the Good People (book publication)
• Kate Douglas Wiggin – Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm

• Dusé Mohamed Ali – The Jew's Revenge
• Jacinto Benavente – La noche del sábado (Saturday Night)
• Haralamb Lecca – Cancer la inimă
• André de Lorde – Le Système du docteur Goudron et du professeur Plume
• W. Somerset Maugham – A Man of Honour
• René Morax – La Dîme
• Ștefan Petică – Frații
• Florencio Sánchez – M'hijo el dotor (My son, the doctor)
• George Bernard Shaw – Man and Superman (published)
• J. M. Synge – In the Shadow of the Glen
• Pierre Wolff – The Secret of Polichinelle (Le Secret de Polichinelle)
• Stanisław Wyspiański – Wyzwolenie (Liberation)

{{Main|1903 in poetry}}

• Giovanni Pascoli – Canti di Castelvecchio
• Thomas Traherne (died 1674) – Poetical Works
• W. B. Yeats – In the Seven Woods, being poems of the Irish heroic age

• James Allen – As a Man Thinketh
• Ada Cambridge – Thirty Years in Australia
• E. K. Chambers – The Mediaeval Stage
• W. E. B. Du Bois – The Souls of Black Folk
• Helena Rutherfurd Ely – A Woman's Hardy Garden
• Auguste Escoffier – Le Guide culinaire
• Helen Keller – The Story of My Life (book publication)
• G. E. Moore – Principia Ethica
• John Morley – The Life of Gladstone{{cite book |first=Nicholas |last=Parsons |title=The Book of Literary Lists |location=London |publisher=Sidgwick & Jackson |year=1985 |isbn=0-283-99171-2}}
• Alois Riegl – Der moderne Denkmalkultus, sein Wesen, seine Entstehung (The Modern Cult of Monuments, Its Character and Origin)
• W. B. Yeats – Ideas of Good and Evil (essays)

• January 10 – E. Arnot Robertson, English novelist and broadcaster (died 1961)
• February 11 – Alan Paton, South African novelist and activist (died 1988)
• February 13 – Georges Simenon, Belgian crime writer (died 1989)
• February 17 – Sadegh Hedayat, Iranian-born novelist (suicide 1951)
• February 21
• Anaïs Nin, French-American novelist and diarist (died 1977)
• Raymond Queneau, French poet (died 1976)
• February 22 – Morley Callaghan, Canadian writer (died 1990)
• February 24
• Vladimir Bartol, Slovene author (died 1967)
• Irène Némirovsky, Russian-born French novelist (died 1942)
• June 8 – Marguerite Yourcenar, Belgian novelist (died 1987)
• June 18 – Raymond Radiguet, French author (died 1923)
• June 25 – George Orwell, English novelist and journalist (died 1950){{cite web |title=BBC – History – Historic Figures: George Orwell (1903–1950) |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/orwell_george.shtml |website=bbc.co.uk |accessdate=3 January 2017}}
• July 3 – Oliver Stonor, English novelist (died 1987)
• July 10 – John Wyndham, English science fiction writer (died 1969){{cite book |last1=Seed |first1=David |title=A Companion to Science Fiction |date=9 June 2008 |publisher=John Wiley & Sons |isbn=978-0-470-79701-3 |page=387 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=PiphRocVYRwC&pg=PA387 |language=en}}
• September 5 – János Kemény, American-born Transylvanian Hungarian writer (died 1971)
• September 9 – Edward Upward, English novelist and short story writer (died 2009)
• September 10 – Cyril Connolly, English critic and writer (died 1974)
• September 14 – Mart Raud, Estonian poet, playwright and writer (died 1980)
• October 17
• G. E. Trevelyan, English novelist (died 1941)
• Nathanael West, American novelist and screenwriter (died 1940)
• October 28 – Evelyn Waugh, English novelist and critic (died 1966)
• December 6 (November 23 OS) – Gaito Gazdanov, Russian-born novelist (died 1971)
• December 10
• Mary Norton, English children's writer (died 1992)
• William Plomer (Robert Pagan), South African-born novelist, poet and literary editor (died 1973)
• December 13 – Todhunter Ballard, American novelist (died 1980)
• December 24 – Nancy Brysson Morrison, Scottish novelist (died 1986)
• December 29 – Sergiu Dan, Romanian novelist and journalist (died 1976)
• Uncertain dates – Kathleen Lindsay, prolific English-born romance novelist (died 1973)

• January 22 – Augustus Hare, English biographer and travel writer (born 1834)
• February 8 – Ada Ellen Bayly, English novelist (born 1857)
• March 4 – Joseph Henry Shorthouse, English novelist (born 1834)
• March 6 – Gaston Paris, French literary critic and scholar (born 1839)
• March 8 – Josefina Wettergrund, Swedish writer (born 1830)
• March 9 – Minnie Mary Lee, American author of poems, stories, sketches and novels (born 1825)
• March 14 – Ernest Legouvé, French dramatist (born 1807)
• April 28 — Frances Augusta Conant, American journalist (born 1841)
• April 29 – Paul Du Chaillu, French American travel writer (born c. 1831){{cite book|surname=Conniff|given=Richard|year=2011|title=The Species Seekers: Heroes, Fools, and the Mad Pursuit of Life on Earth|place=New York|publisher=W. W. Norton & Company|isbn=978-0-393-06854-2|page=303}}
• May 12 – Richard Henry Stoddard, American critic and poet (born 1825)
• May 24 – Max O'Rell (Léon Paul Blouet), French journalist (born 1847)
• June 12 – Claymoor, Romanian fashion and entertainment critic (peptic ulcer; born c. 1842)Lucreția Angheluță, Salomeea Rotaru, Liana Miclescu, Marilena Apostolescu, Marina Vazaca, Bibliografia românească modernă (1831–1918). Vol. IV: R–Z, p. 722. Bucharest: Editura științifică și enciclopedică, 1996. {{ISBN|973-27-0501-9}}
• July 11 – W. E. Henley, English poet (tuberculosis, born 1847){{Cite web |url=http://courses.wcupa.edu/fletcher/henley/bio.htm |title=Biographical Information |publisher=West Chester University |accessdate=2013-12-04 |archive-date=2013-01-01 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130101214434/http://courses.wcupa.edu/fletcher/henley/bio.htm |url-status=dead }}
• August 31 – William Hastie, Scottish theologian (born 1842)
• September 1 – Charles Bernard Renouvier, French philosopher (born 1815){{EB1911 |wstitle=Renouvier, Charles Bernard |volume=23 |page=102 |inline=1}}
• October 4 – Otto Weininger, Austrian philosopher (suicide, born 1880)
• November 1 – Theodor Mommsen, German classical scholar and historian (born 1817){{cite book|title=Harvard Studies in Classical Philology|publisher=Harvard University Press|year=1992|isbn=9780674379428|page=388}}
• November 11 — Lavilla Esther Allen, American author (born 1834)
• November 19 – Hugh Stowell Scott (Henry Seton Merriman), English novelist (born 1862)
• December 28 – George Gissing, English novelist (emphysema, born 1857)Pierre Coustillas, '[https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/33416 Gissing, George Robert (1857–1903)]' ({{ODNBsub}}), Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, online), Oxford University Press, 2004. Accessed 12 July 2024.

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

{{reflist|30em}}

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