Events from the year 1919 in literature .

• February – Richmal Crompton's anarchic English schoolboy William Brown is introduced in the first published Just William story, "Rice-Mould", in Home magazine.
• March 1 – October 15 – Publication runs of the American pulp magazine The Thrill Book are oriented towards the fantasy genre or science fiction. It includes the serialization of The Heads of Cerberus, written by Gertrude Barrows Bennett as Francis Stevens, with its early thematic use of an alternate time-track, or parallel worlds.
• March – The diaries up to the end of 1917 from the English naturalist W. N. P. Barbellion (Bruce Frederick Cummings) are published as The Journal of a Disappointed Man in London by Chatto & Windus. This treats his resignation to the disease multiple sclerosis, of which he will die on October 22, aged 30, at Gerrards Cross.^[1]
• March 28 – Two paintings by E. E. Cummings appear in an exhibition of the New York Society of Independent Artists.
• April 2 – Vladimir Nabokov leaves Russia with his family.
• April 7 – The anarchist writers Gustav Landauer and Erich Mühsam play leading roles in creating the Bavarian Soviet Republic. They are later joined by the essayist and debt relief advocate Silvio Gesell. Taken over by the Communist Party of Germany, the republic is eventually crushed by the Freikorps; Landauer is killed in prison (May 2).^[2] Combatants on the Freikorps side include Ernst Kantorowicz, later famous as a historian.^[3]
• April and October – The English writers Vera Brittain and Winifred Holtby return after war service to complete their degree courses at Somerville College, Oxford .^[4]
• June – The Algonquin Round Table of writers, critics, actors and wits led by Alexander Woollcott first meets at the Algonquin Hotel in New York City.
• July 29 – Alfred Harcourt and Donald Brace set up the publishing company Harcourt, Brace & Howe in New York City.^[5]
• October 28 – Arthur Ransome leaves Russia with his future wife Evgenia Petrovna Shelepina, previously Trotsky's secretary, carrying a diplomatic message for Estonia.
• November – The literary monthly The London Mercury is launched with J. C. Squire as editor.
• November 19 – An American expatriate, Sylvia Beach, opens the Shakespeare and Company bookstore in Paris.
• November 29 – The Großes Schauspielhaus opens as a theater in Berlin, with an interior designed by Hans Poelzig. It begins with the director Max Reinhardt's production of the Oresteia.^[6]
• December – T. E. Lawrence loses most of the manuscript of Seven Pillars of Wisdom while changing trains at Reading in England en route from the Paris Peace Conference to Oxford.^[7]
• unknown dates
  • The column "By the Way" and the pen name Beachcomber in the London newspaper the Daily Express are taken over by D. B. Wyndham Lewis as a humorous feature.^[8]
  • Singer House in Petrograd (Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic) is allocated to the Petrograd State Publishing House, quickly becoming the city's largest bookstore. It will be known subsequently as Дом Книги (Dom knigi, "The House of Books").

• January 1 – J. D. Salinger, American novelist (died 2010)^[12]
• January 7 – Robert Duncan, American poet (died 1988)^[13]
• January 10 – Ugo Sansonetti, Italian writer and masters athlete (died 2019)
• January 20 – Silva Kaputikyan, Armenian poet (died 2006)
• January 24 – Juan Eduardo Zúñiga, Spanish fiction writer, literary scholar and translator (died 2020)^[14]
• January 25 – Edwin Newman, American writer and journalist (died 2010)
• January 29 – N. F. Simpson, English absurdist playwright (died 2011)
• February 14 – Miroslav Zikmund, Czech adventurer, travel writer and film director (died 2021)^[15]
• March 18 – G. E. M. Anscombe, Irish-born English analytic philosopher (died 2001)
• March 24
  • Lawrence Ferlinghetti, American beat poet, writer, publisher, painter, socialist activist and bookseller (died 2021)^[16]
  • Robert Heilbroner, American economic philosopher (died 2005)
  • Graciela Palau de Nemes, Cuban-born literary critic (died 2019)
• April 15 – Emyr Humphreys, Welsh novelist and poet (died 2020)^[17]
• April 24 – Mihu Dragomir, Romanian poet, journalist and short story writer (died 1964)
• May 7 – Robert H. Adleman, American novelist and historian (died 1995)^[18]
• May 16 – John Robinson, English Bible scholar, religious writer and bishop (died 1983)
• May 17 – Merle Miller, American biographer and screenwriter (died 1986)^[19]
• June 6 – Helen Forrester (June Bhatia), English memoirist and novelist (died 2011)
• June 8 – Władysław Siemaszko, Polish publicist, lawyer and writer^[20]
• June 27 – Jaswant Singh Kanwal, Punjabi novelist (died 2020)
• June 28 – Ion Dezideriu Sîrbu, Romanian philosopher, novelist and dramatist (died 1989)
• July 15 – Iris Murdoch, Irish-born novelist (died 1999)^[21]
• July 23
  • Davis Grubb, American novelist and short story writer (died 1980)
  • Héctor Germán Oesterheld, Argentine comic book writer (forced disappearance c.1977)
• July 31 – Primo Levi, Italian novelist and memoirist (died 1987)^[22]
• August 1 – Stanley Middleton, English novelist (died 2009)
• August 4 – Michel Déon, French writer (died 2016)^[23]
• August 31 – Amrita Pritam, Punjabi poet and novelist (died 2005)
• September 13
  • Mary Midgley, English philosopher (died 2018)^[24]
  • George Weidenfeld, Viennese-born English publisher (died 2016)
• September 23 – Tōta Kaneko, Japanese writer (died 2018)^[25]
• September 26 – Matilde Camus, Spanish poet (died 2012)
• October 22 – Doris Lessing, Persian-born English novelist (died 2013)^[26]
• November 18 – Jocelyn Brando, American actress and writer (died 2005)^[27]
• November 23 – P. F. Strawson, English philosopher (died 2006)
• November 26 – Frederik Pohl, American science fiction author (died 2013)^[28]
• November 29 – Frank Kermode, Manx-born literary critic (died 2010)^[29]
• December 6 – Paul de Man, Belgian-born literary critic (died 1983)^[30]
• December 17
  • Charlotte Jay, Australian suspense writer (died 1996)
  • Es'kia Mphahlele, South African writer (died 2008)

• January 2 – Eliza Putnam Heaton, American journalist and editor (born 1860)
• January 4 – Matilda Betham-Edwards, English novelist, poet and travel writer (born 1836)
• January 11 – Kazimierz Zalewski, Polish dramatist, critic and publisher (born 1849)
• January 15 – Rosa Luxemburg, Polish-born German revolutionary socialist (assassinated, born 1871)
• January 31 – Paul Lindau, German dramatist (born 1839)
• February 24 – Mary Ann Maitland, Scottish-born Canadian author (born 1839)
• February 26 – Anne Thackeray Ritchie, English novelist and essayist (born 1837)
• May 2 – Gustav Landauer, German philosopher and revolutionary (murdered, born 1870)
• May 6 – L. Frank Baum, children's writer (stroke, born 1856)
• May 10 – Ferdinando Fontana, Italian journalist, dramatist, and poet (born 1850)
• May 17 – Guido von List, Viennese poet, dramatist, and occultist (born 1848)
• May 30 – Barbu Nemțeanu, Romanian poet and translator (tuberculosis, born 1887)
• June 14 – Weedon Grossmith, English writer, actor and playwright (born 1854)
• June 19 – Petre P. Carp, Romanian politician, polemicist, and translator (born 1837)
• June 23 – Kolachalam Srinivasa Rao, Indian dramatist (born 1854)
• July 8 – John Fox, Jr., American novelist and short story writer (pneumonia, born 1862)
• August 6 – Ada Langworthy Collier, American author (born 1843)
• August 10 – Cynthia Morgan St. John, American Wordsworthian, book collector, and author (pneumonia, born 1852)
• August 11 – Andrew Carnegie, Scottish American industrialist and writer (pneumonia, born 1835)
• September 12 – Leonid Andreyev, Russian dramatist, novelist and short-story writer (heart failure, born 1871)
• October 22 – W. N. P. Barbellion (Bruce Frederick Cummings), English naturalist and diarist (multiple sclerosis, born 1889)
• October 30 – Ella Wheeler Wilcox, American author and poet (born 1850)
• November 3 – Abraham Valdelomar, Peruvian poet, essayist and dramatist (accidental fall, born 1888)
• November 20 – Jane Lippitt Patterson, American writer and editor (born 1829)
• December 19 – Alice Moore McComas, American author, editor, lecturer and reformer (born 1850)

• James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction (first award): Hugh Walpole, The Secret City
• James Tait Black Memorial Prize for biography (first award): Henry Festing Jones, Samuel Butler, Author of Erewhon (1835–1902) – A Memoir
• Nobel Prize for Literature: Carl Spitteler
• Prix Goncourt: Marcel Proust, A l'ombre des jeunes filles en fleurs^[31]
• Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography: Henry Brooks Adams, The Education of Henry Adams
• Pulitzer Prize for Drama: no award given
• Pulitzer Prize for Poetry: Margaret Widdemer, Old Road to Paradise and Carl Sandburg, Corn Huskers
• Pulitzer Prize for the Novel: Booth Tarkington, The Magnificent Ambersons

• Opening of J. G. Farrell's novel Troubles (1970)