• January 9 – The first issue of Look magazine goes on sale in the United States.
• January 19 – BBC Television broadcasts The Underground Murder Mystery by J. Bissell Thomas from London, the first play to be written for television.^[1]
• February 6 – John Steinbeck's novella of the Great Depression, Of Mice and Men, appears in the United States.
• April – The Irish writers Elizabeth Bowen and Seán Ó Faoláin first meet, in London.
• May 14 – BBC Television broadcasts a 30-minute excerpt of Twelfth Night, the first known television broadcast of a Shakespeare piece. The cast includes Peggy Ashcroft and Greer Garson.
• May 21 – Penguin Books in the U.K. launches Pelican Books, a sixpenny paperback non-fiction imprint, with a two-volume edition of George Bernard Shaw's The Intelligent Woman's Guide to Socialism and Capitalism.^[2]
• June
  • The British science fiction magazine Tales of Wonder first appears.
  • John Cowper Powys visits Sycharth, birthplace of Owain Glyndŵr, which inspires his 1940 novel Owen Glendower.^[3]
• June 30 – The New England Quarterly prints poems by a colonial American pastor, Edward Taylor (died 1729), discovered by Thomas H. Johnson.^[4]
• Summer – American-born writer Thomas Quinn Curtiss meets German-born novelist Klaus Mann in Europe and they start a relationship.
• July
  • Buchenwald concentration camp in Nazi Germany is established around the Goethe Oak.
  • Rex Ingamells and other poets initiate the Jindyworobak Movement in Australian literature, in the magazine Venture.^[5]
  • The American academic librarian Randolph Greenfield Adams writes a controversial Library Quarterly essay, "Librarians as Enemies of Books", complaining of librarians downgrading books and scholarship in favor of other tasks.^[6][7]
• July 4 – The Lost Colony a historical drama by Paul Green, is first performed at an outdoor theater in the place where it is set: Roanoke Island, North Carolina.
• July 31 – Stephen Vincent Benét's post-apocalyptic short story By the Waters of Babylon, inspired by April's Bombing of Guernica, is published in the U.S. The Saturday Evening Post as "The Place of the Gods".
• September 10 – The Soviet playwright Sergei Tretyakov commits suicide while under sentence of death at Butyrka prison in Moscow as part of the Great Purge.^[8]
• September 21 – J. R. R. Tolkien's juvenile fantasy novel The Hobbit, or There and Back Again is published in England by George Allen & Unwin on the recommendation of young Rayner Unwin.
• September 29 – The French playwright Antonin Artaud is expelled from Ireland.
• October 6 – The fictional Mrs. Miniver appears in a column on domestic life by Jan Struther for The Times, London.^[9]
• November 11 (Armistice Day)
  • BBC Television broadcasts Journey's End by R. C. Sherriff, 1928, set on the Western Front (World War I) in 1918, as the first full-length television adaptation of a stage play. Reginald Tate plays the lead, having long performed it in the theater.^[10][11]
  • Caesar, Orson Welles's modern-dress bare-stage adaptation of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, premieres as the first production of the Mercury Theatre in New York City.
• December 21 – Dr. Seuss's first book, And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street, is published by Vanguard Press.
• unknown dates
  • The National Library of Iran is inaugurated in Tehran.^[12]
  • The future novelist Angus Wilson becomes a book cataloguer at the British Museum Library in London.

Fiction edit

• Felix Aderca – Orașele înecate (Sunken Cities)
• Eric Ambler – Uncommon Danger
• Bibhutibhushan Bandyopadhyay – Chander Pahar (চাঁদের পাহড়, Mountain of the Moon)
• Vicki Baum – Love and Death in Bali (Liebe und Tod auf Bali)
• Anthony Berkeley – Trial and Error
• Georges Bernanos – Mouchette
• Ion Biberi – Oameni în ceață (People in the Fog)
• Phyllis Bottome – The Mortal Storm
• John Bude – The Cheltenham Square Murder
• Morley Callaghan – More Joy in Heaven
• John Dickson Carr (as Carter Dickson) – The Ten Teacups
• Agatha Christie – Hercule Poirot stories
  • Death on the Nile^[13]
  • Dumb Witness
  • Murder in the Mews
• Stuart Cloete – Turning Wheels
• J.J. Connington – A Minor Operation
• Murray Constantine – Swastika Night
• Freeman Wills Crofts – Found Floating
• A. J. Cronin – The Citadel
• James Curtis – There Ain't No Justice
• Ludovic Dauș – O jumătate de om (Half a Man)
• Cecil Day-Lewis – There's Trouble Brewing
• Isak Dinesen – Out of Africa
• Pierre Drieu La Rochelle – Rêveuse bourgeoisie
• Lawrence Durrell (as Charles Norden) – Panic Spring
• Hans Fallada – Wolf Among Wolves (Wolf unter Wölfen)
• Max Frisch – An Answer from the Silence (Antwort aus der Stille)
• Zona Gale – Light Woman
• Anthony Gilbert
  • The Man Who Wasn't There
  • Murder Has No Tongue
• Witold Gombrowicz – Ferdydurke
• Sadegh Hedayat – The Blind Owl (بوف کور, Boof-e koor)
• Ernest Hemingway – To Have and Have Not
• Robert Hichens – Daniel Airlie
• Katharine Hull and Pamela Whitlock – The Far-Distant Oxus
• Zora Neale Hurston – Their Eyes Were Watching God
• Michael Innes – Hamlet, Revenge!
• Margaret Irwin – The Stranger Prince
• Franz Kafka (posthumously translated by Willa and Edwin Muir) – The Trial (first English translation of Der Process)
• Irmgard Keun – After Midnight (Nach Mitternacht)
• Kalki Krishnamurthy – Kalvaninn Kaadhali
• Halldór Laxness – Ljós heimsins (The Light of the World) – Part I, Heimsljós (World Light)
• Alexander Lernet-Holenia
  • Der Mann im Hut
  • Mona Lisa
• Meyer Levin – The Old Bunch
• E. C. R. Lorac
  • Bats in the Belfry
  • These Names Make Clues
• Ngaio Marsh – Vintage Murder
• A. E. W. Mason – The Drum
• Cameron McCabe – The Face on the Cutting-Room Floor
• Compton Mackenzie – The East Wind of Love (first in The Four Winds of Love series of six books)
• W. Somerset Maugham – Theatre
• Oscar Millard – Uncensored
• Gladys Mitchell – Come Away, Death
• R. K. Narayan – The Bachelor of Arts
• Elliot Paul – Life and Death of a Spanish Town
• Robert Prechtl – Titanic
• Ellery Queen – The Door Between
• "Kurban Said" – Ali and Nino (Ali und Nino)
• Ruth Sawyer – Roller Skates
• Dorothy L. Sayers – Busman's Honeymoon
• Margery Sharp – The Nutmeg Tree
• Bruno Schulz – Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass (Sanatorium Pod Klepsydrą)
• Naoya Shiga (志賀 直哉) – A Dark Night's Passing (暗夜行路, An'ya Kōro)
• "Siburapha" – Behind the Painting (ข้างหลังภาพ, Khang Lang Phap)
• Olaf Stapledon – Star Maker
• John Steinbeck – Of Mice and Men
• Rex Stout – The Red Box
• Cecil Street
  • Death at the Club
  • Death in the Hopfields
  • Death on the Board
  • Murder in Crown Passage
  • Proceed with Caution
• Antal Szerb – Journey by Moonlight (Utas és holdvilág)
• Phoebe Atwood Taylor
  • Figure Away
  • Octagon House
  • Beginning with a Bash (as by Alice Tilton)
• Henry Wade – The High Sheriff
• Mika Waltari – A Stranger Came to the Farm (Vieras mies tuli taloon)
• Ethel Lina White – The Elephant Never Forgets
• Charles Williams – Descent into Hell
• Virginia Woolf – The Years
• Francis Brett Young
  • Portrait of a Village
  • They Seek a Country

Children and young people edit

• Enid Blyton – The Adventures of the Wishing-Chair
• C. S. Forester – The Happy Return (also as Beat to Quarters)
• Eve Garnett – The Family from One End Street
• Hergé – The Broken Ear (L'Oreille cassée)
• Kornel Makuszyński – Argument About Basia (Awantura o Basię)
• Carola Oman – Robin Hood
• Arthur Ransome – We Didn't Mean To Go To Sea
• Kate Seredy – The White Stag
• Dr. Seuss – And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street
• J. R. R. Tolkien – The Hobbit
• Laura Ingalls Wilder – On the Banks of Plum Creek
• Henry Winterfeld (as Manfred Michael) – Timpetill – Die Stadt ohne Eltern (Timpetill – Parentless City, translated 1963 as Trouble at Timpetill)

Drama edit

• Bertolt Brecht with Margarete Steffin – Die Gewehre der Frau Carrar (adapted from J. M. Synge's Señora Carrar's Rifles)
• Karel Čapek – The White Disease (Bílá nemoc)
• Paul Vincent Carroll – Shadow and Substance
• Jeffrey Dell – Blondie White
• Reginald Denham and Edward Percy Smith – The Last Straw
• Ian Hay – The Gusher
• Margaret Kennedy – Autumn
• Arthur Kober – "Having Wonderful Time"
• Richard Llewellyn – Poison Pen
• W.P. Lipscomb – Thank You, Mr. Pepys!
• Robert McLellan – Jamie the Saxt
• Robert Morley – Goodness, How Sad
• J. B. Priestley – Time and the Conways
• Walter Charles Roberts – Red Harvest^[14][15]
• Gerald Savory – George and Margaret
• Dodie Smith – Bonnet Over the Windmill
• John Van Druten – Gertie Maude
• Louis Verneuil – The Train for Venice
• Hella Wuolijoki writing as Juhani Tervapää – Juurakon Hulda
• John Ferguson, editor – Seven Famous One-Act Plays (published)

Poetry edit

• David Jones – In Parenthesis (part prose)
• Isaac Rosenberg (killed in action 1918) – Collected Works

Non-fiction edit

• Hilaire Belloc – The Crusades: the World's Debate
• Alf K. Berle and L. Sprague de Camp – Inventions and Their Management
• Robert Byron – The Road to Oxiana
• Jean Giono – Les Vraies Richesses
• Napoleon Hill – Think and Grow Rich
• Carl Jung – Dream Symbols of the Individuation Process
• Walter Lippmann – The Good Society
• John Neal – American Writers: A Series of Papers Contributed to Blackwood's Magazine (1824-1825) (edited by Fred Lewis Pattee)^[16]
• Manuel Chaves Nogales – A sangre y fuego: Héroes, bestias y mártires de España (Fire and sword: heroes, beasts and martyrs of Spain)
• George Orwell – The Road to Wigan Pier
• Eric Partridge – A Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English
• N. Porsenna – Regenerarea neamului românesc (Regeneration of the Romanian People)
• A. L. Zissu – Logos, Israel, Biserica (Logos, Israel, The Church)

• January 1 – John Fuller, English poet
• January 7 – Ian La Frenais, English television comedy writer
• January 8 – Leon Forrest, African-American novelist and essayist (died 1997)
• January 9 – Judith Krantz, American novelist (died 2019)
• January 13 – Jean D'Costa, Jamaican children's novelist
• January 14 – J. Bernlef, born Hendrik Jan Marsman, Dutch poet, novelist and translator (died 2012)
• January 22 – Joseph Wambaugh, American mystery novelist and non-fiction writer
• January 23 – Juan Radrigán, Chilean playwright (died 2016)
• February 11 – Maryse Condé, Guadeloupe historical fiction writer
• February 20 – George Leonardos, Greek journalist and novelist
• February 21 – Jilly Cooper, English novelist and journalist
• February 27 – Peter Hamm, German poet, author, journalist, editor and literary critic (died 2019)
• March 14 – Jan Karon (Janice Wilson), American novelist and children's writer
• March 15 – Valentin Rasputin, Russian writer (died 2015)
• March 20 - Lois Lowry, American children's and young-adult writer
• April 10 – Bella Akhmadulina, Russian poet (died 2010)
• April 29 – Jill Paton Walsh (Gillian Bliss), English novelist (died 2020)
• May 8 – Thomas Pynchon, American novelist
• May 13
  • Roch Carrier, Canadian novelist and short-story writer
  • Roger Zelazny, American writer of fantasy and science fiction (died 1995)
• June 1 – Colleen McCullough, Australian novelist (died 2015)
• June 16 – Erich Segal, American novelist (died 2010)
• July 3 – Tom Stoppard (Tomáš Straussler), Czech-born English dramatist^[17]
• July 6 – Bessie Head, South African-born Botswanan fiction writer (died 1986)
• August 3 – Peter van Gestel, Dutch writer (died 2019)
• August 5 – Carla Lane (Romana Barrack), English comedy writer (died 2016)
• August 19
  • Richard Ingrams, English editor
  • Alexander Vampilov, Russian dramatist (drowned 1972)
• September 5 – Dick Clement, English television comedy writer
• October 4 – Jackie Collins, English-born romance novelist (died 2015)
• October 7 – Christopher Booker, English journalist and editor (died 2019)
• November 9
  • Roger McGough, English poet^[18]
  • S. Abdul Rahman, Tamil poet (died 2017)
• November 17 – Peter Cook, English comedian, satirist and writer (died 1995)
• December 11 – Jim Harrison, American novelist and poet (died 2016)
• December 22
  • David F. Case, American novelist and short story writer
  • Charlotte Lamb (Sheila Holland, Sheila Coates, etc.), English romantic novelist (died 2000)
• unknown date – Parijat (Bishnu Kumari Waiba), Nepalese novelist and poet (died 1993)

• January 5 – Alberto de Oliveira, Brazilian poet (born 1857)^[19]
• January 11 – Emma A. Cranmer, American author, reformer, suffragist (born 1858)
• February 19
  • Edward Garnett, English critic (born 1868)^[20]
  • Horacio Quiroga, Uruguayan short story writer (suicide, born 1878)^[21]
• March 7 – Tomas O'Crohan, Irish Gaelic writer and fisherman (born 1856)^[22]
• March 8 – Albert Verwey, Dutch poet (born 1865)^[23]
• March 15 – H. P. Lovecraft, American horror writer (intestinal cancer, born 1890)^[24]
• March 25 – John Drinkwater, English poet and dramatist (born 1882)^[25]
• May 20 – Frederic Taber Cooper, American editor and writer (born 1864)^[26]
• June 4 – W. F. Harvey, English horror-story writer (born 1885)
• June 13 – William F. Lloyd, English-born Newfoundland journalist and prime minister (born 1864)
• June 19 – J. M. Barrie, Scottish novelist and dramatist (born 1860)
• June 22 – Jean-Joseph Rabearivelo, Malagasy poet (suicide, born 1901 or 1903)
• July 18 – Julian Bell, English poet (killed in Spanish Civil War, born 1908)
• July 29 — Ella Maria Ballou, American writer (born 1852)
• August 11 – Edith Wharton (Edith Newbold Jones), American novelist and short-story writer (born 1862)
• August 14 – H. C. McNeile (Sapper), English novelist and soldier (born 1888)
• September 13 – Ellis Parker Butler, American humorist, novelist and essayist (born 1869)
• October 13 – Dmitrii Milev, Soviet Moldovan shorty story writer and critic (shot, born 1887)
• October 15 – Samuil Lehtțir, Soviet Moldovan poet, critic and literary theorist (shot, born 1901)
• October 16 – Jean de Brunhoff, French children's author and illustrator (born 1899)
• November 3 – Mykola Kulish, Ukrainian writer (shot with many other Ukrainian intellectuals at Sandarmokh, born 1892)^[27]
• November 3 – Mykola Zerov, Ukrainian poet, translator, classical and literary scholar and critic (shot at Sandarmokh, born 1890)^[28]
• November 3 – Valerian Pidmohylny, Ukrainian writer, (shot at Sandarmokh, born 1901)^[29]
• November 3 – Hryhorii Epik, Ukrainian writer and journalist (shot at Sandarmokh, born 1901)^[30]
• November 3 – Myroslav Irchan, Ukrainian storywriter and playwright (shot at Sandarmokh, born 1897)^[31]
• October 17 – Florence Dugdale, English children's writer, widow of Thomas Hardy (cancer, born 1879)^[32]
• October 22 – Chūya Nakahara (中原 中也), Japanese poet (meningitis, born 1907)
• October 31 – Ralph Connor, Canadian novelist (born 1860)
• c. December – Filimon Săteanu, Soviet Moldovan poet (shot, born 1907)
• December 9 – Frances Nimmo Greene, American novelist, short story writer, children's writer, playwright (born 1867)
• December 24 – Elizabeth Haldane, Scottish author, philosopher and suffragist (born 1862)
• December 26

• Ivor Gurney, English war poet and composer (tuberculosis, born 1890)^[33]
• Mrs. Alex. McVeigh Miller, American novelist (born 1850)

• December 29 – Don Marquis, American poet (stroke, born 1878)^[34]
• unknown date — Clara H. Hazelrigg, American author, educator and reformer (born 1859)

• Carnegie Medal for children's literature: Eve Garnett, The Family From One End Street
• James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction: Neil M. Gunn, Highland River
• James Tait Black Memorial Prize for biography: Lord Eustace Percy, John Knox
• Newbery Medal for children's literature: Ruth Sawyer, Roller Skates
• Nobel Prize in literature: Roger Martin du Gard
• Pulitzer Prize for Drama: Moss Hart, George S. Kaufman, You Can't Take It with You
• Pulitzer Prize for Poetry: Robert Frost, A Further Range
• Pulitzer Prize for the Novel: Margaret Mitchell, Gone with the Wind
• King's Gold Medal for Poetry: W. H. Auden

•   Media related to 1937 in literature at Wikimedia Commons