Talk:List of years in literature

The Scream edit

1893 in literature - The Scream - Edvard Munch. I do not understand why this is included. The Scream is a painting, see Edvard Munch. Sebastjan

Literary Expert edit

List of years in literature shows two dates, 1838 and 1828, for publication of The Birds of America by John James Audubon. I can't find the proper date. Maybe someone here knows. Thanks. JillandJack 13:36, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)

The problem is there is no single date. The first (Havell) edition was published in sets of 5 followed by a four volume complete betewwn 1826 and 1838. Hope this helps. Filiocht 14:14, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)

What to Include? edit

Is this list supposed to contain only "notable" literature, or everything that was published during that year? -- Gizzakk 18:18, 7 March 2006 (UTC)Reply

Evidently. Only a few per year as you can see. Skinnyweed 17:02, 3 May 2006 (UTC)Reply
We really need a standard - the page is chaotic at the moment. I'm sure Lawrence Lessig is an interesting writer, but was his book really the most notable literary event of 2004?
I suggest including the world bestseller and a couple of prizewinners.
Dybryd 19:43, 16 November 2006 (UTC)Reply
I have been concerned that newer editors might misunderstand the intention of this page, and believe that any entry for a specific year in literature might need to be added to this page, rather than to the individual pages for the specific years. For recent years (20th and 21st centuries), I agree with Dybryd to include the world bestseller and a couple of prizewinners. For earlier centuries, I'd suggest works that are well-known from high-school or college English Lit or World Lit courses - or works that appear on reputable lists of "the best books of all time" type. How to communicate this? A message-box at the top of this talk page? And/or just moving the lesser-known entries to the appropriate individual year page, with a brief but clear edit summary to explain?

-- Lini 03:46, 17 November 2006 (UTC)Reply

Contradiction edit

Each year is annotated with a significant event as a reference point.

Well no because some clearly have more than one. Either cut it to one or change to "...annotated with significant events..." I would probably cut to one, such as moving Haunted from 2005 which I've never even heard of. Clearly 2005 was Harry Potter and nothing else. What do you think? (Well, perhaps excepting 1922)

And is Hegemony or Survival really "literature"? Whatever.

Skinnyweed 17:04, 3 May 2006 (UTC)Reply

Links to awards and [year] in literature pages edit

I've been adding items to the awards lists in various "[year] in literature" pages and breaking up the awards lists by nationality (based on where the award is given). Also, on each literary award page I come across, I've been adding links for each year in the list of winners to the "[year] in literature" page for that year, a kind of cross indexing that could prove useful for researchers or browsers. At Poetry prizes, I'm currently soliciting comments for opinions on various changes to literary awards pages and organizing those pages into lists for easier navigating, and I'd welcome comments from anyone interested. Noroton 16:52, 8 November 2006 (UTC)Reply

Proposed notability guidelines edit

For years since 1900, I suggest the following books be listed for each year:

  • The fiction bestseller, but only if it or its author is notable enough for an existing WP article
  • The Booker prizewinner
  • The Pulitzer prizewinner
  • Books on the Modern Library list of the 20th century's 100 best, if any

Dybryd 20:03, 24 December 2006 (UTC)Reply

This list isn't English literature only. Those criteria seem biased towards literature in English.--Larrybob 01:00, 2 May 2007 (UTC)Reply
I would assume that a book cannot really be considered noteworthy if it does not have an individual WP page. This holds for Births in individual years and a similar arrangement seems best here. In addition, I'm not sure why this header page needs to list notable works in a year if the individual pages already contain them. And some of the choices are a little eclectic. For example, even though I'm a King fan I don't see that DUMA KEY is overly notable. Maybe in 10 years it might be seen that way, but not now. --Perry Middlemiss (talk) 02:08, 19 May 2008 (UTC)Reply
Using bestseller as a criterion automatically privileges US literature because it's the world's biggest market for works in English.

--ANZLitLovers (talk) 06:30, 15 September 2011 (UTC)Reply

Odd categories edit

The categories for each year seem odd: "new books" and "novels", for example. Why aren't the novels "new"? What distinguishes the "books" from everything else? Awadewit | talk 09:37, 14 September 2007 (UTC)Reply

Merge From 1950s edit

  • I have added a template to merge the section titled "Literature" in the article 1950s to this page under the related section. As it stands: The section in the 1950s article serves as little more than a laundry list and would be more relevant on this page. bwmcmaste (talk) 00:43, 29 July 2009 (UTC)Reply
  • I don't think the above laundry list is either a laundry list or something needed in this article. I disagree with the merge proposal...Modernist (talk) 02:09, 30 July 2009 (UTC)Reply

Emphasis on genre fiction edit

Does anyone else notice that as you progress backward from about 1900 on this list, the entries tend to favor adventure, fantasy, sci-fi and other genre novels? Granted, there are some pretty groundbreaking titles that should be included here, but quite a few literary ones to go along with them.PacificBoy 01:25, 16 August 2010 (UTC)Reply

why reverse chronological order? edit

is there a reason for this list to be presented in reverse chronological order and deviate from WP:MOS (specifically, WP:WORKS which indicates "Items should be listed in chronological order of production, earliest first.")?--96.232.126.111 (talk) 15:16, 27 February 2011 (UTC)Reply

Add EZRA POUND edit

Enough said. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.45.29.175 (talk) 07:57, 18 May 2011 (UTC)Reply

Death mentioned now. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.40.194.247 (talk) 23:09, 2 February 2012 (UTC)Reply

Death edit

Is this a list of popular literature from each year or a list of death years of famous authors?

Please remove the death of authors comments. That is out of place here on this list. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kurrgo master of planet x (talkcontribs) 01:26, 15 May 2012 (UTC)Reply

Who said anything about "popular" or "famous"? It goes back centuries so it's about the history of literature. As it's a list of things "in literature" I would imagine the deaths of influential writers would be major events, as well as the release of major works, regardless of whether they were popular or famous. --86.40.201.150 (talk) 22:40, 27 February 2013 (UTC)Reply

List of years in literature? edit

This is an odd heading. Does anyone else find it confusing? Shouldn't it read, something like --Major works in prose and drama (listed by year)? --Rwood128 (talk) 18:05, 30 June 2012 (UTC)Reply

Not really. It's a list of years in the discipline of literature - not the actual books - and is no different to List of years in film. --86.40.201.150 (talk) 22:42, 27 February 2013 (UTC)Reply
For some literary works there could be several significant years: year writing completed, year published, year suppressed, year its importance was recognised.--Felix Folio Secundus (talk) 12:25, 31 August 2013 (UTC)Reply

Nobel Prize edit

Where is the Nobel owners? This is NOT an article about English literature, but general. Theres a bunch of anglophone autors who don't mean that much or are just popular. The foreign authors are just those populars in anglophone culture. So, the list has to be reformed, it needs to be taken seriously. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 187.126.86.78 (talk) 21:21, 20 November 2013 (UTC)Reply

This article seems completely capricious. Stephen King, 50 Shades of Gray, then Richard Dawkins. Dan Brown. Is any criteria being used at all? -Xcuref1endx (talk) 06:59, 18 August 2015 (UTC)Reply
And the notable death section also really doesn't seem to add any value whatsoever. -Xcuref1endx (talk) 07:02, 18 August 2015 (UTC)Reply

Agatha Christie edit

Nothing wrong with Agatha Christie, but why are there so many of her books here? No author has a many books as she does and some authors definitely deserve more books in this page. TuskenTimeTraveller (talk) 04:52, 1 February 2020 (UTC)Reply

Urdu Literature edit

Urdu literature in not mentioned here. There many worlds famous writers and poets in Urdu language.Faismeen (talk) 08:41, 9 January 2021 (UTC)Reply

Untranslated entries in Years in Literature pages edit

Links written in another language should IMO be posted on their own nationality/language pages (ex. 198* in Spanish, Dutch, Vietnamese, Chinese, Indian literature etc.) It's inconvenient to have non-working or untranslated links in languages that other people do not read. Wvrspence (talk) 22:14, 1 August 2022 (UTC)Reply