1951 in literature

Events

• January – The American writer Flannery O'Connor is diagnosed with lupus at the age of 25.
• January 12 – Janie Moore, C. S. Lewis' so-called adoptive mother, dies.
• March 12 – Hank Ketcham's U.S. Dennis the Menace appears for the first time in 16 United States newspapers.
• March 17 – The homonymous U.K. Dennis the Menace comic strip first appears in the children's comic The Beano.
• Spring – Arthur C. Clarke's short story "The Sentinel", which will form a basis for the film and a subsequent, is published as "Sentinel of Eternity" in the only issue ever produced of the American science fiction and fantasy pulp magazine 10 Story Fantasy.
• May – Joe Orton enters the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London, where he meets his lover and ultimate murderer Kenneth Halliwell.
• June 18 – Frank Hardy is acquitted of criminal libel in Australia over his self-published, 1950 roman à clef on corruption in Melbourne life, Power Without Glory.
• July 16 – J. D. Salinger's coming-of-age story The Catcher in the Rye is published by Little, Brown and Company in New York City.
• September 6 – William S. Burroughs shoots and kills his common-law wife Joan Vollmer in Mexico City.
• December 16 – Noël Coward leaves his home, White Cliffs, on the south coast of England, having sold it to Ian Fleming.

• E. E. Cummings and Rachel Carson are awarded Guggenheim Fellowships. It is Cummings' second.
• Janet Frame's first book, The Lagoon and Other Stories, is published by the Caxton Press while the author is a patient in Seacliff Lunatic Asylum, Seacliff, New Zealand. It is awarded the Hubert Church Memorial Award, at the time one of New Zealand's most prestigious literary prizes. This results in the cancellation of Frame's scheduled lobotomy.
• Béla Hamvas completes his epic novel Karnevál. He is banned from publication in Hungary at the time, so that it will appear only in 1985, 17 years after his death.
• The first novel in Anthony Powell's set of twelve, A Dance to the Music of Time, is published by Heinemann in the U.K.
• The custom of performing medieval mystery plays is revived at York and Chester, England.
• The Théâtre national de la Colline in Paris is founded.

  New books

Fiction

• Sholem Asch – Moses
• Isaac Asimov
• *Foundation
• *The Stars Like Dust
• Nigel Balchin – A Way Through the Wood
• Samuel Beckett – Molloy
• Ray Bradbury
• *The Illustrated Man
• *"The Last Night of the World"
• Gill Hunt – Galactic Storm
• Taylor Caldwell – The Balance Wheel
• Morley Callaghan – The Loved and the Lost
• Truman Capote – The Grass Harp
• L. Sprague de Camp
• *Rogue Queen
• *The Undesired Princess
• John Dickson Carr – The Devil in Velvet
• Camilo José Cela – The Hive
• James Hadley Chase – But a Short Time to Live
• Agatha Christie
• *The Under Dog and Other Stories
• *They Came to Baghdad
• Arthur C. Clarke – Prelude to Space
• Beverly Cleary – Ellen Tebbits
• Julio Cortázar – Bestiario
• Robertson Davies – Tempest-Tost
• August Derleth – The Memoirs of Solar Pons
• Heimito von Doderer – Die Strudlhofstiege, oder Melzer und die Tiefe der Jahre
• Owen Dodson – Boy at the Window
• Daphne du Maurier – My Cousin Rachel
• Friedrich Dürrenmatt – Suspicion
• Howard Fast – Spartacus
• Per Anders Fogelström – Sommaren med Monika
• Julien Gracq – Le Rivage des Syrtes
• Graham Greene – The End of the Affair
• Henri René Guieu – Le Pionnier de l'atome
• John Hawkes – The Beetle Leg
• Robert A. Heinlein – The Puppet Masters
• Elizabeth Jane Howard and Robert Aickman – We Are for the Dark: Six Ghost Stories
• Laurence Hyde – Southern Cross
• James Jones – From Here to Eternity
• A. M. Klein – The Second Scroll
• Wolfgang Koeppen – Tauben im Gras
• Kalki Krishnamurthy
• *Poiman Karadu
• *Ponniyin Selvan
• Louis L'Amour – The Rustlers of the West Fork
• John Masters – Nightrunners of Bengal
• François Mauriac – Le Sagouin
• James A. Michener – Return to Paradise
• Nancy Mitford – The Blessing
• Nicholas Monsarrat – The Cruel Sea
• Alberto Moravia – The Conformist
• Robert Pinget – Entre Fantoine et Agapa
• Anthony Powell – A Question of Upbringing
• Sax Rohmer – Sumuru
• J. D. Salinger – The Catcher in the Rye
• Ernst von Salomon – The Questionnaire
• Ooka Shohei – Fires on the Plain
• Vern Schneider – The Teahouse of the August Moon
• Margit Söderholm – Meeting in Vienna
• Cardinal Spellman – The Foundling
• Howard Spring – The Houses in Between
• John Steinbeck – The Log from the Sea of Cortez
• Rex Stout
• *Curtains for Three
• *Murder by the Book
• William Styron – Lie Down in Darkness
• Elizabeth Taylor – A Game of Hide and Seek
• Phoebe Atwood Taylor – Diplomatic Corpse
• Josephine Tey – The Daughter of Time
• Anne de Tourville – Jabadao
• Herman Wouk – The Caine Mutiny
• John Wyndham – The Day of the Triffids
• Frank Yerby – A Woman Called Fancy
• Marguerite Yourcenar – Memoirs of Hadrian
• Juan Eduardo Zúñiga – Inútiles totales

  Children and young people

• M. E. Atkinson – Castaway Camp
• Viola Bayley – The Dark Lantern
• Margaret Biggs – The Blakes Come to Melling
• Anne de Vries – Into the Darkness
• Eleanor Estes – Ginger Pye
• Rumer Godden – The Mousewife
• Cynthia Harnett – The Wool-Pack
• C. S. Lewis – Prince Caspian
• Elinor Lyon – We Daren't Go A'Hunting
• Gianni Rodari – l romanzo di Cipollino

  Drama