The year 1928 in literature involved some significant events and new books.

Events

• Ford Madox Ford publishes Last Post. It is the final book of a four-volume work titled Parade's End published between 1924 and 1928.
• George Orwell returns from Burma.
• Leslie Charteris publishes Meet - The Tiger!, the first adventure of Simon Templar, alias The Saint. Charteris would write dozens of novels and short stories featuring the character on a regular basis between 1928 and 1963, and others would continue the series until 1983.
• W. H. Auden goes to Berlin.
• The clerihew, the verse form associated with Edmund Clerihew Bentley, is mentioned in print for the first time.

New prose fiction

• M rio de Andrade - Munacaima
• Leslie Barringer - Joris of the Rock
• Charles William Beebe - Beneath Tropic Seas
• Henry Bellamann - Crescendo
• Edgar Rice Burroughs - Tarzan, Lord of the Jungle
• Morley Callaghan - Strange Fugitive
• Colette - Break of Day
• Agatha Christie - The Mystery of the Blue Train
• Frank Parker Day - Rockbound
• Franklin W. Dixon - Hunting for Hidden Gold
• W. E. B. Du Bois - Dark Princess
• Rudolph Fisher - The Walls of Jericho
• Esther Forbes - A Mirror for Witches
• Ford Madox Ford - Last Post
• E. M. Forster - The Eternal Moment and Other Stories
• Radclyffe Hall - The Well of Loneliness
• Hermann Hesse - Steppenwolf
• Georgette Heyer - The Masqueraders
• Aldous Huxley - Point Counter Point
• Ilf and Petrov - The Twelve Chairs
• Joseph Kessel - Belle de Jour
• Nella Larsen - Quicksand
• D. H. Lawrence - Lady Chatterley's Lover
• Claude McKay - Home To Harlem
• W. Somerset Maugham - Ashenden
• A. A. Milne - The House at Pooh Corner
• Dhan Gopal Mukerji - Gay Neck
• Vladimir Nabokov - King, Queen, Knave
• Baroness Orczy - Skin o' My Tooth
• Anthony Powell - The Barnard Letters
• Erich Maria Remarque - All Quiet on the Western Front
• Felix Salten - Bambi, A Life in the Woods (translation; the German original had appeared in 1923)
• Siegfried Sassoon - Memoirs of a Fox-Hunting Man
• Dorothy L. Sayers
  • Lord Peter Views the Body
  • The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club
• Arthur Schnitzler - Therese
• S. S. Van Dine
  • The Greene Murder Case
  • The Bishop Murder Case
• Evelyn Waugh - Decline and Fall
• H. G. Wells - Mr Blettsworthy on Rampole Island
• Franz Werfel - Class Reunion
• Virginia Woolf - Orlando: A Biography

New drama

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• Bertolt Brecht - The Threepenny Opera
• Eduardo De Filippo - Filosoficamente
• Nikolai Erdman - The Suicide
• Marieluise Flei er - Pioneers in Ingolstadt
• Garrett Fort - Jarnegan
• Federico Garc a Lorca - The Love of Don Perlimpl n and Belisa in the Garden (written)
• John Howard Lawson - The International
• Somerset Maugham - The Sacred Flame
• R. C. Sherriff - Journey's End
• Sophie Treadwell - Machinal</onlyinclude>

Poetry

• Robert Frost - West-Running Brook
• Federico Garc a Lorca - Romancero Gitano
• Siegfried Sassoon - The Heart's Journey

Non-fiction

• Max Aitken - Politicians and the War
• Hall Caine - Recollections of Rossetti (second expanded version)
• Julius Evola - Imperialismo Pagano
• Sidney Bradshaw Fay - Origins of the World War
• Harold Lloyd - An American Comedy (autobiography)
• Margaret Mead - Coming of Age in Samoa
• H. G. Wells - The Open Conspiracy

Births

• January 1 - Iain Crichton Smith, Scottish writer (died 1998)
• January 7 - William Peter Blatty, American writer & filmmaker
• January 8 - Sander Vanocur, American journalist
• January 16 - William Kennedy, American writer & journalist
• January 24 - Desmond Morris, English anthropologist & writer
• February 5 - Andrew Greeley, Irish-American priest & novelist
• February 9 - Roger Mudd, American journalist
• March 4 - Alan Sillitoe, English novelist (died 2010)
• March 12 - Edward Albee, American dramatist
• March 30 - Tom Sharpe, English satirical author
• April 4 - Maya Angelou, American poet
• April 7 - Alan J. Pakula, American screenwriter (died 1998)
• April 17 - Cynthia Ozick, American author
• April 24 - Martin Seymour-Smith, British poet, biographer & critic (died 1998)
• May 4 - Thomas Kinsella, Irish poet
• June 10 - Maurice Sendak, American children's author and illustrator (died 2012)
• July 16 - Anita Brookner, English novelist
• July 26 - Bernice Rubens, Welsh novelist (died 2004)
• October 3 - Alvin Toffler, American futurist writer
• November 2 - Paul Johnson, British historian & journalist
• November 9 - Anne Sexton, American poet (died 1974)
• November 11 - Carlos Fuentes, Mexican writer
• December 16 - Philip K. Dick, American science fiction author (died 1982)
• date unknown
  • Jane Grigson, British cookery writer (died 1990)

Deaths

• January 8 - Juan B. Justo, Argentine journalist (born 1865)
• January 11 - Thomas Hardy, English novelist & poet (born 1840)
• January 19 - Hans Hinrich Wendt, German theologian (born 1853)
• February 19 - Mildred Aldrich, American journalist (born 1853)
• March 4 - Paul Sabatier, French religious writer (born 1858)
• March 18 - Paul van Ostaijen, Flemish poet (born 1896)
• March 24 - Charlotte Mew, English poet (born 1869)
• April 19 - Ladislav Kl ma, Czech novelist & philosopher (born 1878)
• May 16 - Edmund Gosse, English poet & critic (born 1849)
• July 8 - Crystal Eastman, American journalist (born 1881)
• August 16 - Anton n Sova, Czech poet (born 1864)
• December 16 - Elinor Wylie, American poet & novelist (born 1885)
• December 19 - Italo Svevo, Italian writer (born 1861)
• date unknown
  • Henry Festing Jones, British biographer (born 1851)
  • Isaac Markens, American journalist (born 1846)

Awards

• James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction: Siegfried Sassoon, Memoirs of a Fox-Hunting Man
• James Tait Black Memorial Prize for biography: John Buchan, Montrose
• Newbery Medal for children's literature: Dhan Gopal Mukerji, Gayneck, the Story of a Pigeon
• Nobel Prize for Literature: Sigrid Undset
• Pulitzer Prize for Drama: Eugene O'Neill, Strange Interlude
• Pulitzer Prize for Poetry: Edwin Arlington Robinson, Tristram
• Pulitzer Prize for the Novel: Thornton Wilder, The Bridge of San Luis Rey

fr:1928 en litt rature he:1928 mk:1928 pl:1928 w literaturze pt:1928 na literatura ro:1928 n literatur ru:1928 sq:1928 n literatur sv:Litteratur ret 1928 uk:1928