Events June 26 - Mark Twain receives an honorary doctorate of laws degree from Oxford University. The Secret Agent by Joseph Conrad is published. In 2001, the book would be one of four books by Conrad to be on the list of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century as selected by the editorial board of the American Modern Library. New Books Benoni - André Billy The City of Pleasure - Arnold Bennett Dead Love Has Chains - Mary Elizabeth Braddon The Hill of Dreams - Arthur Machen Kind Hearts and Coronets - Roy Horniman The Longest Journey - E. M. Forster Madame de Treymes - Edith Wharton My Lady Caprice - Jeffery Farnol Not George Washington - P. G. Wodehouse The Overman - Upton Sinclair The Secret Agent - Joseph Conrad The Seven Ages of Washington - Owen Wister The Shepherd of the Hills - Harold Bell Wright Songs of a Sourdough - (poetry) Robert Service The Tale of Tom Kitten - Beatrix Potter Births February 1 - Günter Eich, lyricist (+ 1972) February 21 - W. H. Auden, English poet (+ 1973) May 13 - Daphne du Maurier, writer (+ 1989) July 7 - Robert Heinlein, author (+ 1988) August 28 - Rupert Hart-Davis, editor, publisher (+ 1999) September 23 - Pauline Réage, author (+ 1998) November 14 - Astrid Lindgren, Swedish author of children's books (+ 2002) Deaths May 12 - Joris-Karl Huysmans, author July 17 - Hector Malot, author September 6 - Sully Prudhomme, 1st Nobel Prize winner Awards Nobel Prize for Literature: Rudyard Kipling