1910 in literature

• January 8 – Serialisation of Gaston Leroux's novel The Phantom of the Opera (Le Fantôme de l'Opéra) concludes in the Paris newspaper Le Gaulois.[1]
• April 20 – Halley's comet reappears after 76 years, and Mark Twain dies the day after the comet's perihelion. In his autobiography, Twain wrote, "I came in with Halley's comet in 1835. It's coming again next year (1910), and I expect to go out with it. The Almighty has said no doubt, 'Now here are these two unaccountable freaks; they came in together, they must go out together.'"
• March – Lesotho author Thomas Mofolo completes his novel Chaka; he leaves Morija suddenly and it is not published.[2]
• March 18 – The first movie version of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (1818) is released in the U.S. by Edison Studios. One of the first horror films, it features unbilled the actor Charles Ogle as the monster.
• March 30 – William Johnston and Paul West's novel The Innocent Murderers is published in New York City, as the first work of academic crime fiction.
• August 11 – The Buenos Aires Convention is signed, providing for international recognition of copyright.
• September – G. K. Chesterton's fictional detective Father Brown makes a first U.K. appearance in the short story "The Blue Cross" in the Story-Teller magazine (London), having previously appeared on June 23 in "Valentin Follows a Curious Trail" in The Saturday Evening Post (Philadelphia).
• September 1 – Herbert Beerbohm Tree's elaborate revival of Shakespeare's Henry VIII opens in London. It will run for 254 consecutive performances.
• October – Filippo Tommaso Marinetti's first novel Mafarka il futurista is cleared of obscenity charges.[3]
• Fall – Damon Runyon begins working as a journalist on The New York American.
• unknown dates

• Boris Pasternak drops out of the Moscow Conservatory and begins to study law, moving on to study philosophy at the University of Marburg.

• February 6 – Irmgard Keun, German author (died 1982)
• February 10 – Joan G. Robinson, English children's writer and illustrator (died 1988)
• February 11 – L. T. C. Rolt, English biographer and writer of ghost stories (died 1974)
• March 22 – Nicholas Monsarrat, English novelist (died 1979)
• May 8 – Andrew E. Svenson, American author and publisher (died 1975)
• May 23 – Margaret Wise Brown, American children's writer (died 1952)
• June 15 – Marie de Garis (Marie Le Messurier), Guernsey ethnographer and lexicographer (died 2010)
• June 21 – Clive Sansom, English-born Tasmanian poet and playwright (died 1981)
• June 23 – Jean Anouilh, French dramatist (died 1987)
• July 14 – Vincent Brome, English biographer and novelist (died 2004)
• July 27 – Julien Gracq, French novelist, critic and playwright (died 2007)
• August 5 – Jacquetta Hawkes (née Hopkins), English writer and archeologist (died 1996)
• September 8 – Julián Padrón, Venezuelan novelist, journalist and lawyer (died 1954)
• September 11 – Manuel Mujica Láinez, Argentine novelist (died 1984)
• September 18 – Bernard Kangro, Estonian journalist, author, and poet (died 1994)
• October 15 – Haddis Alemayehu, Ethiopian politician and novelist (died 2003)
• November 17 – Rachel de Queiroz, Brazilian author (died 2003)
• December 19
  • Jean Genet, French novelist, playwright and poet (died 1986)
  • José Lezama Lima, Cuban writer and poet (died 1976)
• December 24
  • Jean-Paul Crespelle, French writer (died 1994)
  • Fritz Leiber, American writer of fantasy and science fiction (died 1992)

Uncertain date

• Betty Miller, Irish-born Jewish writer (died 1965)

• January 29 – Edouard Rod, French-Swiss novelist (born 1857)
• April 9 – Vittoria Aganoor, Italian poet (born 1855)
• April 21 – Mark Twain, American writer (born 1835)
• May 7 – Emil Friedrich Kautzsch, German Bible scholar (born 1841)
• May 10 – Anna Laetitia Waring, Welsh poet and hymnist (born 1823)
• May 22 – Jules Renard, French novelist (born 1864)
• July 2 – Frederick James Furnivall, English lexicographer (born 1825)
• August 4 – Heinrich Julius Holtzmann, German New Testament commentator (born 1832)
• August 26 – William James, American philosopher (born 1842)
• October 17
  • William Vaughn Moody, American dramatist and poet (born 1869)
  • Julia Ward Howe, American poet and abolitionist (born 1819)
• November 6 – George Panu, Romanian memoirist, literary critic, journalist and politician (born 1848)
• November 15 – Wilhelm Raabe, German novelist (born 1831)
• November 20 – Leo Tolstoy, Russian novelist (born 1828)

• Nobel Prize for Literature: Paul Johann Ludwig Heyse
• Newdigate prize: Charles Bewley[6]