Deaths
- January 5 - Humbert Wolfe, poet and epigrammist (born 1885)
- January 27 - Isaak Babel, Russian journalist and dramatist (born 1894; executed by firing squad)
- February 11 - John Buchan, Scottish novelist (born 1875)
- ] - E. F. Benson, novelist, biographer, memoirist and short story writer (born 1867)
- March 7 - Edwin Markham, poet (born 1852)
- March 10 - Mikhail Bulgakov, Russian novelist and playwright (born 1891)
- March 16
- Selma Lagerlöf, Swedish Nobel laureate (born 1858)
- Sir Thomas Little Heath, historian and translator (born 1861)
- June 10 - Marcus Garvey, journalist and publisher
- June 20 - Charley Chase, screenwriter
- August 7 - T. O'Conor Sloane, editor of Amazing Stories (born 1851)
- September 26 - W. H. Davies, poet and Supertramp (born 1871)
- December 21 - F Scott Fitzgerald (born 1896)
- December 22 - Nathanael West, screenwriter and satirist (born 1903)
Read more about this topic: 1940 In Literature
Famous quotes containing the word deaths:
“On almost the incendiary eve
Of deaths and entrances ...”
—Dylan Thomas (1914–1953)
“There is the guilt all soldiers feel for having broken the taboo against killing, a guilt as old as war itself. Add to this the soldier’s sense of shame for having fought in actions that resulted, indirectly or directly, in the deaths of civilians. Then pile on top of that an attitude of social opprobrium, an attitude that made the fighting man feel personally morally responsible for the war, and you get your proverbial walking time bomb.”
—Philip Caputo (b. 1941)
“Death is too much for men to bear, whereas women, who are practiced in bearing the deaths of men before their own and who are also practiced in bearing life, take death almost in stride. They go to meet death—that is, they attempt suicide—twice as often as men, though men are more “successful” because they use surer weapons, like guns.”
—Roger Rosenblatt (b. 1940)