1900
Labour Party founded; Russia annexes Manchuria
1900
Sigmund Freud publishes the Interpretation of Dreams, inaugurating his theory of dream analysis; Pablo Picasso begins his career; the Paris Metro opens, with art nouveau entrances designed by Hector Guimard
1900
Death of Oscar Wilde
1900
Lord Jim
1900
John Ruskin dies from influenza
1901
Death of Queen Victoria, succession of Edward VII
1901
Death of Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec
1901
Rudyard Kipling, Kim
1901
Joseph Conrad, The Inheritors (with Ford Madox Ford)
1901
George Gissing, By the Ionian Sea; Our Friend the Charlatan. Due to continuing ill health Gissing stays at Dr. Jane Walker's sanatorium in Suffolk for a month
1901
Thomas Hardy, Poems of the Past and Present
1901
James, Henry The Sacred Fount
1902
The Boer War ends
1902
Joseph Conrad publishes Youth, a Narrative and Two Other Stories, which contains 'Heart of Darkness'
1902
George Gissing's wife Edith is committed to an insane asylum
1902
Henry James, The Wings of the Dove
1903
Henry Ford founds the Ford Motor Company
1903
Claude Debussy begins composing La Mer
1903
Joseph Conrad, Romance (with Ford Madox Ford); Typhoon and Other Stories
1903
George Gissing, The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft. Gissing dies and his historical novel, Veranilda is published posthumously
1903
Henry James, The Ambassadors
1904
Work begins on the Panama Canal
1904
The first meeting of the Bloomsbury group of writers and artists takes place in London
1904
Joseph Conrad, Nostromo
1904
Thomas Hardy, The Dynasts, Part 1
1904
Henry James, The Golden Bowl
1905
Einstein's special relativity theory; Russian Revolution
1905
Sigmund Freud, Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality; le Fauves appear at the Salon d'Automne in Paris, marking the advent of Modernism in art
1905
Edith Wharton, The House of Mirth; Oscar Wilde's letter to Bosie from Reading Gaol, De Profundis, is published
1905
Will Warburton
1905
Henry James' travel book English Hours. James visits the US and gives lectures
1906
Joseph Conrad, The Mirror of the Sea
1906
Thomas Hardy, The Dynasts, Part 2
1907
Joseph Conrad, The Secret Agent
1907
Henry James' travel book, The American Scene
1908
Model "T" Ford produced
1908
Picasso and Georges Braque invent the revolutionary art movement Cubism
1908
Thomas Hardy, The Dynasts, Part 3
1909
Henry James' travel book Italian Hours
1910
George V is crowned
1910
Stravinsky completes The Firebird
1910
E. M. Forster, Howards End; HG Wells, The History of Mr Polly
1910
Joseph Conrad, The Secret Sharer
1910
Thomas Hardy receives the Order of Merit
1911
Revolution in China ends the Qing dynasty; Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen is the first to reach the South Pole.
1911
Wassily Kandinsky founds the "Blue Rider" expressionist group in Munich; Irving Berlin's song "Alexander's Ragtime Band" popularizes ragtime for mass audiences
1911
JM Barrie, Peter Pan and Wendy; G. K. Chesterton, The Innocence of Father Brown; Thomas Mann, Death in Venice
1911
Joseph Conrad, Under Western Eyes
1911
Henry James' last completed novel is The Outcry
1912
The sinking of the Titanic, Scott reaches the South Pole
1912
Edith Wharton, Ethan Frome
1912
Thomas Hardy's wife Emma dies
1913
New York City's Woolworth Building is designed; The ballet Rites of Spring premieres in Paris accompanied by Stravinsky's score; the Armory Show in New York introduces cubism to the United States and Marcel Duchamp causes a scandal with his work 'Fountain'
1913
D. H. Lawrence, Sons and Lovers; first volume of Marcel Proust's, À la Recherche de Temps Perdu
1913
Joseph Conrad, Chance
1914
Start of the First World War
1914
George Bernard Shaw, Pygmalion; Franz Kafka, The Trial
1914
Thomas Hardy marries Florence Emily Dugdale, forty years his junior, whom he had met in 1905
1915
German military leaders pioneer the use of poison gas at the Battle of Ypres
1915
T. S. Eliot, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock; Ford Madox Ford, The Good Soldier; Franz Kafka, Metamorphosis
1915
Joseph Conrad, Victory
1915
Henry James becomes a British subject and helps with war relief. He has a stroke which is followed by respiratory complications
1916
Easter Rising in Dublin
1916
Henry James is awarded the Order of Merit. He dies on 28 February
1917
The First World War produces serious food shortages in Europe leading to rationing; The US declares war on Germany
1917
Henry James' unfinished works The Ivory Tower; The Sense of the Past and The Middle Years are published posthumously
1918
The First World War ends; the franchise is extended to women over 30 in the UK
1919
The US Senate refuses to ratify the Treaty of Versailles
1919
Jazz music becomes popular in Chicago
1920
Prohibition comes into effect in the US; The League of Nations meets for its first General Assembly in Geneva.
1920
In Europe the Surrealist art and film movement begins
1920
F. Scott Fitzgerald, This Side of Paradise; May Sinclair, Life and Death of Harriett Frean; Edith Wharton, The Age of Innocence
1920
Joseph Conrad, The Rescue
1921
Irish Free State established
1922
Tutankhamen's tomb uncovered
1922
TS Eliot, The Waste Land
1923
The USSR is established, headed by Lenin
1923
Hollywood releases Buster Keaton's silent feature-length film Our Hospitality
1923
Sean O'Casey, The Shadow of a Gunman
1923
Joseph Conrad, The Rover
1924
E. M. Forster, A Passage to India
1924
Joseph Conrad declines the offer of a non-hereditary British knighthood. On 3 August he dies of a heart attack
1925
F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby; Virginia Woolf, Mrs Dalloway
1926
Ernest Hemingway, The Sun Also Rises
1927
The Jazz Singer is the first successful talking motion picture; Louis B Mayer founds the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences; television is demonstrated for the first time; the first transatlantic telephone calls are available to the public
1927
Virginia Woolf, To the Lighthouse
1927
Thomas Hardy falls ill with pleurisy in December
1928
Universal suffrage for all adults in the UK
1928
D. H. Lawrence writes Lady Chatterley's Lover
1928
Thomas Hardy dies at Max Gate
1929
The Great Depression begins with a stock market crash in the US
1929
William Faulkner, The Sound and the Fury