The year 1951 in literature involved some significant events and new books.

Events

• E. E. Cummings and Rachel Carson are awarded Guggenheim Fellowships.
• Flannery O'Connor is diagnosed with lupus.
• Anthony Powell produces the first novel of his A Dance to the Music of Time duodecalogy.
• Arthur C. Clarke publishes "The Sentinel", the story that will form the basis for the film 2001: A Space Odyssey.
• First appearance of Dennis the Menace comic strip in The Beano.
• Janie Moore, C. S. Lewis's adoptive mother, dies.
• James Clavell marries actress April Stride, who introduces him to the movie business.
• Joe Orton enters the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art.

New books

• Sholem Asch - Moses
• Isaac Asimov
  • Foundation
  • The Stars Like Dust
• Ray Bradbury - The Illustrated Man
• Gill Hunt - Galactic Storm
• Taylor Caldwell - The Balance Wheel
• Morley Callaghan - The Loved and the Lost
• Truman Capote - The Grass Harp
• Arthur C. Clarke - Prelude to Space
• Robertson Davies - Tempest-Tost
• L. Sprague de Camp
  • Rogue Queen
  • The Undesired Princess
• August Derleth - The Memoirs of Solar Pons
• Owen Dodson - Boy at the Window
• Daphne du Maurier - My Cousin Rachel
• Howard Fast - Spartacus
• Graham Greene - The End of the Affair
• Robert A. Heinlein - The Puppet Masters
• Patricia Highsmith (as Claire Morgan) - The Price of Salt
• James Jones - From Here to Eternity
• Nikos Kazantzakis - The Last Temptation of Christ
• Louis L'Amour - The Rustlers of the West Fork
• C. S. Lewis - Prince Caspian
• John Masters - Nightrunners of Bengal
• James A. Michener - Return to Paradise
• Nancy Mitford - The Blessing
• Nicholas Monsarrat - The Cruel Sea
• Alberto Moravia - The Conformist (Il conformista)
• Anthony Powell - A Question of Upbringing
• J. D. Salinger - The Catcher in the Rye
• Ooka Shohei - Fires on the Plain
• Vern Schneider - The Teahouse of the August Moon
• Cardinal Spellman - The Foundling
• John Steinbeck - The Log from the Sea of Cortez
• Rex Stout
  • Curtains for Three
  • Murder by the Book
• William Styron - Lie Down in Darkness
• Elizabeth Taylor - A Game of Hide and Seek
• Josephine Tey - The Daughter of Time
• John Wyndham - The Day of the Triffids
• Mika Waltari - The Wanderer
• Herman Wouk - The Caine Mutiny
• Frank Yerby - A Woman Called Fancy
• Marguerite Yourcenar - Mémoires d'Hadrien

New drama

• A. A. Milne - Before the Flood
• Jean-Paul Sartre - Le diable et le bon dieu (The Devil and the Good Lord)
• John Van Druten - I Am a Camera
• Lawrence Riley - Kin Hubbard
• Tennessee Williams - The Rose Tattoo
• Peter Wessel Zapffe - Den fortapte sønn, En dramatisk gjenfortælling (The lost son, a dramatic renarration)

Poetry

• Frank O'Hara - A City Winter and Other Poems
• Clark Ashton Smith - The Dark Chateau

Non-fiction

• Rachel Carson - The Sea Around Us
• Nirad C. Chaudhuri - The Autobiography of an Unknown Indian
• Thomas B. Costain - The Magnificent Century (Second book in the Plantagenet or Pageant of England Series)
• Vladimir Nabokov - Speak, Memory

Births

• August 20 - Greg Bear, American science fiction author
• August 24 - Orson Scott Card, American science fiction author
• September 20 - Javier Marías, Spanish novelist
• October 12 - Peter Flannery, English dramatist
• December 22 - Charles de Lint, Canadian fantasy author & Celtic folk musician

Deaths

• January 7 - René Guénon, French philosophical writer (b. 1886)
• February 7 - Sinclair Lewis, American novelist (b. 1885)
• February 13 - Lloyd C. Douglas, American author (b. 1877)
• February 19 - André Gide, French author (b. 1869)
• March 25 - Oscar Micheaux, African-American author & filmmaker (b. 1884)
• April 29 - Ludwig Wittgenstein, Austrian philosopher (b. 1889)
• June 11 - W. C. Sellar, Scottish humorist (b. 1898)
• August 14 - William Randolph Hearst, American newspaper tycoon (b. 1863)
• September 2 - Antoine Bibesco, Romanian dramatist (b. 1878)
• December 4 - Pedro Salinas, Spanish poet (b. 1891)
• December 10 - Algernon Blackwood, English writer (b. 1869)

Awards

• Frost Medal: Wallace Stevens
• James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction: Chapman Mortimer, Father Goose
• James Tait Black Memorial Prize for biography: Noel Annan, Leslie Stephen
• Newbery Medal: Elizabeth Yates, Amos Fortune, Free Man
• Nobel Prize in Literature: Pär Lagerkvist
• Premio Nadal: Luis Romero, La noria
• Pulitzer Prize for Drama: no award given
• Pulitzer Prize for Fiction: Conrad Richter, The Town
• Pulitzer Prize for Poetry: Carl Sandburg, Complete Poems

fr:1951 en littérature nn:Kultur i 1951 pl:1951 w literaturze pt:1951 na literatura sq:1951 në literaturë sv:Litteraturåret 1951