The year 1952 in literature involved some significant events and new books.

Events

• J. L. Carr takes over as headmaster of Highfields Primary School, Kettering, which will eventually furnish the subject matter for his novel, The Harpole Report.
• November 25 - Agatha Christie's play The Mousetrap opens in London.
• The works of André Gide are placed on the Catholic Church's Index of Forbidden Books.
• Launch of the influential periodical, Past and Present.
• E. E. Cummings is appointed to a Charles Eliot Norton Professorship at Harvard.
• Discovery of a lost scientific work by Geoffrey Chaucer entitled Equatorie of the Planetis.

New books

• Isaac Asimov
  • The Currents of Space
  • Foundation and Empire
• Pearl S. Buck - The Hidden Flower
• Italo Calvino - La Formica Argentina
• John Dickson Carr writing as "Carter Dickson" - Behind the Crimson Blind
• Brian Cleeve - The Far Hills
• Thomas B. Costain - The Silver Chalice
• A. J. Cronin - Adventures in Two Worlds
• August Derleth - Three Problems for Solar Pons
• August Derleth editor - Night's Yawning Peal: A Ghostly Company
• David F. Dodge - To Catch a Thief
• Ralph Ellison - Invisible Man
• Edna Ferber - Giant
• Paul Gallico - The Small Miracle
• Han Suyin - A Many-splendoured Thing
• Robert A. Heinlein - The Rolling Stones
• Ernest Hemingway - The Old Man and the Sea
• Frances Parkinson Keyes - Steamboat Gothic
• David H. Keller - Tales from Underwood
• Arthur Koestler - Arrow in the Blue
• Doris Lessing - Martha Quest
• C. S. Lewis - The Voyage of the Dawn Treader
• Bernard Malamud - The Natural
• Harry Mulisch - Archibald Strohalm
• C. L. Moore - Judgment Night
• R. K. Narayan - The Financial Expert
• Vin Packer - Spring Fire
• Anthony Powell - A Buyer's Market
• Barbara Pym - Excellent Women
• Ellery Queen - The King is Dead
• Charles Shaw - Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison
• Howard Spring - The Houses in Between
• John Steinbeck - East of Eden
• Rex Stout - Triple Jeopardy
• Rex Stout - Prisoner's Base
• Edith Templeton - The Island of Desire
• Agnes Sligh Turnbull - The Gown of Glory
• Amos Tutuola - The Palm-Wine Drinkard
• Hillary Waugh - Last Seen Wearing ...
• E. B. White - Charlotte's Web
• Angus Wilson - Hemlock and After
• Frank Yerby - The Saracen Blade

New drama

• Samuel Beckett - Waiting for Godot
• Robertson Davies - A Masque of Aesop
• Charles Langbridge Morgan - The River Line
• Terence Rattigan - The Deep Blue Sea
• Jean-Paul Sartre - Les jeux sont faits (The Game is Up)
• Arthur Miller - "The Crucible""

Non-fiction

• Roland Bainton – The Reformation of the Sixteenth Century
• Dorothy Day – The Long Loneliness (autobiography)
• L. Sprague de Camp and Willy Ley – Lands Beyond
• Lawrence Gowing – Vermeer
• Aldous Huxley – The Devils of Loudun; Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow
• Norman Vincent Peale – The Power of Positive Thinking
• Gwen Raverat – Period Piece
• Pierre Schaeffer – À la recherche d'une musique concrète
• Immanuel Velikovsky – Ages in Chaos
• J. M. Wallace-Hadrill – The Barbarian West, 400?1000
• Raymond Williams – Drama from Ibsen to Eliot

Births

• February 19 - Amy Tan, novelist
• February 29 - Tim Powers, American fantasy author
• March 11 - Douglas Adams, science fiction author
• Margaret Astrid Lindholm Ogden, author of fantasy novels under the pennames Robin Hobb and Megan Lindholm

Deaths

• February 7 - Norman Douglas, novelist
• February 13 - Josephine Tey, crime novelist
• February 19 - Knut Hamsun, author
• March 1 - Mariano Azuela, novelist, dramatist and critic
• May 26 - Eugene Jolas, writer, literary translator and critic
• April 1 - Ferenc Molnár, dramatist and novelist
• June 1 - John Dewey, philosopher and psychologist
• July 1 - A. S. W. Rosenbach, book collector
• August 9 - Jeffery Farnol, historical romance novelist
• August 15 - Dora Diamant, lover of Franz Kafka
• September 29 – George Santayana, writer
• October 4 - Keith Murdoch, journalist, father of Rupert Murdoch
• November 4 - Gilbert Frankau, novelist
• November 13 - Margaret Wise Brown, children's author
• November 16 - Charles Maurras, poet
• November 18 - Paul Éluard, Surrealist poet
• November 23 – Aaro Hellaakoski, Finnish poet
• December 6 - Cicely Hamilton, dramatist
• date unknown - H. J. Massingham, "ruralist" writer
• date unknown - Roger Vitrac, poet and dramatist

Awards

• Frost Medal: Carl Sandburg
• James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction: Evelyn Waugh, Men at Arms
• James Tait Black Memorial Prize for biography: G. M. Young, Stanley Baldwin
• National Book Award: James Jones, From Here to Eternity.
• Newbery Medal for children's literature: Eleanor Estes, Ginger Pye
• Newdigate prize: Donald Hall
• Nobel Prize for Literature: François Mauriac
• Premio Nadal: María Medio Estrada, Nosotros, los Rivero
• Pulitzer Prize for Drama: Joseph Kramm, The Shrike
• Pulitzer Prize for Fiction: Herman Wouk - The Caine Mutiny
• Pulitzer Prize for Poetry: Marianne Moore, Collected Poems
• King's Gold Medal for Poetry: Andrew Young

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