1940s

Why England Slept is the published version of a thesis written by John F Kennedy while in his senior year at Harvard College. Its title was an allusion to Winston Churchill's 1938 book While England Slept, which also examined the buildup of German power. Published in 1940, the book examines the failures of the British government to take steps to prevent World War II and is notable for its uncommon stance of not castigating the appeasement policy of the British government at the time, instead suggesting that an earlier confrontation between the United Kingdom and Nazi Germany could well have been more disastrous in the long run.

'Three Whom God Should Not Have Created: Persians, Jews, and Flies' (Arabic: ثلاثة كان على الله ان لا يخلقهم: الفرس، اليهود والذباب, Thalatha kan 'ala Allah an la yakhluqahum: al-Fars, al-Yahud wal-dhabib) is the name of an anti-Iranian and anti-semitic Iraqi government pamphlet widely published during the era of Saddam Hussein.

They Were Strong and Good is a book by Robert Lawson that won the Caldecott Medal for excellence in American children's literature in 1941. It tells the story of Lawson's family: where they came from, how they met, what they did, where they lived. "None of them," Lawson says in the preface, speaking of his ancestors, "were great or famous, but they were strong and good."

Spécialités de la Maison is a cookbook containing more than 200 recipes by a wide array of early 20th Century celebrities and socialites. The book was originally published in 1940 under the direction of Anne Morgan in order to raise funds for her nonprofit organization, the American Friends of France, which sought to bring relief to the French population in wartime. Reprinted in 1949, Spécialités de la Maison includes recipes by Salvador Dalí, Christian Dior, Katharine Hepburn, Charlie Chaplin, and Helen Keller among other luminaries.

The Definitive Edition of the verse of Rudyard Kipling (1865–1936) was published in 1940 in London by Hodder and Stoughton, Ltd and in Edinburgh by R. R. Clark. It is a one-volume collection and was printed on India paper.

Padatik (The Foot Soldier) first published in 1940 is a Bengali book of poems written by Subhash Mukhopadhyay. This was Mukhopadhyay's first published book. This book created a storm in Bengali literature. Mukhopadhyay wrote this book as a representative of a political party. Mukhopadhyay in his personal life was a consistent Marxist. In this book, poet showed his zeal to redeem the poor and suffering masses from exploitation.

The New World Order is a book written by H. G. Wells, originally published in January 1940. Wells expressed the idea that a 'new world order' should be formed to unite the nations of the world in order to bring peace and end war. The New World Order also advocates a legal system that would protect the Rights of Man. It was republished in 2007 under ISBN 1-59986-727-3.

Nansen is a children's biography of Fridtjof Nansen, the Norwegian polar explorer, written by Anna Gertrude Hall and illustrated by Boris Artzybasheff. First published in 1940, it was a Newbery Honor recipient in 1941.

The Merck Index is an encyclopedia of chemicals, drugs and biologicals with over 10,000 monographs on single substances or groups of related compounds. It also includes an appendix with monographs on organic named reactions. It was published by the United States pharmaceutical company Merck & Co. from 1889 until 2012, when the title was acquired by the Royal Society of Chemistry. An online version of The Merck Index, including historic records and new updates not in the print edition, is commonly available through research libraries.

Memory Hold-the-Door is the 1940 autobiography of John Buchan. It was published in the United States under the title Pilgrim's Way.

Mathematics and the Imagination is a book published in New York by Simon & Schuster in 1940. The authors are Edward Kasner and James R. Newman. The illustrator Rufus Isaacs provided 169 figures. It rapidly became a best-seller and received several glowing reviews. Special publicity has been awarded it since it introduced the term googol for 10100, and googolplex for 10googol. The book includes nine chapters, an annotated bibliography of 45 titles, and an index in its 380 pages.

The Long Week-End is a social history of interwar Britain, written by Robert Graves and Alan Hodge. It was first published in 1940, just after the end of the period it treats.

Klee Wyck is an autobiographical work by artist Emily Carr. Published in 1941, the book describes, through short sketches, the artist's experiences among First Nations people and culture on British Columbia's west coast. The book won the 1941 Governor General's Award and occupies an important place in Canadian literature.

Inside the Whale and Other Essays is a book of essays written by George Orwell in 1940. It includes the eponymous essay Inside the Whale.

Inside the Gestapo: Hitler's Shadow Over the World is a 1939 book partially published in serial form in the Manchester Guardian, and then in full by Pallas, 1940, under the pseudonym Hansjurgen Koehler by the German political exile de:Walter Korodi (1902-1983). In part the work contained the genuine manuscript "Hinter den Kulissen des 3. Reiches" by Heinrich Pfeifer (1905-1949) a former Gestapo official, which Pfeifer had sent to Pallas, but had never received a reply. A second volume by Korodi as Hansjürgen Koehler entitled Inside Information appeared in 1940. The books gained significant press coverage in Britain in 1939 and 1940.

The Imaginary: A Phenomenological Psychology of the Imagination (French: L'Imaginaire), also published under the title The Psychology of the Imagination, is a 1940 book by Jean-Paul Sartre, in which he propounds his concept of the imagination and discusses what the existence of imagination shows about the nature of human consciousness.

History of the Iranian Constitutional Revolution (Persian: تاریخ مشروطهٔ ایران‎‎) by the Iranian historian Ahmad Kasravi is the most accurate account of the Persian Constitutional Revolution. The book chronicles the event and the ensuing struggle of the revolution that took place between 1905 to 1911 in Persia (Iran).

Happy Days, 1880–1892 (1940) is the first of an autobiographical trilogy by H.L. Mencken, covering his days as a child in Baltimore, Maryland.

The Golden Treasury of Scottish Poetry was edited by Hugh MacDiarmid, and published in 1940. From the introduction:

Five Young American Poets was a three volume series of poetry collections published by New Directions Publishers (Norfolk, Connecticut; James Laughlin, publisher).

Fables for Our Time and Famous Poems Illustrated is a 1940 book by James Thurber. Thurber updates some old fables and creates some new ones of his own too. Notably there is 'The Bear Who Could Take It Or Leave It Alone' about a bear who lapses into alcoholism before sobering up and going too far that way. (He used to say 'See what the bears in the back room will have.') Also an updated version of 'Little Red Riding Hood' which ends with the immortal lines, "even in a nightcap a wolf does not look any more like your grandmother than the Metro-Goldwyn lion looks like Calvin Coolidge. So the little girl took an automatic out of her basket and shot the wolf dead. " All the fables have one-line morals. The moral of 'Little Red Riding Hood' is "Young girls are not so easy to fool these days." Another fable concerns a non-materialist chipmunk who likes to arrange nuts in pretty patterns rather than just piling up as many as he can. He is constantly nagged by his chipmunk wife for this.

The Encyclopedia of World History is a classic single volume work detailing world history. The first through fifth editions were edited by William L. Langer.

The Encyclopedia of Jews in Music (Lexikon der Juden in der Musik) was a Nazi-sponsored encyclopedia first published in Germany in 1940, which listed individuals involved in the music industry who were defined under Nazi racial laws as 'Jewish' or 'half-Jewish'. It was edited by Herbert Gerigk and Theophil Stengel and published in Berlin in 1940 by Bernhard Hahnefeld, with official support from the Nazi Party's "Institute for Study of the Jewish Question". The book's subtitle declared that it was produced "on behalf of the national leadership of the Nazi Party for official reasons, partly officially certified documents".

Dusk of Dawn: An Essay Toward an Autobiography of a Race Concept is an autobiographical text by W. E. B. Du Bois, which, published in 1940, examines Du Bois's life and family history in the context of contemporaneous developments in race relations.

Drums and Shadows is a book by Mary Granger published in 1940. The book is an account of oral folklore collected in Georgia from African Americans, namely the Gullah people of the Sea Islands, many of whom had been slaves.

Caps for Sale: A Tale of a Peddler, Some Monkeys and Their Monkey Business is a classic children's picture book, written and illustrated by Esphyr Slobodkina and published by W. R. Scott in 1940. It's a sly take on the saying, "Monkey see, monkey do."

The Book of Common Order is the name of several directories for public worship.

Berlin Embassy is a non-fiction book written by American diplomat William Russell (1915-2000) and first published in late 1940. Russell, who worked at the American Embassy in Berlin, details his experiences of living and working in Nazi Germany between August 1939 and April 1940 during the early phases of the Second World War in the book.

The Atlantic Migration, 1607–1860: A History of the Continuing Settlement of the United States is a Pulitzer Prize-winning book by American historian Marcus Lee Hansen (1892-1938). The book covers the social and economic background of emigrant groups to the United States from colonial days to the American Civil War.

Another Time is a book of poems by W. H. Auden, published in 1940.

An Agricultural Testament is Sir Albert Howard's best-known publication, and remains one of the seminal works in the history of organic farming agricultural movement. Dedicated to his first wife and co-worker Gabrielle, herself a plant phsyiologist, it focuses on the nature and management of soil fertility, and notably explores composting. At a time when modern, chemical-based industrialized agriculture was just beginning to radically alter food production, it advocated natural processes rather than man-made inputs as the superior approach to farming. It was first published in England in 1940, with the first American edition in 1943. Apart from a reprint by Rodale Press in 1972 and 1976 it remains out of print.

African Political Systems is an academic anthology edited by the anthropologists Meyer Fortes and E. E. Evans-Pritchard which was published by Oxford University Press on the behalf of the International African Institute in 1940. The book contains eight separate papers produced by scholars working in the field of anthropology, each of which focuses in on a different society in Sub-Saharan Africa. It was the intention of the editors to bring together information on African political systems on a "broad, comparative basis" for the very first time.

Adaptive Coloration in Animals is a 500 page textbook about camouflage, warning coloration and mimicry by the University of Cambridge Zoologist Hugh Cott, first published during the Second World War in 1940; the book sold widely and made him famous.

The Grapes of Wrath is an American realist novel written by John Steinbeck and published in 1939. The book won the National Book Award and Pulitzer Prize for fiction, and it was cited prominently when Steinbeck was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1962.

The Time of Your Life is a 1939 five-act play by American playwright William Saroyan. The play is the first drama to win both the Pulitzer Prize for Drama and the New York Drama Critics Circle Award. The play opened 25 October 1939 at the Booth Theatre in New York City. It was produced by the Theatre Guild and with staging by Eddie Dowling, who also starred as Joe, and William Saroyan.

Daniel Boone is a book by James Daugherty about the famous pioneer. It won the Newbery Medal for excellence in American children's literature in 1940. It deals with the life, death, and legacy of Daniel Boone.

Mary I (18 February 1516 – 17 November 1558) was the Queen of England and Ireland from July 1553 until her death. Her executions of Protestants led to the posthumous sobriquet "Bloody Mary".

To the Finland Station: A Study in the Writing and Acting of History (1940) is a book by American critic and historian Edmund Wilson. The work presents the history of revolutionary thought and the birth of socialism, from the French Revolution through the collaboration of Marx and Engels to the arrival of Lenin at the Finlyandsky Rail Terminal in St. Petersburg in 1917.

The Problem of Pain is a 1940 book by C. S. Lewis in which he seeks to provide an intellectual Christian response to questions about suffering. The book addresses an important aspect of theodicy, an attempt by one Christian layman to reconcile orthodox Christian belief in a just, loving and omnipotent God with pain and suffering.

A Mathematician's Apology is a 1940 essay by British mathematician G. H. Hardy. It concerns the aesthetics of mathematics with some personal content, and gives the layman an insight into the mind of a working mathematician.

The Birth and Death of the Sun is a popular science book by theoretical physicist and cosmologist George Gamow, first published in 1940, exploring atomic chemistry, stellar evolution, and cosmology. The book is illustrated by Gamow. It was revised in 1952.

Guilty Men was a short book published in Great Britain in July 1940 that attacked British public figures for their appeasement of Nazi Germany in the 1930s.

How to Read a Book is a 1940 book by Mortimer Adler. He co-authored a heavily revised edition in 1972 with Charles Van Doren, which gives guidelines for critically reading good and great books of any tradition. The 1972 revision, in addition to the first edition, treats genres (poetry, history, science, fiction, et cetera), inspectional and syntopical reading.

The Corn Is Green is a 1940 semi-autobiographical play by Emlyn Williams. The original broadcast starred Ethel Barrymore and premiered at the National Theatre on November 26th, running for 477 performances. It was noted for being a magnificent comeback by Barrymore, who hadn't had a success of that magnitude since The Constant Wife (1926) and Declassee (1919).

Pohjalaisia is a Finnish play. It was written by Artturi Järviluoma and produced in 1940.

Peril at End House is a 1940 play based on the 1932 novel of the same name by Agatha Christie. The play is by Arnold Ridley, who much later played Private Godfrey in Dad's Army. Ridley was granted permission to adapt the book in an agreement with Christie dated 18 July 1938.

Mr Puntila and his Man Matti (German: Herr Puntila und sein Knecht Matti) is an epic comedy by the German modernist playwright Bertolt Brecht. It was written in 1940 and first performed in 1948.

Strangers and Brothers is a series of novels by C. P. Snow, published between 1940 and 1970. They deal with – among other things – questions of political and personal integrity, and the mechanics of exercising power.

Horton Hatches the Egg is a children's book written and illustrated by Theodor Geisel under the pen name Dr. Seuss and published in 1940 by Random House. The book tells the story of Horton the Elephant, who is tricked into sitting on a bird's egg while its mother, Mayzie, takes a permanent vacation to Palm Beach. Horton endures a number of hardships but persists, often stating, "I meant what I said, and I said what I meant. An elephant's faithful, one hundred per cent!" Ultimately, the egg hatches, revealing an elephant-bird, a creature with a blend of Mayzie's and Horton's features.

Owen Glendower: An Historical Novel by John Cowper Powys was first published in America in January 1941, and in the UK in February 1942. Powys returned to Britain from the USA in 1934, with his lover Phyllis Playter, living first in Dorchester, where he began Maiden Castle. However, in July, 1935 they moved to the village of Corwen, Denbighshire, North Wales, historically part of Edeirnion or Edeyrnion, an ancient commote of medieval Wales that was once part of the Kingdom of Powys, where he completed Maiden Castle (1936). This move to the land of his ancestors led Powys to write this, the first of two historical novels set in this region of Wales; the other was Porius (1951). Owen, Powys's ninth novel, reflects "his increasing sense of what he thought of as his bardic heritage."

Pal Joey is a 1940 epistolary novel by John O'Hara, which became the basis of the 1940 stage musical comedy and 1957 motion picture of the same name, with music by Richard Rodgers and lyrics by Lorenz Hart.

Pat the Bunny is a "touch and feel" book for small children and babies and has been a perennial best-seller in the United States since its publication in 1940. It is not a book in the traditional sense, but more a collection of things to do, such as pat the fake fur of a rabbit on one page, feel a bit of sandpaper that stands for "daddy's scratchy face" on another, and look in a mirror on yet another.

Daniel Boone (November 2, 1734  – September 26, 1820) was an American pioneer, explorer, woodsman, and frontiersman, whose frontier exploits made him one of the first folk heroes of the United States. Boone is most famous for his exploration and settlement of what is now Kentucky, which was then part of Virginia, but on the other side of the mountains from the settled areas. As a young adult, Boone supplemented his farm income by hunting and trapping game, and selling their pelts in the fur market. Through this occupational interest, Boone first learned the easy routes to the area. Despite some resistance from American Indian tribes such as the Shawnee, in 1775, Boone blazed his Wilderness Road through the Cumberland Gap in the Appalachian Mountains from North Carolina and Tennessee into Kentucky. There, he founded the village of Boonesborough, Kentucky, one of the first American settlements west of the Appalachians. Before the end of the 18th century, more than 200,000 Americans migrated to Kentucky/Virginia by following the route marked by Boone.

The Ox-Bow Incident is a 1943 American Western Film Noir directed by William A. Wellman and starring Henry Fonda, Dana Andrews and Mary Beth Hughes, and featuring Anthony Quinn, William Eythe, Harry Morgan and Jane Darwell. Two drifters are passing through a Western town, when news comes in that a local farmer has been murdered and his cattle stolen. The townspeople, joined by the drifters, form a posse to catch the perpetrators. They find three men in possession of the cattle, and are determined to see justice done on the spot.

Kings Row is a 1942 film starring Ann Sheridan, Robert Cummings, and Ronald Reagan that tells a story of young people growing up in a small American town at the turn of the twentieth century. The picture was directed by Sam Wood.

The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám (Persian: رباعیات عمر خیام‎‎) is the title that Edward FitzGerald gave to his translation of a selection of poems, originally written in Persian and numbering about a thousand, attributed to Omar Khayyám (1048–1131), a Persian poet, mathematician, and astronomer. A ruba'i is a two-line stanza with two parts (or hemistichs) per line, hence the word rubáiyát (derived from the Arabic language root for "four"), meaning "quatrains".

The Last Tycoon is an unfinished novel by F. Scott Fitzgerald. In 1941, was published posthumously under this title, as prepared by his friend Edmund Wilson, a critic and writer.

Pride and Prejudice is a 1940 American film adaptation of Jane Austen's novel Pride and Prejudice, directed by Robert Z. Leonard and starring Greer Garson and Laurence Olivier. The screenplay was written by Aldous Huxley and Jane Murfin, adapted specifically from the stage adaptation by Helen Jerome in addition to Jane Austen's novel. The film is about five sisters from an English family of landed gentry who must deal with issues of marriage, morality, and misconceptions. The film was released by MGM on July 26, 1940 in the United States, and was critically well received. The New York Times film critic praised the film as "the most deliciously pert comedy of old manners, the most crisp and crackling satire in costume that we in this corner can remember ever having seen on the screen."

Horizon: A Review of Literature and Art was an influential literary magazine published in London, UK, between 1940 and 1949. It was edited by Cyril Connolly, who made it into a platform for a wide range of distinguished and emerging writers. It had a print run of 102 issues or 20 volumes.

Young Mac of Fort Vancouver is a children's historical novel by Mary Jane Carr. Set in 1832, it recounts the adventures of Donald McDermott, a young mixed-blood fur trader. The novel, illustrated by Richard Holberg, was first published in 1940 and was a Newbery Honor recipient in 1941.

You Can't Go Home Again is a novel by Thomas Wolfe published posthumously in 1940, extracted by his editor, Edward Aswell, from the contents of his vast unpublished manuscript The October Fair.

World's End is the first novel of Upton Sinclair's Lanny Budd series. First published in 1940, after World War II had begun in Europe the previous year, the story covers the period from 1913 to 1919, before and after World War I.

The Wonder City of Oz (1940) is the thirty-fourth in the series of Oz books created by L. Frank Baum and his successors, and the first written and illustrated solely by John R. Neill.

Where There's a Will is the eighth Nero Wolfe detective novel by Rex Stout. Prior to its publication in 1940 by Farrar & Rinehart, Inc., the novel was abridged in the May 1940 issue of The American Magazine, titled "Sisters in Trouble." The story's magazine appearance was "reviewed" by the FBI as part of its surveillance of Stout. Because Stout took a hiatus from writing Wolfe during World War II, this would be the last Nero Wolfe novel until 1946's The Silent Speaker.

Visitors from London is a children's novel written by Kitty Barne, illustrated with 40 drawings by Ruth Gervis, published by Dent in 1940. Set in Sussex, it is a story of World War II on the home front; it features preparing for and hosting children evacuated from London. Barne and Visitors won the annual Carnegie Medal for British children's books.

Verdict of Twelve is a novel by Raymond Postgate first published in 1940 about a trial by jury seen through the eyes of each of the twelve jurors as they listen to the evidence and try to reach a unanimous verdict of either "Guilty" or "Not guilty". Verdict of Twelve is set in England in the late 1930s (Hitler, Nazism and in particular anti-Semitism are referred to several times). Up to the final pages of the novel, till after the trial is over, the reader does not know if the defendant—a middle-aged woman charged with murder—is innocent or not.

Typewriter in the Sky is a science fiction novel written by Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard. The protagonist Mike de Wolf finds himself inside the story of his friend's book. He must survive conflict on the high seas in the Caribbean during the 17th century, before eventually returning to his native New York. Each time a significant event occurs to the protagonist in the story he hears the sounds of a typewriter in the sky. At the story's conclusion, de Wolf wonders if he is still a character in someone else's story. The work was first published in a two-part serial format in 1940 in Unknown Fantasy Fiction. It was twice published as a combined book with Hubbard's work Fear. In 1995 Bridge Publications re-released the work along with an audio edition.

Tuned for Murder is the 9th pulp magazine story to feature The Avenger. Written by Paul Ernst, it was published in the May 1, 1940 issue of "The Avenger" magazine.

The Trees, the first novel of Conrad Richter's trilogy The Awakening Land, is set in the wilderness of central Ohio (c. 1795). The simple plot — composed of what are essentially episodes in the life of a pioneer family before the virgin hardwood forest was cut down — is told in a third-person narration rich with folklore and suggestive of early backwoods speech. The central character is Sayward Luckett, the eldest daughter in a family who the narrator says "followed the woods as some families follow the sea." The book was published by Alfred A. Knopf in 1940. The Trees was followed by The Fields (1946) and The Town (1950). A single-volume trilogy was published in 1966.

Timur and His Squad (Timur I yevo komanda, Тимур и его команда) is a short novel by Arkady Gaidar, written and first published in 1940. The book, telling the story of a gang of village kids who sneak around secretly doing good deeds, protecting families whose fathers and husbands are in the Red Army, and doing battle against nasty hooligans had a huge impact upon the young Soviet audiences. Timurite movement (Timurovtsy), involving thousands of children, became a massive phenomenon all over the country. Timur and His Squad remained part of the curriculum in every Soviet school even up into the 1990s.

The Three Musketeers in Africa is a novel written by a Hungarian novelist Jenő Rejtő with the penname P. Howard. It tells the story of Csülök, Senki Alfonz (Alfonz Nobody) and Tuskó Hopkins, the three legionaries. They have to deliver an important letter to Marquis De Surenne and protect a young lady called Yvonne Barre through the desert and lead her to a safe place. Although these three men are outlaws, they try to do everything to help people who are in need. This is a very exciting book with the unique humor of Jenő Rejtő.

The Tartar Steppe (Italian: Il deserto dei Tartari, literally The Desert of the Tartars) is a novel by Italian author Dino Buzzati, published in 1940. The novel tells the story of a young officer, Giovanni Drogo, and his life spent guarding the Bastiani Fortress, an old, unmaintained border fortress. The English translation was done by Stuart C. Hood.

Synthetic Men of Mars is a science fantasy novel by American writer Edgar Rice Burroughs, the ninth of his Barsoom series. It was first published in the magazine Argosy Weekly in six parts in early 1939. The first complete edition of the novel was published in 1940 by Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc.

The Stolen Spring (Danish: Det Forsømte Forår, The Neglected Spring) is a Danish novel by Hans Scherfig, published first in 1940.

'Stockholders in Death' is the 8th pulp magazine story to feature The Avenger. Written by Paul Ernst, it was published in the April 1, 1940 issue of 'The Avenger' magazine. The novel was republished under its original title by Paperback Library on December 1, 1972.

The Spanish Bride is a novel by Georgette Heyer. This story is based on the true story of Harry Smith and his wife Juana María de los Dolores de León Smith. He had a fairly illustrious military career and was made a baronet. The town of Ladysmith in South Africa is named after his wife.

The Snow Goose: A Story of Dunkirk is a short novella by the American author Paul Gallico. It was first published in 1940 as a short story in The Saturday Evening Post, then he expanded it to create a short novella which was first published on April 7, 1941.

The Smiling Dogs is the 10th pulp magazine story to feature The Avenger. Written by Paul Ernst, it was published in the June 1, 1940 issue of The Avenger magazine.

Sergeant Lamb of the Ninth (released in America as Sergeant Lamb’s America) and Proceed, Sergeant Lamb are two historical novels by Robert Graves, published in 1940 and 1941 respectively. They relate the experiences of Roger Lamb as a British soldier in the American Revolutionary War, and are based on the actual Roger Lamb's autobiographical works.

The Seed (Nynorsk: Kimen) is a 1940 novel by the Norwegian writer Tarjei Vesaas. The narrative is set on a small island where a stranger settles. This is soon followed by a mysterious murder case, which creates widespread distrust in the community. The novel was the author's first departure from literary realism into a more allegorical mode of storytelling. An English translation by Kenneth G. Chapman was published in 1964, in a shared volume with Vesaas' novel Spring Night.

The Secret of Dr. Honigberger (Romanian: Secretul doctorului Honigberger) is a 1940 novella by the Romanian writer Mircea Eliade. It centres on the search for a 19th-century physician named Johann Martin Honigberger, who disappeared in India while searching for the invisible kingdom Shambhala, as well as his early 20th-century biographer who has also disappeared.

Sapphira and the Slave Girl is Willa Cather's last novel, published in 1940. It is the story of Sapphira Dodderidge Colbert, a bitter but privileged white woman, who becomes irrationally jealous of Nancy, a beautiful young slave. The book balances an atmospheric portrait of antebellum Virginia against an unblinking view of the lives of Sapphira's slaves.

The Saint in Miami is the title of a mystery novel by Leslie Charteris featuring his creation, Simon Templar, alias The Saint. As with an earlier release, Follow the Saint, the order of publication for this book was changed. Instead of being published first in the United Kingdom by Hodder and Stoughton, as had been custom for most previous volumes, the first edition instead came out in 1940 in the United States, published by The Crime Club. The first UK edition (by H&S) followed in 1941. Most future Charteris-written Saint books would be published in the United States first hereafter.

Sad Cypress is a work of detective fiction by Agatha Christie and first published in the UK by the Collins Crime Club in March 1940 and in the US by Dodd, Mead and Company later in the same year. The UK edition retailed at eight shillings and threepence (8/3) – the first price rise for a UK Christie edition since her 1921 debut – and the US edition retailed at $2.00.

'The River of Ice' is the 11th pulp magazine story to feature The Avenger. Written by Paul Ernst, it was published in the July 1, 1940 issue of 'The Avenger' magazine.

River of Earth is a novel, published in 1940, by the Appalachian author James Still.

Quick Service is a novel by P. G. Wodehouse, first published in the United Kingdom on 4 October 1940 by Herbert Jenkins, London and in the United States on December 27, 1940 by Doubleday, Doran, New York.

The Private Practice of Michael Shayne is a 1940 detective novel by the American writer Brett Halliday. It was the second book in Halliday's Michael Shayne series of novels, after Dividend on Death (1939).

The Power and the Glory (1940) is a novel by British author Graham Greene. The title is an allusion to the doxology often recited at the end of the Lord's Prayer: "For thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory, forever and ever, amen." It was also published in the U.S., initially under the name The Labyrinthine Ways. The novel tells the story of an outlaw Roman Catholic priest in the Mexican state of Tabasco during the 1930s, when the Mexican government was trying to suppress the Catholic Church.

Portrait of Jennie is a novella written by Robert Nathan, first published in 1940. This story combines romance, fantasy, mystery, and the supernatural. The most successful of Nathan's books, it is considered a modern masterpiece of fantasy fiction.

Paris France is a memoir written by Gertrude Stein and published in 1940 on the day that Paris fell to Germany during World War II. The book blends Stein's childhood memories with a commentary on French people and culture.

The Ox-Bow Incident is a 1940 western novel by Walter Van Tilburg Clark in which two drifters are drawn into a lynch mob to find and hang three men presumed to be rustlers and the killers of a local man.

Over My Dead Body is the seventh Nero Wolfe detective novel by Rex Stout. The story first appeared in abridged form in The American Magazine (September 1939). The novel was published in 1940 by Farrar & Rinehart, Inc.

One, Two, Buckle My Shoe is a work of detective fiction by Agatha Christie first published in the United Kingdom by the Collins Crime Club in November 1940, and in the US by Dodd, Mead and Company in February 1941 under the title of The Patriotic Murders. A paperback edition in the US by Dell books in 1953 changed the title again to An Overdose of Death. The UK edition retailed at seven shillings and sixpence (7/6) while the United States edition retailed at $2.00.

An Old Captivity is a novel by British author Nevil Shute. It was first published in the UK in 1940 by William Heinemann.

Õige mehe koda (English: The House of a Righteous Man) is a novel by Estonian author Karl Ristikivi. It was first published in 1940 by Ilukirjandus ja Kunst.

The Naughtiest Girl in the School is the first novel in The Naughtiest Girl series by Enid Blyton. It was first published in 1940.

Native Son (1940) is a novel by American author Richard Wright. The novel tells the story of 20-year-old Bigger Thomas, a black American youth living in utter poverty in a poor area on Chicago's South Side in the 1930s.

The Mystery of the Brass Bound Trunk is the seventeenth volume in the Nancy Drew Mystery Stories series, published under the pseudonym Carolyn Keene. It was first published in 1940 by Grosset & Dunlap.

'Murder on Wheels' is the 13th pulp magazine story to feature The Avenger. Written by Paul Ernst, it was published in the November 1, 1940 issue of 'The Avenger' magazine.

Murder in the Submarine Zone (also published as Nine—And Death Makes Ten and Murder in the Atlantic) is a mystery novel by the American writer John Dickson Carr (1906–1977), who published it under the name of Carter Dickson. It is a whodunnit and features the series detective Sir Henry Merrivale.

Mo Bhealach Féin,(released 1940) is an autobiographical novel by Irish writer Seosamh Mac Grianna. Written in the mid-1930s and prompted by the success of the Blasket autobiographies and O'Flaherty's Two Years, it gives an artistic Gaeltacht writer's personal reaction to an anglicised, urbanised post-revolution Ireland and the world in general and represents the writer's work at its best.

Mariana (1940) is the first novel by the author Monica Dickens. Mariana is a coming of age novel, which describes the growth and experience of Mary Shannon, a young English girl in the 1930s as the first hints of war begin to permeate English domestic life. First published by Michael Joseph, it was reprinted by Persephone Books in 1999 and is the second in their collection.

The Man Who Went Back (1940) is an adventure novel by Warwick Deeping about a man who has a car accident in 1939 England. He is transported back into post-Roman Britain and has to contend with the knowledge that he is from the future, in the past.

The Man Who Loved Children is a 1940 novel by Australian writer Christina Stead. It was not until a reissue edition in 1965, with an introduction by poet Randall Jarrell, that it found widespread critical acclaim and popularity. Time magazine included the novel in its TIME 100 Best English-language Novels from 1923 to 2005. The novel has been championed by novelists Robert Stone, Jonathan Franzen and Angela Carter. Carter believed Stead's other novels Cotters England; A Little Tea, A Little Chat; and For Love Alone to be as good, if not better than The Man Who Loved Children.

The Man Who Could Not Shudder, first published in 1940, is a detective story by John Dickson Carr featuring his series detective Gideon Fell. This novel is a mystery of the type known as a locked room mystery (or more properly a subset of the locked room mystery called an "impossible crime" story).

Mam'zelle Guillotine, by Baroness Orczy, is a sequel book to the classic adventure tale, The Scarlet Pimpernel. First published in 1940, it was the last novel Orczy wrote featuring the Pimpernel and is dedicated to those fighting in World War II.

Les Maîtres (The Masters) is the sixth volume in Georges Duhamel's Chronique des Pasquier. It tells the story of Laurent Pasquier, a research student who is working for two rival academics, professors Chalgrin and Rohner. Gradually Laurent sees that the admiration with which his masters discuss each other is a thin veil over a bitter rivalry, which one day erupts with disastrous consequences for all concerned.

The Long Winter is an autobiographical children's novel written by Laura Ingalls Wilder and published in 1940, the sixth of nine books in her Little House series. The story is set in southeastern Dakota Territory during the severe winter of 1880–1881, when Laura turned 14 years old.

The Left Leg is a novel that was published in 1940 by Phoebe Atwood Taylor writing as Alice Tilton. It is the fourth of the eight Leonidas Witherall mysteries.

Landfall: A Channel Story is a novel by Nevil Shute. It was first published in England in 1940 by Heinemann.

Kallocain is a classic 1940 dystopian novel by Swedish novelist Karin Boye which envisions a future of drab terror. Seen through the eyes of idealistic scientist Leo Kall, Kallocain's depiction of a totalitarian world state may draw on what Boye observed or sensed about the early Nazi Germany of the 1930s. An important aspect of the novel is the relationships and connections between the various characters, such as the marriage of the main character and his wife Linda Kall, and the feelings of jealousy and suspicion that may arise in a society with heavy surveillance and legal uncertainty.

Kai Lung Beneath the Mulberry Tree is a collection of fantasy stories by Ernest Bramah featuring Kai Lung, an itinerant story-teller of ancient China. It was first published in hardcover in London by The Richards Press Ltd. in February 1940, and was reprinted in 1942, 1944, 1946, and 1951. The first American edition was issued by Arno Press as a volume in its Lost Race and Adult Fantasy Fiction series in 1978.

Journey into Fear is a 1940 spy thriller novel by Eric Ambler. Film adaptations were released in 1943 and 1975.

James! How Dare You! is a 1940 Australian novel by E. V. Timms. It is a sequel to James! Don't Be a Fool.

The Iron Duke is a pulp fiction, pre-WWII adventure story written by L. Ron Hubbard. It was first published in 1940 in the pulp fiction magazine "Five-Novels Monthly".

La invención de Morel (American Spanish: ; 1940) — translated as The Invention of Morel or Morel's Invention — is a science fiction novel by Adolfo Bioy Casares. It was Bioy Casares' breakthrough effort, for which he won the 1941 First Municipal Prize for Literature of the City of Buenos Aires. He considered it the true beginning of his literary career, despite being his seventh book. The first edition cover artist was Norah Borges, sister of Bioy Casares' lifelong friend, Jorge Luis Borges.

'The Ill-Made Knight' is the third book in the epic novel The Once and Future King, by T. H. White. It was first published in 1940, but is usually found today only in collected editions of all four books of the novel.

If I Were You is a fantasy novel written by L. Ron Hubbard. It was originally published in the February, 1940 issue of Five-Novels Monthly Magazine.

The Heart is a Lonely Hunter (1940) is the début novel by the American author Carson McCullers; she was 23 at the time of publication. It is about a deaf man named John Singer who does not speak, and the people he encounters in a 1930s mill town in the US state of Georgia.

The Headless Lady (1940) is a whodunnit mystery novel written by Clayton Rawson. A character in the novel, a detective story writer named Stuart Towne, has the same name as a pen name of Rawson. This is the third of four mysteries featuring The Great Merlini, a stage magician and Rawson's favorite protagonist.

The Hamlet is a novel by the American author William Faulkner, published in 1940, about the fictional Snopes family of Mississippi.

Hamlet Had an Uncle: A Comedy of Honor is a Shakespearean satire by James Branch Cabell, published in 1940. It is the second book of his trilogy Heirs and Assigns. Cabell had incubated a Shakespeare satire for decades, and based his tale on the Saxo Grammaticus, an epic saga that recounts the story of the mythic Hamlet.

Gray Lensman is a science fiction novel by author E. E. Smith. It was first published in book form in 1951 by Fantasy Press in an edition of 5,096 copies. The novel was originally serialized in the magazine Astounding in 1939. Gray Lensman is the fourth (originally the second) book in the classic Lensman series and the second to focus on the adventures of Lensman extraordinaire Kimball Kinnison. While the novel is colored by 1930s sensibilities, it remains an exciting space opera complete with iron-nerved heroes, bizarre aliens, scheming villains, and colossal space battles.

'The Glass Mountain' is the 6th pulp magazine story to feature The Avenger. Written by Paul Ernst, it was published in the February 1, 1940 issue of 'The Avenger' magazine.

George Passant is the first published of C. P. Snow's series of novels Strangers and Brothers, but the second according to the internal chronology. It was first published under the name Strangers and Brothers.

'The Frosted Death' is the fifth pulp magazine story to feature The Avenger. Written by Paul Ernst, it was published in the January 1, 1940 issue of 'The Avenger' magazine.

For Whom the Bell Tolls is a novel by Ernest Hemingway published in 1940. It tells the story of Robert Jordan, a young American in the International Brigades attached to a republican guerrilla unit during the Spanish Civil War. As a dynamiter, he is assigned to blow up a bridge during an attack on the city of Segovia. The novel is regarded as one of Hemingway's best works, along with The Sun Also Rises, The Old Man and the Sea, and A Farewell to Arms.

'The Flame Breathers' is the 12th pulp magazine story to feature The Avenger. Written by Paul Ernst, it was published in the September 1, 1940 issue of 'The Avenger' magazine. With this issue, The Avenger magazine switched to a bi-monthly schedule.

Fear is a psychological thriller-horror novella by L. Ron Hubbard first appearing in Unknown Fantasy Fiction in July 1940. While previous editions followed the magazine text, the 1991 Bridge edition reportedly restores the author's original manuscript text. The novella is ranked 10th on Modern Library 100 Best Novels - The Reader's List.

Farewell, My Lovely is a 1940 novel by Raymond Chandler, the second novel he wrote featuring Los Angeles private eye Philip Marlowe. It was adapted for the screen three times, and also for the stage and radio.

Fanny by Gaslight is the best known novel of Michael Sadleir. Written in 1940 and filmed in 1944, it is a fictional exploration of prostitution in Victorian London. In 1981 it was turned into a four-part BBC television series Fanny by Gaslight with Chloe Salaman in the title role.

Fame is the Spur is a novel by Howard Spring published in 1940. It covers the rise of the socialist labour movement in Britain from the mid 19th century to the 1930s. The title comes from John Milton's poem Lycidas: "Fame is the spur that the clear spirit doth raise / (That last infirmity of noble mind) / To scorn delights, and live laborious days".

The Don Flows Home to the Sea (1940) is the second in the series of the great Don epic (Tikhii Don) written by Mikhail Sholokhov. It originally appeared in serialized form between 1928 and 1940. The English translation of the second half of this monumental work appeared under this title in 1940.

The Disappearing Floor is Volume 19 in the original The Hardy Boys Mystery Stories published by Grosset & Dunlap.

Death at the Bar is a 1940 novel by Ngaio Marsh which was adapted for television in 1993 as part of the Inspector Alleyn Mysteries. The episode was directed by Michael Winterbottom and starred Patrick Malahide as Chief Inspector Roderick Alleyn. The title is a pun on the legal term the bar, and the public house in which much of the story takes place. It is set in the late 1930s.

Darkness at Noon (German: Sonnenfinsternis) is a novel by Hungarian-born British novelist Arthur Koestler, first published in 1940. His best known work, it is the tale of Rubashov, an Old Bolshevik who is arrested, imprisoned, and tried for treason against the government that he had helped to create.

Cue for Treason (1940) is a children's historical novel written by Geoffrey Trease, and is his best-known work. The novel is set in Elizabethan England at the end of the 16th century. Two young runaways become boy actors, at first on the road and later in London, where they are befriended by William Shakespeare. They become aware of a plot against Queen Elizabeth's life and attempt to prevent it.

The Corinthian is a regency novel by Georgette Heyer.

Captain Jan (Dutch: Hollands Glorie) is a 1940 novel by Dutch writer Jan de Hartog. The book depicts highly skilled tugboat sailors as modern successors to the bold navigators of the Dutch Golden Age.

Call It Courage (published as The Boy Who Was Afraid in the United Kingdom) is a 1940 children's novel written and illustrated by American author Armstrong Sperry. The novel won the Newbery Medal for excellence in American children's literature in 1941.

The Bride Wore Black is a 1940 American novel written by Cornell Woolrich. In 1967, it was adapted into a film of the same name by the French director François Truffaut.

Blue Willow is a realistic children's fiction book by Doris Gates, published in 1940. Called the "juvenile Grapes of Wrath", it was named a Newbery Honor book in 1941. Written by a librarian who worked with migrant children in Fresno, California, this story of a migrant girl who longs for a permanent home was considered groundbreaking in its portrayal of contemporary working-class life in America.

'The Blood Ring' is the 7th pulp magazine story to feature The Avenger. Written by Paul Ernst, it was published in the March 1, 1940 issue of The Avenger magazine. This novel was re-published under its original title by Paperback Library on November 1, 1972.

The Big Six is the ninth book of Arthur Ransome's Swallows and Amazons series of children's books, published in 1940. The book returns Dick and Dorothea Callum, known as the Ds, to the Norfolk Broads where they renew their friendship with the members of the Coot Club. This book is more of a detective story as the Ds and Coot Club try to unravel a mystery that threatens the Death and Glories' freedom to sail the river.

Betsy-Tacy (1940) is the first volume in the Betsy-Tacy series by Maud Hart Lovelace.

Belenggoe (Perfected Spelling: Belenggu; translated to English as Shackles) is a novel by Indonesian author Armijn Pane. The novel follows the love triangle between a doctor, his wife, and his childhood friend, which eventually causes each of the three characters to lose the ones they love. Originally published by the literary magazine Poedjangga Baroe in three instalments from April to June 1940, it was the magazine's only published novel. It was also the first Indonesian psychological novel.

Bad for Business is a mystery novel by Rex Stout starring his detective Tecumseh Fox, first published in 1940. Private investigator Tecumseh Fox was the protagonist of three mysteries written by Stout between 1939 and 1941.

And So to Murder is a mystery novel by the American writer John Dickson Carr (1906–1977), who published it under the name of Carter Dickson. It is a whodunnit and features the series detective Sir Henry Merrivale and Scotland Yard Chief Inspector Humphrey Masters.

And So to Bath is a novel by Cecil Roberts first published in 1940.

All Aboard for Ararat is a 1940 allegorical novella by H. G. Wells that tells a modernized version of the story of Noah and the Flood. Wells was 74 when it was published, and it is the last of his utopian writings.

Portrait of the Artist as a Young Dog is a collection of short prose stories written by Welsh poet Dylan Thomas, first published by Dent on 4 April 1940. The first paperback copy appeared in 1948, published by the British Publishers Guild.

My Name is Aram is a book of short stories by William Saroyan first published in 1940. The stories detail the exploits of Aram Garoghlanian, a boy of Armenian descent growing up in Fresno, California, and the various members of his large family.

Jorkens Has a Large Whiskey is a collection of fantasy short stories, narrated by Mr. Joseph Jorkens, by writer Lord Dunsany. It was first published in London by Putnam in September, 1940. It was the third collection of Dunsany's Jorkens tales to be published. It has also been issued in combination with the fourth book, The Fourth Book of Jorkens, in the omnibus edition The Collected Jorkens, Volume Two, published by Night Shade Books in 2004.

Eggs, Beans and Crumpets is a collection of short stories by P. G. Wodehouse, first published in the United Kingdom on April 26, 1940 by Herbert Jenkins, London, then with a slightly different content in the United States on May 10, 1940 by Doubleday, Doran, New York.