A Question of Upbringing begins Antony Powell's 'A Dance to the Music of Time'

US novelist Carson McCullers publishes a collection of stories, The Ballad of the Sad Café

US author Ralph Ellison publishes his first novel, Invisible Man, a Kafkaesque account of a black immigrant's life in New York

Ernest Hemingway publishes The Old Man and the Sea, about an epic struggle between an aged Cuban fisherman and a gigantic marlin

Evelyn Waugh publishes Men at Arms, the first novel in the Sword of Honour trilogy based on his wartime experiences

In his novel East of Eden John Steinbeck develops the biblical theme of Cain and Abel in a family saga set in California

Saul Bellow publishes The Adventures of Augie March, a novel about the experiences of a young Chicago Jew

English author L.P. Hartley sets his novel The Go-Between in the summer of 1900

James Bond, agent 007, has a licence to kill in Ian Fleming's first novel, Casino Royale

South African author Nadine Gordimer publishes her first novel, The Lying Days

Anglo-Irish novelist Iris Murdoch publishes her first novel, Under the Net

19-year-old Françoise Sagan has a major international success with her first novel, Bonjour Tristesse

English author Kingsley Amis's first novel, Lucky Jim, strikes an anti-establishment chord

William Golding gives a chilling account of schoolboy savagery in his first novel, Lord of the Flies

Graham Greene's novel The Quiet American is set in contemporary Vietnam and foresees troubles ahead

Thomas Mann publishes a longer but still incomplete version of his novel Confessions of Felix Krull, Confidence Man

British philologist J.R.R. Tolkien publishes the third and final volume of his epic fantasy The Lord of the Rings

Sicilian author Giuseppe de Lampedusa completes his novel The Leopard, but does not live to see it published

Japanese novelist Yukio Mishima publishes The Temple of the Golden Pavilion

US novelist John Cheever publishes The Wapshot Chronicle, depicting a wealthy and eccentric family in Massachusetts

Jack Kerouac publishes a largely autobiographical novel, On the Road, describing his experiences travelling through the US and Mexico

In Voss Australian author Patrick White creates an epic novel about a disastrous attempt to cross the continent

The publication of the novel Justine launches Lawrence Durrell's Alexandria Quartet

English author John Braine publishes his first novel, Room at the Top

Boris Pasternak's only novel, Doctor Zhivago, is first published in an Italian translation