The Tale of Peter Rabbit is published commercially, a year after being first printed by Beatrix Potter at her own expense

Conan Doyle's The Hound of the Baskervilles begins publication in serial form

Henry James publishes the first of his three last novels, The Wings of the Dove

Joseph Conrad publishes a collection of stories including Heart of Darkness, a sinister tale based partly on his own journey up the Congo

US author Jack London publishes a novel, The Call of the Wild, in which a huge pet dog has alarming adventures

Erskine Childers has a best-seller in The Riddle of the Sands, a thriller about a planned German invasion of Britain

Henry James publishes The Ambassadors, the second of his three last novels written in rapid succession

The Pit, the second volume of an uncompleted trilogy by US novelist Frank Norris, is published posthumously

Joseph Conrad publishes his novel Nostromo, about a revolution in South America and a fatal horde of silver

Henry James publishes his last completed novel, The Golden Bowl

Under the pseudonym Saki, H.H. Munro publishes Reginald, his first volume of short stories

Edith Wharton publishes the novel that brings her fame and fortune, The House of Mirth

H.G. Wells publishes Kipps: the story of a simple soul, a comic novel about a bumbling draper's assistant

Thomas Dixon's popular novel The Clansman presents the Ku Klux Klan in heroic terms

Sir Percy Blakeney rescues aristocrats from the guillotine in Baroness Orczy's The Scarlet Pimpernel

Upton Sinclair publishes The Jungle, a hard-hitting novel about the Chicago meat-packing industry

E. Nesbit publishes The Railway Children, the most successful of her books featuring the Bastable family

John Galsworthy publishes The Man of Property, the first of his novels chronicling the family of Soames Forsyte

Russian author Maxim Gorky completes his novel Mat ("The Mother"), written mainly during a visit to the USA

Edmund Gosse publishes Father and Son, an account of his difficult relationship with his fundamentalist father, Philip Gosse

James Joyce completes the eight short stories eventually published in 1914 as Dubliners

Jack London's novel Iron Heel foresees a future repressive capitalist regime in the USA

Rat, Mole and Toad, in Kenneth Grahame's The Wind in the Willows, appeal to a wide readership

Anatole France casts a satirical eye on human society in his novel L'Île des pingouins ("Penguin Island")

Lucy Maud Montgomery's first novel, Anne of Green Gables, brings her instant fame and fortune