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

Augustus John meets his favourite subject Dorothy McNeill, to whom he gives the Gypsy name Dorelia

John Masefield's poem 'Sea Fever' is published in Salt-Water Ballads

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

W.B. Yeats heads a group of writers and directors in establishing the Irish National Theatre Society

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

Emmeline Pankhurst founds the Women's Social and Political Union to fight for women's political rights in the UK

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

Ernest Rutherford and Frederick Soddy identify the phenomenon of radioactive half-life

British philosopher G.E. Moore publishes Principia Ethica, an attempt to apply logic to ethics

Charles Rennie Mackintosh completes the Willow Tea Rooms in Glasgow for Miss Cranston

Work begins on England's first garden city, at Letchworth, based on the theories of Ebenezer Howard

Charles Rolls and Henry Royce meet in a historic encounter in Manchester and launch their first car, the Rolls-Royde 10 hp, later in this same year.

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

France and Britain sign an Entente Cordiale, resolving several colonial disputes and laying the foundation for a new alliance

Henry James publishes his last completed novel, The Golden Bowl

The publisher Walter Blackie moves into Hill House at Helensburgh, designed for him by Charles Rennie Mackintosh

J.M Barrie's play for children Peter Pan, or the Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up has its premiere in London

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

Dublin's Abbey Theatre opens as a new home for the Irish National Theatre Society

The American sculptor Jacob Epstein moves from New York to settle in London

The Bloomsbury Group gathers for informal evenings at the family home of Virginia and Vanessa Stephens (later Virginia Woolf and Vanessa Bell)

Oscar Wilde's De Profundis, a letter of recrimination written in Reading Gaol to Lord Alfred Douglas, is published posthumously