25 1931 American novels

American Beauty is a 1931 novel by American author Edna Ferber first published by Doubleday Doran. Set in the Housatonic region of Connecticut, the story, spanning the years 1700 to 1930, relates the steady decline of the Oakes family and their property, as well as their tense relations with Polish immigrants.

Black No More: Being an Account of the Strange and Wonderful Workings of Science in the Land of the Free, AD 1933-1940 is a 1931 Harlem Renaissance satire on American race relations by George S. Schuyler. He targets both the Ku Klux Klan and NAACP in condemning the ways in which race functions as both an obsession and a commodity in early twentieth-century America. The central premise of the novel is that an African American scientist invents a process that can transform blacks into whites. Those who have internalized white racism, those who are tired of inferior opportunities socially and economically, and those who simply want to expand their sexual horizons, line up to be transformed. As the country "whitens", the economic importance of racial segregation in the South as a means of maintaining elite white economic and social status becomes increasingly apparent.

Calico Bush is a children's historical novel by Newbery-award-winning author Rachel Field. Considered by some to be her best novel, it was first published in 1931 and received a Newbery Honor award.

The Cape Cod Mystery, first published in 1931, is a detective story by Phoebe Atwood Taylor, the first to feature her series detective Asey Mayo, the "Codfish Sherlock". This novel is a mystery of the type known as a whodunnit.

Castle Skull, first published in 1931, is a detective story by John Dickson Carr which features Carr's first series detective, Henri Bencolin. This novel is a mystery of the type known as a whodunnit.

The Dream Life of Balso Snell is a 1931 novel by American author Nathanael West. West's first novel, it presents a young man's immature and cynical search for meaning in a series of dreamlike encounters inside the entrails of the Trojan Horse.

The Dutch Shoe Mystery is a novel which was written in 1931 by Ellery Queen. It is the third of the Ellery Queen mysteries.

The Face in the Abyss is a fantasy novel by American writer A. Merritt. It is composed of a novelette with the same title and its sequel, "The Snake Mother". It was first published in its complete form in 1931 by Horace Liveright. The novelette "The Face in the Abyss" originally appeared in the magazine Argosy All-Story Weekly in the September 8, 1923 issue. "The Snake Mother" was originally serialized in seven parts in Argosy beginning with the October 25, 1930 issue.

A Fighting Man of Mars is a science fantasy novel by American writer Edgar Rice Burroughs, the seventh of his Barsoom series. Burroughs began writing it on February 28, 1929, and the finished story was first published in The Blue Book Magazine as a six-part serial in the issues for April to September 1930. It was later published as a complete novel by Metropolitan in May 1931.

The Glass Key is a novel by American writer Dashiell Hammett. It was first published as a serial in Black Mask magazine in 1930, then was collected in 1931. It tells the story of a gambler and racketeer, Ned Beaumont, whose devotion to Paul Madvig, a crooked political boss, leads him to investigate the murder of a local senator's son as a potential gang war brews. Hammett dedicated the novel to his onetime lover Nell Martin.

The Good Earth is a novel by Pearl S. Buck published in 1931 that dramatizes family life in a Chinese village in the early 20th century. It is the first book in her House of Earth trilogy, continued in Sons (1932) and A House Divided (1935). It was the best-selling novel in the United States in both 1931 and 1932, won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1932, and was influential in Buck's winning the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1938. Buck, who grew up in China as the daughter of missionaries, wrote the book while living in China and drew on her first-hand observation of Chinese village life. The realistic and sympathetic depiction of the farmer Wang Lung and his wife O-Lan helped prepare Americans of the 1930s to consider Chinese as allies in the coming war with Japan.

John Henry is a 1931 novel by Roark Bradford and illustrated by woodcut artist J. J. Lankes, based on the African-American folk hero of the same name. It was made into a Broadway play and later a musical featuring Paul Robeson in the title role and Ruby Elzy as Julie Anne.

Murder Madness is a science fiction novel by American writer Murray Leinster. It was first published in book form in 1931 by Brewer and Warren. It was Leinster's first book. The novel was originally serialized in four parts in the magazine Astounding SF beginning in May 1930.

The Mystery At Lilac Inn is the fourth volume in the Nancy Drew Mystery Stories series. It was first published in 1930 under the pseudonym Carolyn Keene. Mildred Wirt Benson was the ghostwriter for the 1930 edition.

Pirates in Oz (1931) is the twenty-fifth in the series of Oz books created by L. Frank Baum and his successors, and the eleventh written by Ruth Plumly Thompson. It was illustrated by John R. Neill.

Sanctuary is a novel by the American author William Faulkner about the rape and abduction of a well-bred Mississippi college girl, Temple Drake, during the Prohibition era. It is considered one of his more controversial works, given its theme of rape. First published in 1931, it was Faulkner's commercial and critical breakthrough, establishing his literary reputation. It is said Faulkner claimed it was a "potboiler", written purely for profit, but this has been debated by scholars and Faulkner's own friends.

The Secret at Shadow Ranch is the fifth volume in the Nancy Drew Mystery Stories series. It was first published in 1931 under the pseudonym Carolyn Keene, and was ghostwritten by Mildred Wirt Benson. This book, as of 2001, ranks 50 on the list of All-Time Bestselling Children's Books, according to Publishers Weekly, with 2,347,750 sales since 1931.

The Secret of Red Gate Farm is the sixth volume in the Nancy Drew Mystery Stories series, written under the pseudonym Carolyn Keene, It was first published in 1931.

Shadows on the Rock is a novel by the American writer Willa Cather, published in 1931. The novel covers one year of the lives of Cecile Auclair and her father Euclide, French colonists in Quebec. Like many of Cather's books, the story is driven by detailed portraits of the characters, rather than a narrative plot.

Spacehounds of IPC is a science fiction novel by American writer E. E. Smith. It was first published in book form in 1947 by Fantasy Press in an edition of 2,008 copies. It was the first book published by Fantasy Press. The novel was originally serialized in the August, September and October issues of the magazine Amazing Stories in 1931. Smith became disenchanted when he saw that editor T. O'Conor Sloane had made some unauthorized changes in the story, most likely to give each of the three parts it had been split into equal length.

Strange Brother is a gay novel written by Blair Niles published in 1931. The story is about a platonic relationship between a heterosexual woman and a gay man and takes place in New York City in the late 1920s and early 1930s.

Tarzan the Invincible is a novel by American writer Edgar Rice Burroughs, the fourteenth in his series of twenty-four books about the title character Tarzan. The novel was originally serialized in the magazine Blue Book from October, 1930 through April, 1931 as Tarzan, Guard of the Jungle.

The Time Stream is a science fiction novel by American writer John Taine. The novel was originally serialized in four parts in the magazine Wonder Stories beginning in December 1931. It was first published in book form in 1946 by The Buffalo Book Company in an edition of 2,000 copies of which only 500 were ever bound. It is the first novel to see time as a flowing stream.

Waterless Mountain is a novel by Laura Adams Armer that was awarded the Newbery Medal for excellence in American children's literature in 1932.

What Happened at Midnight is Volume 10 in the original The Hardy Boys Mystery Stories published by Grosset & Dunlap.