1877 In Literature

This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1877.

Events

*January 24 – Émile Zola's ''L'Assommoir'' (sometimes translated as "The Dram Shop"), seventh in his novel sequence ''Les Rougon-Macquart'', is first published in book format a few weeks after its serialisation ends in ''Le Bien public'' (Paris). It sells more than 50,000 copies by the end of the year.
*February 24–March 17 – Robert Louis Stevenson's first published work of fiction, the novella "An Old Song", appears anonymously in four episodes in the magazine ''London''. It was first attributed to Stevenson in 1980.
*July – The ending of Leo Tolstoy's ''Anna Karenina'' is published in '' Russkiy vestnik''.
*July 15 – " Coppino Law" in Italy makes elementary schools mandatory, free and secular.
*October – Robert Louis Stevenson publishes the short story "A Lodging for the Night" (in '' Temple Bar'' magazine), later collected in ''New Arabian Nights''.
* October 15 – Edward L. Wheeler's first story featuring Deadwood Dick, set on the American frontier, opens the first number of ''Beadle's Half-Dime Library'', published in New York.
*November 5 – The Mitchell Library is established in Glasgow.
*November 14 – Henrik Ibsen's first contemporary realist drama ''The Pillars of Society'' is premièred at the Odense Teater (having been first published on October 11 in Copenhagen).
*November 24 – Anna Sewell's novel ''Black Beauty, his grooms and companions: the autobiography of a horse'' "translated from the equine" is published by Jarrolds of Norwich in England. Her only book, published five months before her death arising from long-standing illness, it rapidly establishes its position as an all-time bestseller, going on to sell fifty million copies and becoming the sixth best seller in the English language.
*December 30 – Swedish dramatist August Strindberg marries his mistress, the divorced actress Siri von Essen, a member of the Finnish-Swedish minor nobility.

New books

Fiction

* R. M. Ballantyne – ''The Settler and the Savage''
* R. D. Blackmore – '' Erema; or, my father's sin''
*Ned Buntline – ''Buffalo Bill Trails the Devil Head''
* Bankim Chatterjee
**''Chandrasekhar''
**''Rajani''
* Ion Creangă – ''Harap Alb''
*Fyodor Dostoevsky – "The Dream of a Ridiculous Man" (Сон смешного человека, short story)
*Maria Fetherstonhaugh – ''Kilcorran''
*Gustave Flaubert – '' Three Tales''
*Henry James – '' The American''
*Jan Neruda – '' Povídky malostranské'' (Tales of the Little Quarter)
*Margaret Oliphant – ''Carità''
*William Clark Russell – ''The Wreck of the Grosvenor''
*Theodor Storm – ''Aquis Submersus''
*Anthony Trollope
**'' The American Senator''
**''Is He Popenjoy?''
*Jacint Verdaguer – ''L'Atlàntida''
*Jules Verne
**''Hector Servadac''
**'' Les Indes noires''
*Émile Zola – ''L'Assommoir''

Children and young people

*Louisa May Alcott – '' Under the Lilacs''
*Mary Louisa Molesworth (Mrs. Molesworth) – '' The Cuckoo Clock''
*Anna Sewell – ''Black Beauty''
* Amy Catherine Walton (Mrs. O. F. Walton) – '' A Peep Behind the Scenes''

Drama

*James Albery – '' The Pink Dominos''
*José Echegaray – ''Saint or Madman? (O locura o santidad)''
*W. S. Gilbert – ''Engaged''
*Henrik Ibsen – ''The Pillars of Society (Samfundets støtter)''
*Adolphe L'Arronge – '' Hasemann's Daughters''

Poetry

*Edward Lear – ''Laughable Lyrics'' (published December 1876, dated 1877)
*Stéphane Mallarmé – '' Poésies''

Non-fiction

*Henry Spencer Ashbee (as Pisanus Fraxi) – ''Index Librorum Prohibitorum: being Notes Bio- Biblio- Icono- graphical and Critical on Curious and Uncommon Books''
*Helena Blavatsky – ''Isis Unveiled''
* Florence Caddy – ''Household Organisation''
*Amelia Edwards – ''A Thousand Miles up the Nile''
*Henry Miers Elliot (ed. by John Dowson) – ''The History of India, as Told by Its Own Historians''
*Kenneth Mackenzie – ''Royal Masonic Cyclopedia''
*Lewis H. Morgan – ''Ancient Society''
*Shen Fu (沈復) – '' Six Records of a Floating Life'' (autobiography; first printed edition)

Births

*January 4 – Sextil Pușcariu, Romanian linguist, philologist and journalist (died 1948)
*February 7 – Alfred Williams, English "hammerman poet" (died 1930)
*March 6 – Rose Fyleman, English writer and poet (died 1957)
*April 14 – Donald Maxwell, English travel writer and illustrator (died 1936)
*April 29 – Henri Stahl, Romanian historian, short story writer, memoirist and stenographer (died 1942)
*June 11 – Renée Vivien, born Pauline Mary Tarn, English-born French-language Symbolist poet (died 1909)
*July 2 – Hermann Hesse, German-Swiss poet, novelist and painter (died 1962)
*August 27 – Lloyd C. Douglas, American novelist and pastor (died 1951)
*September 1 – Rex Beach, American novelist and playwright (died 1949)
*September 9 – James Agate, English diarist and critic (died 1947)
*November 15 – William Hope Hodgson, English fiction writer (killed in action 1918)

Deaths

*January 29 – Caroline Howard Jervey, American author, poet, and teacher (born 1823)
*February 18 – Henrietta A. Bingham, American writer and editor (born 1841)
*April – Ernst Moritz Ludwig Ettmüller, German philologist (born 1802)
*June 15 – Caroline Norton (née Caroline Sheridan), English poet, pamphleteer and social reformer (born 1808)
*June 17 – John Stevens Cabot Abbott, American historian and pastor (born 1805)
*August 30 – Toru Dutt, multilingual Indian Bengali poet, novelist and translator, of pulmonary tuberculosis (born 1856)
*September 12 – Emily Pepys, English child diarist (born 1833)
*October 10 – Johann Georg Baiter, Swiss philologist and critic (born 1801)
*October 16 – Théodore Barrière, French dramatist (born 1823)
*October 28 – Julia Kavanagh, Irish novelist (born 1824)
*December 12 – José de Alencar, Brazilian novelist (born 1829)

References

{{Year in literature article categories

Years of the 19th century in literature