1880 In Literature

This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1880.

Events

*April – Publication in France of ''Les Soirées de Médan'', a collection of six Naturalist short stories set during the Franco-Prussian War by six authors who frequent Émile Zola's home, including Guy de Maupassant's first, '' Boule de Suif'', which launches his career.
*April 20 ( O. S.: April 8) – At the Romanian Academy, Titu Maiorescu announces a reformed Romanian alphabet, adopted by a commission also comprising George Bariț and Bogdan Petriceicu Hasdeu. The rationalized spelling reflects ideas endorsed by Maiorescu since the 1860s, replacing the deep orthography favored by "Latinists".
*May – In the United States, the publishing business of Henry Oscar Houghton and George H. Mifflin is reconstructed as Houghton, Mifflin and Company.
* June 6 – Statue of Alexander Pushkin (d. 1837), sculpted by Alexander Opekushin, is unveiled in Strastnaya Square, Moscow.
*October – Henry James's novel '' The Portrait of a Lady'' begins serial publication in ''Macmillan's Magazine'' (U.K.) and ''The Atlantic Monthly'' (U.S.)
*December 15 – First performance of a play by Henrik Ibsen in English, ''The Pillars of Society'' (under the title ''Quicksands'') at the Gaiety Theatre, London.

New books

Fiction

*Henry Adams (anonymously) – '' Democracy: An American Novel''
* Rhoda Broughton – ''Second Thoughts''
*Wilkie Collins – ''Jezebel's Daughter''
*Benjamin Disraeli, 1st Earl of Beaconsfield – '' Endymion''
* Fyodor Dostoevsky – ''The Brothers Karamazov (Братья Карамазовы, Brat'ya Karamazovy)''
*Amelia Edwards – ''Lord Brackenbury''
* Evelyn Everett-Green – ''Tom Tempest's Victory''
*Theodor Fontane
**''Grete Minde''
**''Wanderungen durch die Mark Brandenburg''
*George Gissing – ''Workers in the Dawn''
*Walter T. Gray ( Metta Victoria Fuller Victor) – ''A Bad Boy's Diary''
*Percy Greg – ''Across the Zodiac''
* Anna Katharine Green – ''A Strange Disappearance''
* Thomas Hardy – ''The Trumpet-Major''
* Henry Kendall – ''Songs from the Mountains''
*Alexander Kielland – ''Garman og Worse''
*Pierre Loti – ''Le Mariage de Loti'' (as ''Rarahu'')
*Ouida – ''Moths''
* Louisa Parr – ''Adam and Eve''
*Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin – ''The Golovlyov Family (Господа Головлёвы, Gospoda Golovlyovy)''
* Anthony Trollope – ''Ayala's Angel''
* Mark Twain – ''A Tramp Abroad''
*Giovanni Verga – ''Vita dei campi'' (The Life of the Fields, short stories, including "Cavalleria rusticana" – "Rustic chivalry")
*Lew Wallace – '' Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ''
*Émile Zola – ''Nana''

Children and young people

*Carlo Collodi – ''The Adventures of Pinocchio (Le avventure di Pinocchio)''
* Evelyn Everett-Green – ''Tom Tempest's Victory''
*Johanna Spyri – ''Heidi''
* Jules Verne – '' The Steam House (La Maison à vapeur)''

Drama

* Oscar Wilde – ''Vera; or, The Nihilists'' (privately printed)
*Adolphe L'Arronge – '' The Lonei Household''

Poetry

* Anne Evans (died 1870) – ''Poems and Music'' (with a memorial preface by Anne Isabella Thackeray)

Non-fiction

*Henry Charlton Bastian – ''The Brain as an Organ of Mind''
*James Legge – ''The Religions of China''
* Algernon Charles Swinburne – ''A Study of Shakespeare''
*Charles Warren – ''The Temple or the Tomb. Giving further evidence in favour of the authenticity of the present site of the Holy Sepulchre''

Births

*February 21 – Waldemar Bonsels, German writer (died 1952)
* February 27 – Angelina Weld Grimké, African-American playwright and poet (died 1958)
*March 1 – Lytton Strachey, English critic and biographer (died 1932)
*March 4 – Channing Pollock, American playwright and critic (died 1946)
*March 13 – Frank Thiess, German writer (died 1977)
*March 21 – E. H. Young, English novelist (died 1949)
*March 30 – Seán O'Casey, Irish dramatist (died 1964)
*June 10 – Margit Kaffka, Hungarian novelist, short story writer and poet (died 1918)
*June 17 – Carl Van Vechten, American writer (died 1964)
*June 27 – Helen Keller, American writer and lecturer (died 1968)
*July 4 – Anne Beffort, Luxembourg literary writer and biographer (died 1966)
*July 10 – Greye La Spina, American writer (died 1969)
*August 5 – Ruth Sawyer, American children's writer and novelist (died 1970)
*August 15 – Anna Rüling, German journalist, the first known lesbian activist (died 1953)
*August 26 – Guillaume Apollinaire, French poet and dramatist (died 1918)
*September 12 – H. L. Mencken, American journalist and English language scholar (died 1956)
*October 4 – Damon Runyon, American journalist and short-story writer (died 1946)
*October 18 – Ze'ev Jabotinsky, Russian-born Zionist leader, novelist and poet (died 1940)
*November 1 – Grantland Rice, American sports writer (died 1954)
*November 6 – Robert Musil, Austrian novelist (died 1942)
*November 25 – Elsie J. Oxenham (Elsie Jeanette Dunkerley), English story writer for girls (died 1960)
*November 29 – N. D. Cocea, Romanian novelist, critic and journalist (died 1949)
*December 24 – Johnny Gruelle, American cartoonist and children's author (died 1938)

Deaths

* Janruary 12 – Ida, Countess von Hahn-Hahn, German author (born 1805)
*February 12 – Karl Eduard von Holtei, German poet and dramatist (born 1798)
* February 17 – James Lenox, American bibliophile (born 1800)
*April 9 – Louis Edmond Duranty, French novelist and critic (born 1833)
*April 16 – Edward Vaughan Hyde Kenealy, Irish writer and barrister (born 1819)
*April 18 – Costache Aristia, Wallachian translator, poet, dramatist and actor (born 1800)
*May 2 – Eunice Hale Cobb, American writer, public speaker, and activist (born 1803)
*May 5 – Andrei Mocioni, Hungarian-Romanian journalist and literary patron (born 1812)
*May 6 – Ivan Surikov, Russian poet (born 1841)
* May 8 – Gustave Flaubert, French novelist (born 1821)
* May 30 – James Planché, English dramatist (born 1796)
*June 7 – Karl Christian Planck, German philosopher (born 1819)
*July 7 – Lydia Maria Child, American writer and abolitionist (born 1802)
*July 12 – Tom Taylor, English dramatist and journalist (born 1817)
* September 23 – Geraldine Jewsbury, English novelist and woman of letters (born 1812)
*December 22 – George Eliot (Mary Anne Cross), English novelist (born 1819)

Awards

*Commander, First Class of the Order of St. Olav – Andreas Munch
* Newdigate Prize – Rennell Rodd, "Raleigh"

References

{{Year in literature article categories

Years of the 19th century in literature