1849 in literature

This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1849.
—Dickens, opening of ''David Copperfield''

Events

*February – J. A. Froude's semi-autobiographical, epistolary philosophical novel of religious doubt '' The Nemesis of Faith'' is published by John Chapman in London. A copy is burned by William Sewell, Dean of Exeter College, Oxford, himself a novelist.
*March–November – '' La Tribune des Peuples'', a pan-European romantic nationalist periodical, is published by Adam Mickiewicz.
*April 22 – Fyodor Dostoyevsky and fellow members of the literary Petrashevsky Circle in Russia are arrested for expressing their progressive views. Sentenced to death on November 16 and facing a firing squad on December 23, he and some others are reprieved at the last moment and exiled to the katorga prison camps in Siberia.
1st serial ed. cover
*May 1 – Charles Dickens's ''Bildungsroman'' ''David Copperfield'' begins serial publication by Bradbury and Evans in London.
* May 10 – The Astor Place Riot takes place in Manhattan over a dispute between two Shakespearean actors, the American Edwin Forrest and the Englishman William Macready. Over 20 people are killed.
*May 28 – Anne Brontë dies of tuberculosis aged 29 at Scarborough on the Yorkshire coast of England, where she is buried. Until 2013, her headstone mistakenly gives her age as 28.
*September 20 – Honoré de Balzac travels to Poland to meet Eveline Hanska, whom he will marry shortly before his death next year.
*October 3 – Death of Edgar Allan Poe: Edgar Allan Poe is found in Baltimore delirious, "in great distress, and... in need of immediate assistance". He dies on October 7 aged 40, of an uncertain cause, in Washington College Hospital.
*October–December – Thomas De Quincey's essay ''The English Mail-Coach'' appears in issues of '' Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine''.
*November – The English scholarly correspondence magazine ''Notes and Queries'' is first published.
*November 13 – The public hanging in London of Marie Manning (murderer) is attended independently by Charles Dickens and Herman Melville; Dickens writes a letter published in the following day's issue of ''The Times'' decrying the "wickedness and levity of the immense crowd".
*November 14 – A public festival is held in Denmark to mark the 70th birthday of Adam Gottlob Oehlenschläger.
*''Uncertain dates''
**The Leipzig publisher B. G. Teubner begins publishing the Bibliotheca Teubneriana series of editions of the Classics.
**'' Who's Who'' is published for the first time in the United Kingdom.
**Philip Massinger's play ''Believe as You List'' receives its first publication, 218 years after its theatrical première.

New books

Fiction

*William Harrison Ainsworth – ''The Lancashire Witches''
*Charlotte Brontë (as Currer Bell) – ''Shirley''
*François-René de Chateaubriand – '' Memoirs from Beyond the Grave''
*Charles Dickens – ''David Copperfield'' (begins serialization)
* Fyodor Dostoevsky – '' Netochka Nezvanova''
* Alexandre Dumas, père – ''The Queen's Necklace''
*Paul Féval – '' Les Belles-de-nuit ou Les Anges de la famille''
*J. A. Froude – '' The Nemesis of Faith''
* Catherine Gore – ''The Diamond and the Pearl''
* Charles Kingsley – ''Alton Locke''
*Herman Melville
**''Mardi''
**'' Redburn''
*Mayne Reid – ''The Rifle Rangers''
* G. W. M. Reynolds – ''The Bronze Statue''
*George Sand – ''La Petite Fadette'' (Little Fadette)
*Theodor Storm – '' Immensee''

Children and young people

*Charlotte Mary Yonge – ''The Railroad Children''

Drama

*Christian Friedrich Hebbel – ''Der Rubin''
*Gaspar Núñez de Arce – ''Amor y Orgullo''
*Eugène Scribe and Ernest Legouvé – ''Adrienne Lecouvreur''

Poetry

*Matthew Arnold – ''The Strayed Reveller''
*Petrus Augustus de Genestet – ''De Sint-Nicolaasavond'' (Saint Nicholas's Eve)
*Elias Lönnrot (compiler) – ''Kalevala'' (new version)
*Edgar Allan Poe – "Annabel Lee", "Eldorado", " The Bells", "A Dream Within a Dream"

Non-fiction

*John Mitchell Kemble – ''History of the Saxons in England''
* Søren Kierkegaard (as Anti-Climacus) – '' The Sickness Unto Death (Sygdommen til Døden)''
*Francis Parkman – '' The Oregon Trail''
*Thomas Phillips – ''Wales, the Language, Social Condition, Moral Character, and Religious Opinions of the People, considered in their relation to Education...''
*John Ruskin – ''The Seven Lamps of Architecture''
* William Smith – ''Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology''
* Henry David Thoreau – '' Resistance to Civil Government''
*George Ticknor – ''A History of Spanish Literature''
*Chandos Wren-Hoskyns – ''A Short Inquiry into the History of Agriculture in Mediæval and Modern Times''

Births

* January 9 – Laura Kieler (née Petersen), Norwegian novelist and dramatic inspiration (died 1932)
* January 22 – August Strindberg, Swedish dramatist (died 1912)
*February 18 – Alexander Kielland, Norwegian novelist (died 1906)
* February 27 – Václav Beneš Třebízský, Czech novelist (died 1884)
*March 10 — Mary Evelyn Hitchcock, American author and explorer (died 1920)
*April 1 — Mary K. Buck, Bohemian-born American author (died 1901)
*April 24
**Emma Whitcomb Babcock, American litterateur and author (died 1926)
** Helen Taggart Clark, American columnist, short story writer, and poet (died 1918)
*June 9 – Karl Tanera, German military writer and novelist (died 1904)
*July 22 – Emma Lazarus, American poet (died 1887)
*July 30 – Lettie S. Bigelow, American poet and author (died 1906)
*August 8 – Hume Nisbet, Scottish thriller writer, poet and artist (died 1923)
*August 9 – Amy Catherine Walton (née Deck, writing as Mrs. O. F. Walton), English writer of Christian children's books (died 1939)
*August 23 – W. E. Henley, English poet (died 1903)
*August 30 – J. M. Dent, English publisher (died 1926)
*September 3 – Sarah Orne Jewett, American writer (died 1909)
*October 7 – James Whitcomb Riley, American writer and poet (died 1916)
*October 31 – Marie Louise Andrews, American writer and editor (died 1891)
*December 16– Mary Hartwell Catherwood, American author and poet (died 1902)
*November 24 – Frances Hodgson Burnett, English children's writer and playwright (died 1924)
*''date unknown''
:* Harriet Abbott Lincoln Coolidge, American philanthropist, author and reformer (died 1902)
:* Elisabeth Cavazza, American author, journalist, and music critic (died 1926)

Deaths

* January 6 – Hartley Coleridge, English poet and critic (alcohol-related, born 1796)
*February 8 – France Prešeren, Slovenian poet (liver disease, born 1800)
* February 19 – Bernard Barton, English Quaker poet (born 1784)
*May 22 – Maria Edgeworth, Anglo-Irish novelist (born 1768)
*May 28 – Anne Brontë, English novelist and poet (tuberculosis, born 1820)
*June 4 – Marguerite Gardiner, Countess of Blessington, Irish novelist and literary hostess (born 1789)
*July 7 – Goffredo Mameli, Italian poet (infection from bayonet wound, born 1827)
*July 12 – Horace (Horatio) Smith, English poet and novelist (born 1799)
*July 25 – James Kenney, English dramatist (born 1780)
*July 27 – Charlotte von Ahlefeld, German novelist (born 1781)
* July 31 – Sándor Petőfi, Hungarian poet and revolutionary (probably killed in Battle of Segesvár, born 1823)
*August 25 – Adele Schopenhauer, German novelist and paper-cut artist (born 1797)
*October 7 – Edgar Allan Poe, American poet, short story writer and critic (born 1809)

References

{{Year in literature article categories

Years of the 19th century in literature