Rahul Sharma (Editor)

1820 in literature

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This article presents lists of the literary events and publications in 1820.

Contents

Events

  • January 16 – Poems Descriptive of Rural Life and Scenery by "Northamptonshire peasant poet" John Clare is published in England by John Taylor.
  • April 22 – Walter Scott is created 1st baronet of Abbotsford in the County of Roxburgh in the Baronetage of the United Kingdom.
  • September – Poet John Keats, suffering from tuberculosis, leaves London to take up residence in the house on the Spanish Steps in Rome where he will die in 1821.
  • November 20 – An 80-ton sperm whale attacks the Essex, a whaleship from Nantucket, Massachusetts, 2,000 miles off the western coast of South America. Herman Melville's 1851 novel Moby-Dick is in part inspired by this story.
  • Robert Chambers's publishing company publishes The Songs of Robert Burns.
  • Thomas Kendall has the first book printed in the Māori language, A korao no New Zealand; or, the New Zealander's first book; being an attempt to compose some lessons for the instruction of the natives, published in Sydney, Australia.
  • First translation of the Old English epic poem Beowulf into a modern language, Danish, Bjovulfs Drape, made by N. F. S. Grundtvig.
  • The Cambridge Apostles, an intellectual discussion group, is established at the University of Cambridge in England.

    • Fiction

  • James Fenimore Cooper – Precaution
  • Thomas Gaspey – Forty Years Ago
  • Robert Huish – Castle of Nielo
  • Francis Lathom – Italian Mysteries
  • Charles Maturin (anonymously) – Melmoth the Wanderer
  • Regina Marie Roche – The Munster Cottage Boy
  • Sir Walter Scott
  • The Abbot
  • The Monastery
  • Louisa Stanhope – The Crusaders
  • Rosalia St. Clair – The Highland Castle, and the Lowland Cottage

    • Children

  • Maria Hack
  • English Stories, illustrating some of the most interesting events and characters between the Accession of Alfred and the Death of John
  • English Stories. Second series, between the Accession of Henry the Third and the Death of Henry the Sixth
  • Mary Shelley – Maurice, or the Fisher's Cot (written 1820, then lost, published 1997)

    • Drama

  • William Thomas Moncrieff – The Lear of Private Life
  • Percy Bysshe Shelley – Prometheus Unbound

    • Poetry

  • Robert Burns (died 1796) – The Songs of Robert Burns
  • John Clare – Poems Descriptive of Rural Life and Scenery
  • John Keats – The Eve of St. Agnes; Lamia and Other Poems
  • Alphonse de Lamartine – Méditations poétiques
  • Adam Mickiewicz – Ode to Youth (Oda do młodości)
  • Nguyễn Du – The Tale of Kieu (斷腸新聲)
  • Aleksandr Pushkin – Ruslan and Ludmila (Руслан и Людмила)
  • Percy Bysshe Shelley – To a Skylark

    • Non-fiction

  • Thomas Brown – Lectures on the Philosophy of the Human Mind
  • Howard Douglas – A Treatise on Naval Gunnery
  • Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel – Elements of the Philosophy of Right
  • John George Hoffman – Pow-Wows; or, Long Lost Friend
  • Charles Lamb – Essays of Elia
  • Thomas Malthus – Principles of Political Economy
  • Charles Mills – History of the Crusades for the Recovery and Possession of the Holy Land
  • Robert Southey – Life of Wesley

    • Births

  • January 17 – Anne Brontë, English novelist and poet (died 1849)
  • February 28 – John Tenniel, English illustrator and cartoonist (died 1914)
  • March 2 – Multatuli (Eduard Douwes Dekker), Dutch writer (died 1887)
  • March 17 – Jean Ingelow, English poet and novelist (died 1897)
  • March 30 – Anna Sewell, English novelist (died 1878)
  • April 26 – Alice Cary, American poet and short-story writer (died 1871)
  • June 21 – James Halliwell-Phillipps, English bibliophile (died 1889)
  • August 13 – Sir George Grove, English writer and lexicographer on music (died 1900)
  • September 17 – Émile Augier, French dramatist (died 1889)
  • October 14 – John Harris, English poet (died 1884)
  • November 23 – Afanasy Fet, Russian poet, essayist and short-story writer (died 1892)
  • November 28 – Friedrich Engels, German socialist writer (died 1895)

    • Deaths

  • February 5 – William Drennan, Irish poet, radical and educationalist (born 1754)
  • March 20 – Eaton Stannard Barrett, Irish satirical poet and novelist (born 1786)
  • May 1 – Richmal Mangnall, English schoolbook writer (born 1769)
  • July 16 – William Hazlitt Sr., Irish writer, radical and Unitarian minister (born 1737)
  • November 12 – William Hayley, English poet and biographer (born 1745)
  • Unknown date – Nguyễn Du, Vietnamese poet (born 1766)

    • References

    1820 in literature Wikipedia
    (Text) CC BY-SA