This article presents lists of the literary events and publications in 1820.
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.
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
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)
William Thomas Moncrieff – The Lear of Private Life
Percy Bysshe Shelley – Prometheus Unbound
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
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
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)
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)
1820 in literature Wikipedia (Text) CC BY-SA