Rahul Sharma (Editor)

1851 in literature

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This article presents lists of the literary events and publications in 1851.

Contents

Events

  • January 1 – The Georgian theatre company gives its first performance, under the direction of Giorgi Eristavi.
  • June 5 – Harriet Beecher Stow's's novel Uncle Tom's Cabin begins serialization in the American abolitionist weekly The National Era.
  • June – While waiting to cross the English Channel on honeymoon, Matthew Arnold probably begins to compose the poem "Dover Beach".
  • September 29 – Marian Evans, the future George Eliot, takes up her appointment as (assistant) editor of the Westminster Review, published by John Chapman, in which capacity she will meet G. H. Lewes.
  • November 14 – Herman Melville's novel Moby-Dick; or, The Whale is published in full, in a single volume, for the first time, by Harper & Brothers in New York, having been previously issued on October 18 as The Whale in an abridged 3-volume edition by Richard Bentley in London.
  • December 2 – French coup d'état of 1851. Victor Hugo is a leader of the unsuccessful insurrection against it and is forced into exile, initially to Brussels.
  • December 24 – A fire at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., destroys 35,000 books, about two–thirds of the collection.
  • Albertus Willem Sijthoff establishes his own publishing business at Leiden.

    • Fiction

  • Jules Barbey d'Aurevilly – Une vieille maîtresse (An Old Mistress)
  • George Borrow – Lavengro
  • Mathilde Fibiger – Clara Raphael, Tolv Breve (Clara Raphael, Twelve Letters)
  • Elizabeth Gaskell – Cranford (serialization begins)
  • Nathaniel Hawthorne – The House of the Seven Gables
  • Gottfried Keller – Der Grüne Heinrich
  • Sheridan Le Fanu
  • Ghost Stories and Tales of Mystery
  • The Watcher
  • Herman Melville – Moby-Dick
  • John Ruskin – The King of the Golden River

    • Children and young people

  • W. H. G. Kingston – Peter the Whaler

    • Drama

  • Edward Bulwer-Lytton – Not So Bad as We Seem, or, Many Sides to a Character: A Comedy in Five Acts
  • Ferdinand Dugué – Salvator Rosa
  • Franz Grillparzer – The Jewess of Toledo (Die Jüdin von Toledo, written)
  • Eugène Marin Labiche with Marc Michel – Un Chapeau de paille d'Italie (An Italian Straw Hat)
  • Eugène Scribe – Bataille de Dames

    • Poetry

  • Matthew Arnold – "Dover Beach" (probably completed; not published until 1867)
  • Heinrich Heine – Romanzero
  • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow – The Golden Legend

    • Non-fiction

  • Hans Christian Andersen – In Sweden
  • Edward Creasy – The Fifteen Decisive Battles of the World
  • Catherine Dickens (as Lady Maria Clutterbuck) – What Shall We Have for Dinner?
  • Søren Kierkegaard
  • For Self-Examination
  • On my Work as an Author
  • Henry Mayhew – London Labour and the London Poor (collected in book form)
  • Francisco de Paula Mellado – Enciclopedia moderna
  • John Ruskin – The Stones of Venice, vol 1

    • Births

  • February 21 – Ernst von Hesse-Wartegg, Austrian writer and traveler (died 1918)
  • June 11 – Mary Augusta Ward (Mrs. Humphry Ward), Tasmanian-born English novelist (died 1920)
  • June 29 – Jane Dieulafoy, French archeologist, novelist and journalist (died 1916)
  • August 23 – Alois Jirásek, Czech novelist and playwright (died 1930)
  • September 14 – H. E. Beunke, Dutch writer (died 1925)
  • September 16 – Emilia Pardo Bazán, Galician Spanish novelist (died 1921)
  • December 10 – Melvil Dewey, born Melville Dewey, American librarian (died 1931)

    • Deaths

  • February 1 – Mary Shelley, English novelist and essayist (born 1797)
  • February 23 – Joanna Baillie, Scottish poet and dramatist (born 1762)
  • May 23 – Richard Lalor Sheil, Irish dramatist and journalist (born 1791)
  • July 17 – Esther Copley, English children's writer and tractarian (born 1786)
  • August 1 – Harriet Lee, English novelist (born 1757)
  • August 10 – Heinrich Paulus, German theologian (born 1761)
  • September 14 – James Fenimore Cooper, American historical novelist (born 1789)
  • December 19 – Henry Luttrell, politician and society poet (born c. 1765)
  • Unknown date – Vanchinbalyn Gularans, Mongolian poet (unknown year of birth)

    • References

    1851 in literature Wikipedia
    (Text) CC BY-SA