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1891 in literature

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1891 in literature

This article presents lists of the literary events and publications in 1891.

Contents

Events

  • January – The Strand Magazine is first published in London. On June 25 Arthur Conan Doyle's private consulting detective Sherlock Holmes appears in it for the first time, in the story "A Scandal in Bohemia" (issue dated July).
  • January 31Henrik Ibsen's play Hedda Gabler (published in 1890) is first performed, at the Königliches Residenz-Theater in Munich (the city where it was written), with Clara Heese playing the lead. The first British performance is on April 20 at the recently reopened Vaudeville Theatre, London, with Elizabeth Robins as Hedda and co-directing.
  • March 13Henrik Ibsen's play Ghosts (published in 1881) achieves a single London performance, its English-language stage première (at the Royalty Theatre). To evade the Lord Chamberlain's Office's censorship it has to be staged privately by the Independent Theatre Society, but still attracts strong criticism on moral grounds.
  • April – Oscar Wilde's novel The Picture of Dorian Gray is first published in book format by Ward and Lock in London with the aphoristic preface originally published in the March 1 issue of The Fortnightly Review.
  • May – William Morris establishes the Kelmscott Press as a private press at Hammersmith (London) and produces its first book, the first edition in book format of his fantasy novel The Story of the Glittering Plain.
  • May 21Maurice Maeterlinck's play Intruder (L'Intruse) is premièred at Paul Fort's Theatre d'Art in Paris.
  • c. Late June – In a meeting of decadent poets in London, Oscar Wilde is first introduced to Lord Alfred Douglas by Lionel Johnson at Wilde's Tite Street home.
  • July 1International Copyright Act of 1891 comes into effect in the United States permitting foreign authors to register their works for copyright. On July 3, the first such work, the play Saints and Sinners by English author Henry Arthur Jones, is registered.
  • July 4December 26Thomas Hardy's novel Tess of the d'Urbervilles is serialized in expurgated form in the weekly illustrated newspaper The Graphic (London); in November the first (unexpurgated) book edition is published in London.
  • August 22Israel Zangwill's The Big Bow Mystery, the first classic full-length locked room mystery, begins serialization in The Star (London).
  • October 9 – Émile Zola's stage adaptation of his novel Thérèse Raquin (first performed in 1873) achieves a single London performance, its English stage première (at the Royalty Theatre). To evade the Lord Chamberlain's Office's censorship it has to be staged privately by the Independent Theatre Society, but still attracts criticism on moral grounds.
  • September 4Ambrose Bierce dates the preface of Tales of Soldiers and Civilians for this day, although it will not actually be issued (in San Francisco) until 1892. It includes "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge", one of his best known works.
  • December – Thomas Hardy writes "The Son's Veto", which he regards as his best short story.
  • December 7Maurice Maeterlinck's play The Blind (Les aveugles) is premièred.
  • Tristan Bernard has his first work published in La Revue Blanche (which returns to Parisian publication in October) and adopts his pseudonym.
  • Sophia Alice Callahan's Wynema, a Child of the Forest is published, the first work of fiction by a Native American woman in English.
  • Publication of the first complete 1-volume popular German language translation of Shakespeare's plays.
  • Approximate date – Edmund Clerihew Bentley, G. K. Chesterton and fellow pupils of St Paul's School, London, compose the first pseudo-biographical comic verses which become known as clerihews.
  • Fiction

  • Grant AllenThe Great Taboo
  • J. M. Barrie – The Little Minister
  • Mary Elizabeth BraddonGerard; or, The World, the Flesh and the Devil ("by the author of Lady Audley's Secret")
  • Gabriele D'Annunzio – Giovanni Episcopo
  • Machado de AssisQuincas Borba (translated as Philosopher or Dog?)
  • Arthur Conan DoyleThe White Company
  • George du MaurierPeter Ibbetson
  • Helen H. GardenerIs This Your Son, My Lord? (in The Arena)
  • André GideLes Cahiers d'André Walter
  • George GissingNew Grub Street
  • Thomas Hardy
  • A Group of Noble Dames (collected short stories)
  • Tess of the d'Urbervilles
  • J.-K. Huysmans – Là-bas
  • Henry James – "The Pupil" (short story in Longman's Magazine)
  • Jerome K. JeromeDiary of a Pilgrimage
  • Jean LorrainSonyeuse (novella)
  • Herman MelvilleTimoleon
  • Georges OhnetDernier Amour
  • Daniel OwenEnoc Huws
  • Howard PyleMen of Iron
  • José RizalEl filibusterismo
  • Jules VerneMistress Branican
  • Oscar Wilde – Lord Arthur Savile's Crime and Other Stories
  • Margaret L. Woods – Esther Vanhomrigh
  • Charlotte M. Yonge
  • Two Penniless Princesses
  • Unknown to History
  • Émile Zola – L'Argent
  • Children and young people

  • Selma LagerlöfGösta Berlings Saga (The Story of Gosta Berling)
  • Laura E. RichardsCaptain January
  • Molly Elliot SeawellMidshipman Paulding
  • William Gordon StablesThe Cruise of the Crystal Boat
  • Drama

  • Jacob Mikhailovich Gordin – Siberia
  • Maurice Maeterlinck – Intruder (first production)
  • Victorien SardouThermidor
  • Rosario de Acuña – El padre Juan
  • Frank WedekindSpring Awakening (Frühlings Erwachen)
  • Oscar Wilde
  • The Duchess of Padua (first production)
  • Salome (written)
  • Poetry

  • William MorrisPoems by the Way
  • Non-fiction

  • Marie BashkirtseffLettres
  • Black's Law Dictionary, 1st edition
  • John Churton CollinsThe Study of English Literature: a plea for its recognition and organization at the Universities
  • John GibsonThe Emancipation of Women
  • Edmond de GoncourtUtamaro
  • Frederic G. Kenyon (ed.)
  • Aristotelous Ἀθηναιων Πολιτεια: Aristotle on the Constitution of Athens
  • Classical Texts from Papyri in the British Museum; including the newly discovered poems of Herodas, with autotype facsimiles of MSS
  • Hon. Mrs. (Edith Mary) Lyttleton-Gell (ed.) – The Cloud of Witness: a daily sequence of great thoughts from many minds
  • Errico MalatestaAnarchy (L'anarchia)
  • George W. E. RussellThe Right Honourable William Ewart Gladstone
  • George Bernard ShawQuintessence of Ibsenism
  • A. E. Waite – The Occult Sciences
  • Oscar Wilde – Intentions
  • Births

  • January 7Zora Neale Hurston, American Harlem Renaissance novelist (died 1960)
  • January 8 – (Margaret) Storm Jameson, English novelist (died 1986)
  • January 15Osip Mandelstam, Russian poet and essayist (died 1938)
  • January 23Pavlo Tychyna, Ukrainian poet (died 1967)
  • February 10Elliot Paul, American writer (died 1958)
  • February 13Kate Roberts, Welsh writer (died 1985)
  • March 13Felix Aderca, Romanian novelist, critic, poet and journalist (died 1962)
  • March 27Lajos Zilahy, Hungarian novelist and dramatist (died 1974)
  • June 14 – Alexander Melentyevich Volkov, Russian novelist (died 1977)
  • July 5 – Tin Ujević, Croatian poet (died 1955)
  • August 1Edward Streeter, American humorist (died 1976)
  • August 12 – C. E. M. Joad, English philosopher and broadcaster (died 1953)
  • September 23Arthur Graeme West, English military writer and poet (killed in action 1917)
  • October 6John Metcalfe, English writer (died 1965)
  • November 14Josef Magnus Wehner, German poet and playwright (died 1973)
  • November 17Sigurd Christiansen, Norwegian novelist and dramatist (died 1947)
  • November 23Masao Kume, Japanese playwright, novelist and haiku poet (died 1952)
  • December 10Nelly Sachs, German-Swedish poet, dramatist and Nobel Prize winner (died 1970)
  • December 17Hu Shih (胡適), Chinese Nobel Prize winning philosopher and language reformer (died 1962)
  • December 26Henry Miller, American novelist (died 1980)
  • Deaths

  • February 3 – Élie Berthet, French novelist (born 1815)
  • April 24Rebecca Agatha Armour, Canadian novelist (born 1845)
  • July 17Jean Lombard, French novelist (born 1854)
  • July 19Pedro Antonio de Alarcón, Spanish novelist (born 1833)
  • August 12James Russell Lowell, American poet (born 1819)
  • August 22Jan Neruda, Czech writer (born 1834)
  • September 15Ivan Goncharov, Russian writer (born 1812)
  • September 28Herman Melville, American novelist (born 1819)
  • October 15Gilbert Arthur à Beckett, English writer (born 1837)
  • November 10Arthur Rimbaud, French poet (cancer, born 1854)
  • Awards

  • Newdigate PrizeLaurence Binyon
  • References

    1891 in literature Wikipedia


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