1803 in literature

• June 30 – Novelist Mary Butt marries her cousin, Captain Henry Sherwood, acquiring the surname by which she will become best known.^[1]
• September 9 – Bamberg State Library is established in Upper Franconia.
• unknown date – The library which becomes the National Széchényi Library, established in 1802 by Count Ferenc Széchényi, opens to the public in Pest, Hungary.^[2]
• Jane Austen's novel Northanger Abbey, a satire on Gothic fiction, is advertised by a London publisher but is not in fact published until 1817, after her death.^[3]

• January 3 – Douglas William Jerrold, English dramatist (died 1857)
• January 15 – Marjorie Fleming, Scottish child writer (died 1811)^[6]
• January 27 – Eunice Hale Cobb, American writer, public speaker, and activist (died 1880)
• May 16 – Amelie von Strussenfelt, Swedish novelist (died 1847)
• May 25
  • Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton, English novelist, poet and dramatist (died 1873)
  • Ralph Waldo Emerson, American poet, essayist and philosopher (died 1882)
• July 20 – Dudley Costello, Irish writer and journalist (died 1865)
• September 20 – Catherine Crowe, English novelist, playwright and children's writer (died 1876)
• September 28 – Prosper Mérimée, French dramatist and historian (died 1870)
• October 25 – Maria Doolaeghe, Flemish novelist (died 1884)^[7]
• November 14 – Jacob Abbott, American children's writer (died 1879)
• December 6 – Susanna Moodie, English-born Canadian writer (died 1885)
• December 31 – José María Heredia y Heredia, Cuban poet (died 1839)

Unknown date – Evan Bevan, Welsh writer of satirical verse (died 1866)^[8]

• January 1 – James Woodforde, English diarist (born 1740)^[9]
• February 11 – Jean-François de La Harpe, French dramatist and critic (born 1739)
• March 14 – Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock, German poet (born 1724)
• April 9 – Mihály Bakos (Miháo BakoÅ¡), Slovene hymnist and Lutheran minister (born c. 1742)
• June 12 – Richard François Philippe Brunck, French classical scholar (born 1729)
• August 2 – John Hoole, English translator (born 1727)
• September 5 – Pierre Choderlos de Laclos, French novelist (born 1841)^[10]
• October 8 – Vittorio Alfieri, Italian dramatist and poet (born 1749)^[11]
• December 18 – Johann Gottfried Herder, German philosopher, poet and critic (born 1744)