1821 in literature

This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1821.

Events

May â Percy Bysshe Shelley's Queen Mab: a philosophical poem (1813) is distributed by a pirate publisher in London, leading to prosecution by the Society for the Prevention of Vice.^[1]
August 4 â Atkinson & Alexander publish The Saturday Evening Post for the first time as a weekly newspaper in the United States.^[2]
unknown dates
- James Ballantyne begins publishing his Novelist's Library in Edinburgh edited by Sir Walter Scott.^[3]
- In the first known obscenity case in the United States, a Massachusetts court outlaws the John Cleland novel Fanny Hill (1748). The publisher, Peter Holmes, is convicted of printing a "lewd and obscene" novel.^[4]
- Sunthorn Phu is imprisoned and begins his epic poem Phra Aphai Mani.^[5]

John Banim and Richard Lalor Sheil â Damon and Pythias
Lord Byron
- Marino Faliero, Doge of Venice (published & performed)
- Sardanapalus: a tragedy; The Two Foscari: a tragedy; Cain: a mystery (published together)
Alfred Bunn âKenilworth
Barry Cornwall â Mirandola
Alexandre-Vincent Pineux Duval â Le Faux Bonhomme
Aleksander Fredro â Pan Geldhab (Mr. Gelhab)
Franz Grillparzer â Das goldene Vliess (The Golden Fleece trilogy)
James Haynes â Conscience
Heinrich von Kleist (died 1811) â The Prince of Homburg (Prinz Friedrich von Homburg oder die Schlacht bei Fehrbellin, first performance, in abridged version as Die Schlacht von Fehrbellin; completed 1810)

James Burney â An Essay, by Way of Lecture, on the Game of Whist
Owen Chase â Narrative of the Most Extraordinary and Distressing Shipwreck of the Whale-Ship Essex^[6]
William Cobbett â The American Gardener^[7]
George Grote â Statement of the Question of Parliamentary Reform
William Hazlitt â Table-Talk^[8]
James Mill â Elements of Political Economy
Robert Owen â Report to the County of Lanark, of a plan for relieving public distress and removing discontent
Thomas De Quincey (anonymously) â Confessions of an English Opium-Eater (serialisation in The London Magazine)
John Roberton â Kalogynomia, or the Laws of Female Beauty
Robert Southey â Life of Cromwell

February 22 â Athalia Schwartz, Danish writer, journalist and educator (died 1871)^[9]
March 15 â William Milligan, Scottish theologian (died 1893)^[10]
March 19 â Richard Francis Burton, English polymath (died 1890)
March 20 â Ned Buntline (Edward Zane Carroll Judson Sr.), American publisher, dime novelist and publicist (died 1886)^[11]
March 25 â Isabella Banks, English poet and novelist (died 1897)
April 9 â Charles Baudelaire, French poet (died 1867)^[12]
May 8 â Charlotte Maria Tucker, English children's writer (died 1893)
May 11 â Grigore Sturdza, Moldavian and Romanian adventurer, literary sponsor and philosopher (died 1901)
June 30 â William Hepworth Dixon, English historian, traveler and journal editor (died 1879)
July 21 â Vasile Alecsandri, Romanian patriot, poet, dramatist, politician and diplomat (died 1890)
October 30 â Fyodor Dostoevsky, Russian novelist (died 1881)^[13]
November 28 â Nikolai Alekseevich Nekrasov, Russian poet, writer and critic (died 1877)
September 21 â Aurora Ljungstedt, Swedish horror writer (died 1908)
September 24 â Cyprian Norwid Polish poet (died 1883)
December 1 â Jane C. Bonar, Scottish hymnwriter (died 1884)^[14]
December 6 â Dora Greenwell, English poet (died 1882)
December 12 â Gustave Flaubert, French novelist (died 1880)^[15]

January 7 â Anne Hunter, Scottish poet and salonniÃ¨re (born 1742)^[16]
January 14 â Jens Zetlitz, Norwegian poet (born 1761)
February 23 â John Keats, English poet (tuberculosis, born 1795)^[17]
February 26 â Joseph de Maistre, Savoyard philosopher (born 1753)
March 17 â Louis-Marcelin de Fontanes, French poet (born 1757)
April 14 â Susan Carnegie, writer and founder of the first public asylum in Scotland (born 1743)^[18]
April 16 â Thomas Scott, English cleric and religious writer (born 1747)
May 2 â Hester Thrale (Mrs Piozzi), English diarist and arts patron (born 1741)^[19]
May 21 â John Jones (Jac Glan-y-gors), Welsh poet and satirist (born 1766)^[20]
May 22 â Johann Georg Heinrich Feder, German philosopher (born 1740)
June 15 â John Ballantyne, publisher (born 1774)^[21]
August 1 â Elizabeth Inchbald, English novelist and dramatist (born 1753)
August 24 â John William Polidori, English physician, writer (born 1795) (suicide)^[22]
November 17 â James Burney, English rear-admiral and naval writer (born 1750)
November â Richard Fenton, poet and author (born 1747)^[23]