1854 in literature
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This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1854.
Events
- March 2 â An adaptation of Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice into Bengali, BhÄnumatÄ«-chittavilÄs by Hara Chandra Ghosh, is staged;[1] also, Dinabandhu Mitra introduces Falstaff in Nabin Tapaswini.
- March 20 â The Boston Public Library opens to the public in the United States.
- April 1 â August 12 â Charles Dickens's novel Hard Times, is serialised in his magazine Household Words.[2] From September 2, it is followed in the magazine by Elizabeth Gaskell's North and South, another social novel based in the Lancashire manufacturing district.
- July â Publication begins of Anthony Trollope's novel Barchester Towers (1857).
- November â Crimean War: Future novelist Leo Tolstoy arrives to take part as a defending soldier in the Siege of Sevastopol (1854â55).[3] Off-duty he is reading Thackeray's novels in French translation.
- December 14 â Wilkie Collins's "The Lawyer's Story of a Stolen Letter", published as "The Fourth Poor Traveller" in The Seven Poor Travellers â the Household Words special Christmas number â is the first non-police detective fiction published in Britain.[4]
- unknown dates
- John Rollin Ridge's The Life and Adventures of JoaquÃn Murieta, The Celebrated California Bandit is the first novel by a Native American in the United States (writing as "Yellow Bird") to be published.[5]
- The Polyglotta Africana, an early classification of African languages based on field work under freed slaves in Freetown, Sierra Leone, is published by Sigismund Wilhelm Koelle.[6]
New books
Fiction
- William Harrison Ainsworth â The Flitch of Bacon
- Margaret Jewett Smith Bailey (anonymously) â The Grains, or, Passages in the Life of Ruth Rover, with Occasional Pictures of Oregon, Natural and Moral
- Jules Amédée Barbey d'Aurevilly â L'Ensorcelée
- William Wells Brown â Sketches of Places and People Abroad
- Camilla Collett (anonymously) â Amtmandens Døtre (The District Governor's Daughters, first part)
- Wilkie Collins â Hide and Seek
- John Esten Cooke â The Virginia Comedians
- Maria Cummins â The Lamplighter
- Charles Dickens â Hard Times
- Fanny Fern â Ruth Hall
- Mathilde Fibiger â Minona
- Frederick Greenwood â The Loves of an Apothecary
- Francesco Domenico Guerrazzi â Beatrice Cenci
- Nathaniel Hawthorne â Mosses from an Old Manse
- Caroline Lee Hentz â The Planter's Northern Bride
- Mary Jane Holmes â Tempest and Sunshine
- Mary Russell Mitford â Atherton
- Gérard de Nerval â Les Filles du feu (short stories)
- Charles Reade â The Courier of Lyons
- Solon Robinson â Hot Corn
- E. D. E. N. Southworth â The Lost Heiress
- Leo Tolstoy â Boyhood («ÐÑÑоÑеÑÑво», Otrochestvo)
Children and young people
- Anna Eliza Bray â A Peep at the Pixies, or Legends of the West (illustrated by Phiz)
Drama
- Ãmile Augier and Jules Sandeau â Le Gendre de M. Poirier
- Andreas Munch â Salomon de Caus[7]
- Alexander Ostrovsky â Poverty is No Vice («ÐедноÑÑÑ Ð½Ðµ поÑок», Bednost ne porok)
- Charles Reade â The Courier of Lyons
- Zacharias Topelius â Regina von Emmeritz
Poetry
- R. D. Blackmore â Poems by Melanter
- Coventry Patmore â The Angel in the House
- Emma Tatham â The Dream of Pythagoras and Other Poems
- Alfred Tennyson â "The Charge of the Light Brigade"
Non-fiction
- Samuel Bache â Exposition of Unitarian Views of Christianity
- George Boole â The Laws of Thought
- William Erskine with Claudius James Erskine â History of India under the two first sovereigns of the house of Taimur, Baber, and Humayun[8]
- F. W. Fairholt â Dictionary of Terms in Art
- Ludwig Feuerbach â The Essence of Christianity (Das Wesen des Christentums)
- Kuno Fischer â History of Modern Philosophy (Geschichte der neueren Philosophie), vol. 1
- Elisha Kane â The U. S. Grinnell Expedition in Search of Sir John Franklin: a Personal Narrative[9]
- Ãliphas Lévi â Dogme et rituel de la haute magie (Dogma and Ritual of High Magic), vol. 1, Dogme
- Theodor Mommsen â History of Rome (Römische Geschichte), vol. 1
- John Neal â One Word More: Intended for the Reasoning and Thoughtful among Unbelievers[10]
- Henry David Thoreau â Walden, or Life in the Woods
Births
- March 11 â Jane Meade Welch, American journalist and historian (died 1931)
- March 13 â Kolachalam Srinivasa Rao, Indian dramatist (died 1919)
- March 14 â Alexandru Macedonski, Romanian poet, novelist and dramatist (died 1920)
- May 24 â Mona Caird, English novelist, essayist and feminist (died 1932)
- May 25 â Clara Louise Burnham, née Root, American novelist (died 1927)
- June 10
- François, Vicomte de Curel, French dramatist (died 1928)
- Sarah Grand, Irish author and women's rights advocate (died 1943)
- July 7 â W. C. Morrow, American writer, noted for his stories of horror and suspense. (died 1923)
- August 2 â Francis Marion Crawford, American novelist (died 1909)
- September 1 â Florence Trail, American educator and author (died 1944)
- October 16 â Oscar Wilde, Irish dramatist, poet and wit (died 1900)[11]
- October 20
- Alphonse Allais, French humorist (died 1905)[12]
- Arthur Rimbaud, French poet (died 1891)[13]
- unknown date â Eliza D. Keith, American educator, author and journalist (died 1939)
Deaths
- January 5 â Gottschalk Eduard Guhrauer, German philologist and biographer (born 1809)
- February 4 â George Watterston, American librarian of Congress (born 1783)
- April 3 â John Wilson, Scottish poet and journalist (born 1785)
- April 7 â Pierre-François Tissot, French historian and memoirist (born 1768)
- April 16 â Julia Nyberg, Swedish poet (born 1784)
- April 24 â Gabriele Rossetti, Italian poet (born 1783)
- April 30 â James Montgomery, Scottish-born poet and hymnist (born 1771)
- July 20 â Caroline Anne Southey (Caroline Anne Bowles), English poet (born 1786)
- October 14 â Samuel Phillips, English journalist (born 1814)
- November 5 â Susan Edmonstone Ferrier, Scottish novelist (born 1782)
- November 25 â John Kitto, English Biblical commentator (born 1804)
- December 9 â Almeida Garrett, Portuguese poet, novelist and dramatist (born 1799)
Awards
- Chancellor's Gold Medal â Herbert John Reynolds[14]
- July â Opening of Anthony Trollope's novel Barchester Towers (1857).