1855 in literature
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This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1855.
Events
- January â Samuel Orchart Beeton's weekly The Boys' Own Magazine, "an illustrated journal of fact, fiction, history and adventure", begins publication in London.[1]
- January 5 â Anthony Trollope's novel The Warden, the first of his Chronicles of Barsetshire, is published in London by Longman as he begins to write the second, Barchester Towers.
- February 25 â The comedy De Scholtschäin, by Edmond de la Fontaine writing as Dicks, becomes the first play to be performed in the language of Luxembourg.[2]
- June 29 â The Daily Telegraph newspaper begins publication in London.
- July 4 â Walt Whitman's first edition of his book of poems titled Leaves of Grass is published in Brooklyn, New York.
- September 27 â Alfred Tennyson reads from his new book Maud and other poems at a social gathering in the home of Robert and Elizabeth Browning in London. Dante Gabriel Rossetti makes a sketch of him doing so.[3]
- October â Victor Hugo moves to Hauteville House, Saint Peter Port, Guernsey, in the Channel Islands, accompanied by his mistress, Juliette Drouet.
- December
- Charles Dickens publishes the first instalment of Little Dorrit, which continues to appear into 1857.
- Thomas Babington Macaulay's best-selling History of England in four volumes is completed.[4]
- unknown dates
- Alexander Afanasyev begins publication of his collection of Narodnye russkie skazki [National Russian Tales].[5]
- John Camden Hotten opens a bookselling business in London, which is the origin of the publisher Chatto & Windus.[6]
- Faris al-Shidyaq publishes the metafiction Sâq 'ala al-sâq (Leg over Leg), the first modern Arabic novel, in Paris.
- The first Luxembourg novel in French, Marc Bruno, profil d'artiste, is published shortly after the death of its author, Félix Thyes (born 1830).
- Belarusian writer Vintsent Dunin-Martsinkyevich publishes «Ðапон» (Hapon) in the Russian Empire, the first poem written wholly in modern Belarusian.
New books
Fiction
- Gheorghe Asachi â Ziua din urmÄ a municipiului IaÈenilor (The Last Day of IaÈi Municipality)
- Dimitrie Bolintineanu â Manoil
- Cuthbert Bede (pseudonym) â The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green (other volumes, 1856 and 1857)
- Gustav Freytag â Debit and Credit (Soll und Haben)
- Elizabeth Gaskell â North and South
- James Grant â The Yellow Frigate (also entitled The Three Sisters)
- Mary Virginia Hawes â The Hidden Path
- Caroline Lee Hentz â Robert Graham
- Paul Heyse â "L'Arrabbiata" (The Fury, short story)
- Washington Irving â Wolfert's Roost
- Gottfried Keller â Green Henry (Der grüne Heinrich)
- Charles Kingsley â Westward Ho!
- Herman Melville
- Gérard de Nerval â Aurelia
- Giovanni Ruffini â Doctor Antonio
- Ann Sophia Stephens â The Old Homestead
- William Makepeace Thackeray â The Newcomes
- Félix Thyes â Marc Bruno, profil d'artiste
- Anthony Trollope â The Warden (first in the Chronicles of Barchester series of six books)
Children
Drama
- Ãmile Augier â Le Mariage d'Olympe
- Dicks
- De Scholtschäin
- D'Mumm Sèiss
- Léon Gozlan â Le Gâteau des reines
- Henrik Ibsen â The Feast at Solhaug
- Andreas Munch â En Aften paa Giske[7]
- Watts Phillips â Joseph Chavigny
- Ivan Turgenev â A Month in the Country (published as Two Women)
Poetry
Non-fiction
- David Brewster â Memoirs of the Life, Writings and Discoveries of Sir Isaac Newton
- John Brown â Slave Life in Georgia
- Pedro Carolino â O novo guia da conversação em portuguez e inglez (translated as English as She is Spoke)
- Frederick Douglass â "My Bondage and My Freedom"
- Washington Irving â The Life of George Washington, Volumes 1 and 2
- George Sand â Histoire de ma vie (The Story of My Life)
- William Smith â LatinâEnglish Dictionary based upon the works of Forcellini and Freund
- Leo Tolstoy â Sevastopol Sketches (СеваÑÑополÑÑкие ÑаÑÑказÑ, Sevastopolskiye rasskazy)
- Alfred Russel Wallace â "On the Law Which has Regulated the Introduction of Species" (in Annals and Magazine of Natural History, September)
Births
- February 21 â Elizabeth Robins Pennell, American biographer and critic based in London (died 1936)
- April 4 â Manonmaniam Sundaram Pillai, Indian dramatist (died 1897)
- April 27 â Margaret Wolfe Hungerford, Irish novelist (died 1897)[8]
- May 1 â Marie Corelli (Mary Mackay), English novelist (died 1924)
- May 14 â Eduard von Keyserling, Baltic German fiction writer and dramatist (died 1918)
- May 21 â Emile Verhaeren, Belgian Symbolist poet writing in French (died 1916)
- May 24 â Sir Arthur Wing Pinero, English dramatist (died 1934)
- July 7 â Ludwig Ganghofer, German novelist (died 1920)
- July 19 â Alexander Ertel, Russian novelist and short story writer (died 1908)
- August 7 â Stanley J. Weyman, English novelist (died 1928)
- September 12 â William Sharp, Scottish poet and biographer (died 1905)
- September 22 â Alice Zimmern, English writer, translator and suffragist (died 1939)
- October 26 â Jessie Wilson Manning, American author and lecturer (died 1947)
- October 30 â Pyotr Gnedich, Russian writer and poet (died 1925)
- November 4 â William Ritchie Sorley, Scottish philosopher (died 1935)
- December 15 â Maurice Bouchor, French poet and sculptor (died 1929)
- December 28 â Juan Zorrilla de San MartÃn, Uruguayan poet (died 1931)[9]
- unknown date
- Solomon Cleaver, Canadian story teller, novelist and pastor (died 1939)
- Florence Huntley, American journalist, editor, humorist and occult author (died 1912)
Deaths
- January 3 â János Majláth, Hungarian poet and historian (born 1786)
- January 10 â Mary Russell Mitford, English dramatist and novelist (born 1787)
- January 25 â Dorothy Wordsworth, English poet and diarist (born 1771)
- January 26 â Gérard de Nerval (Gérard Labrunie), French poet and essayist (suicide, born 1808)[10]
- February 4 â Gottfried Christian Friedrich Lücke, German theologian (born 1791)
- March 31 â Charlotte Brontë, English novelist and poet (born 1816)[11]
- June 29 â Delphine de Girardin, French poet and novelist (born 1804)
- July 12 â Karl Spindler, German novelist, (born 1796)
- September 4 â Emma Tatham, English poet (born 1829)
- September 27 â John Adamson, English antiquary and scholar of Portuguese (born 1787)
- November 11 â Søren Kierkegaard, Danish philosopher (born 1813)
- November 19 â Mihály Vörösmarty, Hungarian poet and dramatist (born 1800)
- November 26 â Adam Mickiewicz, Poland's national poet (cholera, born 1798)
- December 3 â Robert Montgomery, English poet (born 1807)
- unknown date â Sunthorn Phu, Thai poet (born 1786)