1821 in literature

Events

• May – 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.
• August 4 – Atkinson & Alexander publish The Saturday Evening Post for the first time as a weekly newspaper in the United States.
• unknown dates
  • James Ballantyne begins publishing his Novelist's Library in Edinburgh edited by Sir Walter Scott.
  • 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.
  • Sunthorn Phu is imprisoned and begins his epic poem Phra Aphai Mani.

New books

Fiction

• James Fenimore Cooper – The Spy
• Pierce Egan – Life in London; Boxiana Vol. III
• John Galt
  • Annals of the Parish
  • The Ayrshire Legatees
• Thomas Gaspey – Calthorpe
• Johann Wolfgang von Goethe – Wilhelm Meister's Journeyman Years (Wilhelm Meisters Wanderjahre)
• Ann Hatton – Lovers and Friends
• Hannah Maria Jones – Gretna Green
• John Gibson Lockhart – Valerius
• Charles Nodier – Smarra
• Anna Maria Porter – The Village of Mariendorpt
• Jane Porter – The Scottish Chiefs
• Sir Walter Scott – Kenilworth

Children

• Maria Hack – Harry Beaufoy; or the Pupil of Nature
• Thomas Love Peacock – Maid Marian

Drama

• John Banim and Richard Lalor Sheil – 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 –Kenilworth
• Barry Cornwall – Mirandola
• Alexandre-Vincent Pineux Duval – Le Faux Bonhomme
• Aleksander Fredro – Pan Geldhab (Mr. Gelhab)
• Franz Grillparzer – Das goldene Vliess (The Golden Fleece trilogy)
• James Haynes – Conscience
• Heinrich von Kleist (died 1811) – 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)

Poetry

• Lord Byron – Irish Avatar
• Heinrich Heine – Poems
• Alessandro Manzoni – Il Cinque Maggio (May 5)
• Alexander Pushkin – The Gabrieliad
• Percy Bysshe Shelley – Adonaïs

Non-fiction

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

Births

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

Deaths

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

Awards

• Chancellor's Gold Medal and Newdigate Prize – George Howard

References

References

1. Kim Wheatley. (1999). "Shelley and His Readers: Beyond Paranoid Politics". University of Missouri Press.
2. Grace Greenwood. (1857). "The Little Pilgrim". L.K. Lippincott.
3. (2007-12-11). "The Ballantyne Brothers". Edinburgh University Library.
4. (1992). "Litigating Morality: American Legal Thought and Its English Roots". Greenwood Publishing Group.
5. (1990). "Sunthorn Phu: An Anthology". Office of National Culture Commission.
6. Thomas Farel Heffernan ''Stove by a Whale: Owen Chase and the Essex'' Wesleyan University Press 1990 pp. 120 - 134 {{ISBN. 978-0-8195-6244-9
7. S. Clifford-Smith, "William Cobbett: cottager's friend", ''Australian Garden History'', 19 (5), 2008, pp. 4–6.
8. (October 1821). "Review of ''Table Talk, or Original Essays'' by William Hazlitt". The Quarterly Review.
9. Hilden. "Athalia Schwartz (1821–1871)".
10. {{cite DNBSupp. James. Cooper
11. Pond, Fred E.. (1919). "Life and Adventures of Ned Buntline". Camdus Book Shop.
12. Charles Baudelaire, Richard Howard. ''Les Fleurs Du Mal''. David R. Godine Publisher, 1983, p.xxv. {{ISBN. 0-87923-462-8, {{ISBN. 978-0-87923-462-1.
13. Morson, Gary Saul. (7 November 2023). "Fyodor Dostoyevsky". Encyclopædia Britannica.
14. Julian, John. (1892). "A Dictionary of Hymnology: Setting Forth the Origin and History of Christian Hymns of All Ages and Nations, with Special Reference to Those Contained in the Hymn Books of English-speaking Countries and Now in Common Use ..". Murray.
15. Gustave Flaubert. (1980). "The Letters of Gustave Flaubert: 1830-1857". Harvard University Press.
16. {{cite DNB. Bettany. George Thomas
17. "BBC - History - Historic Figures: John Keats (1795-1821)".
18. (2006). "The biographical dictionary of Scottish women : from the earliest times to 2004". Edinburgh University Press.
19. (2000). "The Biographical Dictionary of Women in Science: L-Z". Taylor & Francis.
20. (2007). "The Correspondence of Iolo Morganwg: 1810–1826". University of Wales Press.
21. {{Cite DNB
22. Viets, Henry R.. (1961). ""By The Visitation Of God": The Death Of John William Polidori, M.D., In 1821". The British Medical Journal.
23. "Fenton, Richard".