1814 in literature explained
This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1814.
Events
- January 14 (January 2 O.S.) – The Imperial Public Library in Saint Petersburg opens to the public.
- January 26 – Actor Edmund Kean makes his London début in the leading rôle of Shylock at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane.
- February 1 – Lord Byron's semi-autobiographical tale in verse The Corsair is published by John Murray in London and sells 10,000 copies on this day[1] and over 25,000 in the first month, going through seven editions. His Lara sells 6,000 copies on publication in the summer.[2] Walter Scott is to say of Byron's poetry: "He beat me out of the field in description of the stronger passions and in deep-seated knowledge of the human heart."
- July 7 – Walter Scott's Waverley, his first work of fiction and a major early historical novel in English, is published anonymously by Archibald Constable in Edinburgh, a week after Scott finishes it. It sells out in two days.[3]
- July 28–September 13 – English poet Percy Bysshe Shelley abandons his pregnant wife and runs away to France and Switzerland with the 16-year-old Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin, accompanied by her stepsister Jane Clairmont, also 16.[4]
- August 24 – Burning of Washington (War of 1812): The British burn the original Library of Congress, at this time housed in the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C.
- September 12–15 – Battle of Baltimore (War of 1812): American lawyer Francis Scott Key, witnessing the bombardment of Baltimore, Maryland, from a British ship, writes "Defence of Fort McHenry". His brother-in-law arranges to have the poem published in a broadside with a recommended tune on September 17; on September 20 both the Baltimore Patriot and The American print it. The song quickly becomes popular – seventeen newspapers from Georgia to New Hampshire reprint it. In 1931, it is adopted as "The Star-Spangled Banner" as the national anthem of the United States.[5]
- September 21 After arrangements have been made for the United States Library of Congress, destroyed in August's Burning of Washington, to be re-stocked by purchase of the personal library of ex-President Thomas Jefferson, Jefferson writes to Samuel H. Smith, saying that there is "no subject to which a Member of Congress may not have occasion to refer".[6]
- November 29 – In London, The Times newspaper is printed using a revolutionary steam press for the first time.[7] It runs at a rate of 1100 copies per hour.
- Late – The first edition of the second volume of the Brothers Grimm's Grimms' Fairy Tales appears, dated 1815.
- unknown dates
New books
Fiction
Children
Drama
Poetry
Non-fiction
Births
- January 15 – Pierre-Jules Hetzel (P. J. Stahl), French publisher and young people's writer (died 1886)
- January 17 – Mrs. Henry Wood (Ellen Price), English novelist (died 1887)
- February 18 – Samuel Fenton Cary, American author and prohibitionist (died 1900)
- March 9 (February 25 O.S.) – Taras Shevchenko, Ukrainian poet (died 1861)
- March 13 – Edward Backhouse Eastwick, Anglo-Indian orientalist and translator (died 1883)[10]
- June 8 – Charles Reade, English novelist and dramatist (died 1884)
- July 23 – George W. M. Reynolds, English popular novelist (died 1879)
- August 14 – Charlotte Fowler Wells, phrenologist and publisher (died 1901)
- August 28 – Sheridan le Fanu, Irish Gothic writer (died 1873)
- September 17 – Ferenc Pulszky, Hungarian writer and politician (died 1897)
- October 3 – Mikhail Lermontov, Russian poet (died 1841)
- November 6 – William Wells Brown, African-American writer (died 1884)
- December 27 – Jules Simon, French philosopher (died 1896)
Deaths
- January 4 – Johann Georg Jacobi, German poet (born 1740)
- January 21 – Jacques-Henri Bernardin de Saint-Pierre, French novelist and travel writer (born 1737)
- January 27 – Johann Gottlieb Fichte, German philosopher (born 1762)
- February 24 – Julien Louis Geoffroy, French literary critic (born 1743)
- February 27 – Margaret Bingham, English poet and painter (born 1740)
- April 12 – Charles Burney, English music historian and musician (born 1726)
- July 25 – Charles Dibdin, English novelist, playwright and actor (born 1745)
- September 5 – Gottfried Gabriel Bredow, German historian (born 1773)
- October 4 – Samuel Jackson Pratt, English poet, playwright and novelist (born 1749)[11]
- November 10 – Abbé Aubert, French dramatist, poet and journalist (born 1731)
- December 2 – Marquis de Sade, French philosopher, writer and politician (born 1740)
Awards
Notes and References
- Book: Jones, Neal T. . A Book of Days for the Literary Year . registration . London; New York . Thames and Hudson . 1984 . 0-500-01332-2.
- Book: Cox, Michael . The Concise Oxford Chronology of English Literature . Oxford University Press . 2004 . 0-19-860634-6 . registration .
- Web site: Waverley . Walter Scott . . 2011-12-19 . 2013-06-29 . https://web.archive.org/web/20130430192256/http://www.walterscott.lib.ed.ac.uk/works/novels/waverley.html . 2013-04-30 . live.
- History of a Six Weeks' Tour.
- Book: Carruth, Gorton . The Encyclopedia of American Facts and Dates . registration . 9th . HarperCollins . 1993.
- Web site: Jefferson's Legacy: A Brief History of the Library of Congress. Library of Congress. 2006-03-06. 2020-07-01.
- Book: Palmer, Alan . Palmer . Veronica . 1992 . The Chronology of British History . Century Ltd . London . 246–247 . 0-7126-5616-2.
- Book: Alfred de Vigny. Lettres inédites de Alfred de Vigny au marquis et à la marquise de La Grange (1827-1861) pub. 1914. L. Conard. vi.
- Web site: BBC - History - Jane Austen . www.bbc.co.uk . 26 March 2019.
- Book: Robert Henry Mair. Debrett's Illustrated House of Commons and the Judicial Bench. 1869. Dean & Son. 87.
- Book: Day . Gary . Lynch . Jack . The Encyclopedia of British Literature, 3 Volume Set: 1660 - 1789 . 9 March 2015 . John Wiley & Sons . 978-1-4443-3020-5 . 922 . en.
- https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/42400488 Niobe: a prize poem, recited in the Theatre, Oxford, in the year MDCCXIV
