1816 in literature
Encyclopedia
The year 1816 in literature involved some significant new books.
Events
- July - Lord ByronGeorge Gordon Byron, 6th Baron ByronGeorge Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron, later George Gordon Noel, 6th Baron Byron, FRS , commonly known simply as Lord Byron, was a British poet and a leading figure in the Romantic movement...
, Mary Wollstonecraft GodwinMary ShelleyMary Shelley was a British novelist, short story writer, dramatist, essayist, biographer, and travel writer, best known for her Gothic novel Frankenstein: or, The Modern Prometheus . She also edited and promoted the works of her husband, the Romantic poet and philosopher Percy Bysshe Shelley...
, Percy Bysshe ShelleyPercy Bysshe ShelleyPercy Bysshe Shelley was one of the major English Romantic poets and is critically regarded as among the finest lyric poets in the English language. Shelley was famous for his association with John Keats and Lord Byron...
and John Polidori, gathered at the Villa DiodatiVilla DiodatiThe Villa Diodati is a manor in Cologny close to Lake Geneva. It is most famous for having been the summer residence of Lord Byron, Mary Shelley, Percy Shelley, John Polidori and others in 1816, where the basis for the classical horror stories Frankenstein and The Vampyre was laid.Originally called...
by Lake GenevaLake GenevaLake Geneva or Lake Léman is a lake in Switzerland and France. It is one of the largest lakes in Western Europe. 59.53 % of it comes under the jurisdiction of Switzerland , and 40.47 % under France...
in a rainy SwitzerlandSwitzerlandSwitzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....
in this 'Year Without a SummerYear Without a SummerThe Year Without a Summer was 1816, in which severe summer climate abnormalities caused average global temperatures to decrease by about 0.4–0.7 °C , resulting in major food shortages across the Northern Hemisphere...
', tell each other tales. This gives rise to two classic GothicGothic fictionGothic fiction, sometimes referred to as Gothic horror, is a genre or mode of literature that combines elements of both horror and romance. Gothicism's origin is attributed to English author Horace Walpole, with his 1764 novel The Castle of Otranto, subtitled "A Gothic Story"...
narratives, Mary ShelleyMary ShelleyMary Shelley was a British novelist, short story writer, dramatist, essayist, biographer, and travel writer, best known for her Gothic novel Frankenstein: or, The Modern Prometheus . She also edited and promoted the works of her husband, the Romantic poet and philosopher Percy Bysshe Shelley...
's FrankensteinFrankensteinFrankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus is a novel about a failed experiment that produced a monster, written by Mary Shelley, with inserts of poems by Percy Bysshe Shelley. Shelley started writing the story when she was eighteen, and the novel was published when she was twenty-one. The first...
and Polidori's The VampyreThe Vampyre"The Vampyre" is a short story or novella written in 1819 by John William Polidori which is a progenitor of the romantic vampire genre of fantasy fiction...
. - John KeatsJohn KeatsJohn Keats was an English Romantic poet. Along with Lord Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley, he was one of the key figures in the second generation of the Romantic movement, despite the fact that his work had been in publication for only four years before his death.Although his poems were not...
composes the poem, Sleep and PoetrySleep and PoetrySleep and Poetry is a poem by the English Romantic poet John Keats. It was started late one evening while staying the night at Leigh Hunt's cottage. It is often cited as a clear example of Keats's bower-centric poetry, yet it contains lines that make such a simplistic reading problematic, such...
, while staying at the house of his friend, Leigh Hunt.
New books
- Thomas AsheThomas AsheThomas Patrick Ashe born in Lispole, County Kerry, Ireland, was a member of the Gaelic League, the Irish Republican Brotherhood and a founding member of the Irish Volunteers...
- The Soldier of Fortune - Benjamin ConstantBenjamin ConstantHenri-Benjamin Constant de Rebecque was a Swiss-born French nobleman, thinker, writer and politician.-Biography:...
- AdolpheAdolpheAdolphe is a classic French novel by Benjamin Constant, first published in 1816. It tells the story of an alienated young man, Adolphe, who falls in love with an older woman, Ellénore, the Polish mistress of the Comte de P***. Their illicit relationship serves to isolate them from their friends and... - Selina DavenportSelina DavenportSelina Davenport was an English author of the Romantic period. She wrote 11 novels and was married to Richard Alfred Davenport.-Early life:...
- The Original of the Miniature - Stéphanie Félicité, Comtesse de GenlisStéphanie Félicité Ducrest de St-Albin, comtesse de GenlisMadame de Genlis, full name Stéphanie Félicité Ducrest de St-Aubin, comtesse de Genlis, or Madame Brûlart, was a French writer, harpist and educator.-Biography:...
- Jane of France - Jane Harvey - Brougham Castle
- Ann HattonAnn HattonAnn Julia Hatton , was a popular novelist in Britain in the early 19th century.-Biography:...
- Chronicles of an Illustrious House - Barbara HoflandBarbara HoflandBarbara Hofland was an English writer of some 66 didactic, moral stories for children, and of schoolbooks and poetry.-Life:...
- The Maid of Moscow - John Hoyland (writer) - English Quaker
- Leigh Hunt - The Story of Rimini
- Henry Gally KnightHenry Gally KnightHenry Gally Knight, FRS was an English M.P., traveller and writer.Henry Gally Knight was a country gentleman of Yorkshire, educated at Eton and Trinity Hall, Cambridge. He was the author of several Oriental tales, Ilderim, a Syrian Tale , Phrosyne, a Grecian Tale, and Alashtar, an Arabian Tale...
- Ilderim, a Syrian Tale - Caroline Lamb - GlenarvonGlenarvonGlenarvon is Lady Caroline Lamb's first novel, published in 1816. Its rakish title character is an unflattering depiction of her ex-lover Lord Byron....
- Agnes Lancaster - The Abbess of Valtiera
- José Joaquín Fernández de LizardiJosé Joaquín Fernández de LizardiJosé Joaquín Fernández de Lizardi , Mexican writer and political journalist, best known as the author of El Periquillo Sarniento , reputed to be the first novel written in Latin America....
- The Mangy ParrotEl Periquillo SarnientoThe Mangy Parrot: The Life and Times of Periquillo Sarniento Written by himself for his Children by Mexican author José Joaquín Fernández de Lizardi, is generally considered the first novel written and published in Latin America. El Periquillo was written in 1816, though due to government... - Emma ParkerEmma ParkerEmma Parker , novelist.Parker seems to have lived at Fairfield House, Denbighshire. She was the author of several novels which were favourably criticised by the critical and monthly reviews...
- Self-deceptionSelf-deceptionSelf-deception is a process of denying or rationalizing away the relevance, significance, or importance of opposing evidence and logical argument... - David W. Paynter - Godfrey Ranger
- Thomas Love PeacockThomas Love PeacockThomas Love Peacock was an English satirist and author.Peacock was a close friend of Percy Bysshe Shelley and they influenced each other's work...
- Headlong HallHeadlong HallHeadlong Hall is the first novel by Thomas Love Peacock, published in 1815 .As in his later novel Crotchet Castle, Peacock assembles a group of eccentrics, each with a single monomaniacal obsession, and derives humor and social satire from their various interactions and conversations. The setting... - Henrietta Roviere - Craig-Melrose Priory
- Sir Walter Scott
- The AntiquaryThe AntiquaryThe Antiquary is a novel by Sir Walter Scott about several characters including an antiquary: an amateur historian, archaeologist and collector of items of dubious antiquity. Although he is the eponymous character, he is not necessarily the hero, as many of the characters around him undergo far...
- The Black DwarfThe Black Dwarf (novel)Walter Scott's novel The Black Dwarf was part of his Tales of My Landlord, 1st series, published along with Old Mortality on 2 December 1816 by William Blackwood, Edinburgh, and John Murray, London...
- Old MortalityOld MortalityOld Mortality is a novel by Sir Walter Scott set in the period 1679–89 in south west Scotland. It forms, along with The Black Dwarf, the 1st series of Scott's Tales of My Landlord. The two novels were published together in 1816...
- The Antiquary
- Ann Sullivan - Owen Castle
- Sophia F.Ziegenhirt - The Orphan of Tintern Abbey
Poetry
- Lord Byron - The Siege of Corinth
- Lord Byron - Prometheus
- Samuel Taylor ColeridgeSamuel Taylor ColeridgeSamuel Taylor Coleridge was an English poet, Romantic, literary critic and philosopher who, with his friend William Wordsworth, was a founder of the Romantic Movement in England and a member of the Lake Poets. He is probably best known for his poems The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and Kubla...
- Kubla KhanKubla KhanKubla Khan is a poem by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, completed in 1797 and published in Christabel, Kubla Khan, and the Pains of Sleep in 1816...
(written in 1797) - Percy Bysshe ShelleyPercy Bysshe ShelleyPercy Bysshe Shelley was one of the major English Romantic poets and is critically regarded as among the finest lyric poets in the English language. Shelley was famous for his association with John Keats and Lord Byron...
- Alastor, or The Spirit of SolitudeAlastor, or The Spirit of SolitudeAlastor, or The Spirit of Solitude is a poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley, written from September 10 to December 14 in 1815 in Bishopsgate, London and first published in 1816. The poem was without a title when Shelley passed it along to his contemporary and friend, Thomas Love Peacock. The poem is 720... - Percy Bysshe ShelleyPercy Bysshe ShelleyPercy Bysshe Shelley was one of the major English Romantic poets and is critically regarded as among the finest lyric poets in the English language. Shelley was famous for his association with John Keats and Lord Byron...
- Mont BlancMont BlancMont Blanc or Monte Bianco , meaning "White Mountain", is the highest mountain in the Alps, Western Europe and the European Union. It rises above sea level and is ranked 11th in the world in topographic prominence...
Non-fiction
- Samuel Taylor ColeridgeSamuel Taylor ColeridgeSamuel Taylor Coleridge was an English poet, Romantic, literary critic and philosopher who, with his friend William Wordsworth, was a founder of the Romantic Movement in England and a member of the Lake Poets. He is probably best known for his poems The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and Kubla...
- Statesman's Manual - Nikolai Karamzin - History of the Russian Empire
Births
- April 21 - Charlotte BrontëCharlotte BrontëCharlotte Brontë was an English novelist and poet, the eldest of the three Brontë sisters who survived into adulthood, whose novels are English literature standards...
, novelist and poet (d. 1855) - June - Grace AguilarGrace AguilarGrace Aguilar was an English novelist and writer on Jewish history and religion. She was delicate from childhood, and early showed great interest in history, especially Jewish history...
, novelist (d. 1847) - September 20 - Fredrik August DahlgrenFredrik August DahlgrenFredrik August Dahlgren was a Swedish writer, playwright and songwriter.Dahlgren was born in Nordmark parish in Värmland, son of Barthold Dahlgren, the manager of the mines at Taberg, and Anna Carolina Svensson...
, dramatist and songwriter (d. 1895) - November 1 - Friedrich Wilhelm HackländerFriedrich Wilhelm HackländerFriedrich Wilhelm Hackländer, in later life von Hackländer , was a successful German author.-Life:...
, novelist, dramatist and travel writer (d. 1877)
Deaths
- February 22 - Adam FergusonAdam FergusonAdam Ferguson FRSE, also known as Ferguson of Raith was a Scottish philosopher, social scientist and historian of the Scottish Enlightenment...
, philosopher - July 7 - Richard Brinsley SheridanRichard Brinsley SheridanRichard Brinsley Butler Sheridan was an Irish-born playwright and poet and long-term owner of the London Theatre Royal, Drury Lane. For thirty-two years he was also a Whig Member of the British House of Commons for Stafford , Westminster and Ilchester...
, playwright and politician (b. 1751)