1854 in literature
Encyclopedia
The year 1854 in literature involved some significant new books.
Events
- The Polyglotta AfricanaPolyglotta AfricanaPolyglotta Africana is a study written by the German missionary Sigismund Wilhelm Koelle in 1854 in which he compared 156 African languages...
, an early classification of African languagesAfrican languagesThere are over 2100 and by some counts over 3000 languages spoken natively in Africa in several major language families:*Afro-Asiatic spread throughout the Middle East, North Africa, the Horn of Africa, and parts of the Sahel...
based on field work under freed slaves in FreetownFreetownFreetown is the capital and largest city of Sierra Leone, a country in West Africa. It is a major port city on the Atlantic Ocean located in the Western Area of the country, and had a city proper population of 772,873 at the 2004 census. The city is the economic, financial, and cultural center of...
, Sierra LeoneSierra LeoneSierra Leone , officially the Republic of Sierra Leone, is a country in West Africa. It is bordered by Guinea to the north and east, Liberia to the southeast, and the Atlantic Ocean to the west and southwest. Sierra Leone covers a total area of and has an estimated population between 5.4 and 6.4...
, is published by Sigismund Wilhelm Koelle.
New books
- Jules Amédée Barbey d'AurevillyJules Amédée Barbey d'AurevillyJules-Amédée Barbey d'Aurevilly was a French novelist and short story writer. He specialised in mystery tales that explored hidden motivation and hinted at evil without being explicitly concerned with anything supernatural...
-L'Ensorcelée - William Wells BrownWilliam Wells BrownWilliam Wells Brown was a prominent African-American abolitionist lecturer, novelist, playwright, and historian. Born into slavery in the Southern United States, Brown escaped to the North in 1834, where he worked for abolitionist causes and was a prolific writer...
- Sketches of Places and People Abroad - John Esten CookeJohn Esten CookeJohn Esten Cooke was an American novelist and poet. He was the brother of poet Philip Pendleton Cooke.-Early life:Born in Winchester, Virginia, he was noted for writing about that state...
- The Virginia Comedians - Wilkie CollinsWilkie CollinsWilliam Wilkie Collins was an English novelist, playwright, and author of short stories. He was very popular during the Victorian era and wrote 30 novels, more than 60 short stories, 14 plays, and over 100 non-fiction pieces...
- Hide and SeekHide and Seek (novel)Hide and Seek is a 1991 crime novel by Ian Rankin. It is the second of the Inspector Rebus novels.-Plot summary:Detective Inspector John Rebus finds the body of an overdosed drug addict in an Edinburgh squat, laid out cross-like on the floor, between two burned-down candles, with a five-pointed... - Maria Cummins - The LamplighterThe LamplighterThe Lamplighter is a sentimental novel written by Maria Susanna Cummins published on March 1, 1854. The Lamplighter was Cummins's first novel and was an immediate best-seller, selling 20,000 copies in twenty days. The work sold 40,000 in eight weeks, and within five months it had sold 65,000...
- Charles DickensCharles DickensCharles John Huffam Dickens was an English novelist, generally considered the greatest of the Victorian period. Dickens enjoyed a wider popularity and fame than had any previous author during his lifetime, and he remains popular, having been responsible for some of English literature's most iconic...
- Hard TimesHard TimesHard Times - For These Times is the tenth novel by Charles Dickens, first published in 1854. The book appraises English society and is aimed at highlighting the social and economic pressures of the times.... - Fanny FernFanny FernFanny Fern, born Sara Willis , was an American writer and the first woman to have a regular newspaper column. She was also a humorist, novelist, and author of children's stories in the 1850s-1870s. Fern's great popularity has been attributed to her conversational style and sense of what mattered to...
- Ruth HallRuth HallRuth Hall: a Domestic Tale of the Present Time is a roman à clef by Fanny Fern , a popular 19th-century newspaper writer. Following on her meteoric rise to fame as a columnist, she signed a contract in February 1854 to write a full-length novel... - Francesco Domenico GuerrazziFrancesco Domenico GuerrazziFrancesco Domenico Guerrazzi was an Italian writer and politician involved in the Italian risorgimento.-Biography:...
- Beatrice CenciBeatrice CenciBeatrice Cenci was an Italian noblewoman. She is famous as the protagonist in a lurid murder trial in Rome.... - Nathaniel HawthorneNathaniel HawthorneNathaniel Hawthorne was an American novelist and short story writer.Nathaniel Hawthorne was born in 1804 in the city of Salem, Massachusetts to Nathaniel Hathorne and the former Elizabeth Clarke Manning. His ancestors include John Hathorne, a judge during the Salem Witch Trials...
- Mosses from an Old ManseMosses from an Old ManseMosses from an Old Manse was a short story collection by Nathaniel Hawthorne, first published in 1846.-Background and publication history:... - Caroline Lee HentzCaroline Lee HentzCaroline Lee Whiting Hentz was an American novelist and author, most noted for her opposition to the abolitionist movement and her widely-read rebuttal to the popular anti-slavery book, Uncle Tom's Cabin...
- The Planter's Northern BrideThe Planter's Northern BrideThe Planter's Northern Bride is an 1854 novel written by Caroline Lee Hentz, in response to the publication of Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe in 1852.- Overview :... - Mary Jane Holmes - Tempest and Sunshine
- Mary Russell MitfordMary Russell MitfordMary Russell Mitford , was an English author and dramatist. She was born at Alresford, Hampshire. Her place in English literature is as the author of Our Village...
- Atherton - Gérard de NervalGérard de NervalGérard de Nerval was the nom-de-plume of the French poet, essayist and translator Gérard Labrunie, one of the most essentially Romantic French poets.- Biography :...
- Les Filles du feuLes Filles du feuLes Filles du feu is a collection of short stories published by the French poet Gérard de Nerval during January 1854, a year before his death...
(short stories) - E. D. E. N. SouthworthE. D. E. N. SouthworthEmma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth was an American writer of more than 60 novels in the latter part of the 19th century. She was probably the most widely read author of that era.-Life and career:...
- The Lost Heiress - Leo TolstoyLeo TolstoyLev Nikolayevich Tolstoy was a Russian writer who primarily wrote novels and short stories. Later in life, he also wrote plays and essays. His two most famous works, the novels War and Peace and Anna Karenina, are acknowledged as two of the greatest novels of all time and a pinnacle of realist...
- BoyhoodBoyhood (novel)Boyhood is the second novel in Leo Tolstoy's autobiographical trilogy, following Childhood and followed by Youth. The novel was first published in the Russian literary journal Sovremennik in 1854....
Poetry
- R. D. BlackmoreR. D. BlackmoreRichard Doddridge Blackmore , referred to most commonly as R. D. Blackmore, was one of the most famous English novelists of the second half of the nineteenth century. Over the course of his career, Blackmore achieved a close following around the world...
- Poems by MelanterPoems by MelanterPoems by Melanter is a 1853 collection of poems by English novelist R.D. Blackmore.... - Coventry PatmoreCoventry PatmoreCoventry Kersey Dighton Patmore was an English poet and critic best known for The Angel in the House, his narrative poem about an ideal happy marriage.-Youth:...
- The Angel in the HouseThe Angel in the HouseThe Angel in the House is a narrative poem by Coventry Patmore, first published in 1854 and expanded up until 1862. Although largely ignored upon publication, it became enormously popular during the later nineteenth century and its influence continued well into the twentieth... - Alfred Tennyson - The Charge of the Light BrigadeThe Charge of the Light Brigade (poem)"The Charge of the Light Brigade" is an 1854 narrative poem by Alfred, Lord Tennyson about the Charge of the Light Brigade at the Battle of Balaclava during the Crimean War...
Non-fiction
- George BooleGeorge BooleGeorge Boole was an English mathematician and philosopher.As the inventor of Boolean logic—the basis of modern digital computer logic—Boole is regarded in hindsight as a founder of the field of computer science. Boole said,...
- The Laws of ThoughtThe Laws of ThoughtThe Laws of Thought, more precisely, An Investigation of the Laws of Thought on Which are Founded the Mathematical Theories of Logic and Probabilities, is a very influential 19th century book on logic by George Boole, the second of his two monographs on algebraic logic... - Ludwig Feuerbach - The Essence of ChristianityThe Essence of ChristianityThe Essence of Christianity is a book written by Ludwig Feuerbach and first published in 1841. It explains Feuerbach's philosophy and critique of religion. Feuerbach's theory of alienation would later be used by Karl Marx.- Influence :...
- Theodor MommsenTheodor MommsenChristian Matthias Theodor Mommsen was a German classical scholar, historian, jurist, journalist, politician, archaeologist, and writer generally regarded as the greatest classicist of the 19th century. His work regarding Roman history is still of fundamental importance for contemporary research...
- Römische GeschichteHistory of Rome (Mommsen)The History of Rome is a multi-volume history of ancient Rome written by Theodor Mommsen . Originally published by Reimer & Hirsel, Leipzig, as three volumes during 1854-1856, the work dealt with the Roman Republic. A subsequent book was issued which concerned the provinces of the Roman Empire... - Henry David ThoreauHenry David ThoreauHenry David Thoreau was an American author, poet, philosopher, abolitionist, naturalist, tax resister, development critic, surveyor, historian, and leading transcendentalist...
- Walden or Life in the WoodsWaldenWalden is an American book written by noted Transcendentalist Henry David Thoreau...
Births
- August 2 - Francis Marion CrawfordFrancis Marion CrawfordFrancis Marion Crawford was an American writer noted for his many novels, especially those set in Italy, and for his classic weird and fantastic stories.-Life:...
, novelist (d. 1909) - October 16 - Oscar WildeOscar WildeOscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde was an Irish writer and poet. After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, he became one of London's most popular playwrights in the early 1890s...
, author (d. 1900) - Date unknown
- Sarah GrandSarah GrandSarah Grand was a British feminist writer active from 1873 to 1922. Her work revolved around the New Woman ideal.- Early Life and Influences of Frances Elizabeth Bellenden Clarke:...
, author and women's rights advocate (d. 1943)
- Sarah Grand
Deaths
- February 4 - George WatterstonGeorge WatterstonGeorge Watterston was the third Librarian of the United States Congress from 1815 to 1829.-Biography:Watterston, the son of a builder from Jedburgh, Scotland, was born on board a ship in New York Harbor. When Watterston was eight, his family moved to Washington D.C., his father attracted by the...
, librarian of Congress (born 1783) - April 3 - John WilsonJohn Wilson (Scottish writer)John Wilson of Ellerey FRSE was a Scottish advocate, literary critic and author, the writer most frequently identified with the pseudonym Christopher North of Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine....
, poet and journalist (born 1785) - April 7 - Pierre François TissotPierre François TissotPierre François Tissot was a French man of letters and politician.-Early life:He was born in Versailles to a native of Savoy, who was a perfumer appointed by royal warrant to the court...
, historian and memoirist (born 1768) - April 16 - Julia NybergJulia NybergJulia Kristina Nyberg , was a Swedish poet and songwriter. Nyberg grew up as the adoptive daughter of a mill owner, named Adlerwald, in the parish of Skultuna in Västmanland County...
, Swedish poet (born 1784) - April 24 - Gabriele RossettiGabriele RossettiGabriele Pasquale Giuseppe Rossetti was an Italian poet and scholar who emigrated to England.Born in Vasto in the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, the original family of his ancestors was Della Guardia...
, poet (born 1783) - October 14 - Samuel Phillips, journalist (born 1814)
- December 9 - Almeida GarrettAlmeida GarrettJoão Baptista da Silva Leitão de Almeida Garrett, Viscount of Almeida Garrett was a Portuguese poet, playwright, novelist and politician. He is considered to be the introducer of the Romanticism in Portugal, with the epic poem Camões, based on the life of Luís de Camões...
, poet, novelist and dramatist (born 1799) - date unknown
- Gottschalk Eduard GuhrauerGottschalk Eduard GuhrauerGottschalk Eduard Guhrauer was a German philologist and biographer. He is known principally for his 1842 biography of G. W. Leibniz and his completion of T. W. Danzel's life of Lessing....
, philologist and biographer (born 1809) - John KittoJohn KittoJohn Kitto was an English biblical scholar of Cornish descent.-Biography:Born in Plymouth, John Kitto was a sickly child, son of a Cornish stonemason. The drunkenness of his father and the poverty of his family meant that much of his childhood was spent in the workhouse. He had no more than three...
, Biblical commentator (born 1804) - Abraham John ValpyAbraham John ValpyAbraham John Valpy was an English printer and publisher.He was the son of the Reading schoolmaster Richard Valpy. He is remembered in connection with two great undertakings in the department of classical literature. These were reissues of Stephanus' Greek Thesaurus, for which E. H...
, printer and publisher (born 1787)
- Gottschalk Eduard Guhrauer