1857 in literature
Encyclopedia
The year 1857 in literature involved some significant new books.
Events
- Jules VerneJules VerneJules Gabriel Verne was a French author who pioneered the science fiction genre. He is best known for his novels Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea , A Journey to the Center of the Earth , and Around the World in Eighty Days...
marries Honorine de Viane Morel. - The illustrated weekly, Über Land and Meer, is founded by Friedrich Wilhelm HackländerFriedrich Wilhelm HackländerFriedrich Wilhelm Hackländer, in later life von Hackländer , was a successful German author.-Life:...
and Edmund von Zoller. - Obscene Publications Act 1857Obscene Publications Act 1857The Obscene Publications Act 1857 , also known as Lord Campbell's Act or Campbell's Act, was a major piece of obscenity legislation in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland...
is passed in the United KingdomUnited KingdomThe United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
, placing severe restrictions on the content of published books until it is replaced with a less stringent one in 1959.
New books
- Hans Christian AndersenHans Christian AndersenHans Christian Andersen was a Danish author, fairy tale writer, and poet noted for his children's stories. These include "The Steadfast Tin Soldier," "The Snow Queen," "The Little Mermaid," "Thumbelina," "The Little Match Girl," and "The Ugly Duckling."...
- To Be or Not to Be - R. M. Ballantyne
- The Coral IslandThe Coral IslandThe Coral Island is a novel written by Scottish juvenile fiction author R. M. Ballantyne during the peak of the British Empire. It was voted as one of the top twenty Scottish novels in the 2006 15th International World Wide Web Conference....
- Ungava: a Tale of Eskimo Land
- The Coral Island
- George BorrowGeorge BorrowGeorge Henry Borrow was an English author who wrote novels and travelogues based on his own experiences around Europe. Over the course of his wanderings, he developed a close affinity with the Romani people of Europe. They figure prominently in his work...
- The Romany RyeThe Romany Rye-The novel:Largely thought to be at least partly autobiographical, it follows on from Lavengro . The title can be translated from Romany as 'Gipsy Gentleman'. On October 18, 1853, Mrs... - 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...
- The ProfessorThe Professor (novel)The Professor was the first novel by Charlotte Brontë. It was originally written before Jane Eyre and rejected by many publishing houses, but was eventually published posthumously in 1857 by approval of Arthur Bell Nicholls, who accepted the task of reviewing and editing of the novel.-Plot... - 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...
- The Dead Secret - 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...
- Little DorritLittle DorritLittle Dorrit is a serial novel by Charles Dickens published originally between 1855 and 1857. It is a work of satire on the shortcomings of the government and society of the period.... - Alexandre Dumas, pèreAlexandre Dumas, pèreAlexandre Dumas, , born Dumas Davy de la Pailleterie was a French writer, best known for his historical novels of high adventure which have made him one of the most widely read French authors in the world...
- The Wolf LeaderThe Wolf LeaderThe Wolf Leader is an English translation by Alfred Allinson of Le Meneur de loups, an 1857 fantasy novel by Alexandre Dumas. Allinson's translation was first published in London by Methuen in 1904 under the title The Wolf-Leader; the first American edition, edited and somewhat cut by L... - Gustave FlaubertGustave FlaubertGustave Flaubert was a French writer who is counted among the greatest Western novelists. He is known especially for his first published novel, Madame Bovary , and for his scrupulous devotion to his art and style.-Early life and education:Flaubert was born on December 12, 1821, in Rouen,...
- Madame BovaryMadame BovaryMadame Bovary is Gustave Flaubert's first published novel and is considered his masterpiece. The story focuses on a doctor's wife, Emma Bovary, who has adulterous affairs and lives beyond her means in order to escape the banalities and emptiness of provincial life... - Catherine GoreCatherine GoreCatherine Grace Frances Gore was a British novelist and dramatist, daughter of a wine merchant at Retford, where she was born. She is amongst the well-known of the silver fork writers - authors of the Victorian era depicting the gentility and etiquette of high society.-Biography:Gore was born in...
- The Two Aristocracies - Thomas HughesThomas HughesThomas Hughes was an English lawyer and author. He is most famous for his novel Tom Brown's Schooldays , a semi-autobiographical work set at Rugby School, which Hughes had attended. It had a lesser-known sequel, Tom Brown at Oxford .- Biography :Hughes was the second son of John Hughes, editor of...
- Tom Brown's SchooldaysTom Brown's SchooldaysTom Brown's Schooldays is a novel by Thomas Hughes. The story is set at Rugby School, a public school for boys, in the 1830s; Hughes attended Rugby School from 1834 to 1842... - George A. LawrenceGeorge Alfred LawrenceGeorge Alfred Lawrence was a British novelist and barrister.-Biography:George Alfred Lawrence was born at Buxted, Sussex, the eldest child of the Revd Alfred Charnley Lawrence, Curate of Uxfield Chapel, Buxted, and the Hon...
- Guy Livingstone, or Thorough - Fitz Hugh LudlowFitz Hugh LudlowFitz Hugh Ludlow, sometimes seen as “Fitzhugh Ludlow,” was an American author, journalist, and explorer; best-known for his autobiographical book The Hasheesh Eater ....
- The Hasheesh EaterThe Hasheesh EaterThe Hasheesh Eater is an autobiographical book by Fitz Hugh Ludlow describing the author's altered states of consciousness and philosophical flights of fancy while he was using a cannabis extract.... - Herman MelvilleHerman MelvilleHerman Melville was an American novelist, short story writer, essayist, and poet. He is best known for his novel Moby-Dick and the posthumous novella Billy Budd....
- The Confidence-ManThe Confidence-ManThe Confidence-Man: His Masquerade was the last major novel by Herman Melville, the American writer and author of Moby-Dick. Published on April 1, 1857 , The Confidence-Man was Melville's tenth major work in eleven years... - G. W. M. Reynolds - The Necromancer
- Joseph Xavier Saintine - Seul
- Catharine Maria Sedgwick - Married or Single?
- Adalbert StifterAdalbert StifterAdalbert Stifter was an Austrian writer, poet, painter, and pedagogue. He was especially notable for the vivid natural landscapes depicted in his writing, and has long been popular in the German-speaking world, while almost entirely unknown to English readers.-Life:Born in Oberplan in Bohemia , he...
- Der NachsommerDer NachsommerDer Nachsommer is a novel in three volumes by Adalbert Stifter. A 19th century Bildungsroman that describes the journey of an idealistic, sheltered young man from childhood to maturity, it combines aspects of Biedermeier thought with elements of German humanism to create what is generally... - William Makepeace ThackerayWilliam Makepeace ThackerayWilliam Makepeace Thackeray was an English novelist of the 19th century. He was famous for his satirical works, particularly Vanity Fair, a panoramic portrait of English society.-Biography:...
- The VirginiansThe VirginiansThe Virginians: A Tale of the Last Century is a historical novel by William Makepeace Thackeray which forms a sequel to his Henry Esmond and is also loosely linked to Pendennis. It tells the story of Henry Esmond's twin grandsons, George and Henry Warrington... - Anthony TrollopeAnthony TrollopeAnthony Trollope was one of the most successful, prolific and respected English novelists of the Victorian era. Some of his best-loved works, collectively known as the Chronicles of Barsetshire, revolve around the imaginary county of Barsetshire...
- Barchester TowersBarchester TowersBarchester Towers, published in 1857, is the second novel in Anthony Trollope's series known as the "Chronicles of Barsetshire". It is possibly Trollope's best known work...
New drama
- 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...
(with 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...
) - The Frozen DeepThe Frozen DeepThe Frozen Deep was a play, originally staged as an amateur theatrical, written by Wilkie Collins along with the substantial guidance of Charles Dickens in 1856... - Liautaud EthéartLiautaud EthéartLiautaud Ethéart was a Haitian playwright and politician. Born in Port-au-Prince, Ethéart served as Secretary of State in 1879. He is best remembered for his theatrical works.- Selected works :* Le Monde de Chez Nous...
- Le Monde de Chez Nous - Henrik IbsenHenrik IbsenHenrik Ibsen was a major 19th-century Norwegian playwright, theatre director, and poet. He is often referred to as "the father of prose drama" and is one of the founders of Modernism in the theatre...
- The Vikings at HelgelandThe Vikings at HelgelandThe Vikings at Helgeland is Henrik Ibsen's seventh play.The Vikings at Helgeland was written during 1857 and first performed at Christiania Norske Theater in Oslo on 24 November 1858. The scenes take place during the time of Erik Blood-axe in the north of Norway in historic Helgeland...
Non-fiction
- Delia BaconDelia BaconDelia Bacon was an American writer of plays and short stories, a sister of the Congregational minister Leonard Bacon...
- The Philosophy of Shakespeare's Plays - Elizabeth GaskellElizabeth GaskellElizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell, née Stevenson , often referred to simply as Mrs Gaskell, was a British novelist and short story writer during the Victorian era...
- The Life of Charlotte BrontëThe Life of Charlotte BronteThe Life of Charlotte Brontë is the posthumous biography of Charlotte Brontë by fellow novelist Elizabeth Gaskell. Although quite frank in many places, Gaskell suppressed details of Charlotte's love for Constantin Héger, a married man, on the grounds that it would be too great an affront to...
, Smith, Elder & Co.Smith, Elder & Co.Smith, Elder & Co. was a firm of British publishers who were most noted for the works they published in the 19th century.The firm was founded by George Smith and Alexander Elder and successfully continued by George Murray Smith .They are notable for producing the first edition of the Dictionary...
, biography - Philip Gosse - Omphalos: An Attempt to Untie the Geological KnotOmphalos (book)Omphalos: An Attempt to Untie the Geological Knot is a book by Philip Gosse, written in 1857 , in which he argues that the fossil record is not evidence of evolution, but rather that it is an act of creation inevitably made so that the world would appear to be older than it is...
- Hinton Rowan HelperHinton Rowan HelperHinton Rowan Helper was a Southern US critic of slavery during the 1850s. In 1857, he published a book which he dedicated to the "nonslaveholding whites" of the South...
- The Impending Crisis of the SouthThe Impending Crisis of the SouthThe Impending Crisis of the South is a book written by a white male named Hinton Rowan Helper, which he self-published in 1857. It was a strong attack on slavery as inefficient and a barrier to the economic advancement of whites... - Washington IrvingWashington IrvingWashington Irving was an American author, essayist, biographer and historian of the early 19th century. He was best known for his short stories "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" and "Rip Van Winkle", both of which appear in his book The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. His historical works...
- The Life of George WashingtonGeorge WashingtonGeorge Washington was the dominant military and political leader of the new United States of America from 1775 to 1799. He led the American victory over Great Britain in the American Revolutionary War as commander-in-chief of the Continental Army from 1775 to 1783, and presided over the writing of...
, Volume 4 - Allan KardecAllan KardecAllan Kardec is the pen name of the French teacher and educator Hippolyte Léon Denizard Rivail . He is known today as the systematizer of Spiritism for which he laid the foundation with the five books of the Spiritist Codification.-Early life:Rivail was born in Lyon in 1804...
- The Spirits' Book - W. H. Smith - Bacon and Shakespere: An Inquiry Touching Players, Play-Houses, and Play-writers in the Days of Elizabeth
Births
- February - Arthur Tolkien, father of J. R. R. TolkienJ. R. R. TolkienJohn Ronald Reuel Tolkien, CBE was an English writer, poet, philologist, and university professor, best known as the author of the classic high fantasy works The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and The Silmarillion.Tolkien was Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon at Pembroke College,...
- February 23 - Margaret DelandMargaret DelandMargaret Deland was an American novelist, short-story writer, and poet. She also wrote an autobiography in two volumes.-Life:...
(+ 1945) - July - Adriana PorterAdriana PorterAdriana Porter was an alleged witch.Porter's notability rests on a poem, The Rede of the Wiccae, which was published by her granddaughter Lady Gwen Thompson in Green Egg magazine in 1975 and attributed to her...
, Wicca "poet" (+ 1946) - July 24 - Henrik PontoppidanHenrik PontoppidanHenrik Pontoppidan was a realist writer who shared with Karl Gjellerup the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1917 for "his authentic descriptions of present-day life in Denmark." Pontoppidan's novels and short stories — informed with a desire for social progress but despairing, later in his...
, Nobel Prize-winning author (+ 1943) - September 30 - Hermann SudermannHermann SudermannHermann Sudermann was a German dramatist and novelist.- Early career :He was born at Matzicken, a village just to the east of Heydekrug in the Province of Prussia , close to the Russian frontier...
, dramatist and novelist (+ 1928) - October 31 - Axel MuntheAxel MuntheAxel Martin Fredrik Munthe was a Swedish psychiatrist, best known as the author of The Story of San Michele, an autobiographical account of his life and work....
, doctor and author (+ 1949) - November 22 - George GissingGeorge GissingGeorge Robert Gissing was an English novelist who published twenty-three novels between 1880 and 1903. From his early naturalistic works, he developed into one of the most accomplished realists of the late-Victorian era.-Early life:...
(+ 1903) - November 26 - Ferdinand de SaussureFerdinand de SaussureFerdinand de Saussure was a Swiss linguist whose ideas laid a foundation for many significant developments in linguistics in the 20th century. He is widely considered one of the fathers of 20th-century linguistics...
, Swiss linguist (+ 1913) - December 3 - Joseph ConradJoseph ConradJoseph Conrad was a Polish-born English novelist.Conrad is regarded as one of the great novelists in English, although he did not speak the language fluently until he was in his twenties...
(+ 1924) - date unknown - Benjamin Eli SmithBenjamin Eli SmithBenjamin Eli Smith, L.H.D. was an American editor and the son of Eli Smith. Born in Beirut, Ottoman Empire , he graduated from Amherst College , earning the degree of L.H.D. in 1902...
, editor of reference books (+ 1913)
Deaths
- January 5 - Albert SchweglerAlbert SchweglerAlbert Schwegler , was a German philosopher and theologian.-Life:He was born at Michelbach in Württemberg, the son of a country pastor....
, philosopher and theologian (b. 1819) - February 3 - Robert Isaac WilberforceRobert Isaac WilberforceRobert Isaac Wilberforce was an English clergyman and writer, second son of abolitionist William Wilberforce, and active in the Oxford Movement.-Early life and education:...
, historian and religious writer (b. 1802) - March 11 - Manuel José QuintanaManuel José QuintanaManuel José Quintana y Lorenzo , was a Spanish poet and man of letters. He was born at Madrid. After completing his studies at Salamanca he was called to the bar....
, poet (b. 1772) - March 26 - John Mitchell KembleJohn Mitchell KembleJohn Mitchell Kemble , English scholar and historian, was the eldest son of Charles Kemble the actor and Maria Theresa Kemble....
, historian (b. 1807) - May 2 - Alfred de MussetAlfred de MussetAlfred Louis Charles de Musset-Pathay was a French dramatist, poet, and novelist.Along with his poetry, he is known for writing La Confession d'un enfant du siècle from 1836.-Biography:Musset was born on 11 December 1810 in Paris...
, novelist and poet (b. 1810) (heart failure) - June 8 - Douglas William JerroldDouglas William JerroldDouglas William Jerrold was an English dramatist and writer.-Biography:Jerrold was born in London. His father, Samuel Jerrold, was an actor and lessee of the little theatre of Wilsby near Cranbrook in Kent. In 1807 Douglass moved to Sheerness, where he spent his childhood...
, dramatist (b. 1803) - June 25 - Isabella KellyIsabella KellyIsabella Kelly, née Fordyce, also Isabella Hedgeland was a British novelist and poet. She married Robert Hawke Kelly , a captain in the Royal Navy...
, novelist and poet (b. 1759) - July 29, James HolmanJames HolmanJames Holman FRS , known as the "Blind Traveler," was a British adventurer, author and social observer, best known for his writings on his extensive travels...
, travel writer (b. 1786) - August 3 - Eugène SueEugène SueJoseph Marie Eugène Sue was a French novelist.He was born in Paris, the son of a distinguished surgeon in Napoleon's army, and is said to have had the Empress Joséphine for godmother. Sue himself acted as surgeon both in the Spanish campaign undertaken by France in 1823 and at the Battle of Navarino...
, novelist (b. 1804) - August 10 - John Wilson CrokerJohn Wilson CrokerJohn Wilson Croker was an Irish statesman and author.He was born at Galway, the only son of John Croker, the surveyor-general of customs and excise in Ireland. He was educated at Trinity College, Dublin, where he graduated in 1800...
, political writer (b. 1780) - September 5 - Auguste ComteAuguste ComteIsidore Auguste Marie François Xavier Comte , better known as Auguste Comte , was a French philosopher, a founder of the discipline of sociology and of the doctrine of positivism...
, French philosopher (b. 1798) - September 18 - Jean Baptiste Gustave PlancheJean Baptiste Gustave PlancheJean Baptiste Gustave Planche , was a French art and literary critic.Already in his time as a medical student, Planche frequented artistic circles. This did nothing to promote the success of his studies...
, critic (b. 1808) - November 26 - Joseph Freiherr von EichendorffJoseph Freiherr von EichendorffJoseph Freiherr von Eichendorff was a German poet and novelist of the later German romantic school.Eichendorff is regarded as one of the most important German Romantics and his works have sustained high popularity in Germany from production to the present day.-Life:Eichendorff was born at Schloß...
, poet and novelist (b. 1788) - December 13 - Richard FurnessRichard FurnessRichard Furness was a British poet.-Biography:Richard Furness was known as the "The Poet of Eyam" after the village in Derbyshire, England where he was born on 2 August 1791. His parents, Samuel and Margaret sent him to school, although he could already read fluently by the age of four...
, poet (b. 1791)