1850 in literature
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Template:Short description Template:Year nav topic5 Template:Refimprove This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1850.
Events
- January – The collected works of Edgar Allan Poe (died 1849) begin posthumous publication, co-edited by Rufus Wilmot Griswold. Later in the year, Griswold adds a memoir to the third volume, denigrating Poe's reputation, based partly on forged evidence.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
- January–April – The Germ, a periodical of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood edited by William Michael Rossetti, is published (four issues, the last two retitled Art and Poetry).<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
- March – The weekly Household Words, "conducted by Charles Dickens," begins publication in London.
- March 14 – Honoré de Balzac marries Ewelina Hańska at Berdyczów.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> The marriage ends with his death only five months later.
- March 16 – Nathaniel Hawthorne's historical novel The Scarlet Letter is published by William Ticknor and James T. Fields in Boston, Massachusetts, where it is set. It sells 2,500 copies in ten days. A second edition appears by the end of the month.
- May 1 – The earliest surviving mention of the composition of Moby-Dick appears in a letter Herman Melville writes to Richard Henry Dana Jr.
- May (late) – Alfred Tennyson's poem In Memoriam A.H.H., commemorating the death of his friend and fellow poet Arthur Hallam in 1833, is published by Edward Moxon in London. The writer's anonymity is broken on June 1 by The Publishers' Circular.<ref name=ATC>Template:Cite book</ref><ref name=cocel>Template:Cite book</ref>
- June 13 – Alfred Tennyson marries his childhood friend Emily Sellwood at Shiplake.<ref name=ATC/>
- July – William Wordsworth's The Prelude; or, Growth of a Poet's Mind: An Autobiographical Poem, on which he has worked since 1798, is first published about three months after his death by Edward Moxon in London in 14 books, with the title supplied by the poet's widow, Mary.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
- August 5 – Nathaniel Hawthorne and Herman Melville meet for the first time, together with Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. and publisher James T. Fields, on a picnic expedition to Monument Mountain (Berkshire County, Massachusetts).<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
- September 26 – The first play by Henrik Ibsen to be performed, The Burial Mound (Kjæmpehøjen), opens at the Christiania Theatre under the pseudonym Brynjolf Bjarme. His first written play, Catiline, completed this year, will not be performed until 1881.
- November
- A new edition of Elizabeth Barrett Browning's Poems is published by Chapman & Hall in London, including in volume 2 her Sonnets from the Portuguese, written during her courtship by Robert Browning in about 1845–1846. The most famous will be No. 43 ("How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.")<ref name=cocel/>
- Salford Museum and Art Gallery opens as "The Royal Museum & Public Library", as England's first unconditionally free public library.<ref>Founded under the Museums Act 1845.Template:Cite web</ref>
- November 1 – Charles Dickens's novel David Copperfield – The Personal History, Adventures, Experience and Observation of David Copperfield the Younger of Blunderstone Rookery (Which He Never Meant to Publish on Any Account) – concludes serial publication and on November 14 appears complete in book form from Bradbury and Evans in London.
- November 19 – Alfred Tennyson is named Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom in succession to William Wordsworth, but only after Samuel Rogers has declined the offer because of his age<ref>Oxford DNB theme: Poets laureate.</ref> and Tennyson is assured that birthday odes will not be required of him.<ref name=ATC/>
- unknown date – Ivan Turgenev completes the writing of his play A Month in the Country («Месяц в деревне», Mesiats v derevne) as The Student in Paris, but it is rejected by the Saint Petersburg censor and will not be published until 1855 or performed until 1872.
New books
Fiction
- Wilkie Collins – Antonina, or The Fall of Rome
- Charles Dickens – David Copperfield (complete in book form)
- Alexandre Dumas, fils – Tristan le Roux
- Alexandre Dumas, père – The Black Tulip (La Tulipe Noire)
- Nathaniel Hawthorne – The Scarlet Letter
- Caroline Lee Hentz
- Linda
- Rena, the Snowbird
- Jón Thoroddsen – Piltur og Stúlka (Boy and Girl, the first novel in Icelandic)<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
- Herman Melville – White-Jacket<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
- Alexei Pisemsky – The Simpleton («Тюфя′к», Tyufyak)
- James Malcolm Rymer and Thomas Peckett Prest (probable authors) – The String of Pearls (complete in book form; the first literary appearance of Sweeney Todd)
- Frank Smedley – Frank Fairleigh
- William Makepeace Thackeray – Pendennis (complete in book form)<ref>Template:Cite encyclopedia</ref>
- Ivan Turgenev – The Diary of a Superfluous Man («Дневник лишнего человека», Dnevnik lishnevo cheloveka)<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
- Jemima von Tautphoeus – The Initials
- Susan Warner (as Elizabeth Wetherell) – The Wide, Wide World
Drama
- Vasile Alecsandri – Chirița în Iași
- Christian Friedrich Hebbel – Herodes and Mariamne
- Paul Heyse – Francesca von Rimini
- Henrik Ibsen – The Burial Mound (Kjæmpehøjen)<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
- Alexander Ostrovsky – It's a Family Affair-We'll Settle It Ourselves («Свои люди», Svoi lyudi - sotchtemsya, originally Bankrut)<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
- Ivan Turgenev – A Month in the Country (written)
Poetry
- Elizabeth Barrett Browning – Sonnets from the Portuguese<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
- Robert Browning – Christmas-Eve and Easter-Day
- Alfred Tennyson – In Memoriam A.H.H.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
- William Wordsworth – The Prelude
Non-fiction
- Ivar Aasen – Dictionary of the Norwegian Dialects (Ordbog over det Norske Folkesprog)
- Mary Anne Atwood – A Suggestive Inquiry into the Hermetic Mystery
- Frédéric Bastiat – The Law (La Loi)
- Thomas Carlyle – Latter-Day Pamphlets
- Ralph Waldo Emerson – Representative Men
- Friedrich Engels – The Peasant War in Germany (Der deutsche Bauernkrieg)
- Alexander Herzen – From Another Shore («С того берега», S togo berega)
- Washington Irving – Mahomet and His Successors
- Julia Kavanagh – Women in France during the Eighteenth Century
- Søren Kierkegaard (as Anti-Climacus) – Practice in Christianity (Indøvelse i Christendom)
Births
- January 14 – Pierre Loti, French novelist (died 1923)<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
- January 15 – Mihai Eminescu, Romanian poet, novelist and journalist (died 1889)<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
- January 24 – Mary Noailles Murfree, American novelist (died 1922)<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
- January 27 – John Collier, British writer and painter (died 1934)<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
- February 1 – Emma Churchman Hewitt, American author and journalist (died 1921)
- February 6 – Elizabeth Williams Champney, American author (died 1922)<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
- February 8 – Kate Chopin, American writer (died 1904)<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
- February 24 – Mary De Morgan, English children's writer and suffragist (died 1907)
- February 27 –Laura E. Richards, American author (died 1943)
- March 26 – Edward Bellamy, American Utopian novelist and socialist (died 1898)<ref>Howard Quint, The Forging of American Socialism: Origins of the Modern Movement: The Impact of Socialism on American Thought and Action, 1886–1901. Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press, 1953; p. 74.</ref>
- April 11 – Rosetta Luce Gilchrist, American physician, author (died 1921)
- April 12 – Agnes Catherine Maitland, English academic, novelist and cookery writer (died 1906)<ref>Template:Cite ODNB
</ref>
- April 13 – Bernhard Alexander (Alexander Márkus), Hungarian philosopher and polymath (died 1927)
- April 16 – Auguste Groner, Austrian detective fiction writer (died 1929)
- April 30
- Mrs. Alex. McVeigh Miller, American novelist (died 1937)<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
- Ieronim Yasinsky, Russian novelist, poet, critic and essayist (died 1931)
- June 18
- Cyrus H. K. Curtis, American publisher (died 1933)<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
- Alice Moore McComas, American author, editor, lecturer and reformer (died 1919)<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
- June 27 – Lafcadio Hearn (Koizumi Yakumo), Greek-born Irish American scholar and writer on Japan (died 1904)
- July 2 – Dumitru C. Moruzi, Russian-born Romanian political figure and social novelist (died 1914)
- July 9 (June 27 O.S.) – Ivan Vazov, Bulgarian poet, novelist and playwright (died 1921)
- July 18 – Rose Hartwick Thorpe, American poet and author (died 1939)
- July 25 – Lydia J. Newcomb Comings, American author, educator, lecturer (died 1946)
- August 5 – Guy de Maupassant, French novelist and short story writer (died 1893)<ref>Alain-Claude Gicquel, Maupassant, tel un météore, Le Castor Astral, 1993, p. 12</ref>
- August 10 – Ella M. S. Marble, American physician (died 1929)
- August 30 – Marcelo H. del Pilar, Filipino writer, journalist and reformist leader (died 1896)<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
- September 2 – Eugene Field, American poet and essayist (died 1895)
- September 6 – Marion Howard Brazier, American journalist (died 1935)
- October 26 – Grigore Tocilescu, Romanian historian, archaeologist, epigrapher and folkorist, author of many books on ancient Dacia (died 1909)
- November 5 – Ella Wheeler Wilcox, American writer and poet (died 1919)
- November 13 – Robert Louis Stevenson, Scottish novelist, poet and travel writer (died 1894)<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
- December 23 – Louise Reed Stowell, American scientist, author (died 1932)<ref>Template:Cite book </ref>
- Unknown date – Annie Armitt, English novelist and poet (died 1933)
Deaths
- January 20 – Adam Oehlenschläger, Danish poet and dramatist (born 1779)<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
- April 7 – William Lisle Bowles, English poet and critic (born 1762)
- April 23 – William Wordsworth, English poet (born 1770)<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
- May 24 – Jane Porter, Scottish novelist and dramatist (born 1776)
- May 31 – Giuseppe Giusti, Italian poet (born 1809)
- July 6 – Alexander Jamieson, Scottish textbook writer, schoolmaster and rhetorician (born 1782)<ref>Template:Cite book Retrieved 5 July 2020.</ref>
- July 14 – August Neander, German theologian (born 1789)<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
- July 19 – Margaret Fuller, American journalist and critic (presumed drowned, born 1810)<ref>Deiss, Joseph Jay (1969): The Roman Years of Margaret Fuller (NY: Thomas Y. Crowell Co.), p. 313.</ref>
- August 18 – Honoré de Balzac, French novelist (heart condition, born 1799)<ref>Pritchett, V. S. (1973). Balzac. New York: Alfred A. Knopf Inc. Template:ISBN Page 263</ref>
- August 22 – Nikolaus Lenau (Nikolaus Franz Niembsch Edler von Strehlenau), Austrian poet (insanity, born 1802)
- November 4 – Gustav Schwab, German writer and publisher (born 1792)
- November 10 – Lumley Skeffington, English playwright and fop (born 1771)
- December 4 – Robert Gilfillan, Scottish poet (born 1798)<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
- December 24 – Frédéric Bastiat, French political philosopher (tuberculosis; born 1801)<ref>Template:Cite encyclopedia</ref>
- December 29 – William Hamilton Maxwell, Scots-Irish novelist (born 1792)<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
Awards
- Chancellor's Gold Medal – Julian Fane, "Monody on the death of Adelaide, the Queen Dowager"<ref>The Cambridge Bibliography of English Literature, vol 1., p. 287. Accessed 13 January 2014</ref>
- Newdigate Prize – Frederick William Faber, "The Knights of St John"<ref>{{#if: |
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