1826 in literature

This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1826.

Events

Early months – Aftermath of the Decembrist revolt in the Russian Empire. Michael Lunin, though not involved in the Decembrist conspiracy, is arrested and deported to Siberia, which allows him to begin his work as a philosopher. Adam Mickiewicz, deported from Congress Poland for his involvement with Filaret Association, is moved from Taurida Governorate to Moscow. Here, he publishes his Sonety krymskie. Later in the year, he befriends Russian writers, including Yevgeny Baratynsky, Mikhail Pogodin, Alexander Pushkin, and the Lyubomudry. Pushkin, himself returning from political exile, still writes poems discreetly honoring the Decembrists. They include Stansy, as well as odes to Nikolay Mordvinov and Ivan Pushchin.
c. January – Japanese poet Kobayashi Issa, pained by his recent divorce, enters his final creative period with hokku expressing his solitude and, at times, nihilistic thoughts.
January 15 – The French newspaper Le Figaro begins publication in Paris. In this first edition, it is a satirical weekly, reflecting the preoccupation of its two founders, Maurice Alhoy and Étienne Arago.
January 17 – The Ballantyne printing business in Edinburgh crashes, ruining Sir Walter Scott as a principal investor. He undertakes to repay his creditors from his writings, although his publisher Archibald Constable also fails. Distress caused by the events contributes to the illness afflicting Scott's wife, Lady Charlotte; she dies in May.
February 4 – In the Mexican Republic, lithographer Claudio Linati inaugurates El Iris, a "pocket sized" bi-weekly. It is in print until August 2, when its popularization of liberal ideas prompts the intervention of state censors; Linati leaves Mexico later in the year, probably for political reasons.
February 6
*First printing of James Fenimore Cooper's The Last of the Mohicans. This is Cooper's first book under contract with Philadelphia publishers Mathew Carey and Isaac Lea, following Charles Wiley's near-bankruptcy and death. It endures as "the most popular novel of the 1820s."
*Charles L. Force brings printing to the Colony of Liberia and, ten days later, founds the bi-weekly Liberia Herald. Force dies later this year, but his publication is revived in 1830 by John Brown Russwurm.
February 16 – Hungarian Serbs gather at Pest to set up Matica srpska, a cultural society dedicated to promoting the works of Serb writers. It sponsors Georgije Magarašević's Serbski Letopis, which remains "one of Europe's oldest, regularly published journals."
March – Aged eight, the future orator and memoirist Frederick Douglass is lent by his master to the Aulds of Fell's Point, Baltimore. He will remain their house servant, and later their regular slave, until 1838, when he escapes via the Underground Railroad.
April – Andrés Bello launches his London magazine Repertorio Americano, in which he publishes the final installment of his Las Silvas Americanas, known as Silva a la agricultura de la zona tórrida. It is sometimes described as a final masterpiece of Neoclassicism in Latin American literature.
April 16 – Thomas Pringle, a founding figure of South African literature, embarks on his return trip to England. His stay in the Cape Colony leads him to join and publicize for the Anti-Slavery Society.
May 18 – At Buda, Habsburg Hungary, Wallachian intellectual Dinicu Golescu receives imprimatur for his Însemnare a călătoriei mele. This pioneering travelog covers extensive trips in Central and Western Europe, which Golescu had begun in 1824. The author documents his own "amazed 'discovery' of the West acceptance of his country's admitted inferiority." As a "manifesto for the new culture" Însemnare promotes Wallachia's passage into the Age of Enlightenment. For the same purpose Golescu sponsors a school on his estate.
June – Despite having maintained links with the Decembrists, poet Alexander Griboyedov receives a "certificate of loyalism" from the Russian government.
July 25 – Five Decembrist leaders, including poet Kondraty Ryleyev, are hanged in Senate Square, Saint Petersburg. Pushkin's papers of the time include a drawing of five silhouettes on a scaffold, with the words: "Me too, I could be...".
August 19 – Louis Christophe François Hachette purchases the Brédif bookshop on rue Pierre-Sarrazin, Paris. This becomes the first asset owned by the Hachette publishing company.
September – The first issue of Lydia Maria Child's The Juvenile Miscellany, a magazine for children, is published in Boston. Becoming "so popular that children used to sit on their doorsteps waiting for the mail carrier to deliver it," it lasts until 1834.
October – Tyrone Power gets his break as a principal Irish character actor at the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden in London.
October 17 – Thomas Carlyle and Jane Welsh marry in Templand and setup home in Edinburgh.
Late months – First recorded usage of "Quixotism" in Greek, in a letter from John Caradja to Alexandros Mavrokordatos.
November
*Hungarian philologist Sándor Kőrösi Csoma ends his stay at Teta, on the outskirts of Phugtal Monastery in Ladakh.
*The London Missionary Society sets up the first printing press in Madagascar. It survives to 1836, being ultimately shut down for political reasons.
December – At Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan, Henry Schoolcraft sets up a review called Literary Voyager, or Muzzeniegan. It includes poems and stories by his part-Ojibwe wife, Jane Johnston Schoolcraft, who thus becomes one of the first Native American literary professionals.
December 5 – From his boarding school in Nezhin, Chernigov Governorate, Nikolai Gogol writes home to his mother, describing a "radical new change" in his poetic style. Only two pieces he wrote during this period have survived for posterity.
c. December 25 – Edgar Allan Poe is forced to renounce his studies at the University of Virginia when his foster parent John Allan refuses to pay for his tuition.
unknown dates
*Almeida Garrett issues the poetry anthology Parnaso lusitano, which is both a milestone of Romanticism in Lusophone countries and a cause for debates regarding the emergence of a distinct Brazilian literature. The latter issue is also explored by French historian Jean-Ferdinand Denis, who includes an epilogue on "Brazil's literary history" to his Portuguese literature tract.
*Robert Morrison, missionary and Bible translator, returns from Malacca to England "with 10,000 Chinese books."
*Jean-Pierre Abel-Rémusat, who puts out the Mélanges Asiatiques collection, publishes his translation of a Chinese classic: Iu-Kiao-Li, ou Les Deux Cousines.
*Francesco Vella puts out a translation of Francesco Soave's Trattato elementare dei doveri dell'uomo , as a textbook for Gozo College Boys' Secondary School. It is one of the first prose works published in the Maltese language.

New books

Fiction

Jicontencal. A Spanish Novel on the Conquest of Mexico
Selina Bunbury – The Pastor's Tales
François-René de Chateaubriand – Les Natchez
James Fenimore Cooper – The Last of the Mohicans
Benjamin Disraeli – Vivian Grey
Joseph Freiherr von Eichendorff – Memoirs of a Good-for-Nothing
William Nugent Glascock – The Naval Sketch Book, or The Service Afloat and Ashore
Catherine Gore – The Broken Heart
Ann Hatton – Deeds of the Olden Time
Wilhelm Hauff
*Die Bettlerin vom Pont des Arts
*Lichtenstein
*Märchen almanach auf das Jahr 1826
*Mitteilungen aus den Memoiren des Satan
Victor Hugo – Bug-Jargal
Bernhard Severin Ingemann – Valdemar Seier: En historisk Roman
Thomas Henry Lister – Granby
Anna Maria Porter – Honor O'Hara
Jane Porter and Anna Maria Porter – Tales Round a Winter Hearth
Ann Radcliffe – Gaston de Blondeville
Jean-Pierre Abel-Rémusat – Iu-Kiao-Li, ou Les Deux Cousines
Sir Walter Scott – Woodstock
Mary Shelley – The Last Man
Horace Smith – Brambletye House
Alfred de Vigny – ''Cinq-Mars''

Children and young people

Wilhelm Hauff – Märchen Almanach auf das Jahr 1826
Rosalia St. Clair – Obstinacy
Agnes Strickland
*The Rival Crusoes, or, The Shipwreck
*A Voyage to Norway
*The Fisherman's Cottage: Founded on Facts
*''The Young Emigrant''

Drama

Joanna Baillie – Martyr
Timotei Cipariu – Ecloga pastorală
Václav Kliment Klicpera – Veselohra na moste
Mary Russell Mitford – Foscari
John Howard Payne – The French Libertine
Joseph Isidore Samson – La Belle-Mère et le gendre
Eugène Scribe – ''Bertrand et Suzette; ou Le Mariage de raison''

Poetry

Almeida Garrett – Parnaso lusitano
Yevgeny Baratynsky – "Eda"
Andrés Bello – Silva a la agricultura de la zona tórrida
Alfred de Vigny – Poèmes antiques et modernes
Ivan Gundulić – Osman
Heinrich Heine – Die Harzreise
Felicia Dorothea Hemans – "Casabianca"
Robert Hetrick – Poems and Songs of Robert Hetrick
Andreas Kalvos – Odes nouvelles
Letitia Elizabeth Landon – "Erinna"
William Leggett – Journals of the Ocean
Adam Mickiewicz – Sonety krymskie
Alexander Pushkin
*I. I. Pushchinu
*Morvinovu
*Stansy
Charles Tompson – Wild Notes, from the Lyre of a Native Minstrel
Samuel Woodworth – "The Hunters of Kentucky"

Non-fiction

Ioan Alexi – Grammatica dacoromana sive valachica
Elias Boudinot – "An Address to the Whites"
Giacomo Casanova – Histoire de ma vie
Victor Collot – Voyage dans l'Amérique Septentrionale
Jean-Ferdinand Denis – Résumé de l'histoire littéraire du Portugal, suivi du résumé de l'histoire littéraire du Brésil
William Erskine – Memoirs of Babar
Dinicu Golescu – Însemnare a călătoriei mele
Wilhelm Hauff – Kontroverspredigt über H. Clauren und den Mann im Mond
William Hazlitt – "Of Persons One Would Wish to Have Seen"
Dietrich Georg von Kieser – System des Tellurismus oder thierisches Magnetismus
Ferenc Kölcsey – Mohács
Robert Morrison – A Parting Memorial, consisting of Miscellaneous Discources
Abigail Mott – Biographical Sketches and Interesting Anecdotes of Persons of Color
Josiah Priest – The Wonders of Nature
Magdalena Dobromila Rettigová – Domácí kuchařka
Pavel Jozef Šafárik – Geschichte der slawischen Sprache und Literatur nach allen Mundarten
Dovber Schneuri – Toras Chaim
David Strauss, translated by George Eliot – The Life of Jesus, Critically Examined
Francesco Vella – ''Trattat fuk l'Oblighi tal-Bniedem tal-Patri F. Soave''

Births

January–March

January 3 – John White, English-born New Zealand historian and ethnographer
January 5
*Helen Louisa Bostwick Bird, American poet and journalist
*Morten Eskesen, Danish folklorist and editor
January 6 – Adolf Kirchhoff, German historian and philologist
January 8
*J. R. Black, Scottish journalist and publisher
*Gabriele Dara, Italian and Albanian poet and journalist
January 14 – Ivan Naumovich, Galician essayist and polemicist
January 17
*Adelaïde Ehrnrooth, Finnish novelist, poet and essayist
*Wilhelm Lübke, German art historian
January 19 – Gustav Hertzberg, German historian and translator
January 20 – William Bonaparte-Wyse, Irish poet
January 22 – Friedrich Ueberweg, German philosopher and historian
January 23 – Edward Byles Cowell, English philologist and translator
January 24
*Ditmar Meidell, Norwegian journalist and editor
*William Gifford Palgrave, English scholar and essayist
January 27
*Eliza Allen, American memoirist
* – Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin, Russian satirist, novelist and editor
February 3 – Walter Bagehot, English essayist and journalist
February 6 – Charles Barbier de Meynard, French historian
February 9
*Samuel Bowles, American journalist and travel writer
*József Borovnyák, Slovenian-Hungarian translator and Catholic theologian
February 10 – Ernest de Bouteiller, French historian and politician
February 12 – Prince George of Prussia, German general, poet and playwright
February 14
*George Kingsley, English travel writer, journalist and librarian
*Ignacy Żagiell, Polish travel writer
February 15 – Thomas Butler Gunn, English illustrator and journalist
February 16 – Joseph Viktor von Scheffel, German poet and novelist
February 19 – Matija Mesić, Croatian historian
February 21 – Lois Waisbrooker, American essayist and publisher
February 24 – Adolphe Bitard, French biographer and magazine editor
February 26 – Oswald Ottendorfer, Moravian-born American journalist
February 27
*Cynthia Roberts Gorton, American poet and author
*Manuel Antonio Matta, Chilean politician, journalist and editor
*Samuel Timmins, English literary historian and librarian
*Louise Westergaard, Danish journalist and translator
February 28 – Pamfil Yurkevich, Ukrainian-Russian philosopher
March 1 – Nicolae Popea, Romanian-Hungarian historian
March 4
*August Johann Gottfried Bielenstein, German-Russian philologist, historian and newspaper editor
*Elme Marie Caro, French philosopher and journalist
March 15 – Adolphe Joseph Carcassonne, French poet and playwright
March 19 – Stanislas d'Escayrac de Lauture, French travel writer and linguist
March 20
*Ruggero Bonghi, Italian journalist, historian and polemicist
*Carel Vosmaer, Dutch poet and art critic
March 22 – Lewys Glyn Dyfi, Welsh-born American poet and journalist
March 24 – Matilda Joslyn Gage, American journalist and editor
March 27 – Johannes Overbeck, German historian

April–June

c. April – Lady Strangford, English travel writer, editor and illustrator
April 1
*Paride Suzzara Verdi, Italian revolutionary and journalist
*Lady Dorothy Nevill, English memoirist
April 10
*Mustafa Celalettin Pasha, Polish-born Ottoman soldier and essayist
*Pamelia Sarah Vining, American-born Canadian poet and novelist
April 17 – Vojtěch Náprstek, Czech journalist, lecturer and book collector
April 19 – Franciszek Kostrzewski, Polish illustrator
April 20 – Dinah Craik, née Mulock, English novelist and poet
April 21 – William Hearn, Irish essayist and legal scholar
April 26 – Eduardo Asquerino, Spanish journalist, poet and playwright
April 28
*William Brough, English playwright
*Frances Irene Burge Griswold, American poet and short story writer
April 29 – Alfred B. Meacham, American playwright, polemicist and historian
April 30 – Julius von Ficker, Prussian-born Austrian historian
May 9 – Gregorio Gutiérrez González, Colombian poet
May 10 – Henrik Krohn, Norwegian poet, journalist and language reformer
May 12 – Alexander Roberts, Scottish philologist and historian
May 13 – Clara Andersen, Danish playwright and novelist
May 15 – Henri Mouhot, French ethnographer and travel writer
May 22
*Denys Corbet, Guernsey poet
*Kostandin Kristoforidhi, Ottoman-Albanian translator and essayist
*Christopher Columbus Langdell, American legal scholar
May 23
*Adile Sultan, Ottoman poet
*Frances Fuller Victor, American historian and novelist
May 25 – Ralph T. H. Griffith, English philologist and translator
May 26 – Edgar Alfred Bowring, English translator and essayist
May 31 – Gustav Brühl, American poet and journalist
June – Thomas Gardiner, Scottish-born American newspaper publisher
June 1 – Kornélia Prielle, Hungarian actress
June 2 – Richard Holt Hutton, English essayist and journalist
June 5 – Nathaniel Bryceson, English clerk and diarist
June 10 – Bogoboj Atanacković, Serbian-Hungarian novelist and critic
June 15
*Bill Arp, American humorist
*Luigi Ferri, Italian philosopher
June 18 – Cäsar Rüstow, German military writer
June 21 – Angelo Zottoli, Italian translator and literary historian
June 25 – Émile Acollas, French legal scholar
June 26 – Adolf Bastian, German polymath
June 29 – Charles Ernest Beulé, French historian

July–September

July 1 – Hana Catherine Mullens, Bengali novelist and translator
July 2 – Ernest Hamel, French poet, historian and journalist
July 3 – Rudolf Westphal, German historian and philologist
July 4 – John Morris, English historian and Catholic theologian
Amédée Guillemin, French science writer and journalist
July 8
*Friedrich Chrysander, German music historian and critic
*Laurindo Rabelo, Brazilian poet
July 12 – William Kirkpatrick Riland Bedford, English historian
July 15 – Emily C. Blackman, American historian and journalist
July 20 – Laura Keene, English actress
July 23 – Alexander Afanasyev, Russian journalist and folklorist
July 30 – Herbert William Fisher, English historian
August 5
*Andreas Aagesen, Danish legal scholar
*İbrahim Şinasi, Ottoman journalist and playwright
August 7 – August Ahlqvist, Finnish poet and philologist
August 12
*Nikolai Albertini, Russian journalist
*Henry Clay Brockmeyer, German-born American poet, novelist, playwright and philosopher
*Lucy Ellen Guernsey, American novelist
August 14 – Eusebio Lillo, Chilean poet and journalist
August 28 – Mikhail Stasyulevich, Russian historian and publisher
August 31 – Emma Bedelia Dunham, American poet
September 1 – Herbert Haines, English historian and Anglican theologian
September 4 – Karl Blind, German-born revolutionary, historian and essayist
September 6 – Leopold Ullstein, German newspaper publisher
September 7 – Rajnarayan Basu, Bengali journalist, historian and Brahmoist theologian
September 8 – Addison Peale Russell, American essayist
September 10 – Fernand Desnoyers, French poet, critic and folklorist
September 13 – Leonard Kip, American novelist and travel writer
September 14 – Ljubomir Nenadović, Serbian poet and historian
September 17 – Jean-Baptiste-Éric Dorion, Canadian journalist

October–December

October 8 – Luka Svetec, Slovene-Austrian poet and philologist
October 9 – Agathon Meurman, Finnish journalist and lexicographer
October 19
*Manuel Joël, German historian, philosopher and Jewish theologian
*Athénaïs Michelet, French science writer and memoirist
October 22 – Pietro Amat di San Filippo, Italian historian
October 23 – Charles-Honoré Laverdière, Canadian historian and editor
October 25 – Frank Key Howard, American journalist and memoirist
October 26 – Dimitri Bakradze, Georgian-Russian historian
October 27 – Marie von Olfers, German short story writer and illustrator
November – Emily Verdery Battey, American journalist
November 2 – William Haines Lytle, American soldier and poet
November 4
*Charles Hamilton Aide, French-born English novelist, poet and playwright
*Emmanuel Domenech, French travel writer, folklorist and historian
November 8 – Gualtherus Johannes Cornelis Kolff, Dutch East Indian publisher
November 12 – Alejandro Tapia y Rivera, Puerto Rican poet, playwright, essayist and literary historian
November 13 – Jovan Đorđević, Serbian poet, playwright and editor
November 14 – Heinrich Lang, German Reformed theologian and editor
November 19 – Alfred Mézières, French journalist and historian
c. November 23 – T. E. Kebbel, English journalist
November 24
*Carlo Collodi, Italian children's author, satirist and newspaper editor
*Coates Kinney, American journalist and poet
November 27
*Robert Hugh Miller, American journalist and editor
*António Augusto Soares de Passos, Portuguese poet
December 6 – Albert Harrison Hoyt, English historian and editor
December 10 – Franz Susemihl, German philologist and literary historian
December 17 – Amédée de Jallais, French playwright and librettist
December 18 – Alexandre Chatrian, French playwright and journalist
December 22 – U. V. Koren, Norwegian-born American Lutheran theologian
December 23 – William Blanchard Jerrold, English journalist and biographer
December 26 – Valerian Kalinka, Polish historian and editor
December 28
*Conrad Busken Huet, Dutch pastor, journalist and literary critic
*Vladimir Stoyunin, Russian essayist, literary historian and journalist
December 30 – Philippe Baby Casgrain, Canadian historian

Unknown dates

David ben Shimon, Moroccan Jewish theologian
Thomas Chenery, Barbadian-born English scholar and editor
Wali Dewane, Kurdish-Ottoman poet
Liautaud Ethéart, Haitian playwright and essayist
Henry George Keene, English and Indian historian
Mary Eva Kelly, Irish-born Australian poet
Manol Lazarov, Bulgarian essayist and poet
Bedros Magakyan, Ottoman-Armenian actor and theater director
Frank Marryat, English memoirist and travel writer
Augustus Mayhew, English journalist, humorist and theatrical producer
Mishkín-Qalam, Persian calligrapher and Bahá'í mystic
Tasos Neroutsos, Greek-born historian and language reformer
John Sands, Scottish journalist, humorist and travel writer
M. A. Sherring, English ethnologist and historian
Eliza Sproat Turner, American journalist and publisher
Fyodor Stellovsky, Russian publisher and editor
Adèle Toussaint-Samson, French travel writer
Probable year of birth – Selim Aga, Sudanese-Liberian autobiographer and poet

Deaths

January–June

c. January – Alecu Beldiman, Moldavian poet-chronicler and translator
January 3 – Nikolay Rumyantsev, Russian politician and scholar
January 5 – William C. Somerville, American diplomat and historian
January 6 – John Farey Sr., English polymath
January 16 – John Rudolph Sutermeister, Curaçao-born American poet
January 20 – Stanisław Staszic, Polish polymath
January 24 – Yousab El Abah, Egyptian Coptic theologian
January 31 – Étienne-François de Lantier, French poet and playwright
February 17 – Johann Philipp Gabler, German Protestant theologian
February 3 – Joseph Servières, French playwright
February 20 – Avram Mrazović, Serbian-Austrian translator and textbook writer
March 5 – Charles Paul Landon, French painter and art historian
March 16 – Johann Severin Vater, German theologian and philologist
March 24 – Georg Nikolaus von Nissen, Danish music historian and biographer
March 29 – Johann Heinrich Voss, German poet and translator
April 3 – Reginald Heber, English poet, bishop and travel writer
April 13 – Pierre-François-Joseph Robert, French journalist, jurist and politician
April 20 – Waller Rodwell Wright, English diplomat and poet
April 25 – William Smith Shaw, American librarian
April 27
*Elazar Fleckeles, Moravian Jewish Orthodox theologian
*Charles Symmons, Welsh poet, playwright and Anglican theologian
May 2 – Antoni Malczewski, Polish poet
May 17 – August Adolph von Hennings, German and Danish essayist and historian
May 19 – Jean Skipwith, American book collector
June 3
* – Nikolay Karamzin, Russian poet and historian
*William Hamilton Reid, English poet, editor and polemicist
June 9
*Johann Kaspar Friedrich Manso, German historian and philologist
*Jedidiah Morse, American geographer and textbook writer
June 19 – Elsa Fougt, Swedish editor and publisher
June 26 – Johanna Elisabeth Swaving, Dutch newspaper editor, publisher and actress
June 23 – John Taylor, English poet and songwriter
June 27
*Shaykh Ahmad, Arab Shia theologian
*Mary Leadbeater, Irish poet and diarist

July–December

July 4 – Thomas Jefferson, American philosopher and politician
July 5
*Stamford Raffles, British colonial administrator and historian
*Karl Friedrich Stäudlin, German Protestant theologian
*Jane Watts, Scottish painter and travel writer
July 20 – Gamaliel Smethurst, Nova Scotian memoirist
July 25 – Kondraty Ryleyev, Russian poet and revolutionary
August 10
*Vasily Lyovshin, Russian novelist and essayist
*August Schumann, German bookseller and publisher
August 26 – Royall Tyler, American playwright, poet and essayist
August 31 – John Raithby, English legal scholar and editor
September 22 – Johann Peter Hebel, German short story writer and poet
Before October – Elizabeth Meeke, English popular novelist
October 3
*Jens Baggesen, Danish poet and satirist
*Stanisław Bohusz Siestrzeńcewicz, Belarusian Catholic bishop and historian
October 9 – John Williams, Welsh schoolmaster and manuscript collector
October 19 – François-Joseph Talma, French actor
November 1 – William Barnes Rhodes, English poet, translator and book collector
November 26 – John Nichols, English antiquary and printer
December – William Glen, Scottish poet
December 16 – Siegfried August Mahlmann, German poet and editor
December 18 – Iolo Morganwg, Welsh poet and literary forger
December 22
*John Haywood, American historian
*Michael Massey Robinson, Australian poet
December 28 – Schack von Staffeldt, Danish poet
December 31 – William Gifford, English satirist and editor

Unknown dates

Jacob ben Abraham Kahana, Lithuanian Jewish theologian
Menachem Mendel Lefin, Podolian Jewish theologian, translator and essayist
Caroline Lewenhaupt, Swedish courtier and poet
Mustafa Râkim, Ottoman calligrapher
Léonard Tousez, French actor and playwright