1831 in literature
This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1831.
Events
- January 1 – William Lloyd Garrison begins publication of the Liberator, an abolitionist periodical in the United States.
- February 18 – Alexander Pushkin marries Natalya Goncharova at the Great Ascension Church on Bolshaya Nikitskaya Street in Moscow.
- March 16 – Victor Hugo's historical romantic Gothic novel Notre-Dame de Paris, known in English as The Hunchback of Notre-Dame, is published by Gosselin in Paris.
- March 19 – The play The Tricolour Cockade by the Cogniard brothers introduces the term "chauvinism".
- April 18 – The Sydney Morning Herald is first published.
- unknown dates
- *Convict Henry Savery's autobiographical fiction Quintus Servinton: a tale founded upon incidents of real occurrence is published anonymously in Tasmania, the first Australian novel.
- *Playwright Manuel Bretón de los Herreros publishes a translation of Tibullus, which secures him an appointment as sub-librarian at the Spanish national library.
- *Daniel Appleton publishes three religious books in New York City, so originating of the firm of D. Appleton & Company.
New books
Fiction
- Honoré de Balzac
- *La Peau de chagrin
- *Sarrasine
- *Le Chef-d'œuvre inconnu
- John Brownlow – Hans Sloane: a tale
- Cogniard Brothers – The Tricolour Cockade
- Selina Davenport – The Queen's Page
- Benjamin Disraeli – The Young Duke
- Susan Edmonstone Ferrier – Destiny
- Nikolai Gogol – Evenings on a Farm Near Dikanka
- Catherine Gore
- *Mothers and Daughters
- *Pin Money
- *The Tuileries
- Thomas Colley Grattan – Jacqueline of Holland
- Ann Hatton – Gerald Fitzgerald
- Victor Hugo – The Hunchback of Notre-Dame
- Thomas Love Peacock – Crotchet Castle
- George Sand and Jules Sandeau – Rose et Blanche
- Mary Shelley – ''Frankenstein''
Children
- Anne Knight – ''Mary Gray. A tale for little girls''
Drama
- Robert Montgomery Bird – Gladiator
- Manuel Bretón de los Herreros – Marcela o ¿Cuál de las tres?
- Dulduityn Danzanravjaa – Saran khökhöö
- Alfred de Vigny – La Maréchale d'Ancre
- Catherine Gore – The School for Coquettes
- Franz Grillparzer – Des Meeres und der Liebe Wellen
- Victor Hugo – Marion Delorme
- James Kenney – The Pledge
- James Sheridan Knowles – Alfred the Great
- Alexander Pushkin – Boris Godunov
- John Augustus Stone – Tancred, King of Sicily
- Robert Taylor – ''Swing, or, Who Are the Incendiaries?''
Poetry
- Thomas Hood – The Dream of Eugene Aram, the Murderer
- Giacomo Leopardi – Canti
- Edgar Allan Poe – ''Poems''
Non-fiction
- Sir John Barrow, 1st Baronet – The Eventful History of the Mutiny and Piratical Seizure of HMS Bounty: Its Cause and Consequences
- Washington Irving – Voyages and Discoveries of the Companions of Columbus
- John Stuart Mill – The Spirit of the Age
- James Cowles Prichard – Eastern Origin of the Celtic Nations
- Mary Prince – ''The History of Mary Prince, A West Indian Slave''
Births
- January 2 – Justin Winsor, American historian and librarian
- January 3 – George Manville Fenn, English novelist and educationalist
- January 14 – John Cordy Jeaffreson, English novelist and non-fiction writer
- February 25 – Jane G. Austin, American writer
- January 26 – Mary Mapes Dodge, American children's writer
- February 16 – Nikolai Leskov, Russian novelist and playwright
- March 29 – Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr, English novelist and teacher
- April 9 – Clara Harrison Stranahan, American author and college founder
- April 19 – Mary Louise Booth, American writer, editor, and translator
- May 6 – Mary C. Ames, American writer
- June 7 – Amelia Edwards, English fiction writer and Egyptologist
- June 25 – Harriet Mann Miller, American author, naturalist, and ornithologist
- July 3 – Edmund Yates, Scottish writer
- July 5 – Cordelia A. Greene, American physician, reformer, benefactor
- July 7 – Jane Elizabeth Conklin, American religious writer and poet
- August 1 – William Aldis Wright, English writer and literary editor
- September 5 – Victorien Sardou, French dramatist
- September 12 – Álvares de Azevedo, Brazilian Ultra-Romantic writer
- October 7 – Eleanor Kirk, American writer
- October 15 – Helen Hunt Jackson, American poet, writer and activist
- October 19 – Fanny Murdaugh Downing, American author and poet
- unknown date – Nora Perry, American writer
Deaths
- January 2 – Barthold Georg Niebuhr, Danish-born German historian
- January 14 – Henry Mackenzie, Scottish novelist
- January 21 – Ludwig Achim von Arnim, German poet and novelist
- February 25 – Friedrich Maximilian Klinger, German dramatist and novelist, originator of Sturm und Drang
- April 4 – Isaiah Thomas, American publisher
- June 30 – William Roscoe, English poet
- September 12 – Jippensha Ikku, Japanese novelist and humorist
- October 2 – José Agostinho de Macedo, Portuguese poet
- December 18 – Willem Bilderdijk, Dutch author
- December 26 – Henry Louis Vivian Derozio, Indian poet and teacher