1834 in literature

This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1834.

Events

April – W. Harrison Ainsworth's first novel, the historical romance Rookwood, is published anonymously in London by Richard Bentley, with illustrations by George Cruikshank. Romanticising the highwayman Dick Turpin, it succeeds enough for the author to take up full-time writing. Bentley also publishes Edward Bulwer-Lytton's anonymous popular novel The Last Days of Pompeii in the same year.
June 10 – The Scottish philosopher and writer Thomas Carlyle moves to Cheyne Row in London.
August – Charles Dickens first uses the pen name Boz, in the second installment of "The Boarding-House", one of the Sketches by Boz, originally published in the Monthly Magazine.
November 24 – George Sand begins her journal addressed to Alfred de Musset.
unknown date – Carl Jonas Love Almqvist's fourth novel in the "Törnrosens bok" series, The Queen's Tiara is published anonymously. Set around the assassination of King Gustav III of Sweden in 1792, it is the first original historical novel written in Sweden, and features a bisexual character, Tintomara.

George Bancroft – History of the United States, volume 1
Davy Crockett – A Narrative of the Life of David Crockett, written by himself
George Godfrey Cunningham – Lives of Eminent and Illustrious Englishmen from Alfred the Great to the Latest Times, volume 1
Henry Hallam, ed. – Remains in Verse and Prose of Arthur Henry Hallam
Heinrich Heine – Zur Geschichte der Religion und Philosophie in Deutschland
Søren Kierkegaard writing as 'A' – "Another Defense Of Woman's Great Abilities" ("Ogsaa et Forsvar for Qvindens hoie Anlæg"
Richard Monckton Milnes – Memorials of a Tour in some Parts of Greece, Chiefly Poetical
Lancelot Edward Threlkeld – ''An Australian Grammar''

January 1 – Ludovic Halévy, French playwright and author
January 22 – Jennie Fowler Willing, American author, educator and reformer
January 28 – Julia Carter Aldrich, American author and editor
February 9 – Felix Dahn, German writer
March – Thomas Purnell, Welsh-born English drama critic and essayist
March 6 – George du Maurier, English cartoonist and novelist
March 24 – Mary Lynde Craig, American writer and attorney
March 24 – William Morris, English poet and designer
March 27 – Melissa Elizabeth Banta, American poet, travel writer
April 5 – Frank R. Stockton, American short story writer
April 7 – Emma Southwick Brinton, American army nurse and foreign correspondent
April 21 – Henry Spencer Ashbee, English bibliophile
April 26 – Charles Farrar Browne, American humorist
May 28 – Lavilla Esther Allen, American author, poet and reader
July 9 – Jan Neruda, Czech writer
August 31 – Esther Pugh, American reformer, editor and publisher
September 9 – Joseph Henry Shorthouse, English novelist
September 15 – Heinrich von Treitschke, German historian
October 1 – Mary Mackellar, née Cameron, Scottish Gaelic poet and translator
November 10 – José Hernández, Argentine poet
November 23 – James Thomson, Scottish poet
unknown date – Percy Hetherington Fitzgerald, Irish-born literary biographer, drama critic and sculptor

February 12 – Friedrich Schleiermacher, German theologian and philosopher
February 17 – John Thelwall, British orator, writer, political reformer, journalist, poet, elocutionist and speech therapist
May 13 – John Jones, Welsh Anglican priest and writer
July 25 – Samuel Taylor Coleridge, English Romantic poet and critic
September 16 – William Blackwood, Scottish publisher
December 5 – Thomas Pringle, Scottish writer, poet and abolitionist
December 23 – Thomas Malthus, English political economist
December 27 – Charles Lamb, English essayist