1837 in literature
This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1837.
Events
- June 16 – Charles Dickens is introduced to the actor William Macready by John Forster backstage at a rehearsal of Othello.
- July – The English "peasant poet" John Clare first enters an asylum for the insane, at High Beach in Essex.
- September – In Burton's Gentleman's Magazine, William Evans Burton publishes an early example of the detective story, "The Secret Cell", featuring a London police officer and his wife.
- October – The United States Magazine and Democratic Review is first published.
- October 4 – Andreas Munch's first play, Kong Sverres Ungdom, opens the Christiania Theatre's new building in Norway.
- unknown date – The publishers Little, Brown and Company open their doors in Boston, Massachusetts.
New books
Fiction
- W. Harrison Ainsworth – Crichton
- Honoré de Balzac
- *César Birotteau
- *Lost Illusions, Part I: The Two Poets
- Richard Harris Barham – The Ingoldsby Legends
- Robert Montgomery Bird – Nick of the Woods
- Edward Bulwer-Lytton – Ernest Maltravers
- Sara Coleridge – Phantasmion
- Hendrik Conscience – In 't Wonderjaar 1566
- Charles Dickens
- *Oliver Twist
- *The Pickwick Papers
- Benjamin Disraeli
- *Henrietta Temple
- *Venetia
- Lady Mary Fox – An Account of an Expedition to the Interior of New Holland
- Phillipe-Ignace François Aubert du Gaspé – L'Influence d'un livre
- Jeremias Gotthelf – Bauernspiegel
- Nathaniel Hawthorne – Twice-Told Tales
- Julia Kavanagh – Adele
- Letitia Elizabeth Landon – Ethel Churchill, or The Two Brides
- Catharine Maria Sedgwick – Live and Let Live
- Victor Séjour – Le Mulâtre
- Mary Shelley – Falkner
- Frances Trollope – ''The Vicar of Wrexhill''
Children and young people
- Hans Christian Andersen
- *Fairy Tales Told for Children. First Collection. Third Booklet comprising "The Little Mermaid" and "The Emperor's New Clothes"
- *Only a Fiddler
- Georgiana Chatterton – Aunt Dorothy's Tales
- Frederick Marryat – Snarleyyow or the Dog Fiend
- George Ayliffe Poole – The Exile's Return; or a Cat's Journey from Glasgow to Edinburgh
- Robert Southey – "The Story of the Three Bears"
Drama
- Joanna Baillie – The Separation
- Manuel Bretón de los Herreros – Muérete y verás
- Robert Browning – Strafford
- Edward Bulwer-Lytton – The Duchess de la Vallière
- Juan Eugenio Hartzenbusch – Los Amantes de Teruel
- Henrik Hertz – Svend Dyrings Huus
- James Sheridan Knowles
- * The Bridal
- * The Love Chase
- Alfred de Musset – Un caprice
- Jules-Édouard Alboize de Pujol – ''L'Idiote''
Poetry
- José de Espronceda – El estudiante de Salamanca
- Louisa Jane Hall – Miriam, a Dramatic Sketch
- Alphonse de Lamartine – Chute d'un ange
- Alexander Pushkin – The Bronze Horseman
- ''See also 1837 in poetry''
Non-fiction
- Charles Babbage – Ninth Bridgewater Treatise. On the Power, Wisdom and Goodness of God, as manifested in the Creation
- Charles Ball – Slavery in the United States: A Narrative of the Life and Adventures of Charles Ball, A Black Man
- Bernard Bolzano – Wissenschaftslehre
- Thomas Carlyle – The French Revolution: A History
- Washington Irving – The Adventures of Captain Bonneville
- Harriet Martineau – Society in America
- William H. Prescott – The History of Ferdinand and Isabella
- Ferenc Pulszky – Aus dem Tagebuch eines in Grossbritannien reisenden Ungarns
- Martin Tupper – Proverbial Philosophy
- Andrew Ure – A Dictionary of Arts, Manufactures and Mines
- Adelbert von Chamisso – ''Über die Hawaiische Sprache''
Births
- January 16 – Ellen Russell Emerson, American author and ethnologist
- January 23 – Agnes Maule Machar, Canadian novelist
- February 13 – Emily S. Bouton, American author, editor, and educator
- February 24 – Rosalía de Castro, Spanish Galician poet and writer
- March 1
- *Ion Creangă, Romanian raconteur
- *William Dean Howells, American realist novelist
- March 6 – Sully Prudhomme, French poet
- April 1 – Jorge Isaacs, Colombian writer, politician and explorer
- April 5 – Algernon Charles Swinburne, English poet
- April 7 – Lou Singletary Bedford, American author and editor
- June 9 – Anne Thackeray Ritchie, English novelist and essayist
- June 28 – Petre P. Carp, Romanian politician, polemicist, and translator
- July 13 – Mary Allen West, American writer, editor, and philanthropist
- August 24 – Bertha Jane Grundy, English novelist
- October 15 – Leo Königsberger, German historian of science
- October 21 – Mary Alice Seymour, American music critic and editor
- December 4 – Angie F. Newman, American poet, author, and editor
- December 10 – Edward Eggleston, American novelist and historian
- December 11 – Esther Saville Allen, American author
- December 17 – Celia Logan, American actress and playwright
- unknown dates
- *Teodor Boldur-Lățescu, Romanian journalist and publisher
- *Florence Caddy, English non-fiction writer
- *Anna Augusta Truitt, American essayist, philanthropist, and reformer
Deaths
- January 29 – Alexander Pushkin, Russian poet
- February 7 – Mary Robinson (Maid of Buttermere), English literary muse
- February 12 – Ludwig Börne, German Jewish political writer and satirist
- February 19 – Georg Büchner German dramatist, poet and author.
- March 9 – Alexandru Hrisoverghi, Moldavian writer and translator
- March 15 – Lukijan Mušicki, Serbian poet
- June 12 – Carl Friedrich Ernst Frommann, German bookseller
- June 14 – Giacomo Leopardi, Italian poet
- September 21 – Georg Ludolf Dissen, German philologist
- October 19 – Hendrik Doeff, Dutch travel writer