1844 in literature

Events

• January 4 – Swedish-language newspaper Saima, founded by J. V. Snellman, is published for the first time, in Finland.
• February 5 – The first three of many theatrical adaptations of A Christmas Carol open in London.
• March–July – Alexandre Dumas père's historical adventure story The Three Musketeers is serialised in the Paris newspaper Le Siècle.
• August 28 – Alexandre Dumas père's near-recent historical adventure story The Count of Monte Cristo begins serialization in the Paris newspaper Journal des débats, and continues through to January 1846. Book publication also begins this year.
• October – George W. M. Reynolds begins publication of the bestselling "penny dreadful" city mysteries series The Mysteries of London.
• Autumn – Margaret Fuller joins Horace Greeley's New-York Tribune as literary critic, becoming the first full-time female book reviewer in American journalism.
• December 2 – Emily Brontë writes the poem "A Death-Scene".
• unknown date – The first volumes of Patrologia Latina, a 217-volume collection of works in Latin, are published in Paris by Jacques Paul Migne. These include the writings of Tertullian and Cyprian, among other authors.

New books

Fiction

• William Harrison Ainsworth – St. James's
• José de Alencar – Os contrabandistas
• Honoré de Balzac – Les Paysans
• Charles Dickens
• *The Chimes
• *Martin Chuzzlewit
• Benjamin Disraeli – Coningsby
• Alexandre Dumas
• *The Count of Monte Cristo
• *The Three Musketeers
• Charles Lever – Tom Burke of Ours
• Joaquim Manuel de Macedo – A Moreninha
• Edgar Allan Poe – short stories
• *"The Angel of the Odd"
• *"The Premature Burial"
• G. W. M. Reynolds – The Mysteries of London
• Eugène Sue – The Wandering Jew
• William Makepeace Thackeray – The Luck of Barry Lyndon
• Charlotte Elizabeth Tonna – The Wrongs of Women
• Charlotte Mary Yonge – ''Abbeychurch, or, Self Control and Self Conceit''

Children and young people

• Hans Christian Andersen – New Fairy Tales. First Volume. Second Collection comprising "The Fir-Tree" and "The Snow Queen"
• Heinrich Hoffmann – Struwwelpeter
• Frederick Marryat – Settlers in Canada
• Elizabeth Missing Sewell – ''Amy Herbert''

Drama

• Émile Augier – La Ciguë
• Dimitrija Demeter – Teuta
• Gustav Freytag – Die Brautfahrt, oder Kunz von der Rosen
• Catherine Gore – Quid Pro Quo
• Christian Friedrich Hebbel – Maria Magdalene
• William H. Smith – The Drunkard
• José Zorilla – ''Don Juan Tenorio''

Poetry

• Elizabeth Barrett Browning – Poems
• Lydia Maria Child – "Over the River and Through the Wood"
• Heinrich Heine – Neue Gedichte
• James Russell Lowell – Poems
• Coventry Patmore – ''Poems''

Non-fiction

• Robert Chambers – Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation
• Joseph Ennemoser – Geschichte der Magie
• Søren Kierkegaard – The Concept of Anxiety
• Karl Marx – "On the Jewish Question"
• John Stuart Mill – Essays on Some Unsettled Questions of Political Economy
• William Smith – Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology
• Arthur Penrhyn Stanley – Life of Arnold
• Max Stirner – The Ego and Its Own
• Henry Fox Talbot – ''The Pencil of Nature''

Births

• January 2 – Emeline Harriet Howe, American writer and social activist
• January 8 – Sarah Carmichael Harrell, American educator, reformer, and writer
• January 14 – Susan F. Ferree, American writer and activist
• February 25 – Alice Diehl, English novelist and concert pianist
• March 19 – Minna Canth, Finnish writer and social activist
• March 30 – Paul Verlaine, French lyric poet
• April 2 – George Haven Putnam, American author, publisher
• April 16 – Anatole France, French writer
• April 12 – Mollie Evelyn Moore Davis, American poet, writer, and editor
• May 9 – Sarah Newcomb Merrick, American teacher, writer, and physician
• June 28 – John Boyle O'Reilly, Irish-born poet, journalist and fiction writer
• July 8 – Janet Milne Rae, Scottish novelist
• July 21 – Matilda Maranda Crawford, American-Canadian writer and poet
• July 22 – William Archibald Spooner, English academic and instigator of spoonerisms
• July 28 – Gerard Manley Hopkins, English poet
• August 29 – Edward Carpenter, English socialist poet and philosopher
• September 9 – Maurice Thompson, American novelist
• October 1 – H. Maria George Colby, American author of novelettes and juvenile literature
• October 6 – Margret Holmes Bates, American novelist and poet
• October 15 – Friedrich Nietzsche, German philosopher
• October 22 or 23 – Sarah Bernhardt, French actress
• October 23
• *Robert Bridges, English poet
• * Laura Rosamond White, American author, poet, editor
• October 25 – Joseph Marmette, Canadian novelist and historian
• October 27 – Klas Pontus Arnoldson, Swedish writer and pacifist
• November 21 – Ada Cambridge, English/Australian writer and poet
• December 13 – Catharine H. T. Avery, American author, editor, and educator
• December 27 – Lisa Anne Fletcher, American poet and correspondent
• unknown dates
• *Mrs. Lovett Cameron, English romantic novelist
• *Evelyn Whitaker, English children's writer

Deaths

• January 4 – Maria Hack, English educational writer
• January 27 – Charles Nodier, French novelist
• February 11 – Tamenaga Shunsui, Japanese novelist
• February 12 – Jan Nepomuk Štěpánek, Czech dramatist
• May 2 – William Thomas Beckford, English novelist and travel writer
• June 11 – Urban Jarnik, Slovene poet and historian
• June 15 – Thomas Campbell, Scottish poet
• July 11 – Evgeny Baratynsky, Russian poet and philosopher
• August 14 – Henry Cary, Gibraltar-born Irish author and translator
• September 18 – John Sterling, Scottish novelist and poet
• October 28 – Sándor Kisfaludy, Hungarian poet and dramatist
• November 4 – Barbara Hofland, English children's and schoolbook author
• November 21 – Ivan Krylov, Russian fabulist
• December 27 – John Caradja, Greek Prince of Wallachia, translator and theatrical promoter

Awards

• Chancellor's Gold Medal – Edward Bickersteth, "The Tower of London"
• Newdigate Prize – Evgeny Baratynsky