1845 in literature
This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1845.
Events
- January 10 – Robert Browning begins his correspondence with his future wife, fellow poet Elizabeth Barrett. On May 20 they meet for the first time. She begins writing her Sonnets from the Portuguese.
- January 29 – Edgar Allan Poe first publishes the narrative poem "The Raven", under his own name in The Evening Mirror of New York, of which he is a staff critic until February. It is rapidly reprinted across the United States and appears in book form by the end of the year.
- March – Walt Whitman publishes a short story, "Arrow-Tip".
- April – Nathaniel Hawthorne first publishes the short story "P.'s Correspondence", a pioneering example of alternate history, in which deceased writers and political figures are described as still living, and vice versa. The story appears in The United States Magazine and Democratic Review and features in Hawthorne's Mosses from an Old Manse.
- April 24 – Alfred de Musset and Honoré de Balzac are awarded the French Legion of Honour.
- c. May – Benjamin Disraeli's "Young England" roman à thèse, Sybil; or, The Two Nations, is published in London; he receives a £10,000 advance.
- Spring–Summer – The essays in Thomas de Quincey's Suspiria de Profundis appear in Blackwood's Magazine.
- October 1 – Prosper Mérimée's novella Carmen appears in its original form in Revue des deux Mondes. Book publication follows in 1846.
- December – The future American President Brevet Second Lieutenant Ulysses S. Grant plays Desdemona in an amateur production of Othello at Corpus Christi, Texas.
- December 30 – The American actress Charlotte Cushman plays Romeo to her sister Susan's Juliet in a production of Romeo and Juliet at the Haymarket Theatre in London which revives Shakespeare's original text and ending.undated
- * In Stuttgart, Kingdom of Württemberg, the agronomist Arthur Schott begins putting out chapbooks with samples from Romanian folklore; these feature the first recorded mentions of a trickster-like figure, Păcală.
- * Varney the Vampire; or, the Feast of Blood begins serial publication as a 'penny dreadful' by Edward Lloyd in London, introducing many of the tropes of vampire fiction. It is probably written by James Malcolm Rymer and Thomas Preskett Prest.
New books
Fiction
- James Fenimore Cooper
- * The Chainbearer
- * Satanstoe
- Charles Dickens – The Cricket on the Hearth
- Benjamin Disraeli – Sybil
- Alexandre Dumas, père
- * Le Chevalier de Maison-Rouge
- * The Corsican Brothers
- * The Count of Monte Cristo
- * The Regent's Daughter
- * La Reine Margot
- * Twenty Years After
- József Eötvös – A falu jegyzője
- Catherine Gore – The Snowstorm: A Christmas Story
- Nathaniel Hawthorne – P.'s Correspondence
- Geraldine Jewsbury – Zoe, A History of Two Lives
- Joaquim Manuel de Macedo – O moço loiro
- Frederick Marryat – The Mission, or Scenes in Africa
- Prosper Mérimée – Carmen
- J. M. Rymer – Ada the Betrayed; or, The Murder at the Old Smithy
- Arthur Schott – Bakála cycle
- Adele Schopenhauer – Anna: Ein Roman aus der nächsten Vergangenheit
- William Sewell – Hawkstone: a tale of and for England
- Robert Smith Surtees – ''Hillingdon Hall''
Children
- Hans Christian Andersen – New Fairy Tales. First Volume. Third Collection comprising "The Elf Mound", "The Red Shoes", "The Jumpers", "The Shepherdess and the Chimney Sweep" and "Holger Danske"
- Ludwig Bechstein – Deutsches Märchenbuch
- Heinrich Hoffmann – ''Der Struwwelpeter''
Drama
- Juan Eugenio Hartzenbusch – La Jura en Santa Gadea
- Henrik Hertz – King René's Daughter
- Anna Cora Mowatt – Fashion; or, Life in New York: a comedy
- Martins Pena – first performances
- * As Casadas Solteiras
- * O caixeiro da taverna
- * O diletante
- *
- * Os dois ou O inglês maquinista
- * Os três médicos
- José Zorrilla – ''Traidor, inconfeso y mártir''
Poetry
Non-fiction
- Eliza Acton – Modern Cookery for Private Families
- Jules Barbey d'Aurevilly – On Dandyism and George Brummell
- Thomas Carlyle – Oliver Cromwell's Letters and Speeches
- Frederick Douglass – Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American SlaveEncyclopædia Metropolitana
- Friedrich Engels – The Condition of the Working Class in England
- Richard Ford – A Hand-Book for Travellers in Spain, and readers at home
- Margaret Fuller – Woman in the Nineteenth Century
- François-Xavier Garneau – Histoire du Canada, vol. 1
- Owen Jones – Book of Common Prayer (1845 illuminated version)
- Justinus Kerner – The Seeress of Prévorst: being revelations concerning the inner-life of man, and the inter-diffusion of a world of spirits in the one we inhabit
- Søren Kierkegaard – Stages on Life's Way
- Domingo Sarmiento – Facundo
- Max Stirner – ''The Ego and Its Own
Births
- January 8 – Minnie Willis Baines, American author
- January 21 – Lepha Eliza Bailey, American author, lecturer and social reformer
- March 21 – Emily Thornton Charles, American poet, journalist, editor and newspaper founder
- April 4 – Emma B. Alrich, American journalist, author and educator
- April 17 – Lucy Bethia Walford, Scottish novelist and artist
- April 24 – Carl Spitteler, Swiss poet
- April 30 – Alexander Anderson, Scottish poet
- May 9 – Georgina Castle Smith, English children's writer
- May 14 – L. S. Bevington, English anarchist poet and essayist
- May 16 – Amy Dillwyn, Welsh novelist
- May 17 – Jacint Verdaguer, Catalan poet
- June 3 – Estelle Mendell Amory, American educator and author
- June 13 – Alphonse-Jules Wauters, Belgian writer and editor
- June 15 – Jennie McCowen, American physician, writer and medical journal editor
- June 17 – Emily Lawless, Irish modernist novelist and poet
- July 18 – Tristan Corbière, French poet
- July 26 – Martina Swafford, American poet
- August 10 – Abai Qunanbaiuly, Kazakh poet, philosopher and cultural reformer
- August 11 – Addie C. Strong Engle, American author and publisher
- August 27 – Martha Capps Oliver, American poet and hymnwriter
- September 3 – Louise Herschman Mannheimer, Czech-American author, school founder, and inventor
- September 20 – Sarah Dyer Hobart, American author
- September 30 – Margaret Dye Ellis, American social reformer, lobbyist and correspondent
- October 14 – Olindo Guerrini, Italian poet
- October 25 – Rebecca Agatha Armour, Canadian novelist
- November 19 – Agnes Giberne, English children's writer
- November 25 – José Maria de Eça de Queirós, Portuguese novelist
- December 6 – Rose Porter, American religious novelist
Deaths
- January 22 – Pierre Hyacinthe Azaïs, French philosopher
- February 22 – Rev. Sydney Smith, English writer and wit
- May 3 – Thomas Hood, English poet and humorist
- May 12
- * János Batsányi, Hungarian poet and anti-Habsburg activist
- * August Wilhelm Schlegel, German poet and translator
- May 26 – Jónas Hallgrímsson, Icelandic poet
- June 17 – Rev. Richard Harris Barham English comic poet
- July 12 – Henrik Wergeland, Norwegian poet and dramatist
- August 3 – Charlotte Ann Fillebrown Jerauld, American poet and story writer
- October 26 – Carolina Oliphant, Lady Nairne, Scottish songwriter and collector
- November 11 – Maria Gowen Brooks, American poet