1850 in literature

This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1850.

Events

January – The collected works of Edgar Allan Poe begin posthumous publication, co-edited by Rufus Wilmot Griswold. Later in the year, Griswold adds a memoir to the third volume, denigrating Poe's reputation, based partly on forged evidence.
January–April – The Germ, a periodical of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood edited by William Michael Rossetti, is published.
March – The weekly Household Words, "conducted by Charles Dickens," begins publication in London.
March 14 – Honoré de Balzac marries Ewelina Hańska at Berdyczów. The marriage ends with his death only five months later.
March 16 – Nathaniel Hawthorne's historical novel The Scarlet Letter is published by William Ticknor and James T. Fields in Boston, Massachusetts, where it is set. It sells 2,500 copies in ten days. A second edition appears by the end of the month.
May 1 – The earliest surviving mention of the composition of Moby-Dick appears in a letter Herman Melville writes to Richard Henry Dana Jr.
May – Alfred Tennyson's poem In Memoriam A.H.H., commemorating the death of his friend and fellow poet Arthur Hallam in 1833, is published by Edward Moxon in London. The writer's anonymity is broken on June 1 by The Publishers' Circular.
June 13 – Alfred Tennyson marries his childhood friend Emily Sellwood at Shiplake.
July – William Wordsworth's The Prelude; or, Growth of a Poet's Mind: An Autobiographical Poem, on which he has worked since 1798, is first published about three months after his death by Edward Moxon in London in 14 books, with the title supplied by the poet's widow, Mary.
August 5 – Nathaniel Hawthorne and Herman Melville meet for the first time, together with Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. and publisher James T. Fields, on a picnic expedition to Monument Mountain (Berkshire County, Massachusetts).
September 26 – The first play by Henrik Ibsen to be performed, The Burial Mound , opens at the Christiania Theatre under the pseudonym Brynjolf Bjarme. His first written play, Catiline, completed this year, will not be performed until 1881.
November
*A new edition of Elizabeth Barrett Browning's Poems is published by Chapman & Hall in London, including in volume 2 her Sonnets from the Portuguese, written during her courtship by Robert Browning in about 1845–1846. The most famous will be No. 43
*Salford Museum and Art Gallery opens as "The Royal Museum & Public Library", as England's first unconditionally free public library.
November 1 – Charles Dickens's novel David Copperfield – The Personal History, Adventures, Experience and Observation of David Copperfield the Younger of Blunderstone Rookery – concludes serial publication and on November 14 appears complete in book form from Bradbury and Evans in London.
November 19 – Alfred Tennyson is named Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom in succession to William Wordsworth, but only after Samuel Rogers has declined the offer because of his age and Tennyson is assured that birthday odes will not be required of him.
unknown date – Ivan Turgenev completes the writing of his play A Month in the Country as The Student in Paris, but it is rejected by the Saint Petersburg censor and will not be published until 1855 or performed until 1872.

New books

Births

January 14 – Pierre Loti, French novelist
January 15 – Mihai Eminescu, Romanian poet, novelist and journalist
January 24 – Mary Noailles Murfree, American novelist
January 27 – John Collier, British writer and painter
February 1 – Emma Churchman Hewitt, American author and journalist
February 6 – Elizabeth Williams Champney, American author
February 8 – Kate Chopin, American writer
February 24 – Mary De Morgan, English children's writer and suffragist
February 27 –Laura E. Richards, American author
March 26 – Edward Bellamy, American Utopian novelist and socialist
April 11 – Rosetta Luce Gilchrist, American physician, author
April 12 – Agnes Catherine Maitland, English academic, novelist and cookery writer
April 13 – Bernhard Alexander, Hungarian philosopher and polymath
April 16 – Auguste Groner, Austrian detective fiction writer
April 30
* Mrs. Alex. McVeigh Miller, American novelist
* Ieronim Yasinsky, Russian novelist, poet, critic and essayist
June 18
*Cyrus H. K. Curtis, American publisher
*Alice Moore McComas, American author, editor, lecturer and reformer
June 27 – Lafcadio Hearn, Greek-born Irish American scholar and writer on Japan
July 2 – Dumitru C. Moruzi, Russian-born Romanian political figure and social novelist
July 9 – Ivan Vazov, Bulgarian poet, novelist and playwright
July 18 – Rose Hartwick Thorpe, American poet and author
July 25 – Lydia J. Newcomb Comings, American author, educator, lecturer
August 5 – Guy de Maupassant, French novelist and short story writer
August 10 - Ella M. S. Marble, American physician
August 30 – Marcelo H. del Pilar, Filipino writer, journalist and reformist leader
September 2 – Eugene Field, American poet and essayist
September 6 – Marion Howard Brazier, American journalist
October 26 – Grigore Tocilescu, Romanian historian, archaeologist, epigrapher and folkorist, author of many books on ancient Dacia
November 5 – Ella Wheeler Wilcox, American writer and poet
November 13 – Robert Louis Stevenson, Scottish novelist, poet and travel writer
December 23 – Louise Reed Stowell, American scientist, author
Unknown date – Annie Armitt, English novelist and poet

Deaths

January 20 – Adam Oehlenschläger, Danish poet and dramatist
April 7 – William Lisle Bowles, English poet and critic
April 23 – William Wordsworth, English poet
May 24 – Jane Porter, Scottish novelist and dramatist
May 31 – Giuseppe Giusti, Italian poet
July 6 – Alexander Jamieson, Scottish textbook writer, schoolmaster and rhetorician
July 14 – August Neander, German theologian
July 19 – Margaret Fuller, American journalist and critic
August 18 – Honoré de Balzac, French novelist
August 22 – Nikolaus Lenau, Austrian poet
November 4 – Gustav Schwab, German writer and publisher
November 10 – Lumley Skeffington, English playwright and fop
December 4 – Robert Gilfillan, Scottish poet
December 24 – Frédéric Bastiat, French political philosopher
December 29 – William Hamilton Maxwell, Scots-Irish novelist

Awards

Chancellor's Gold Medal – Julian Fane, "Monody on the death of Adelaide, the Queen Dowager"
Newdigate Prize – Frederick William Faber, "The Knights of St John"

1850 in literature

Events

New books

Fiction

Drama

Poetry

Non-fiction

Births

Deaths

Awards