1851 in literature

Events

• January 1 – The Caucasian Georgian theatre company gives its first performance, under the direction of Giorgi Eristavi.
• June 5 – Harriet Beecher Stowe's novel Uncle Tom's Cabin begins serialization in the American abolitionist weekly The National Era.
• June – While waiting to cross the English Channel on his honeymoon, Matthew Arnold probably begins to compose the poem "Dover Beach".
• September 29 – Marian Evans, the future George Eliot, takes up an appointment as editor of the Westminster Review, published by John Chapman. In this capacity she will meet G. H. Lewes.
• November 14 – Herman Melville's novel Moby-Dick; or, The Whale is published in full, in a single volume, for the first time, by Harper & Brothers in New York, having been previously issued on October 18 as The Whale in an abridged three-volume edition by Richard Bentley in London.
• December 2 – The French coup d'état of 1851 prompts Victor Hugo to be a leader of an unsuccessful insurrection against it. He is forced into exile, initially to Brussels.
• December 24 – A fire at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., destroys 35,000 books, about two–thirds of the collection.
• unknown dates
• *Akabi's Story, by Vartan Pasha, is published - an early example of a novel in the Turkish language printed in the Armenian alphabet
• *Hovhannes Hisarian publishes Khosrov yev Makruhi, the first romantic novel in the Armenian language, written in the vernacular Ashkharhabar dialect.
• *Stephanos Th. Xenos publishes his "Istanbul novel" The Devil in Turkey; Or Scenes in Constantinople in English translated from his Greek manuscript, in London.
• *Philosopher Auguste Comte includes a list of 150 books which a well-educated person should have read in his Catéchisme positiviste.
• *Albertus Willem Sijthoff establishes a publishing business at Leiden.

New books

Fiction

• Jules Barbey d'Aurevilly – Une Vieille Maîtresse
• George Borrow – Lavengro: The Scholar, the Gypsy and the Priest
• Mathilde Fibiger – Clara Raphael, Tolv Breve
• Elizabeth Gaskell – Cranford
• Nathaniel Hawthorne – The House of the Seven Gables
• Gottfried Keller – Der Grüne Heinrich
• Sheridan Le Fanu
• *Ghost Stories and Tales of Mystery
• *The Watcher
• Herman Melville – Moby-Dick
• John Ruskin – The King of the Golden River
• Jules Verne – A Drama in Mexico short story
• Harriet Ward – Jasper Lyle: A Tale of Kafirland

Children and young people

• W. H. G. Kingston – ''Peter the Whaler''

Drama

• Edward Bulwer-Lytton – Not So Bad as We Seem, or, Many Sides to a Character: A Comedy in Five Acts
• Ferdinand Dugué – Salvator Rosa
• Franz Grillparzer – The Jewess of Toledo
• Eugène Marin Labiche with Marc Michel – Un Chapeau de paille d'Italie
• Maria Ann Lovell – Ingomar the Barbarian
• Alexey Pisemsky – The Hypochondriac
• Eugène Scribe – ''Bataille de Dames''

Poetry

• Matthew Arnold – "Dover Beach"
• Heinrich Heine – Romanzero
• Henry Wadsworth Longfellow – ''The Golden Legend''

Non-fiction

• Hans Christian Andersen – In Sweden
• Gilbert Abbott à Beckett – The Comic History of Rome
• Edward Creasy – The Fifteen Decisive Battles of the World
• Catherine Dickens – What Shall We Have for Dinner?
• Josiah Henson – The Life of Josiah Henson, Formerly a Slave, Now an Inhabitant of Canada, as Narrated by Himself
• Søren Kierkegaard
• *For Self-Examination
• *On my Work as an Author
• Henry Mayhew – London Labour and the London Poor
• Francisco de Paula Mellado – Enciclopedia moderna
• Ferencz Aurelius Pulszky – A magyar jakobinusok
• John Ruskin – The Stones of Venice, vol 1
• Herbert Spencer – ''Social Statics''

Births

• February 21 – Ernst von Hesse-Wartegg, Austrian writer and traveler
• April 13 – Helen M. Winslow, American editor, author and publisher
• May 27 – Henry Festing Jones, English biographer, editor and lawyer
• June – Jessie Fothergill, English novelist
• June 11 – Mary Augusta Ward, Tasmanian-born English novelist
• June 29 – Jane Dieulafoy, French archeologist, novelist and journalist
• August 23 – Alois Jirásek, Czech novelist and playwright
• September 14 – H. E. Beunke, Dutch writer
• September 16 – Emilia Pardo Bazán, Galician Spanish novelist
• December 10 – Melvil Dewey, born Melville Dewey, American librarian

Deaths

• February 1 – Mary Shelley, English novelist and essayist
• February 23 – Joanna Baillie, Scottish poet and dramatist
• February 24 – Sake Dean Mahomed, author of first book in English by an Indian
• May 23 – Richard Lalor Sheil, Irish dramatist and journalist
• July 17 – Esther Copley, English children's writer and tractarian
• August 1 – Harriet Lee, English novelist
• August 10 – Heinrich Paulus, German theologian
• September 14 – James Fenimore Cooper, American historical novelist
• September 22 – Sarah Elizabeth Utterson, English translator and short story writer
• December 19 – Henry Luttrell, English politician, wit and society poet
• unknown date – Vanchinbalyn Gularans, Mongolian poet