1855 in literature

Events

• January – Samuel Orchart Beeton's weekly The Boys' Own Magazine, "an illustrated journal of fact, fiction, history and adventure", begins publication in London.
• January 5 – Anthony Trollope's novel The Warden, the first of his Chronicles of Barsetshire, is published in London by Longman as he begins to write the second, Barchester Towers.
• February 25 – The comedy De Scholtschäin, by Edmond de la Fontaine writing as Dicks, becomes the first play to be performed in the language of Luxembourg.
• June 29 – The Daily Telegraph newspaper begins publication in London.
• July 4 – Walt Whitman's first edition of his book of poems titled Leaves of Grass is published in Brooklyn, New York.
• September 27 – Alfred Tennyson reads from his new book Maud and other poems at a social gathering in the home of Robert and Elizabeth Browning in London. Dante Gabriel Rossetti makes a sketch of him doing so.
• October – Victor Hugo moves to Hauteville House, Saint Peter Port, Guernsey, in the Channel Islands, accompanied by his mistress, Juliette Drouet.
• December
• *Charles Dickens publishes the first instalment of Little Dorrit, which continues to appear into 1857.
• *Thomas Babington Macaulay's best-selling History of England in four volumes is completed.
• unknown dates
• *Alexander Afanasyev begins publication of his collection of Narodnye russkie skazki .
• *John Camden Hotten opens a bookselling business in London, which is the origin of the publisher Chatto & Windus.
• *Faris al-Shidyaq publishes the metafiction Sâq 'ala al-sâq, the first modern Arabic novel, in Paris.
• *The first Luxembourg novel in French, Marc Bruno, profil d'artiste, is published shortly after the death of its author, Félix Thyes.
• *Belarusian writer Vintsent Dunin-Martsinkyevich publishes «Гапон» in the Russian Empire, the first poem written wholly in modern Belarusian.

New books

Fiction

• Gheorghe Asachi – Ziua din urmă a municipiului Iașenilor
• Cuthbert Bede – The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green
• Gustav Freytag – Debit and Credit
• Elizabeth Gaskell – North and South
• James Grant – The Yellow Frigate
• Mary Virginia Hawes – The Hidden Path
• Caroline Lee Hentz – Robert Graham
• Paul Heyse – "L'Arrabbiata"
• Washington Irving – Wolfert's Roost
• Gottfried Keller – Green Henry
• Charles Kingsley – Westward Ho!
• Herman Melville
• *Israel Potter
• *The Paradise of Bachelors and the Tartarus of Maids
• *Benito Cereno
• Gérard de Nerval – Aurelia
• Giovanni Ruffini – Doctor Antonio
• Ann Sophia Stephens – The Old Homestead
• William Makepeace Thackeray – The Newcomes
• Félix Thyes – Marc Bruno, profil d'artiste
• Anthony Trollope – ''The Warden''

Children

• Božena Němcová – ''The Grandmother''

Drama

• Émile Augier – Le Mariage d'Olympe
• Dicks
• *De Scholtschäin
• *D'Mumm Sèiss
• Léon Gozlan – Le Gâteau des reines
• Henrik Ibsen – The Feast at Solhaug
• Andreas Munch – En Aften paa Giske
• Watts Phillips – Joseph Chavigny
• Ivan Turgenev – ''A Month in the Country''

Poetry

• Henry Wadsworth Longfellow – The Song of Hiawatha
• Walt Whitman – ''Leaves of Grass''

Non-fiction

• David Brewster – Memoirs of the Life, Writings and Discoveries of Sir Isaac Newton
• John Brown – Slave Life in Georgia
• Pedro Carolino – O novo guia da conversação em portuguez e inglez
• Frederick Douglass – "My Bondage and My Freedom"
• Washington Irving – The Life of George Washington, Volumes 1 and 2
• George Sand – Histoire de ma vie
• William Smith – Latin–English Dictionary based upon the works of Forcellini and Freund
• Leo Tolstoy – Sevastopol Sketches
• Alfred Russel Wallace – "On the Law Which has Regulated the Introduction of Species"

Births

• February 21 – Elizabeth Robins Pennell, American biographer and critic based in London
• April 4 – Manonmaniam Sundaram Pillai, Indian dramatist
• April 27 – Margaret Wolfe Hungerford, Irish novelist
• May 1 – Marie Corelli, English novelist
• May 14 – Eduard von Keyserling, Baltic German fiction writer and dramatist
• May 21 – Emile Verhaeren, Belgian Symbolist poet writing in French
• May 24 – Sir Arthur Wing Pinero, English dramatist
• July 7 – Ludwig Ganghofer, German novelist
• July 19 – Alexander Ertel, Russian novelist and short story writer
• August 7 – Stanley J. Weyman, English novelist
• September 12 – William Sharp, Scottish poet and biographer
• September 22 – Alice Zimmern, English writer, translator and suffragist
• October 26 – Jessie Wilson Manning, American author and lecturer
• October 30 – Pyotr Gnedich, Russian writer and poet
• November 4 – William Ritchie Sorley, Scottish philosopher
• December 15 – Maurice Bouchor, French poet and sculptor
• December 28 – Juan Zorrilla de San Martín, Uruguayan poet
• unknown date
• *Solomon Cleaver, Canadian story teller, novelist and pastor
• *Florence Huntley, American journalist, editor, humorist and occult author

Deaths

• January 3 – János Majláth, Hungarian poet and historian
• January 10 – Mary Russell Mitford, English dramatist and novelist
• January 25 – Dorothy Wordsworth, English poet and diarist
• January 26 – Gérard de Nerval, French poet and essayist
• February 4 – Gottfried Christian Friedrich Lücke, German theologian
• March 31 – Charlotte Brontë, English novelist and poet
• June 29 – Delphine de Girardin, French poet and novelist
• July 12 – Karl Spindler, German novelist,
• September 4 – Emma Tatham, English poet
• September 27 – John Adamson, English antiquary and scholar of Portuguese
• November 11 – Søren Kierkegaard, Danish philosopher
• November 19 – Mihály Vörösmarty, Hungarian poet and dramatist
• November 26 – Adam Mickiewicz, Poland's national poet
• December 3 – Robert Montgomery, English poet
• unknown date – Sunthorn Phu, Thai poet