1865 in literature

This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1865.

Events

January – The first issue appears of Our Young Folks, an American monthly for children produced by Ticknor and Fields in Boston.
February – Publication of Leo Tolstoy's 1805, an early version of War and Peace, begins in the magazine Russkiy Vestnik.
April 14 – The President of the United States, Abraham Lincoln, is shot while attending a performance of the farce Our American Cousin at Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C., by actor and Confederate sympathizer John Wilkes Booth. Lincoln dies the following day.
June 9 – Charles Dickens is caught in the Staplehurst rail crash in Kent, England, together with the actress Ellen Ternan and her mother. Dickens is deeply affected by the event for the rest of his life.
June 14 – Karl May begins a four-year prison sentence for thefts and frauds at Osterstein Castle (Zwickau).
July – The American magazine for children The Little Corporal first appears.
July 4 – Lewis Carroll's children's book Alice's Adventures in Wonderland is published by Macmillan in London for Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, three years after it was first narrated to Alice Liddell and her sisters. He and his illustrator, John Tenniel, withdraw this edition, and the first trade editions are published on November 26 and released in December, that published by Appleton in New York using the rejected sheets from the earlier printing.
November 11 – London West End opening of the comedy drama Society written and directed by Thomas William Robertson at the Prince of Wales's Theatre, considered a milestone in English Victorian drama because of its realism in dialogue and performance.
November 18 – Mark Twain's story "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County" is published in the New York weekly The Saturday Press in its original version as "Jim Smiley and His Jumping Frog".
unknown dates
*English writer Edwin Abbott Abbott becomes headmaster of the City of London School at the age of 26.
*Frederick Warne & Co established as publishers in London.

New books

Poetry

Edward Lear – The History of the Seven Families of the Lake Pipple-Popple
A. C. Swinburne
*Atalanta in Calydon
*''Chastelard: a tragedy''

Non-fiction

Annals of the Joseon Dynasty
Matthew Arnold – Essays in Criticism
P. T. Barnum – The Humbugs of the World
Jacob Grimm – Deutsche Sagen
Friedrich Albert Lange – History of Materialism and Critique of its Present Importance
Karl Marx – Value, Price and Profit
John Stuart Mill – Examinations of Sir William Hamilton's Philosophy
William Gifford Palgrave – Narrative of a Year's Journey through Central and Eastern Arabia
James Hutchison Stirling – The Secret of Hegel: Being the Hegelian System in Origin Principle, Form and Matter
James Hudson Taylor – ''China's Spiritual Need and Claims''

Births

February 12 – Kazimierz Przerwa-Tetmajer, Polish poet and novelist
February 21 – John Haden Badley, English educationalist and writer
March 15 – Edith Maude Eaton, English-born writer on Chinese affairs
March 20 – Arthur Bayldon, English-born Australian poet
March 27 – Marion Angus, Scottish poet writing in Braid Scots and English
March 28 – Mary Findlater, Scottish novelist
March 29 – Stephen Bonsal, American writer, journalist and translator
May 2 – Clyde Fitch, American playwright
May 15 – Albert Verwey, Dutch poet
June 13 – W. B. Yeats, Irish poet
June 15 – Emma Wolf, American novelist
June 20 – Enrico Corradini, Italian novelist and essayist
June 26 – Bernard Berenson, American art historian
July 21 – M. P. Shiel, born Matthew Phipps Shiell, Montserrat-born British fantasy fiction author
August 14 – Pietro Gori, Italian anarchist poet
August 26 – Ellen Marriage, English translator of Balzac
September 11 – Rainis, Latvian poet and dramatist
November 2 – Panuganti Lakshminarasimha Rao, Indian writer
December 11 – Frida Stéenhoff, Swedish writer
December 13 – Ángel Ganivet, Spanish writer
December 30 – Rudyard Kipling, English poet and fiction writer

Deaths

January 11 – Jean-Baptiste-Antoine Ferland, French Canadian historian
January 18 – Charles Greville, English diarist
January 19 – Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, French philosopher
January 21 – X. B. Saintine, French novelist and dramatist
February 6 – Isabella Beeton, English writer on household management
February 25 – Otto Ludwig, German novelist and playwright
April 2
*John Cassell, English publisher
*Richard Cobden, English political writer
April 10 – Shoqan Walikhanov, Russian Kazakh historian and folklorist
April 13 – Theodosia Trollope, English-born writer
April 15 – Abraham Lincoln, American orator and president of the republic
May 14 – Pierre François Xavier de Ram, Belgian historian
June 10 – Lydia Sigourney, American poet
June 11 – Frederic Charles Lascelles Wraxall, English writer
August 4 – William Edmondstoune Aytoun, Scottish poet and humorist
September 29 – Richard Lower, English dialect poet
September 30 – Dudley Costello, Irish writer and journalist
November 12 – Elizabeth Gaskell, English novelist
December 1 – Abraham Emanuel Fröhlich, Swiss poet
December 3 – Joseph Marie Quérard, French bibliographer
December 20 – Barton Bouchier, English religious writer

Awards

Newdigate Prize – Frederic Dobree Teesdale

1865 in literature

Events

New books

Fiction

Children and young people

Drama

Poetry

Non-fiction

Births

Deaths

Awards