1871 in literature

This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1871.

Events

January 1 – The children's literary magazine Young Folks begins publication in the United Kingdom as Our Young Folks' Weekly Budget.
January – John Ruskin begins publishing Fors Clavigera, his originally monthly "letters to the workmen and labourers of Great Britain".
March 18–May 28 – The Paris Commune is influential on the literary figures in the city at the time and far beyond:
* Jules Vallès publishes his newspaper Le Cri du Peuple February 22–May 23.
* At the beginning of April, Victor Hugo moves to Brussels to take care of the family of his son, who has just died, but closely follows events in Paris, on April 21 publishing the poem "Pas de représailles" and on June 11 writing the poem "Sur une barricade".
*Émile Zola, as a journalist for Le Sémaphore de Marseille, reports the fall of the Commune, and is one of the first reporters to enter the city during Semaine sanglante.
October – "Thomas Maitland", i. e. Robert Williams Buchanan, attacks Dante Gabriel Rossetti and other members of what Buchanan calls the "Fleshly School" of English poetry in The Contemporary Review. On December 16 Rossetti replies in "The Stealthy School of Criticism" in the Athenaeum.
November 25 – First performance of The Bells starring Henry Irving at the Lyceum Theatre, London, the actor's first great success. On the same night, he breaks up permanently with his wife when she criticises his choice of profession.
December – Publication of George Eliot's novel Middlemarch in eight parts commences.
unknown date – George Allen and Sons, publishers, predecessors of Allen & Unwin, is established in London.

New books

Poetry

Non-fiction

John Burroughs - Wake Robin
Charles Darwin – The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex
William Gifford Palgrave – Personal Narrative of a Year’s Journey through Central and Eastern Arabia
Edward Burnett Tylor – Primitive Culture
Walt Whitman - ''Democratic Vistas''

Births

January 9 – Eugène Marais, South African lawyer, naturalist, poet and writer
February 22 – John Langalibalele Dube, Zulu writer
February 25 – Lesya Ukrainka, Ukrainian poet and writer
February 28 – Manuel Díaz Rodríguez, Venezuelan writer and politician
March 5 – Rosa Luxemburg, Polish-born German revolutionary socialist
March 27 – Heinrich Mann, German narrator, dramatist and essayist
June 17 – James Weldon Johnson, American writer and activist
May 6 – Christian Morgenstern, German poet
May 14 – Caton Theodorian, Romanian dramatist and novelist
June 5 – Nicolae Iorga, Romanian historian, politician, culture critic, poet and playwright
July 3 – W. H. Davies, Welsh poet
July 10 – Marcel Proust, French novelist
August 21 – Leonid Andreyev, Russian short story writer and playwright
August 27 – Theodore Dreiser, American novelist
September 27 – Grazia Deledda, Italian writer and Nobel Prize winner
October 7 –, German fiction writer
October 10 – Wickham Steed, English journalist, editor and historian
October 30 – Paul Valéry, French poet
November 1 – Stephen Crane, American novelist
November 10 – Winston Churchill, American novelist

Deaths

January 12 – Auguste Anicet-Bourgeois, French dramatist
February 4 – Hermann, Fürst von Pückler-Muskau, German travel and gardening writer
February 9 – Martha Haines Butt, American novelist
February 12 – Alice Cary, American poet
March 17 – Robert Chambers, Scottish writer and publisher
March 28 – Joseph Isidore Samson, French playwright and actor
July 6 – Castro Alves, Brazilian poet and playwright
July 31 – Phoebe Cary, American poet
July 15 – Ján Chalupka, Slovak dramatist
September 16 – Jan Erazim Vocel, Czech poet, archaeologist, historian and cultural revivalist
November 2 – Athalia Schwartz, Danish writer, journalist and educator
December 8 – Thomas Gaspey, English novelist and journalist
December 21 – Luise Aston, German author and feminist

1871 in literature

Events

New books

Fiction

Children and young people

Drama

Poetry

Non-fiction

Births

Deaths