1873 in literature

This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1873.

Events

January 1 – In the United States, Chicago Public Library opens in an old water tank in the aftermath of the Great Chicago Fire of 1871.
March 3
*The United States Congress enacts the Comstock Law, making it illegal to send any "obscene, lewd, or lascivious" books through the mail.
*The first performance of W. S. Gilbert and Gilbert Arthur à Beckett's play The Happy Land at the Royal Court Theatre, London parodies William Ewart Gladstone, Robert Lowe, and Acton Smee Ayrton, respectively the prime minister, Chancellor of the Exchequer, and First Commissioner of Works.
March 10 – The first Azerbaijani play The Adventure of a Miser by Mirza Fatali Akhundov is performed by Hasan bey Zardabi and dramatist Najaf bey Vazirov.
March 18 – Leo Tolstoy begins his novel Anna Karenina, which is serialized in Russkiy Vestnik between 1873 and 1877.
June 16 – Karl Marx inscribes a copy of his treatise Das Kapital to Charles Darwin "on the part of his sincere admirer" but Darwin never finishes reading it.
July – Thomas Hardy's novel A Pair of Blue Eyes completes its serialization in Tinsley's Magazine and appears in book format in London. Although this is Hardy's third novel, it is the first to bear his name on publication in the U.S.
July 10 – Paul Verlaine shoots and wounds Arthur Rimbaud in Brussels.
November – The children's periodical St. Nicholas Magazine begins publication by Scribner and Company in New York under the editorship of Mary Mapes Dodge.
December 18 – Louisa May Alcott's family satire "Transcendental Wild Oats" is published in the newspaper The Independent.
unknown dates
*Serialisation of the novel Night and Morning as Xinxi xiantan by "Lishao Jushi" begins in the Shanghai monthly Yinghuan Suoji, the first secular fiction translated from English into Chinese.
*Charles M. Barnes opens his book printing business in Wheaton, Illinois, United States; it is a forerunner of publisher Barnes & Noble.
*In Berlin, the Romanian poet Mihai Eminescu is known to be working on the verse fairy tale "Girl in the Garden of Gold". He will revisit the text regularly during the next decade, eventually producing his masterpiece Luceafărul.
*Bertha Kinsky becomes governess to the Suttner family.

New books

Fiction

Louisa May Alcott – Work: A Story of Experience
Hortense Allart – Les Enchantements de Prudence avec George Sand
Ambrose Bierce – The Fiend's Delight
Mary Elizabeth Braddon – Publicans and Sinners
Rhoda Broughton
*Nancy
*Tales for Christmas Eve
Bankim Chatterjee – The Poison Tree
Wilkie Collins
*Miss or Mrs.?
*The New Magdalen
Sami Frashëri – Ta'aşşûk-ı Tal'at ve Fitnât
Émile Gaboriau – La Corde au cou
Thomas Hardy – A Pair of Blue Eyes
William Dean Howells – A Chance Acquaintance
Nikolai Leskov – The Enchanted Wanderer
George MacDonald – The History of Gutta-Percha Willie, the Working Genius
Benito Pérez Galdós – Trafalgar
Anne Thackeray Ritchie – Old Kensington
Karolina Světlá – Nemodlenec
Anthony Trollope – Phineas Redux
Mark Twain – The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today
Jules Verne – Around the World in Eighty Days
Émile Zola – ''Le Ventre de Paris''

Children

Georgina Castle Smith – Nothing to Nobody
Charlotte Mary Yonge – Aunt Charlotte's Stories of Bible History
Helen Zimmern – ''Stories in Precious Stones''

Drama

Poetry

Paul Bourget – Au bord de la mer
Robert Browning – Red Cotton Night-Cap Country
Tristan Corbière – only published work included in Les Amours Jaunes
Edmund Gosse – On Viol and Flute
Arthur Rimbaud – ''Une Saison en Enfer''

Non-fiction

Samuel Butler – The Fair Haven
Alexandre Dumas – Grand Dictionnaire de cuisine
Émile Littré – Dictionnaire de la langue française
Walter Pater – Studies in the History of the Renaissance
Leslie Stephen – Essays on Free Thinking and Plain Speaking
Charlotte Mary Yonge – ''Life of John Coleridge Patteson''

Births

January 1 – Mariano Azuela, Mexican writer
January 7 – Charles Péguy, French poet and essayist
January 9 – Hayim Nahman Bialik, Russian-born Hebrew-language poet
January 20 – Johannes V. Jensen, Danish writer and Nobel Prize winner
January 28 – Colette, French novelist
February 22 – Carrie Langston Hughes, African-American writer and actress
February 23 – Haralamb Lecca, Romanian dramatist, poet and translator
March 10 – Jakob Wassermann, German novelist
March 20 – Constantin Banu, Romanian politician, journalist, cultural promoter and aphorist
Before March 29 – Peig Sayers, Irish seanchaí
April 22 – Ellen Glasgow, American novelist
April 25 – Howard R. Garis, American children's fiction writer
May 17 – Henri Barbusse, French novelist
June 8 – José Martínez Ruiz, Spanish novelist
June 16 – Lady Ottoline Morrell, English patron of the arts
July 22 – James Cousins, Irish writer
August 13 – Dora Adele Shoemaker, American poet and playwright
September 8 – Alfred Jarry, French dramatist
October 1 – Ludovic Dauș, Romanian novelist and dramatist
October 10 – George Cabot Lodge, American poet
November 13 – Oliver Onions, English novelist and ghost story writer
December 3 – Ilie Bărbulescu, Romanian linguist and journalist
December 7 – Willa Cather, American novelist
December 17 – Ford Madox Ford, English novelist
December 29 – Ovid Densusianu, Romanian poet, philologist and journalist

Births

Count Miklós Domokos Pál Bánffy de Losoncz (30 December 1873
December 30 - Count Miklós Bánffy

Deaths

January 9 – Sigurd Abel, German historian
January 10 – Francesco Dall'Ongaro, Italian poet and dramatist
January 16 – Ulrika von Strussenfelt, Swedish novelist
January 18 – Edward Bulwer-Lytton, English novelist and playwright
February 1 – Gertrudis Gómez de Avellaneda, Cuban-born novelist
February 7 – Sheridan Le Fanu, Irish writer
February 24 – Spiridon Trikoupis, Greek author and orator
May 8 – John Stuart Mill, English philosopher
May 22 – Alessandro Manzoni, Italian poet and novelist
May 27 – Pierre-Antoine Lebrun, French poet
July 13 – Caroline Clive, English poet and author, dies in fire
August 15 – Edward Meredith Cope, English classicist
September 25 – Francesco Domenico Guerrazzi, Italian novelist
September 26 – Julius Roerich Benedix, German dramatist
September 28 – Émile Gaboriau, French crime novelist
October 4 – Margaret Gatty, English children's author
November 6 – Manuel Bretón de los Herreros, Spanish playwright
Unknown date – Harriet Ward, English non-fiction and fiction writer