1885 in literature

This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1885.
—Opening lines of ''Adventures of Huckleberry Finn''

Events

January 1 – The Dictionary of National Biography begins publication in London under the editorship of Leslie Stephen.
February 18 – Mark Twain's Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is published in the United States for the first time, in New York by the author's own publishing house, Charles L. Webster, illustrated by E. W. Kemble, the first impression having been delayed for replacement of an unauthorized obscene alteration to one of the illustrative plates. Its first-person narrative in colloquial language is initially controversial but ultimately influential in the development of realism in American literature.
March 7 – José Echegaray's play La vida alegre y muerte triste opens in Spain.
March 19 – Bolesław Prus's first major naturalistic novel, The Outpost, begins serialization in the Polish illustrated weekly, Wędrowiec.
May – Henri Beauclair and Gabriel Vicaire, using the pseudonym Adoré Floupette, publish Les Déliquescences d'Adoré Floupette, a parodic collection of poems satirising French symbolism and the Decadent movement.
May 16 – Sakuradoki Zeni no Yononaka, an adaptation by Genzo Katsu after Bunkai Udagawa of The Merchant of Venice set in the Edo period, is performed by the Nakamura Sojuro Kabuki company at the Ebisu-za Theater in Osaka, the first of Shakespeare's plays to be staged with actors in Japan.
May 19 – The Revised Version Old Testament is published.
June 1 – More than two million people join Victor Hugo's funeral procession in Paris from the Arc de Triomphe to the Panthéon, where he is the first author to be buried, following his death on May 22 in the city from pneumonia aged 83.
June 29 – Thomas Hardy moves to a house he designed for himself and built by his brother at Max Gate on the outskirts of Dorchester, Dorset.
December 6 – Frederick James Furnivall founds the Shelley Society.
unknown dates
*Arthur Napier is appointed first Merton Professor of English Language and Literature in the University of Oxford.
*John Ormsby's English translation of Miguel de Cervantes's Don Quixote is published. For many years it is regarded as the most accurate translation of the novel.
*The first translation of Leo Tolstoy's War and Peace into English begins publication. It has been done by Clara Bell from a French version.
*The first translation of Amy Catherine Walton 's Christian novel Christie's Old Organ into Japanese, made by Tajima Kashi, is published, one of the earliest examples of children's literature in Japan.
*Daniel Owen's long novel Hunangofiant Rhys Lewis, Gweinidog Bethel is published as the first written in Welsh.

New books

Non-fiction

J. W. Cross – George Eliot's Life, as related in her letters and journals
Anténor Firmin – De l'Égalité des Races Humaines
Tsubouchi Shōyō – ''Shōsetsu Shinzui''

Births

January 16 – Zhou Zuoren, Chinese vernacular writer
February 7 – Sinclair Lewis, American novelist
February 21 – Sacha Guitry, French dramatist and screenwriter
February 24 – Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz, Polish painter, playwright and novelist
March 6 – Ring Lardner, American writer
March 25 – Mateiu Caragiale, Romanian novelist and poet
March 27 – Constantin Gane, Romanian biographer and historical novelist
April 17 – Karen Blixen, Danish author
May 2 – Hedda Hopper, American columnist
May 8 - Thomas B. Costain, Canadian author and journalist
May 9 – Al. T. Stamatiad, Romanian poet
July 10 - Mary O'Hara, American author and screenwriter
July 18 - Marino Moretti, Italian poet and author
August 15 – Edna Ferber, American novelist, short story writer, and playwright
September 7 – Elinor Wylie, American poet and novelist
September 11 – D. H. Lawrence, English fiction writer and poet
September 24 – Shane Leslie, Irish author
October 3 – Sophie Treadwell, American dramatist and journalist
October 11 – François Mauriac, French novelist
October 30 – Ezra Pound, American poet
November 9 – Velimir Khlebnikov, Russian Futurist poet and writer
December 8 – Kenneth Roberts, American novelist

Deaths

January 10 – Amable Tastu, French women of letters and poet
February 14 – Jules Vallés, French writer
March 17 – Susan Warner, American religious and children's writer
April 8 – Susanna Moodie, English-born Canadian author
April 18 – Marc Monnier, French author and translator
April 30 – Jens Peter Jacobsen, Danish novelist
May 13 – Juliana Horatia Ewing, English children's writer
May 15 – Hugh Conway, English novelist
May 22 – Victor Hugo, French poet and novelist
June 18 – Louis Segond, Swiss theologian
July 13 – Augusto Vera, Italian philosopher
July 15 – Rosalía de Castro, Spanish Galician poet and writer
August 11 – Richard Monckton Milnes, 1st Baron Houghton, English man of letters, poet and politician
September 18 – John Campbell Shairp, Scottish critic
November 29 – Anne Gilchrist, English-born American critic and biographer

1885 in literature

Events

New books

Fiction

Children and young people

Drama

Poetry

Non-fiction

Births

Deaths