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1815 in literature
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1815 literature poetry
June 2026
This article presents lists of the literary events and publications in 1815.
Events
thumb|right|200px|First issue of the North American Review with signature of its editor William Tudor.
January 2 – Lord Byron marries Annabella Milbanke at Seaham, County Durham. To escape from his growing debts and the rumours circulating about him, Byron has pressed in his determination to marry Annabella, who is said to be the likely heiress of a rich uncle. Their daughter, Ada, is born in December 1815. However, Byron's continuing obsession with his paternal half-sister Augusta Leigh, and his continuing sexual escapades with various actresses, such as Charlotte Mardyn,Alexander Kilgour, Anecdotes of Lord Byron: From Authentic Sources; with Remarks Illustrative of His Connection with the Principal Literary of the Present Day, Knight and Lacey, London (1925) – Google Books p. 32John Galt, The Complete Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2, Baudry's European Library (1837) – Google Books cvii make their marital life a misery.McGann 2013.
April 7 – Lord Byron and Walter Scott meet for the first time, in the offices of publisher John Murray, 50 Albemarle Street in London.The Byron Chronology, 1814–1816 http://www.rc.umd.edu/reference/chronologies/byronchronology/1814.html Romantic Circles University of Maryland 2013-11-21 2013-12-19 https://web.archive.org/web/20131219041158/http://www.rc.umd.edu/reference/chronologies/byronchronology/1814.html dead
May – First publication of the North American Review, the first literary magazine in the United States. It is founded in Boston by the poet William Tudor with the assistance of the journalist Nathan Hale and others. It is published continuously until 1940, after which it is inactive until revived at Cornell College in Iowa under Robert Dana in 1964. From 1968, the University of Northern Iowa in Cedar Falls is home to the publication.http://www.northamericanreview.org/history The Magazine's Historic Past North American Review University of Northern Iowa Cedar Falls, Iowa February 9, 2009
June 15 – The Duchess of Richmond's ball is held in Brussels on the night before the Battle of Quatre Bras (and three nights before the Battle of Waterloo) by Charlotte, Duchess of Richmond for her son, the writer Lord William Lennox. It subsequently features in literary works by Lord Byron, William Makepeace Thackeray, Charles Lever, Georgette Heyer, Bernard Cornwell and Julian Fellowes.978-184831-247-0 Love, Sex, Death & Words: surprising tales from a year in literature John Sutherland John Sutherland (author) Stephen Fender London Icon 2011 15 June 228–9Elizabeth Pakenham, Countess of Longford Longford Elizabeth https://books.google.com/books?id=1_fwo9-URNEC&dq=Marquise+D%E2%80%99Assche&pg=PA230 230–234 Hastings Max Max Hastings 194 The Oxford Book of Military Anecdotes 1986 978-0-19-520528-2
December 23
Jane Austen's novel Emma is published anonymously by John Murray in LondonAdvertisement in The Morning Chronicle 25 December 1815 p. 1. dated 1816. About 1500 copies sell over the next 5 years.A Bibliography of Jane Austen Gilson David Oxford University Press 1982 978-0-19-818173-6 Oxford 66–67 https://archive.org/details/bibliographyofja0000gils/page/66
Polish scholar and adventurer Count Jan Potocki, believing that he is becoming a werewolf, shoots himself with a silver bullet, leaving his novel The Manuscript Found in Saragossa incomplete.Howe Justin 2009-03-10 https://www.tor.com/blogs/2009/03/jan-potocki-and-the-manuscript-found-in-saragossa Jan Potocki and the Manuscript Found in Saragossa Tor.com 2018-11-30
Thomas Love Peacock's first novel Headlong Hall is published anonymously by Thomas Hookham in London, dated 1816.Peacock, Thomas Love 21 21–22 Richard Garnett Richard Garnett (writer)
First complete publication of the Old English epic poem Beowulf, in a Latin translation by Icelandic-Danish scholar Grímur Jónsson Thorkelin.
The second volume of the first edition of the Brothers Grimm's Grimms' Fairy Tales is dated this year but published late in 1814.
New books
Fiction
Jane Austen (anonymously) – Emma (dated 1816)
Sarah Green – The Fugitive
Ann Hatton ("Ann of Swansea") – Secret Avengerss-HATT-ANN-1764.html Hatton, Ann Julia('Ann of Swansea', 1764-1838), poet and novelist Cecil John Layton Price 20 June 2026
Mary Hays – The Brothers, or Consequences
E. T. A. Hoffmann – The Devil's Elixirs (Die Elixiere des Teufels)
Barbara Hofland – A Father as He Should Be
Christian Isobel Johnstone (anonymously) – Clan-Albin: A National Tale
Elizabeth Meeke ("Mrs Meeke") – Spanish Campaigns, or The Jew
Thomas Love Peacock (anonymously) – Headlong Hall (dated 1816)
Jane Porter – The Pastor's Fireside
Regina Marie Roche – Edinburg; a Novel
Walter Scott (anonymously) – Guy Mannering
Catharina Smith – Barozzi; or, The Venetian Sorceress
Thomas Skinner Surr – The Magic of Wealth
Children and young people
Arabella Argus – The Adventures of a DonkeyHahn Daniel The Oxford Companion to Children's Literature 2015 Oxford. University Press 9780198715542 3 2nd
Drama
Barbarina Brand – Ina, a tragedy in five acts
Bernhard Severin Ingemann – Blanca
James Sheridan Knowles – Caius Gracchus
Jane Scott – The Gipsy Girl
Eugène Scribe and Delestre Poirson – Une Nuit de la Garde nationale
Poetry
Pierre-Jean de Béranger – Chansons I
Lord Byron – Hebrew Melodies
Walter Scott – The Field of Waterloo
Percy Bysshe Shelley – Alastor, or The Spirit of Solitude
William Wordsworth – The White Doe of Rylstone
Non-fiction
Simón Bolívar – Letter to Jamaica (September 6)
Alexander von Humboldt – Personal Narrative of Travels to the Equinoctial Regions of the New Continent during the Years 1799–1804 (first edition in French, seven volumes up to 1826)
Les Jeux des Jeunes Garçons
John Malcolm – The History of Persia, from the Most Early Period to the Present Timehttp://www.wdl.org/en/item/7310/ The History of Persia, from the Most Early Period to the Present Time World Digital Library 1815 2013-10-02
Thomas Malthus – An Inquiry into the Nature and Progress of Rent
Births
January 7 – E. Louisa Mather, American writer (died 1882)
February 19 – Elizabeth Missing Sewell, English novelist and educationist (died 1906)
April 24 – Anthony Trollope, English novelist (died 1882)Trollope, Anthony Richard Garnett 57 238–242
April 25 – Richard William Church, English biographer and cleric (died 1890)
May 5 – Eugène Marin Labiche, French dramatist (died 1888)
June 6 – Giovanni Peruzzini, Italian poet, opera librettist, and translator of German literature (died 1869)John Black 2002 Peruzzini, Giovanni Grove Music Online Oxford University Press 10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.article.O005160
July 17 – Thekla Knös, Swedish poet (died 1880)
August 1 – Marițica Bibescu, Wallachian poet and literary patron (died 1859)
October 4 – Franz Jakob Clemens, German philosopher (died 1862)
November 5 – Martins Pena, Brazilian dramatist (died 1848)
November 17 – Eliza Farnham, American novelist and reformer (died 1864)
December 10 – Augusta Ada King (née Byron), Countess of Lovelace, English mathematician and writer on computing (died 1852)
December 20 – James Legge, Scottish sinologist, missionary and translator (died 1897)
unknown date – Meenakshi Sundaram Pillai, Tamil scholar and poet (died 1876)
Deaths
January 21 – Matthias Claudius (Asmus), German poet (born 1740)
January 30 – Hans Christian Amberg, Danish lexicographer (born 1749)1887 Amberg, Hans Christian Dansk biografisk lexikon C. A. Nissen 1 Bricka, Carl Frederik Gyldendalske Boghandels Forlag 193–194 Copenhagen https://runeberg.org/dbl/1/0211.html Danish 7 November 2009
March 4 – Frances Abington, née Barton, English actress (born 1737)Highfill Philip H. Burnim Kalman Langhans Edward A biographical dictionary of actors, actresses, musicians, dancers, managers & other stage personnel in London, 1660-1800. Vol. 1, Abaco to Belfille 1973 Southern Illinois University Press Carbondale, Ill. 0809305178 12–20 https://books.google.com/books?id=V8IutzpP0sYC&dq=frances+abington&pg=PA20 19 November 2021
April 13 – Thomas Bayly Howell, English legal writer (born 1767)
September 13 – Mihály Gáber, Slovene writer in Hungary (born c. 1753)
November 2 – Gottlieb Christoph Harless, German bibliographer (born 1738)
November 11 – Pierre-Louis Ginguené, French writer and critic (born 1748)
November 17 – Dorothea Viehmann, German fairy-story teller (born 1755)
December 20 – Giovanni Meli, Sicilian poet (born 1740)Warner, Charles Dudley. Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern. United States: J. A. Hill, 1902. Page 377
December 23 – Jan Potocki, Polish polymath (born 1761)
References
30em
Sources
McGann Jerome Jerome McGann 2013 2004 Byron, George Gordon Noel (1788–1824) 4279
External links
1815 Books at Goodreads