1853 in literature

This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1853.

List of years in literature (table)
… 1843 1844 1845 1846 1847 1848 1849 1850 1851 1852 1853 1854 1855 1856 1857 1858 1859 1860 1861 1862 1863 …
In poetry 1850 1851 1852 1853 1854 1855 1856
Art Archaeology Architecture Literature Music Philosophy Science +...

Events

• September – The 20th and final instalment of Charles Dickens's Bleak House is published, followed shortly by its book publication.
• November – Poet Friedrich Reinhold Kreutzwald completes the Estonian national epic Kalevipoeg but Russian censorship makes it impossible to publish.[1]
• November 25 – English poet Alfred Tennyson settles at Farringford House on the Isle of Wight.[2]
• unknown dates
  • Abraham Mapu's historical novel Ahavat Zion ("Love of Zion"), set in ancient Israel and self-published in Kaunas (Lithuania), is the first narrative novel in the Hebrew language.[3]
  • Uriah Maggs establishes what will become the antiquarian bookselling business of Maggs Bros Ltd in London.

New books

Fiction

• Edward Bradley (as Cuthbert Bede) – The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green
• Charlotte Brontë – Villette
• William Wells Brown – Clotel; or, The President's Daughter
• Martha Haines Butt – Antifanaticism: A Tale of the South
• Charles Dickens – Bleak House
• Alexandre Dumas, père – La Comtesse de Charny
• Elizabeth Gaskell
  • Cranford
  • Ruth
• Sarah J. Hale – Liberia; or, Mr. Peyton's Experiments
• Caroline Lee Hentz – Helen and Arthur
• Charles Kingsley – Hypatia
• Sheridan Le Fanu – An Account of Some Strange Disturbances in Aungier Street
• Maria McIntosh – The Lofty and the Lowly, or Good in All and None All Good
• Abraham Mapu – Ahavat Zion
• Herman Melville – Bartleby, the Scrivener
• Susanna Moodie – Life in the Clearings
• Gérard de Nerval – Sylvie
• J. W. Page – Uncle Robin, in His Cabin in Virginia, and Tom Without One in Boston
• Charles Reade
  • Christie Johnstone
  • Peg Woffington
• George Sand – Les Maîtres sonneurs
• Elizabeth Sara Sheppard - Charles Auchester
• Robert Smith Surtees – Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour
• Vidi – Mr. Frank, the Underground Mail-Agent
• George J. Whyte-Melville – Digby Grand
• Charlotte M. Yonge – The Heir of Redclyffe

Children and young people

• Philip J. Cozans – Little Eva: The Flower of the South
• Fanny Fern – Little Ferns for Fanny's Little Friends

Drama

• Gustav Freytag – Die Journalisten
• Alexander Ostrovsky – The Poor Bride (Бедная невеста, Bednaya nevesta)
• Charles Reade – Gold
• George Sand – Le Pressoir

Poetry

• Álvares de Azevedo – Lira dos Vinte Anos (published posthumously)
• Matthew Arnold – The Scholar Gipsy
• Victor Hugo – Les Châtiments

Non-fiction

• Arthur de Gobineau – An Essay on the Inequality of the Human Races (Essai sur l'inégalité des races humaines), vol. 1
• Judge Edmonds, George Dexter – Spiritualism
• Johann Jakob Herzog – Real-Encyklopädie für protestantische Theologie und Kirche (Encyclopedia of Protestant Theology and Churches) begins publication
• Ferdinand Hoefer (ed.) – Nouvelle Biographie Générale, vol. 1[4]
• George Holyoake – Christianity and Secularism. Report of a Debate between the Rev. Bruin Grant B.A. and George Jacob Holyoake Esq.[5]
• Solomon Northup – Twelve Years a Slave: Narrative of Solomon Northup, citizen of New-York, kidnapped in Washington city in 1841, and rescued in 1853, from a cotton plantation near the Red River in Louisiana
• Karl Rosenkrantz – Aesthetic of Ugliness (Aesthetik des Hässlichen)
• Hippolyte Taine – Essai sur les fables de La Fontaine
• Otto von Böhtlingk – Sanskrit-Wörterbuch (Sanskrit Dictionary) begins publication.

Births

• April 17 – Mrs. Henry Clarke (Amy Key), English historical novelist and children's writer (died 1908)
• April 23 – Thomas Nelson Page, American writer and lawyer (died 1922)
• April 27 – Jules Lemaître, French dramatist and critic (died 1914)
• May 3 – E. W. Howe (Edgar Watson Howe), American author and editor (died 1937)
• May 14 – Hall Caine, British novelist and playwright (died 1931)
• July 27 – Clementina Black, English novelist and political writer (died 1922)
• September 14 – Radu Rosetti, Romanian politician, historical novelist and memoirist (died 1926)
• November 1 – Lie Kim Hok, Dutch East Indian Chinese journalist, novelist, poet and translator (died 1912)
• Unknown date – Dharmavaram Ramakrishnamacharyulu, Telugu dramatist (died 1912)

Deaths

• January 26 – Sylvester Judd, American novelist (born 1813)
• February 3 – August Kopisch, German poet (born 1799)
• April 4 – James Scholefield, English classicist (born 1789)
• April 28 – Ludwig Tieck, German poet, novelist and translator (born 1773)
• May 3 – Juan Donoso Cortés, Spanish diplomat and writer (born 1809)
• June 4 – Pavel Katenin, Russian classicist, poet and dramatist (born 1792)
• September 5 – Georges Depping, German-French historian (born 1784)
• October 29 – Thomas Jonathan Wooler, English satirist (born 1786)
• December 2 – Amelia Opie, English poet and novelist (born 1769)

Awards

• Newdigate Prize – Samuel Harvey Reynolds, "The Ruins of Egyptian Thebes"[6]

References

1. István Balogh (1976). Ancient Cultures of the Uralian Peoples. Corvina Press. p. 276. ISBN 978-963-13-3019-9.
2. Pinion, F. B. (1990). "1853". A Tennyson Chronology. Basingstoke: Macmillan. p. 66. ISBN 0-333-46020-0.
3. Christopher John Murray (2004). Encyclopedia of the Romantic Era, 1760-1850. Taylor & Francis. p. 662. ISBN 978-1-57958-422-1.
4. Its full title is Nouvelle Biographie Générale, depuis les temps les plus reculés jusqu'à nos jours, avec les renseignements bibliographiques et l'indication des sources a consulter ("New General Biography, from earliest times to the present, with bibliographic information and details of sources to consult").
5. Text: Retrieved 13 April 2017.
6. University Oxford (1876). Oxford University Calendar for the Year 1876. at the Clarendon Press. p. 2.