1803 in literature

This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1803.

Events

• June 30 – Novelist Mary Butt marries her cousin, Captain Henry Sherwood, acquiring the surname by which she will become best known.
• September 9 – Bamberg State Library is established in Upper Franconia.
• unknown date – The library which becomes the National Széchényi Library, established in 1802 by Count Ferenc Széchényi, opens to the public in Pest, Hungary.
• Jane Austen's novel Northanger Abbey, a satire on Gothic fiction, is advertised by a London publisher but is not in fact published until 1817, after her death.

New books

Fiction

• Charles Brockden Brown – Memoirs of Carwin the Biloquist
• Sophie Ristaud Cottin – Amélie de Mansfield
• Catherine Cuthbertson – The Romance of the Pyrenees
• Elizabeth Gunning – The War-Office
• Francis Lathom – The Mysterious Freebooter
• Mary Meeke – A Tale of Mystery, or Celina
• Jean Paul - Titan
• Jane Porter – Thaddeus of Warsaw
• Germaine de Staël – Margaret of Strafford

Drama

• John Allingham
• Hearts of Oak
• The Marriage Promise
• George Colman – John Bull
• William Dunlap – Voice of Nature (adapted from the French)
• Collin d'Harleville – Malice pour malice
• Thomas Holcroft – Hear Both Sides
• Heinrich von Kleist – Die Familie Schroffenstein
• August von Kotzebue – Die deutschen Kleinstädter (comedy, German Small-towners)
• Frederick Reynolds – The Three Per Cents
• Friedrich Schiller – The Bride of Messina (Die Braut von Messina), premiere in Weimar on March 19
• Isaac Reed (ed.) – The Plays of William Shakspeare (first variorum edition)

Poetry

• Henry Kirke White – Clifton Grove, a Sketch in Verse, with other Poems
• Adam Oehlenschlager – Digte (Poems)

Non-fiction

• Alexandre Balthazar Laurent Grimod de La Reynière – Almanach des gourmands (1st edition)
• Bahadur Ali Hussaini – Akhlaq-e-Hindi, first Urdu book printed in printing-press (ethics)
• Immanuel Kant – Über Pädagogik (On Pedagogy)
• Adamantios Korais – Present Conditions of Civilisation in Greece
• Joseph Lancaster – Improvements in Education as It Respects the Industrious Classes
• Thomas Malthus – An Essay on the Principle of Population (2nd edition)
• Humphry Repton – Observations on the Theory and Practice of Landscape Gardening

Births

• January 3 – Douglas William Jerrold, English dramatist (died 1857)
• January 15 – Marjorie Fleming, Scottish child writer (died 1811)
• January 27 – Eunice Hale Cobb, American writer, public speaker, and activist (died 1880)
• May 16 – Amelie von Strussenfelt, Swedish novelist (died 1847)
• May 25
• Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton, English novelist, poet and dramatist (died 1873)
• Ralph Waldo Emerson, American poet, essayist and philosopher (died 1882)
• July 20 – Dudley Costello, Irish writer and journalist (died 1865)
• September 20 – Catherine Crowe, English novelist, playwright and children's writer (died 1876)
• September 28 – Prosper Mérimée, French dramatist and historian (died 1870)
• October 25 – Maria Doolaeghe, Flemish novelist (died 1884)
• November 14 – Jacob Abbott, American children's writer (died 1879)
• December 6 – Susanna Moodie, English-born Canadian writer (died 1885)
• December 31 – José María Heredia y Heredia, Cuban poet (died 1839)

Unknown date – Evan Bevan, Welsh writer of satirical verse (died 1866)

Deaths

• January 1 – James Woodforde, English diarist (born 1740)
• February 11 – Jean-François de La Harpe, French dramatist and critic (born 1739)
• March 14 – Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock, German poet (born 1724)
• April 9 – Mihály Bakos (Miháo BakoÅ¡), Slovene hymnist and Lutheran minister (born c. 1742)
• June 12 – Richard François Philippe Brunck, French classical scholar (born 1729)
• August 2 – John Hoole, English translator (born 1727)
• September 5 – Pierre Choderlos de Laclos, French novelist (born 1841)
• October 8 – Vittorio Alfieri, Italian dramatist and poet (born 1749)
• December 18 – Johann Gottfried Herder, German philosopher, poet and critic (born 1744)

References