This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1870.
Events
- January 19 â Ivan Turgenev attends and writes about the public execution by guillotine of the spree killer Jean-Baptiste Troppmann outside the gates of La Roquette Prisons in Paris.
- March 7 â Thomas Hardy meets his first wife, Emma Gifford, in Cornwall.
- March 28 â Serialisation of Kenward Philp's The Bowery Detective in The Fireside Companion (New York) begins, the first known story to include the word detective in the title.
- AprilâÂÂSeptember â The serialisation of Charles Dickens' last novel, The Mystery of Edwin Drood, is left unfinished on his death on June 9 at Gads Hill Place in Kent, from a stroke, aged 58.
- May â Karl May begins a second four-year prison sentence for thefts and frauds, at Waldheim, Saxony.
- Spring â Serial publication begins of Aleksis Kivi's only novel Seitsemän veljestä ("Seven Brothers"), the first notable novel in the Finnish language.
- August 24/25 â Libraries of the University of Strasbourg and the City of Strasbourg at Temple Neuf are destroyed by fire during the Siege of Strasbourg in the Franco-Prussian War, resulting in the loss of 3,446 medieval manuscripts, including the original 12th-century Hortus deliciarum compiled by Herrad of Landsberg, the Apologist codex containing the only text of the early Epistle to Diognetus, and rare Renaissance books.
- September 17 â The first performance of Alexander Pushkin's play Boris Godunov (1825) is given at the Mariinsky Theatre in Saint Petersburg by members of the Alexandrinsky Theatre.
- c. September 20 â Friedrich Engels moves permanently to London from Manchester.
- December 18 â The Russian literary weekly Niva (ëÃÂøÃÂòðû, "Cornfield") is first published by Adolf Marks in Saint Petersburg.
- unknown date â Construction of the David Sassoon Library in Bombay, India, is completed.
New books
Fiction
Children and young people
- John Neal â Great Mysteries and Little Plagues
Drama
Poetry
Non-fiction
Births
- January 3 â Henry Handel Richardson (Ethel Florence Lindesay Richardson), Australian novelist (died 1946)
- February 16 â Henric Streitman, Romanian essayist and journalist (died 1950)
- March 5 â Frank Norris, American novelist (died 1902)
- April 7 â Gustav Landauer, German philosopher and revolutionary (murdered 1919)
- June 25 â Erskine Childers, Irish novelist (executed 1922)
- July 27 â Hilaire Belloc, French-born English writer, poet and satirist (died 1953)
- October 18 â Petre P. Negulescu, Romanian philosopher (died 1951)
- October 22 (October 10 OS) â Ivan Bunin, Russian-born writer, recipient of Nobel Prize in Literature (died 1953)
- October 29 â Gerald Duckworth, English publisher (died 1937)
- December 17 â Ioan A. Bassarabescu, Romanian short story writer and politician (died 1952)
- December 18 â Saki (Hector Hugh Munro), English short story writer and dramatist (killed in action 1916)
Deaths
- January 21 â Alexander Herzen, Russian writer (born 1812)
- February 25 â Henrik Hertz, Danish poet (born 1797)
- April 16 â Rallou Karatza, Greek Wallachian translator and theatrical promoter (born 1799)
- April 24 â Louisa Stuart Costello, Irish writer on history and travel (born 1799)
- June 9 â Charles Dickens, English novelist (born 1812)
- June 11 â William Gilmore Simms, American poet, novelist and historian (born 1806)
- June 24 â Adam Lindsay Gordon, Australian poet (born 1833)
- July 19 â Benjamin Thorpe, scholar of Old English (born )
- July 20 â Jules de Goncourt, French novelist and critic (syphilis, born 1830)
- July 24 â Anders Abraham Grafström, Swedish poet and historian (born 1790)
- July 30 – Aasmund Olavsson Vinje, Norwegian journalist and poet (born 1818)
- September 12 â Fitz Hugh Ludlow, American author and explorer (born 1836)
- September 23 РProsper M̩rim̩e, French writer (b. 1803)
- November 4 â Comte de Lautreamont (Isidore Lucien Ducasse), French poet and writer (born 1846)
- December 5 â Alexandre Dumas, père, French novelist (born 1802)
References