This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1879.
Events
- January 1 â Benjamin Henry Blackwell opens the first Blackwell's bookshop, in Oxford.
- January 11 â During construction of an extension to Birmingham Central Library in England, a fire destroys 50,000 books and the original manuscript of the Coventry Mystery Plays (including the "Coventry Carol").
- September â The English critic and poet Theodore Watts-Dunton takes the alcoholic poet Algernon Charles Swinburne into permanent care at his Putney home.
- September 6 â Arthur Conan Doyle has his first story, "The Mystery of Sasassa Valley", published anonymously in Chambers's Journal.
- October 10 â The collected works of the American poet Ethel Lynn Beers are published as All Quiet Along The Potomac and Other Poems. The title poem is her best-known work. On the following day she dies aged 52 at Orange, New Jersey.
- December â Walter Besant persuades Thomas Hardy to become a founder-member of The Rabelais Club in London, which holds a literary dinner once every two months. Other members include the novelists Henry James, Bret Harte, Oliver Wendell Holmes and George du Maurier.
- December 21 â The first production of Henrik Ibsen's controversial "modern drama" A Doll's House takes place at the Royal Danish Theatre in Copenhagen, after publication there on December 4.
- unknown dates
- Publication of the first complete edition of Georg Büchner's works, edited by Karl Emil Franzos, is completed in Frankfurt. It includes the first printing of the play Wozzeck, left unfinished on the writer's death in 1837.
- The Swiss publisher Birkhäuser is founded in Basel.
New books
Fiction
Children and young people
Drama
Poetry
Non-fiction
Births
- January 1 â E. M. Forster, English novelist and critic (died 1970)
- January 26 â Alfred Eckhard Zimmern, German-born English historian and political scientist (died 1957)
- February 2 â I. C. Vissarion, Romanian novelist, dramatist, poet and science writer (died 1951)
- February 13 â Sarojini Naidu (née Chattopadhyay), Indian poet and politician (died 1949)
- February 17 â Dorothy Canfield Fisher, American activist and novelist (died 1958)
- March 9 â Agnes Miegel, German author, journalist and poet (died 1964)
- March 14 â Harold Monro, English poet and promoter of poetry (died 1932)
- March 28 â Terence MacSwiney, Irish playwright, poet and politician (died on hunger strike 1920)
- April 14 â James Branch Cabell, American novelist (died 1958)
- May 8 â Ioan C. Filitti, Romanian historian, political theorist and essayist (died 1945)
- June 4 â Percy Lubbock, English essayist, critic and biographer (died 1965)
- July 19 â Ferenc Móra, Hungarian children's writer and editor (died 1934)
- July 20 â Claude Scudamore Jarvis, English writer, Arabist and naturalist (died 1953)
- August 19 â LascÃÂr Vorel, Romanian visual artist and short story writer (died 1918)
- September 19 â Louis Joseph Vance, American novelist (died 1933)
- October 2 â Wallace Stevens, American poet (died 1955)
- November 19 â Mait Metsanurk, Estonian author and playwright (died 1957)
- December 3 â KafÃ
« Nagai (永亠è·風), Japanese novelist (died 1959)
- December 24 â ÃÂmile Nelligan, French Canadian poet (died 1941)
Deaths
- January 16 â Octave Crémazie, "the father of French Canadian poetry" (born 1827)
- February 28 â Hortense Allart, French feminist novelist (born 1801)
- March 3
- William Howitt, English historical writer and poet (born 1792)
- Annie Keary, English novelist, poet and children's writer (born 1825)
- March 9 â Mark Prager Lindo, Dutch historian (born 1819)
- March 19 â Claire Clairmont, English-born diarist and correspondent (born 1798)
- April 8 â Anthony Panizzi, Italian-born English librarian (born 1797)
- April 21 â George Hadfield, English radical author and politician (born 1787)
- April 25 â Charles Tennyson Turner, English poet (born 1808)
- April 30 â Sarah Josepha Hale, American novelist and poet (born 1788)
- June 1 â Louisa Caroline Huggins Tuthill, American children's author (born 1799)
- June 3 â Frances Ridley Havergal, English religious poet (born 1836)
- June 19 â George W. M. Reynolds, English popular novelist (born 1814)
- July 4 â Sarah Dorsey, American novelist and historian (born 1829)
- July 30 â Aasmund Olavsson Vinje, Norwegian poet and journalist (born 1818)
- September 20 â Rosanna Eleanor Leprohon, Canadian novelist and poet (born 1829)
- September 23 â Francis Kilvert, English diarist and cleric (born 1840)
- October 11 â Ethel Lynn Beers, American poet (born 1827)
- October 13 â Henry Charles Carey, American economist (born 1793)
- October 28 â Marie Roch Louis Reybaud, French political economist (born 1799)
- October 31
- Jacob Abbott, American children's writer (born 1803)
- John Baldwin Buckstone, English dramatist (born 1802)
- November 23 â Louisa Susannah Cheves McCord, American political essayist (born 1810)
- December 27 â William Hepworth Dixon, English historian, traveller and journal editor (born 1821)
Awards
References