1821 in literature

This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1821.

Events

• May – Percy Bysshe Shelley's Queen Mab: a philosophical poem (1813) is distributed by a pirate publisher in London, leading to prosecution by the Society for the Prevention of Vice.
• August 4 – Atkinson & Alexander publish The Saturday Evening Post for the first time as a weekly newspaper in the United States.
• unknown dates
  • James Ballantyne begins publishing his Novelist's Library in Edinburgh edited by Sir Walter Scott.
  • In the first known obscenity case in the United States, a Massachusetts court outlaws the John Cleland novel Fanny Hill (1748). The publisher, Peter Holmes, is convicted of printing a "lewd and obscene" novel.
  • Sunthorn Phu is imprisoned and begins his epic poem Phra Aphai Mani.

New books

Fiction

File:Sir Thomas Lawrence (1769-1830) - Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832) - RCIN 400644 - Royal Collection.jpg

Portrait of Sir Walter Scott by Thomas Lawrence. Scott's historical novel Kenilworth was published in 1821.

• James Fenimore Cooper – The Spy
• Pierce Egan – Life in London; Boxiana Vol. III
• John Galt
  • Annals of the Parish
  • The Ayrshire Legatees
• Thomas Gaspey – Calthorpe
• Johann Wolfgang von Goethe – Wilhelm Meister's Journeyman Years (Wilhelm Meisters Wanderjahre)
• Ann Hatton – Lovers and Friends
• Hannah Maria Jones – Gretna Green
• John Gibson Lockhart – Valerius
• Charles Nodier – Smarra
• Anna Maria Porter – The Village of Mariendorpt
• Jane Porter – The Scottish Chiefs
• Sir Walter Scott – Kenilworth

Children

• Maria Hack – Harry Beaufoy; or the Pupil of Nature
• Thomas Love Peacock – Maid Marian

Drama

• John Banim and Richard Lalor Sheil – Damon and Pythias
• Lord Byron
  • Marino Faliero, Doge of Venice (published & performed)
  • Sardanapalus: a tragedy; The Two Foscari: a tragedy; Cain: a mystery (published together)
• Alfred Bunn –Kenilworth
• Barry Cornwall – Mirandola
• Alexandre-Vincent Pineux Duval – Le Faux Bonhomme
• Aleksander Fredro – Pan Geldhab (Mr. Gelhab)
• Franz Grillparzer – Das goldene Vliess (The Golden Fleece trilogy)
• James Haynes – Conscience
• Heinrich von Kleist (died 1811) – The Prince of Homburg (Prinz Friedrich von Homburg oder die Schlacht bei Fehrbellin, first performance, in abridged version as Die Schlacht von Fehrbellin; completed 1810)

Poetry

• Heinrich Heine – Poems
• Alessandro Manzoni – Il Cinque Maggio (May 5)
• Alexander Pushkin – The Gabrieliad
• Percy Bysshe Shelley – Adonaïs

Non-fiction

• James Burney – An Essay, by Way of Lecture, on the Game of Whist
• Owen Chase – Narrative of the Most Extraordinary and Distressing Shipwreck of the Whale-Ship Essex
• William Cobbett – The American Gardener
• George Grote – Statement of the Question of Parliamentary Reform
• William Hazlitt – Table-Talk
• James Mill – Elements of Political Economy
• Robert Owen – Report to the County of Lanark, of a plan for relieving public distress and removing discontent
• Thomas De Quincey (anonymously) – Confessions of an English Opium-Eater (serialisation in The London Magazine)
• John Roberton – Kalogynomia, or the Laws of Female Beauty
• Robert Southey – Life of Cromwell

Births

• February 22 – Athalia Schwartz, Danish writer, journalist and educator (died 1871)
• March 15 – William Milligan, Scottish theologian (died 1893)
• March 19 – Richard Francis Burton, English polymath (died 1890)
• March 20 – Ned Buntline (Edward Zane Carroll Judson Sr.), American publisher, dime novelist and publicist (died 1886)
• March 25 – Isabella Banks, English poet and novelist (died 1897)
• April 9 – Charles Baudelaire, French poet (died 1867)
• May 8 – Charlotte Maria Tucker, English children's writer (died 1893)
• May 11 – Grigore Sturdza, Moldavian and Romanian adventurer, literary sponsor and philosopher (died 1901)
• June 30 – William Hepworth Dixon, English historian, traveler and journal editor (died 1879)
• July 21 – Vasile Alecsandri, Romanian patriot, poet, dramatist, politician and diplomat (died 1890)
• October 30 – Fyodor Dostoevsky, Russian novelist (died 1881)
• November 28 – Nikolai Alekseevich Nekrasov, Russian poet, writer and critic (died 1877)
• September 21 – Aurora Ljungstedt, Swedish horror writer (died 1908)
• September 24 – Cyprian Norwid Polish poet (died 1883)
• December 1 – Jane C. Bonar, Scottish hymnwriter (died 1884)
• December 6 – Dora Greenwell, English poet (died 1882)
• December 12 – Gustave Flaubert, French novelist (died 1880)

File:John Keats Tombstone in Rome 01.jpg

Keats's grave in Rome

Deaths

• January 7 – Anne Hunter, Scottish poet and salonnière (born 1742)
• January 14 – Jens Zetlitz, Norwegian poet (born 1761)
• February 23 – John Keats, English poet (tuberculosis, born 1795)
• February 26 – Joseph de Maistre, Savoyard philosopher (born 1753)
• March 17 – Louis-Marcelin de Fontanes, French poet (born 1757)
• April 14 – Susan Carnegie, writer and founder of the first public asylum in Scotland (born 1743)
• April 16 – Thomas Scott, English cleric and religious writer (born 1747)
• May 2 – Hester Thrale (Mrs Piozzi), English diarist and arts patron (born 1741)
• May 21 – John Jones (Jac Glan-y-gors), Welsh poet and satirist (born 1766)
• May 22 – Johann Georg Heinrich Feder, German philosopher (born 1740)
• June 15 – John Ballantyne, publisher (born 1774)
• August 1 – Elizabeth Inchbald, English novelist and dramatist (born 1753)
• August 24 – John William Polidori, English physician, writer (born 1795) (suicide)
• November 17 – James Burney, English rear-admiral and naval writer (born 1750)
• November – Richard Fenton, poet and author (born 1747)

Awards

• Chancellor's Gold Medal and Newdigate Prize – George Howard