1845 in literature

This article presents lists of the literary events and publications in 1845.

Events

• January 10 – Robert Browning begins his correspondence with his future wife, fellow poet Elizabeth Barrett;^[1] on May 20 they meet for the first time. She begins writing her Sonnets from the Portuguese.
• April – Nathaniel Hawthorne first publishes the short story "P.'s Correspondence", a pioneering example of alternate history in which real-life writers and political figures who have died (such as Keats, Shelley and Byron) are described as still living, and vice versa. The story appears in The United States Magazine and Democratic Review and is included in Hawthorne's Mosses from an Old Manse (1846).
• April 24 – Alfred de Musset and Honoré de Balzac are awarded the French Legion of Honour.
• Spring–Summer – The essays in Thomas de Quincey's Suspiria de Profundis appear in Blackwood's Magazine.
• October 1 – Prosper Mérimée's novella Carmen is published in its original form in Revue des deux Mondes (first book publication in 1846).
• December – Future American President Brevet Second Lieutenant Ulysses S. Grant plays Desdemona in an amateur production of Othello at Corpus Christi, Texas.^[2]
• December 30 – American actress Charlotte Cushman plays Romeo to her sister Susan's Juliet, in a production of Romeo and Juliet at the Haymarket Theatre in London.
• Hans Christian Andersen's Fairy Tales are first translated into English, beginning with "The Little Mermaid" in Bentley's Miscellany.
• Benjamin Disraeli's "Young England" roman à thèse, Sybil; or, The Two Nations, is published in London; he receives a £10,000 advance.

New books

Fiction

• James Fenimore Cooper
  • The Chainbearer
  • Satanstoe
• Charles Dickens – The Cricket on the Hearth
• Benjamin Disraeli – Sybil
• Alexandre Dumas, père
  • Le Chevalier de Maison-Rouge
  • The Corsican Brothers
  • The Count of Monte Cristo (book publication concluded)
  • The Regent's Daughter
  • La Reine Margot
  • Twenty Years After
• József Eötvös – The Village Notary (A falu jegyzője)
• Catherine Gore – The Snowstorm: A Christmas Story
• Nathaniel Hawthorne – P.'s Correspondence
• Geraldine Jewsbury – Zoe, A History of Two Lives
• Joaquim Manuel de Macedo – O moço loiro
• Frederick Marryat – The Mission, or Scenes in Africa
• Prosper Mérimée – Carmen
• J. M. Rymer – Ada the Betrayed; or, The Murder at the Old Smithy^[3]
• Adele Schopenhauer – Anna: Ein Roman aus der nächsten Vergangenheit (Anna: a novel from the most recent past)
• William Sewell – Hawkstone: a tale of and for England
• Robert Smith Surtees – Hillingdon Hall

Children

• Heinrich Hoffmann – Der Struwwelpeter (Shock-headed Peter, original title: Lustige Geschichten und drollige Bilder mit 15 schön kolorierten Tafeln für Kinder von 3–6 Jahren, in verse)

Drama

• Juan Eugenio Hartzenbusch – La Jura en Santa Gadea
• Henrik Hertz – King René's Daughter (Kong Renés Datter)
• Anna Cora Mowatt – Fashion; or, Life in New York: a comedy
• Martins Pena – first performances
  • As Casadas Solteiras
  • O caixeiro da taverna
  • O diletante
  • O Noviço
  • Os dois ou O inglês maquinista
  • Os três médicos
• José Zorrilla – Traidor, inconfeso y mártir

Poetry

• Edgar Allan Poe – "The Raven"

Non-fiction

• Eliza Acton – Modern Cookery for Private Families
• Jules Barbey d'Aurevilly – On Dandyism and George Brummell
• Thomas Carlyle – Oliver Cromwell's Letters and Speeches
• Frederick Douglass – Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave
• Encyclopædia Metropolitana
• Friedrich Engels – The Condition of the Working Class in England (Die Lage der arbeitenden Klasse in England)
• Richard Ford – A Hand-Book for Travellers in Spain, and readers at home
• Margaret Fuller – Woman in the Nineteenth Century (book publication)
• François-Xavier Garneau – Histoire du Canada, vol. 1
• Justinus Kerner – The Seeress of Prévorst: being revelations concerning the inner-life of man, and the inter-diffusion of a world of spirits in the one we inhabit translated by Mrs. Catherine Crowe
• Søren Kierkegaard – Stages on Life's Way (Stadier paa Livets Vej)
• Domingo Sarmiento – Facundo (Civilización y Barbarie: vida de Juan Facundo Qiroga)
• Max Stirner – The Ego and Its Own (Der Einzige und sein Eigentum, dated 1844)

Births

• April 17 – Lucy Bethia Walford, Scottish novelist and artist (died 1915)
• April 24 – Carl Spitteler, Swiss poet (died 1924)
• April 30 – Alexander Anderson, Scottish poet (died 1909)
• May 14 – L. S. Bevington, English anarchist poet and essayist (died 1895)
• May 16 – Amy Dillwyn, Welsh novelist (died 1935)
• May 17 – Jacint Verdaguer, Catalan poet (died 1902)
• July 18 – Tristan Corbière, French poet (died 1875)
• October 14 – Olindo Guerrini, Italian poet (died 1916)
• October 25 – Rebecca Agatha Armour, Canadian novelist (died 1891)
• November 25 – José Maria de Eça de Queirós, Portuguese novelist (died 1900)

Deaths

• February 22 – Rev. Sydney Smith, English writer and wit (born 1771)
• May 3 – Thomas Hood, English poet and humorist (rheumatic heart condition, born 1799)
• May 12
  • János Batsányi, Hungarian poet and anti-Habsburg activist (born 1763)
  • August Wilhelm Schlegel, German poet and translator (born 1767)
• May 26 – Jónas Hallgrímsson, Icelandic poet (accident, born 1807)
• June 17 – Rev. Richard Harris Barham (Thomas Ingoldsby) English comic poet (ulcerated larynx, born 1788)
• July 12 – Henrik Wergeland, Norwegian poet and dramatist (tuberculosis, born 1808)
• November 11 – Maria Gowen Brooks, American poet (tropical fever, born c. 1794)

Awards

References