1879 in literature

List of years in literature (table)
… 1869 1870 1871 1872 1873 1874 1875 1876 1877 1878 1879 1880 1881 1882 1883 1884 1885 1886 1887 1888 1889 …
In poetry 1876 1877 1878 1879 1880 1881 1882
Art Archaeology Architecture Literature Music Philosophy Science +...

This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1879.

Events

• January 1 – Benjamin Henry Blackwell opens the first Blackwell's bookshop, in Oxford. ^[1]
• January 11 – 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 – The English critic and poet Theodore Watts-Dunton takes the alcoholic poet Algernon Charles Swinburne into permanent care at his Putney home. ^[2]
• September 6 – Arthur Conan Doyle has his first story, "The Mystery of Sasassa Valley", published anonymously in Chambers's Journal .
• October 10 – 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 – 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. ^[3]
• December 21 – 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. ^[4]

New books

Fiction

• W. Harrison Ainsworth – Beau Nash
• Emilia Pardo Bazán – Pascual López: autobiografía de un estudiante de medicina (Pascual López: Autobiography of a Medical Student)
• Mary Elizabeth Braddon
  • The Cloven Foot
  • Vixen
• Wilkie Collins
  • The Fallen Leaves
  • A Rogue's Life
• Alphonse Daudet – Kings in Exile (Les Rois en Exil)
• Toru Dutt (died 1877) – Le Journal de Mademoiselle d'Arvers
• Silas Hocking – Her Benny ^[5]
• Joris-Karl Huysmans – Les Soeurs Vatard
• Reinis and Matīss Kaudzīte – Mērnieku laiki (Times of the Land-Surveyors – first novel in Latvian)
• Charles Kickham – Knocknagow, or The Homes of Tipperary
• Pierre Loti – Aziyadé
• George MacDonald - Sir Gibbie
• George Meredith – The Egoist
• John Boyle O'Reilly – Moondyne
• Samuel Vedanayagam Pillai – Prathapa Mudaliar Charithram (The Life of Prathapa Mudaliar, written 1857; first novel in Tamil)
• Shi Yukun (credited) – The Tale of Loyal Heroes and Righteous Gallants (忠烈俠義傳)
• August Strindberg – The Red Room (Roda Rummet)
• Anthony Trollope
  • Cousin Henry
  • The Duke's Children (serialization begins)
  • An Eye for an Eye
  • John Caldigate
• Jules Verne
  • The Begum's Fortune (Les Cinq cents millions de la Bégum)
  • Tribulations of a Chinaman in China (Les Tribulations d'un Chinois en Chine)
• Friedrich Theodor Vischer – Auch einer: eine Reisebekanntschaft

Children and young people

• Louisa May Alcott – Jack and Jill: A Village Story
• E. W. Cole – Cole's Funny Picture Book
• Evelyn Whitaker – Laddie

Drama

We must come to a final settlement, Torvald. During eight whole years. . . we have never exchanged one serious word about serious things.

Nora, in Ibsen's A Doll's House (1879)

• Vasile Alecsandri – Despot-Vodă
• Émile Augier – Les Fourchambault
• Edmond Gondinet – Les Tapageurs
• James Herne – Hearts of Oak
• Henrik Ibsen – A Doll's House
• George Robert Sims – Crutch and Toothpick

Poetry

Main article: 1879 in poetry

• Ethel Lynn Beers – All Quiet Along The Potomac and Other Poems
• Kate Greenaway – Under the Window: Pictures & Rhymes for Children

Non-fiction

• John Colenso – The Pentateuch and Book of Joshua Critically Examined
• Lewis Carroll – Euclid and his Modern Rivals
• Charles Darwin – The Life of Erasmus Darwin
• Emilia, Lady Dilke (as E. F. S. Pattison) – The Renaissance of Art in France
• Edward Dowden – Southey
• Gottlob Frege – Begriffsschrift (Concept Writing)
• Henry George – Progress and Poverty
• Agnes Giberne – Sun, Moon and Stars: Astronomy for Beginners
• George Grove (ed.) – A Dictionary of Music and Musicians , 1st edition begins publication
• Yngvar Nielsen – Reisehaandbog over Norge (Travel Manual to Norway)
• Robert Louis Stevenson – Travels with a Donkey in the Cévennes

Births

• January 1 – E. M. Forster, English novelist and critic (died 1970)
• January 26 – Alfred Eckhard Zimmern, German-born English historian and political scientist (died 1957)
• February 2 – I. C. Vissarion, Romanian novelist, dramatist, poet and science writer (died 1951)
• February 13 – Sarojini Naidu (née Chattopadhyay), Indian poet and politician (died 1949)
• February 17 – Dorothy Canfield Fisher, American activist and novelist (died 1958)
• March 9 – Agnes Miegel, German author, journalist and poet (died 1964)
• March 14 – Harold Monro, English poet and promoter of poetry (died 1932)
• March 28 – Terence MacSwiney, Irish playwright, poet and politician (died on hunger strike 1920)
• April 14 – James Branch Cabell, American novelist (died 1958)
• May 8 – Ioan C. Filitti, Romanian historian, political theorist and essayist (died 1945)
• June 4 – Percy Lubbock, English essayist, critic and biographer (died 1965)
• July 19 – Ferenc Móra, Hungarian children's writer and editor (died 1934)
• July 20 – Claude Scudamore Jarvis, English writer, Arabist and naturalist (died 1953)
• August 19 – Lascăr Vorel, Romanian visual artist and short story writer (died 1918)
• September 19 – Louis Joseph Vance, American novelist (died 1933)
• October 2 – Wallace Stevens, American poet (died 1955)
• November 19 – Mait Metsanurk, Estonian author and playwright (died 1957)
• December 3 – Kafū Nagai (永井 荷風), Japanese novelist (died 1959)
• December 24 – Émile Nelligan, French Canadian poet (died 1941) ^[6]

Deaths

• January 16 – Octave Crémazie, "the father of French Canadian poetry" (born 1827)
• February 28 – Hortense Allart, French feminist novelist (born 1801) ^[7]
• March 3
  • William Howitt, English historical writer and poet (born 1792)
  • Annie Keary, English novelist, poet and children's writer (born 1825)
• March 9 – Mark Prager Lindo, Dutch historian (born 1819)
• March 19 – Claire Clairmont, English-born diarist and correspondent (born 1798) ^[8]
• April 8 – Anthony Panizzi, Italian-born English librarian (born 1797)
• April 21 – George Hadfield, English radical author and politician (born 1787)
• April 25 – Charles Tennyson Turner, English poet (born 1808)
• April 30 – Sarah Josepha Hale, American novelist and poet (born 1788) ^[9]
• June 1 – Louisa Caroline Huggins Tuthill, American children's author (born 1799) ^[10]
• June 3 – Frances Ridley Havergal, English religious poet (born 1836) ^[11]
• June 19 – George W. M. Reynolds, English popular novelist (born 1814)
• July 4 – Sarah Dorsey, American novelist and historian (born 1829)
• July 30 – Aasmund Olavsson Vinje, Norwegian poet and journalist (born 1818)
• September 20 – Rosanna Eleanor Leprohon, Canadian novelist and poet (born 1829)
• September 23 – Francis Kilvert, English diarist and cleric (born 1840)
• October 11 – Ethel Lynn Beers, American poet (born 1827)
• October 13 – Henry Charles Carey, American economist (born 1793)
• October 28 – 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 – Louisa Susannah Cheves McCord, American political essayist (born 1810) ^[12]
• December 27 – William Hepworth Dixon, English historian, traveller and journal editor (born 1821) ^[13]

Awards

• Newdigate Prize – Thomas Mosse Macdonald ^[14]

References

1. "Nos 48–51: Blackwell's Bookshop". Broad Street, Oxford. 2008. Archived from the original on 2 July 2011. Retrieved 2011-08-14.
2. The Pre-Raphælite Review. Rat & Mole Press. 1977. p. 76.
3. Mark Ford (10 October 2016). Thomas Hardy. Harvard University Press. p. 188. ISBN   978-0-674-73789-1.
4. Mark Ford (10 October 2016). Thomas Hardy. Harvard University Press. pp. 188–. ISBN   978-0-674-73789-1.
5. Leavis, Q. D. (1965). Fiction and the Reading Public (2nd ed.). London: Chatto & Windus.
6. "Émile Nelligan | Canadian poet". Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved 17 April 2019.
7. Hansen, Helynne Hollstein (1998). Hortense Allart: the woman and the novelist. Lanham, Md: University Press of America. p. 11. ISBN   076181213X.
8. McCalman, Iain (2001). McCalman et al., pp. 454–455. ISBN   9780199245437 . Retrieved 14 May 2012.
9. Ehrlich, Eugene and Gorton Carruth. The Oxford Illustrated Literary Guide to the United States. New York: Oxford University Press, 1982: 205. ISBN   0-19-503186-5
10. Grayson, Sandra M. (2000). "Tuthill, Louisa Caroline Huggins (1799-1879), author". American National Biography. doi:10.1093/anb/9780198606697.article.1602710. ISBN   978-0-19-860669-7 . Retrieved July 4, 2018.
11. Humphreys, Maggie (1997). Dictionary of composers for the Church in Great Britain and Ireland. London Herndon, VA: Mansell. p. 152. ISBN   9780720123302.
12. Fraser, Jessie Melville (1920). Bulletin. Vol. 91 (Public domain ed.). The University of South Carolina. p. 1.
13. Charles Dudley Warner (1 July 2008). A Library of the World's Best Literature - Ancient and Modern - Vol.XLII (Forty-Five Volumes); Dictionary of Authors (A-J). Cosimo, Inc. p. 146. ISBN   978-1-60520-248-8.
14. Iona: Newdigate Prize Poem, 1879