1818 in literature

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This article presents lists of the literary events and publications in 1818.

Events

• January 1 – Mary Shelley's novel Frankenstein; or, the Modern Prometheus is first published, anonymously, in London.^[1]
• January 8 – Lord Byron, in Venice, sends the final part of Childe Harold to his publisher.^[2]
• January 11 – Percy Bysshe Shelley's poem "Ozymandias" is published in Leigh Hunt's weekly The Examiner (London; p. 24) under the pen name 'Glirastes'; Horace Smith's contribution to the same informal sonnet-writing competition, "On a Stupendous Leg of Granite, Discovered Standing by Itself in the Deserts of Egypt, with the Inscription Inserted Below" is published on February 1 under his initials.
• January – Samuel Taylor Coleridge delivers a series of lectures on poetry, drama and philosophy, beginning with Shakespeare's Hamlet.^[3]
• March 12 – Percy Bysshe Shelley, his wife Mary and her stepsister Claire Clairmont leave England for Italy, where they intend to take Claire's illegitimate child Alba to her father, Lord Byron.^[4]
• April 11 – John Keats and Samuel Taylor Coleridge go for a walk on Hampstead Heath. In a letter to his brother George, Keats writes that they talked about "a thousand things,... nightingales, poetry, poetical sensation, metaphysics."^[5]
• June–August – Keats and his friend Charles Armitage Brown make a walking tour of Scotland (including a visit to Burns Cottage), Ireland and the English Lake District.
• July
  • Thomas De Quincey begins a 16-month term as editor of the newly established weekly newspaper The Westmorland Gazette, published at Kendal in the English Lake District.
  • The Stephenson Blake type foundry begins operation in Sheffield, England.
• July 18 – Walter Scott's historical novel The Heart of Midlothian is published (as Tales of My Landlord, 2nd series, by 'Jedediah Cleishbotham', in 4 volumes); a shipload from the Ballantyne publishing business is sent from Edinburgh to London.^[6]
• September 19 – Lord Byron writes to Thomas Moore, telling him he has completed the first Canto of Don Juan.^[7]
• November – Fanny Brawne meets John Keats for the first time, at the home of Charles Armitage Brown.^[8]
• The National Library of Iceland is established as the Íslands stiftisbókasafn at the instigation of Danish antiquarian Carl Christian Rafn and the Icelandic Literary Society.
• The Old Vic is founded as the Royal Coburg Theatre in South London by James King, Daniel Dunn and John T. Serres.

New books

Fiction

• Jane Austen – Northanger Abbey and Persuasion (posthumous; actually issued in December 1817)
• Patrick Brontë – The Maid of Killarney (anonymous)
• Selina Davenport – An Angel's Form and a Devil's Heart
• Susan Edmonstone Ferrier – Marriage
• Franz Grillparzer – Sappho
• Ann Hatton – Secrets in Every Mansion
• Mary Meeke – The Veiled Protectress
• Thomas Love Peacock – Nightmare Abbey (anonymous)
• Anna Maria Porter – The Fast of St. Magdalen: A Romance
• Walter Scott – The Heart of Midlothian
• Mary Shelley – Frankenstein (anonymous)
• Mary Martha Sherwood – The History of the Fairchild Family (vol. 1; anonymous)^[1]
• Louisa Stanhope
  • The Bandit's Bride
  • The Nun of Santa Maria di Tindaro
• Elizabeth Thomas – Woman, or Minor Maxims; a Sketch

Children

• Maria Hack – Winter Evenings

Drama

• Franz Grillparzer – Sappho
• Silvio Pellico – Francesca da Rimini

Poetry

• Kristijonas Donelaitis – The Seasons
• John Keats – Endymion^[9]
• Thomas Bowdler – The Family Shakspeare (2nd edition, expanded from 1807 edition)^[9]
• Percy Bysshe Shelley
  • Ozymandias
  • The Revolt of Islam (dated this year but published December 1817)

Non-fiction

• Elizabeth Beverley – Modern Times, a "sermon" prompted by the death of Princess Charlotte of Wales
• Josef Dobrovsky – History of the Czech Language
• John Evelyn (d. 1706) – Diary
• Henry Hallam – The View of the State of Europe during the Middle Ages
• William Hazlitt – Lectures on the English Poets
• James Mill – The History of British India
• Charles Mills – History of Mohammedanism
• Collin de Plancy – Dictionnaire Infernal

Births

• May 25 – Jacob Burckhardt, Swiss historian (died 1897)
• July 30 – Emily Brontë, English novelist and poet (died 1848)
• November 9 (October 28 OS) – Ivan Turgenev, Russian novelist and playwright (died 1883)

Deaths

• January 11 – Johann David Wyss, Swiss children's writer (born 1743)
• March 6 – John Gifford, English political writer (born 1758)
• May 14 – Matthew Lewis, English novelist and dramatist (born 1775)
• June 11 – Elizabeth Bonhôte, English novelist, essayist and poet (born 1744)
• October 22 – Joachim Heinrich Campe, German linguist and publisher (born 1746)
• November 6 – Malcolm Laing, Scottish historian (born 1762)
• December 8 – Mary Brunton, Scottish novelist (born 1778)

Awards

• Newdigate Prize – T. H. Ormerod^[10]

References

1. "Icons, a portrait of England 1800-1820". Archived from the original on 2007-10-17. Retrieved 2007-09-11.
2. Letter CCCIV.
3. Coleridge, Samuel Taylor. "Hamlet". Lectures and Notes on Shakspere and Other English Poets. Shakespeare and his Critics. Retrieved 2014-01-07.
4. Gittings, Robert; Manton, Jo (1992). Claire Clairmont and the Shelleys. Oxford University Press. pp. 39–42. ISBN 0-19-818594-4.
5. Motion, Andrew (1997). Keats. London: Faber. pp. 365–66. ISBN 057117227X.
6. Sutherland, John (2014). How to be Well Read. London: Random House. p. 214. ISBN 978-1-847-94640-9.
7. Letter CCCXXII.
8. Walsh, John Evangelist (1999). Darkling, I Listen: The Last Days and Death of John Keats. New York: St. Martin's Press. ISBN 0312222556.
9. Palmer, Alan; Palmer, Veronica (1992). The Chronology of British History. London: Century Ltd. pp. 249–250. ISBN 0-7126-5616-2.
10. The Gentleman's Magazine, 88(1): p. 443.