1811 in literature

This article presents lists of the literary events and publications in 1811.

Events

• March 25 - The University of Oxford expels the first-year undergraduate Percy Bysshe Shelley after he and Thomas Jefferson Hogg refuse to answer questions about The Necessity of Atheism, a pamphlet they published anonymously.^[1] Earlier this year, Shelley, as "A Gentleman of the University of Oxford", published in London Poetical Essay on the Existing State of Things, containing a 172-line anti-monarchical and anti-war poem published in support of Peter Finnerty (jailed this year for libel against Lord Castlereagh) and dedicated to Harriet Westbrook; his Gothic fiction St. Irvyne; or, The Rosicrucian: A Romance, published under the same designation and dated this year was actually issued in December 1810.^[2]
• June - Walter Scott buys the farm at Abbotsford in Scotland and commences building his future residence, Abbotsford House.
• October 30 - First publication of a novel by Jane Austen when Sense and Sensibility ("by a lady") is issued^[3] in Thomas Egerton's Military Library (Whitehall, London) at her expense in three volumes^[4] priced at 15 shillings.
• November 4 - Lord Byron meets Thomas Campbell and Thomas Moore at the home of Samuel Rogers, where the company discusses literary topics.
• November 21 - German poet Heinrich von Kleist shoots his terminally-ill lover Henriette Vogel and then himself, on the shore of the Kleiner Wannsee near Potsdam.
• Friedrich Koenig, with the assistance of Andreas Friedrich Bauer, produces the first steam printing press, in London.^[5]
• First complete publication of the Bible in the Ume Sami language.

New books

• Jane Austen - Sense and Sensibility
• Amelia Beauclerc - Eva of Cambria
• Mary Brunton - Self-Control
• Augustus Jacob Crandolph - The Mysterious Hand
• Charlotte Dacre - The Passions
• Friedrich de la Motte Fouqué - Undine
• Johann Peter Hebel - Schatzkästlein des rheinischen Hausfreundes
• Rachel Hunter - The Schoolmistress
• Heinrich von Kleist - Michael Kohlhaas
• Mary Meeke - Stratagems Defeated
• Lady Morgan - The Missionary: An Indian Tale
• Emma Parker - Elfrida, Heiress of Belgrove
• Percy Bysshe Shelley - St. Irvyne; or, The Rosicrucian
• Catherine Smith
  • Barozzi
  • The Caledonian Bandit
• Elizabeth Thomas - Mortimer Hall
• Sarah Wigley - Glencarron: a Scottish Tale
• Sophia F Ziegenhirt - Seabrook Village and Its Inhabitants

New drama

• Sarah Isdell - The Poor Gentlewoman

Poetry

• Anna Maria Porter - Ballad Romances, and Other Poems
• Thomas Pringle - The Institute: a Heroic Poem
• Mary Russell Mitford - Christina, the Maid of the South Seas

Non-fiction

• K. A. Böttiger - Kunstmythologie
• Johann Wolfgang von Goethe - Aus meinem Leben: Dichtung und Wahrheit
• Barthold G. Niebuhr - Roman History
• John Roberton - On Diseases of the Generative System
• Percy Bysshe Shelley - The Necessity of Atheism

Births

• January 9 – Gilbert Abbott à Beckett, English humorist (died 1856)
• February 1 – Arthur Henry Hallam, English poet (died 1833)
• February 19 – Jules Sandeau, French dramatist and novelist (died 1883)
• June 14 – Harriet Beecher Stowe, American novelist and abolitionist (died 1896)
• July 18 – William Makepeace Thackeray, novelist and satirist (died 1863)
• August 31 – Théophile Gautier, French poet and novelist (died 1872)
• September 17 – August Blanche, Swedish writer and statesman (died 1868)
• October 19 – Andreas Munch, Norwegian poet (died 1884)

Deaths

• January 10 – Joseph Chénier, French poet and dramatist (born 1764)
• March 7 – Juraj Fándly, Slovak non-fiction writer, entomologist and priest (born 1750)
• May 7 – Richard Cumberland, English dramatist (born 1732)
• July 28 – Heinrich Joseph von Collin, Austrian dramatist (born 1771)
• September 14 – James Grahame, Scottish poet (born 1765)
• September 30 – Bishop Thomas Percy, English ballad collector and bishop (born 1729)
• November 21 – Heinrich von Kleist, German poet (suicide, born 1777)
• December 19 – Marjorie Fleming, Scottish child writer (born 1803 in literature)

References