1868 in literature

This article presents lists of the literary events and publications in 1868.

Events

• January – Émile Zola defends his first major novel, Thérèse Raquin (1867), against charges of pornography and corruption of morals.^[1]
• January 4–August 8 – Wilkie Collins' epistolary novel The Moonstone: a Romance is serialised in All the Year Round (U.K.), being published in book format in July by Tinsley Brothers of London.^[2] It is considered as a precursor of full-length mystery fiction (with its introduction of the police detective Sergeant Cuff) and the psychological thriller.^[3]
• January 9 – John William De Forest, writing for The Nation, calls for a more specifically American literature;^[4] the essay's title, "The Great American Novel", is the first known use of the term.
• April 29 – The Court of King's Bench (England) decides on appeal the legal case Regina v. Hicklin on interpretation of the word "obscene" in the Obscene Publications Act 1857, applying the "Hicklin test": that any part of a publication with a "tendency ... to deprave and corrupt those whose minds are open to such immoral influences, and into whose hands a publication of this sort may fall"^[5] makes the whole publication obscene, regardless of the author's intentions.^[6]
• September – The first volume of Louisa May Alcott's novel for girls Little Women is published by Roberts Brothers of Boston, Massachusetts.
• November
  • Robert Browning's narrative poem The Ring and the Book begins its four-part publication by Smith, Elder & Co. in London. It is a substantial commercial and critical success.^[7]
  • Norman MacLeod, editor of Good Words (U.K.), begins publishing its companion juvenile version, Good Words for the Young. The first issue begins the serial publication of George MacDonald's At the Back of the North Wind.
• December – The Globe Theatre (Newcastle Street) in London opens with the première of the recently bankrupted Henry James Byron's semi-autobiographical comedy Cyril's Success.^[8]
• First edition of The World Almanac and Book of Facts is published by the New York World.^[9]
• First substantial translation into English from Dream of the Red Chamber is made by Edward Charles Bowra.
• Tauchnitz publishers of Leipzig begin their Collection of German Authors, an authorized series of cheap paperback reprints.

New books

• Louisa May Alcott – Little Women
• R. M. Ballantyne – Deep Down
• Henry Ward Beecher – Norwood, or Village Life in New England
• Mary Elizabeth Braddon – Dead-Sea Fruit
• Mortimer Collins – Sweet Anne Page
• Wilkie Collins – The Moonstone
• Fyodor Dostoevsky – The Idiot (Идио́т, Idiot)
• Émile Gaboriau – Slaves of Paris (Les Esclaves de Paris)
• Hermann Goedsche – Biarritz
• Bret Harte – The Luck of Roaring Camp
• Sheridan Le Fanu – Haunted Lives
• George MacDonald – Robert Falconer
• Hesba Stretton – Little Meg's Children
• Jules Verne – In Search of the Castaways (Les Enfants du capitaine Grant)
• Émile Zola – Madeleine Ferat

New drama

• Samson Bodnărescu – Rienzi
• Aleksandr Ostrovsky – Na vsyakogo mudretsa dovolno prostoty
• Hendrik Jan Schimmel – Struensee
• Aleksey Konstantinovich Tolstoy – Tsar Fyodor Ioannovich

Non-fiction

• Eliza Lynn Linton – The Girl of the Period
• World Almanac (first edition)

Births

• January 5 – Edward Garnett, English writer, critic and literary editor (died 1937)
• February 23 – W. E. B. Du Bois, American sociologist, historian and Pan-Africanist (died 1963)
• March 28 – Maxim Gorky, Russian novelist and dramatist (died 1936)
• April 1 – Edmond Rostand, French poet and novelist (died 1918)
• May 6 – Gaston Leroux, French journalist and novelist (died 1927)
• May 7 – Stanisław Przybyszewski, Polish novelist, dramatist and poet (died 1927)
• July 10 – Afevork Ghevre Jesus, Ethiopian novelist and linguist (died 1947)
• August 6 – Paul Claudel, French poet, dramatist and diplomat (died 1955)
• August 23 – Edgar Lee Masters, American poet, biographer, dramatist and lawyer (died 1950)
• September 14 – Théodore Botrel, French poet and dramatist (died 1925)
• October 18 – Ernst Didring, Swedish novelist (died 1931)
• December 19 – Eleanor H. Porter, American novelist (died 1920)
• December 25 – Ahmed Shawqi, Egyptian poet (died 1932)

Deaths

• March 8 – Jón Thoroddsen elder, Icelandic poet and novelist (born 1818 or 1819)
• June 6 – Daniel Pierce Thompson, American novelist and lawyer (born 1795)
• June 18 – Charles Harpur, Australian poet (tuberculosis, born 1813)
• July 30 – Mihály Tompa, Hungarian lyric poet (born 1819)
• August 24 – Constantin Negruzzi (Costache Negruzzi), Romanian poet, novelist and playwright (born 1808)
• August 25 – Jacob van Lennep, Dutch poet and novelist (born 1802)
• September 24 – Henry Hart Milman, English historian (born 1791)
• November 30 – August Blanche, Swedish journalist, novelist and statesman (heart attack, born 1811)

Awards

• Newdigate Prize – John Alexander Stewart

References