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This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1846.

Events

thumb|One of the year's least successful publications

  • January 3 – The American author Edgar Allan Poe issues the final edition of the Broadway Journal, a journal he owned for just a few months.
  • January 15 – Fyodor Dostoevsky's first original novel, Poor Folk (Бедные люди, Bednye Lyudi), is published in the St. Petersburg Collection.
  • January 21 – The Daily News, edited by Charles Dickens, first appears in London. After 17 issues Dickens hands over as editor to his friend John Forster. It continues until 1930.
  • April
  • Hans Christian Andersen's Fairy Tales are first translated into English, beginning with "The Little Mermaid" in Bentley's Miscellany.
  • Poe's essay "The Philosophy of Composition" is published in Graham's Magazine.
  • c. May 22 – The Brontë sisters' first published work, the collection Poems by Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell, appears in London. It sells only two copies in the first year.
  • June 27 – Charlotte Brontë completes the manuscript of her novel The Professor. It is offered to several publishers during the year but rejected.
  • September 12 – The poets Elizabeth Barrett and Robert Browning marry privately in St Marylebone Parish Church, London, and depart for the continent a week later.
  • October 1 – Serial publication of Charles Dickens's Dombey and Son begins.
  • November 21 – The String of Pearls: a Romance, probably written by James Malcolm Rymer, begins serialization in Britain. This is the first literary appearance of Sweeney Todd.
  • unknown dates
  • Mary Howitt's Wonderful Stories for Children is the first English translation of works by Hans Christian Andersen to be published in book format.
  • Isaac D. Baker and Charles Scribner form the New York City publisher Baker & Scribner, predecessor of Charles Scribner's Sons.

New books

Fiction

  • Honoré de Balzac - Cousin Bette (written)
  • Charlotte Brontë - The Professor (written)
  • Edward Bulwer-Lytton – The Children of the Night
  • James Fenimore Cooper – The Redskins
  • Charles Dickens – The Battle of Life (novella)
  • Fyodor Dostoevsky
  • The Double: A Petersburg Poem («Двойник», Dvoynik (novella))
  • Poor Folk («Бедные люди», Bednye Lyudi)
  • Alexandre Dumas, père
  • Le Chevalier de Maison-Rouge (The Knight of the Maison-Rouge: A Novel of Marie Antoinette)
  • The Count of Monte Cristo (Le Comte de Monte-Cristo, serialization concluded; first English translation)
  • Thomas Dunn English – MDCCCXLII, or The Power of the "S. F"
  • Dmitry Grigorovich – The Village («Деревня», Derevnya)
  • Nathaniel Hawthorne – Mosses from an Old Manse
  • Douglas Jerrold
  • The Chronicles of Clovernook
  • Mrs Caudle's Curtain Lectures
  • Mór Jókai – Weekdays (Hétköznapok)
  • James Sheridan Knowles – Fortescue
  • Frederick Marryat – The Privateersman
  • Herman Melville – Typee
  • James Malcolm Rymer - The String of Pearls
  • George Sand – La Mare au Diable (The Devil's Pond)

Children

  • Anne Knight – School-Room Lyrics
  • Hannah and Mary Townsend – The Anti-Slavery Alphabet

Drama

  • Paul Bocage – Échec et mat
  • Carolina Coronado – El cuadro de la esperanza
  • Gustav Freytag – Die Valentine
  • Eugène Marin Labiche and Auguste Lefranc – Frisette
  • George William Lovell
  • Look Before You Leap
  • The Wife's Secret
  • Martins Pena – first performances
  • A Barriga do Meu Tio
  • Os Ciúmes de um Pedestre, ou O Terrível Capitão do Mato
  • '
  • Os Meirinhos
  • Um Segredo de Estado
  • O Usurário
  • Joseph Isidore Samson – La Famille poisson

Poetry

  • Gottfried Keller – Gedichte (Poems)
  • Edward Lear – Book of Nonsense
  • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow – The Belfry of Bruges

Non-fiction

  • Selim Aga – Incidents Connected with the Life of Selim Aga, A Native of Central Africa
  • Mary Anne Atwood (as Θυος Μαθος) – Early Magnetism in its Higher Relations to Humanity
  • Curtis H. Cavender (as H.C. Decanver) – Catalogue of Works in Refutation of Methodism
  • Charles Dickens – Pictures from Italy
  • F. W. Fairholt – Costume in England
  • George Grote – A History of Greece (publication begins)
  • George W. Johnson – A Dictionary of Gardening
  • Søren Kierkegaard – Concluding Unscientific Postscript to Philosophical Fragments (Afsluttende uvidenskabelig Efterskrift til de philosophiske Smuler)
  • David Strauss – The Life of Jesus, Critically Examined, translated by George Eliot from Das Leben Jesu, kritisch bearbeitet
  • Theodor Waitz – Grundlegung der Psychologie (Foundation of Psychology)
  • William Whewell – Elements of Morality

Births

  • March 17 – Kate Greenaway, English book illustrator and writer (died 1901)
  • March 20 – Rebecca Richardson Joslin, American non-fiction writer (died 1934)
  • March 25 – Helen Zimmern, German-born English writer and translator (died 1934)
  • April 4 – Comte de Lautreamont (pen name of Isidore Lucien Ducasse), Uruguayan-born French poet and writer (died 1870)
  • April 24 – Marcus Clarke, Australian novelist and poet (died 1881)
  • May 5 – Henryk Sienkiewicz, Polish novelist (died 1916)
  • May 25 – Naim Frashëri, Albanian poet (died 1900)
  • June 3 – Estelle Mendell Amory, American educator and author (died 1923)
  • June 30 – Frances Margaret Milne, Irish-born American author and librarian (died 1910)
  • July 5 – Christian Reid (pen name of Frances Christine Fisher Tiernan), American author (died 1920)
  • August 2 – Lucy Clifford (née Lucy Lane), English novelist, dramatist and screenwriter (died 1929)
  • August 5
  • Louise Manning Hodgkins, American educator, author, and editor (died 1935)
  • Alvilde Prydz, Norwegian novelist (died 1922)
  • September 3 – Emma Shaw Colcleugh, American author (died 1940)
  • October 1 – John Cadvan Davies, Welsh poet and Wesleyan Methodist minister (died 1923)
  • October 21 – Edmondo De Amicis, Italian novelist, journalist, poet and short-story writer (died 1908)
  • unknown date – Mary Foot Seymour, American businesswoman and writer (died 1893)

Deaths

  • January 6 – Lewis Goldsmith, Anglo-French journalist (born c. 1763)
  • February 9 – Henry Gally Knight, English writer and traveler (born 1786)
  • March 10 – Harriette Wilson, English memoirist (born 1786)
  • June 24 – Jan Frans Willems, Flemish poet and political activist (born 1793)
  • July 12 – Charlotte Elizabeth Tonna, English novelist (born 1790)
  • September 4 – Victor-Joseph Étienne de Jouy, French dramatist (born 1764)
  • November 23 – George Darley, Irish poet, novelist, and critic (born 1795)
  • December 13 – Pasquale Galluppi, Italian philosopher (born 1770)

Awards

  • Chancellor's Gold Medal – Edward Henry Bickersteth
  • Newdigate Prize – G. O. Morgan

References