1853 in literature

This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1853.

Events

January 28 – Charlotte Brontë's novel Villette appears (as by Currer Bell), its publication having been delayed in order to allow Ruth, by her friend Elizabeth Gaskell, to be given a head start in the press.
September – The 20th and final instalment of Charles Dickens's Bleak House is published, followed shortly by its book publication.
November – Poet Friedrich Reinhold Kreutzwald completes the Estonian national epic Kalevipoeg but Russian censorship makes it impossible to publish.
November 25 – English poet Alfred Tennyson settles at Farringford House on the Isle of Wight.
December 27 – Charles Dickens gives the first of his public readings of his own works, in Birmingham Town Hall (England) to the Industrial and Literary Institute, repeated three days later to an audience of working people and including an adaptation of A Christmas Carol; these are very successful and Dickens continues public readings until the year of his death.
unknown dates
Abraham Mapu's historical novel Ahavat Zion ("Love of Zion"), set in ancient Israel and self-published in Kaunas (Lithuania), is the first narrative novel in the Hebrew language.
Uriah Maggs establishes what will become the antiquarian bookselling business of Maggs Bros Ltd in London.

Manuel Antonio Carreño – Manual de Carreño
Arthur de Gobineau – An Essay on the Inequality of the Human Races (Essai sur l'inégalité des races humaines), vol. 1
Judge Edmonds, George Dexter – Spiritualism
Johann Jakob Herzog – Real-Encyklopädie für protestantische Theologie und Kirche (Encyclopedia of Protestant Theology and Churches) begins publication
Ferdinand Hoefer (ed.) – Nouvelle Biographie Générale, vol. 1
George Holyoake – Christianity and Secularism. Report of a Debate between the Rev. Bruin Grant B.A. and George Jacob Holyoake Esq.
Solomon Northup – Twelve Years a Slave: Narrative of Solomon Northup, citizen of New-York, kidnapped in Washington city in 1841, and rescued in 1853, from a cotton plantation near the Red River in Louisiana
Karl Rosenkrantz – Aesthetic of Ugliness (Aesthetik des Hässlichen)
Hippolyte Taine – Essai sur les fables de La Fontaine
Otto von Böhtlingk – Sanskrit-Wörterbuch (Sanskrit Dictionary) begins publication

January – Dharmavaram Ramakrishnamacharyulu, Telugu dramatist (died 1912)
February 22 – Annie Le Porte Diggs, Canadian-born American activist, journalist, author (died 1916)
April 17 – Mrs. Henry Clarke (Amy Key), English historical novelist and children's writer (died 1908)
April 23 – Thomas Nelson Page, American writer and lawyer (died 1922)
April 27 – Jules Lemaître, French dramatist and critic (died 1914)
May 3 – E. W. Howe (Edgar Watson Howe), American author and editor (died 1937)
May 14 – Hall Caine, British novelist and playwright (died 1931)
May 14 – Ella H. Brockway Avann, American educator and writer (died 1899)
July 27 – Clementina Black, English novelist and political writer (died 1922)
September 14 – Radu Rosetti, Romanian politician, historical novelist and memoirist (died 1926)
November 1 – Lie Kim Hok, Dutch East Indian Chinese journalist, novelist, poet and translator (died 1912)

January 26 – Sylvester Judd, American novelist (born 1813)
February 3 – August Kopisch, German poet (born 1799)
April 4 – James Scholefield, English classicist (born 1789)
April 28 – Ludwig Tieck, German poet, novelist and translator (born 1773)
May 3 – Juan Donoso Cortés, Spanish diplomat and writer (born 1809)
June 4 – Pavel Katenin, Russian classicist, poet and dramatist (born 1792)
September 1 – Jacob Bailey Moore, American journalist and historical writer (born 1797)
September 5 – Georges Depping, German-French historian (born 1784)
October 29 – Thomas Jonathan Wooler, English satirist (born 1786)
December 2 – Amelia Opie, English poet and novelist (born 1769)