# 1846 in literature

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

## Events

* 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.
* August 15 – The Scott Monument to Sir Walter Scott in Edinburgh (Scotland) is inaugurated.
* 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 (La Cousine Bette)
* 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
* 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
** As Desgraças de uma Criança [pt]
** 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