# 1844 in literature

This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1844.

## Events

* January 4 – Swedish-language newspaper Saima, founded by J. V. Snellman, is published for the first time, in Finland.
* February 5 – The first three of many theatrical adaptations of A Christmas Carol open in London.
* March–July – Alexandre Dumas père's historical adventure story The Three Musketeers (Les Trois Mousquetaires) is serialised in the Paris newspaper Le Siècle.
* August 28 – Alexandre Dumas père's near-recent historical adventure story The Count of Monte Cristo (Le Comte de Monte-Cristo) begins serialization in the Paris newspaper Journal des débats, and continues through to January 1846. Book publication also begins this year.
* October – George W. M. Reynolds begins publication of the bestselling "penny dreadful" city mysteries series The Mysteries of London.
* Autumn – Margaret Fuller joins Horace Greeley's New-York Tribune as literary critic, becoming the first full-time female book reviewer in American journalism.
* December 2 – Emily Brontë writes the poem "A Death-Scene".
* unknown date – The first volumes of Patrologia Latina, a 217-volume collection of works in Latin, are published in Paris by Jacques Paul Migne. These include the writings of Tertullian and Cyprian, among other authors.

## New books
### Fiction

* William Harrison Ainsworth – St. James's
* José de Alencar – Os contrabandistas (unpublished, lost)
* Honoré de Balzac – Les Paysans
* Charles Dickens
** The Chimes
** Martin Chuzzlewit (serial publication ends)
* Benjamin Disraeli – Coningsby
* Alexandre Dumas
** The Count of Monte Cristo
** The Three Musketeers
* Charles Lever – Tom Burke of Ours
* Joaquim Manuel de Macedo – A Moreninha
* Edgar Allan Poe – short stories
** "The Angel of the Odd"
** "The Premature Burial"
* G. W. M. Reynolds – The Mysteries of London
* Eugène Sue – The Wandering Jew (Le Juif Errant)
* William Makepeace Thackeray – The Luck of Barry Lyndon
* Charlotte Elizabeth Tonna – The Wrongs of Women
* Charlotte Mary Yonge – Abbeychurch, or, Self Control and Self Conceit

### Children and young people

* Hans Christian Andersen – New Fairy Tales. First Volume. Second Collection (Nye Eventyr. Første Bind. Anden Samling) comprising "The Fir-Tree" ("Grantræet") and "The Snow Queen" ("Snedronningen")
* Heinrich Hoffmann – Struwwelpeter
* Frederick Marryat – Settlers in Canada
* Elizabeth Missing Sewell – Amy Herbert

### Drama

* Émile Augier – La Ciguë
* Dimitrija Demeter – Teuta
* Gustav Freytag – Die Brautfahrt, oder Kunz von der Rosen
* Catherine Gore – Quid Pro Quo
* Christian Friedrich Hebbel – Maria Magdalene
* William H. Smith – The Drunkard
* José Zorilla – Don Juan Tenorio

### Poetry

* Elizabeth Barrett Browning – Poems
* Lydia Maria Child – "Over the River and Through the Wood"
* Heinrich Heine – Neue Gedichte
* James Russell Lowell – Poems
* Coventry Patmore – Poems

### Non-fiction

* Robert Chambers (anonymously) – Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation
* Joseph Ennemoser – Geschichte der Magie (History of Magic)
* Søren Kierkegaard (as Vigilius Haufniensis) – The Concept of Anxiety (Begrebet Angest)
* Karl Marx – "On the Jewish Question" ("Zur Judenfrage")
* John Stuart Mill – Essays on Some Unsettled Questions of Political Economy
* William Smith (editor) – Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology
* Arthur Penrhyn Stanley – Life of Arnold
* Max Stirner – The Ego and Its Own (Der Einzige und sein Eigentum)
* Henry Fox Talbot – The Pencil of Nature (first book illustrated with photographs from a camera)

## Births

* January 2 – Emeline Harriet Howe, American writer and social activist (died 1934)
* January 8 – Sarah Carmichael Harrell, American educator, reformer, and writer (died 1929)
* January 14 – Susan F. Ferree, American writer and activist (died 1910)
* February 25 – Alice Diehl (née Mangold), English novelist and concert pianist (died 1912)
* March 19 – Minna Canth, Finnish writer and social activist (died 1897)
* March 30 – Paul Verlaine, French lyric poet (died 1896)
* April 2 – George Haven Putnam, American author, publisher (died 1930)
* April 16 – Anatole France, French writer (died 1924)
* April 12 – Mollie Evelyn Moore Davis, American poet, writer, and editor (died 1909)
* May 9 – Sarah Newcomb Merrick, American teacher, writer, and physician (unknown year of death)
* June 28 – John Boyle O'Reilly, Irish-born poet, journalist and fiction writer (died 1890)
* July 8 – Janet Milne Rae, Scottish novelist (died 1933)
* July 21 – Matilda Maranda Crawford, American-Canadian writer and poet (died 1920)
* July 22 – William Archibald Spooner, English academic and instigator of spoonerisms (died 1930)
* July 28 – Gerard Manley Hopkins, English poet (died 1889)
* August 29 – Edward Carpenter, English socialist poet and philosopher (died 1929)
* September 9 – Maurice Thompson, American novelist (died 1901)
* October 1 – H. Maria George Colby, American author of novelettes and juvenile literature (died 1910)
* October 6 – Margret Holmes Bates, American novelist and poet (died 1927)
* October 15 – Friedrich Nietzsche, German philosopher (died 1900)
* October 22 or 23 – Sarah Bernhardt, French actress (died 1923)
* October 23
** Robert Bridges, English poet (died 1930)
** Laura Rosamond White, American author, poet, editor (died 1922)
* October 25 – Joseph Marmette, Canadian novelist and historian (died 1895)
* October 27 – Klas Pontus Arnoldson, Swedish writer and pacifist (died 1916)
* November 21 – Ada Cambridge, English/Australian writer and poet (died 1926)
* December 13 – Catharine H. T. Avery, American author, editor, and educator (died 1911)
* December 27 – Lisa Anne Fletcher, American poet and correspondent (died 1905)
* unknown dates
** Mrs. Lovett Cameron (Caroline "Emily" Sharp), English romantic novelist (died 1921)
** Evelyn Whitaker, English children's writer (died 1929)

## Deaths

* January 4 – Maria Hack, English educational writer (born 1777)
* January 27 – Charles Nodier, French novelist (born 1780)
* February 11 – Tamenaga Shunsui, Japanese novelist (born 1790)
* February 12 – Jan Nepomuk Štěpánek, Czech dramatist (born 1783)
* May 2 – William Thomas Beckford, English novelist and travel writer (born 1760)
* June 11 – Urban Jarnik, Slovene poet and historian (born 1784)
* June 15 – Thomas Campbell, Scottish poet (born 1777)
* July 11 – Evgeny Baratynsky, Russian poet and philosopher (born 1800)
* August 14 – Henry Cary, Gibraltar-born Irish author and translator (born 1772)
* September 18 – John Sterling, Scottish novelist and poet (born 1806)
* October 28 – Sándor Kisfaludy, Hungarian poet and dramatist (born 1772)
* November 4 – Barbara Hofland, English children's and schoolbook author (born 1770)
* November 21 – Ivan Krylov, Russian fabulist (born 1769)
* December 27 – John Caradja, Greek Prince of Wallachia, translator and theatrical promoter (asthma, born 1754)

## Awards

* Chancellor's Gold Medal – Edward Bickersteth, "The Tower of London"
* Newdigate Prize – Evgeny Baratynsky