# 1803 in literature

This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1803.

## Events

* June 30 – Novelist Mary Butt marries her cousin, Captain Henry Sherwood, acquiring the surname by which she will become best known.
* September 9 – Bamberg State Library is established in Upper Franconia.
* unknown date – The library which becomes the National Széchényi Library, established in 1802 by Count Ferenc Széchényi, opens to the public in Pest, Hungary.
* Jane Austen's novel Northanger Abbey, a satire on Gothic fiction, is advertised by a London publisher but is not in fact published until 1817, after her death.

## New books
### Fiction

* Charles Brockden Brown – Memoirs of Carwin the Biloquist
* Sophie Ristaud Cottin – Amélie de Mansfield
* Catherine Cuthbertson – The Romance of the Pyrenees
* Elizabeth Gunning – The War-Office
* Francis Lathom – The Mysterious Freebooter
* Mary Meeke – A Tale of Mystery, or Celina
* Jean Paul - Titan
* Jane Porter – Thaddeus of Warsaw
* Germaine de Staël – Margaret of Strafford

### Drama

* John Allingham
** Hearts of Oak
** The Marriage Promise
* George Colman – John Bull
* William Dunlap – Voice of Nature (adapted from the French)
* Collin d'Harleville – Malice pour malice
* Thomas Holcroft – Hear Both Sides
* Heinrich von Kleist – Die Familie Schroffenstein
* August von Kotzebue – Die deutschen Kleinstädter (comedy, German Small-towners)
* Frederick Reynolds – The Three Per Cents
* Friedrich Schiller – The Bride of Messina (Die Braut von Messina), premiere in Weimar on March 19
* Isaac Reed (ed.) – The Plays of William Shakspeare (first variorum edition)

### Poetry

* Henry Kirke White – Clifton Grove, a Sketch in Verse, with other Poems
* Adam Oehlenschlager – Digte (Poems)

### Non-fiction

* Alexandre Balthazar Laurent Grimod de La Reynière – Almanach des gourmands (1st edition)
* Bahadur Ali Hussaini – Akhlaq-e-Hindi, first Urdu book printed in printing-press (ethics)
* Immanuel Kant – Über Pädagogik (On Pedagogy)
* Adamantios Korais – Present Conditions of Civilisation in Greece
* Joseph Lancaster – Improvements in Education as It Respects the Industrious Classes
* Thomas Malthus – An Essay on the Principle of Population (2nd edition)
* Humphry Repton – Observations on the Theory and Practice of Landscape Gardening

## Births

* January 3 – Douglas William Jerrold, English dramatist (died 1857)
* January 15 – Marjorie Fleming, Scottish child writer (died 1811)
* January 27 – Eunice Hale Cobb, American writer, public speaker, and activist (died 1880)
* May 16 – Amelie von Strussenfelt, Swedish novelist (died 1847)
* May 25
** Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton, English novelist, poet and dramatist (died 1873)
** Ralph Waldo Emerson, American poet, essayist and philosopher (died 1882)
* July 20 – Dudley Costello, Irish writer and journalist (died 1865)
* September 20 – Catherine Crowe, English novelist, playwright and children's writer (died 1876)
* September 28 – Prosper Mérimée, French dramatist and historian (died 1870)
* October 25 – Maria Doolaeghe, Flemish novelist (died 1884)
* November 14 – Jacob Abbott, American children's writer (died 1879)
* December 6 – Susanna Moodie, English-born Canadian writer (died 1885)
* December 31 – José María Heredia y Heredia, Cuban poet (died 1839)
Unknown date – Evan Bevan, Welsh writer of satirical verse (died 1866)

## Deaths

* January 1 – James Woodforde, English diarist (born 1740)
* February 11 – Jean-François de La Harpe, French dramatist and critic (born 1739)
* March 14 – Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock, German poet (born 1724)
* April 9 – Mihály Bakos (Miháo Bakoš), Slovene hymnist and Lutheran minister (born c. 1742)
* June 12 – Richard François Philippe Brunck, French classical scholar (born 1729)
* August 2 – John Hoole, English translator (born 1727)
* September 5 – Pierre Choderlos de Laclos, French novelist (born 1841)
* October 8 – Vittorio Alfieri, Italian dramatist and poet (born 1749)
* December 18 – Johann Gottfried Herder, German philosopher, poet and critic (born 1744)