# 1820 in literature

This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1820.

## Events

* January 16 – Poems Descriptive of Rural Life and Scenery by "Northamptonshire peasant poet" John Clare is published in England by John Taylor.
* April 22 – Walter Scott is created 1st baronet of Abbotsford in the County of Roxburgh in the Baronetage of the United Kingdom.
* September – Poet John Keats, suffering from tuberculosis, leaves London to take up residence in the house on the Spanish Steps in Rome where he will die in 1821.
* November 20 – An 80-ton sperm whale attacks the Essex, a whaleship from Nantucket, Massachusetts, 2,000 miles off the western coast of South America. Herman Melville's 1851 novel Moby-Dick is in part inspired by this story.
* unknown dates
** More than 20 years after the poet's death, Robert Chambers edits and publishes The Songs of Robert Burns.
** Thomas Kendall has the first book printed in the Māori language, A korao no New Zealand; or, the New Zealander's first book; being an attempt to compose some lessons for the instruction of the natives, published in Sydney, Australia.
** The first translation of the Old English epic poem Beowulf into a modern language, Danish, Bjovulfs Drape, by N. F. S. Grundtvig, is published.
** The Cambridge Apostles, an intellectual discussion group, is established at the University of Cambridge in England.

## New books
### Fiction

* James Fenimore Cooper – Precaution
* Thomas Gaspey – Forty Years Ago
* Robert Huish – Castle of Nielo
* Francis Lathom – Italian Mysteries
* Charles Maturin (anonymously) – Melmoth the Wanderer
* Regina Marie Roche – The Munster Cottage Boy
* Sir Walter Scott (anonymously)
** Ivanhoe (published 1819, dated 1820)
** The Abbot
** The Monastery
* Louisa Stanhope – The Crusaders
* Rosalia St. Clair – The Highland Castle, and the Lowland Cottage

### Children

* Maria Hack
** English Stories, illustrating some of the most interesting events and characters between the Accession of Alfred and the Death of John
** English Stories. Second series, between the Accession of Henry the Third and the Death of Henry the Sixth
* Mary Shelley – Maurice, or the Fisher's Cot (written 1820 then lost, published 1997)

### Drama

* James Sheridan Knowles – Virginius
* Percy Bysshe Shelley – Prometheus Unbound
* George Soane – The Hebrew
* Charles Edward Walker – Wallace

### Poetry

* Robert Burns (died 1796) – The Songs of Robert Burns
* John Clare – Poems Descriptive of Rural Life and Scenery
* John Keats
** The Eve of St. Agnes
** Lamia and Other Poems
* Alphonse de Lamartine – Méditations poétiques
* Adam Mickiewicz – Ode to Youth (Oda do młodości)
* Nguyễn Du – The Tale of Kieu (斷腸新聲, Truyện Kiều)
* Aleksandr Pushkin – Ruslan and Ludmila (Руслан и Людмила)
* Percy Bysshe Shelley – To a Skylark

### Non-fiction

* Thomas Brown – Lectures on the Philosophy of the Human Mind
* Howard Douglas – A Treatise on Naval Gunnery
* Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel – Elements of the Philosophy of Right
* John George Hoffman – Pow-Wows; or, Long Lost Friend
* Claude François Lallemand – Recherches anatomico-pathologiques sur l'encéphale et ses dépendances (to 1832)
* Charles Lamb – Essays of Elia (begin publication in The London Magazine)
* Thomas Malthus – Principles of Political Economy
* Charles Mills – History of the Crusades for the Recovery and Possession of the Holy Land
* Robert Southey – Life of Wesley
* Mariana Starke – Travels on the Continent: written for the use and particular information of travellers

## Births

* January 17 – Anne Brontë, English novelist and poet (died 1849)
* January 30 – Concepción Arenal, Spanish feminist writer and activist (died 1893)
* February 28 – John Tenniel, English illustrator and cartoonist (died 1914)
* March 2 – Multatuli (Eduard Douwes Dekker), Dutch writer (died 1887)
* March 17 – Jean Ingelow, English poet and novelist (died 1897)
* March 30 – Anna Sewell, English novelist (died 1878)
* April 4 – Mkrtich Khrimian, Armenian Catholicos, essayist and poet (died 1907)
* April 16 – Charlotte A. Jerauld, American poet and story writer (died 1845)
* April 26 – Alice Cary, American poet and short-story writer (died 1871)
* April 27 – Herbert Spencer, English philosopher (died 1903)
* June 21 – James Halliwell-Phillipps, English bibliophile (died 1889)
* August 13 – Sir George Grove, English writer and lexicographer on music (died 1900)
* September 2 – Lucretia Peabody Hale, American journalist and author (died 1900)
* September 17 – Émile Augier, French dramatist (died 1889)
* October 14 – John Harris, English poet (died 1884)
* November 23 (December 5 N.S.) – Afanasy Fet, Russian lyric poet, essayist and short-story writer (died 1892)
* November 28 – Friedrich Engels, German socialist writer (died 1895)

## Deaths

* February 5 – William Drennan, Irish poet, radical and educationalist (born 1754)
* February 23 – Alojzy Feliński, Polish poet (born 1771)
* March 20 – Eaton Stannard Barrett, Irish satirical poet and novelist (born 1786)
* April 2 – Thomas Brown, Scottish philosopher and poet (born 1778)
* May 1 – Richmal Mangnall, English schoolbook writer (born 1769)
* July 16 – William Hazlitt Sr., Irish writer, radical and Unitarian minister, father of William Hazlitt (born 1737)
* August 23 – Michel de Cubières, French poet, dramatist and historian (born 1752)
* September 16 – Nguyễn Du, Vietnamese poet (born 1766)
* October 5 – Augustin Barruel, French Jesuit priest and writer (born 1741)
* November 8 – Lavinia Stoddard, American poet and educationist (born 1787)
* November 12 – William Hayley, English poet and biographer (born 1745)
* Probable – Dionisie Eclesiarhul, Wallachian scribe, chronicler and illustrator (born c. 1740)