# 1821 in literature

This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1821.

## Events

* May – Percy Bysshe Shelley's Queen Mab: a philosophical poem (1813) is distributed by a pirate publisher in London, leading to prosecution by the Society for the Prevention of Vice.
* August 4 – Atkinson & Alexander publish The Saturday Evening Post for the first time as a weekly newspaper in the United States.
* unknown dates
** James Ballantyne begins publishing his Novelist's Library in Edinburgh edited by Sir Walter Scott.
** In the first known obscenity case in the United States, a Massachusetts court outlaws the John Cleland novel Fanny Hill (1748). The publisher, Peter Holmes, is convicted of printing a "lewd and obscene" novel.
** Sunthorn Phu is imprisoned and begins his epic poem Phra Aphai Mani.

## New books
### Fiction

* James Fenimore Cooper – The Spy
* Pierce Egan – Life in London; Boxiana Vol. III
* John Galt
** Annals of the Parish
** The Ayrshire Legatees
* Thomas Gaspey – Calthorpe
* Johann Wolfgang von Goethe – Wilhelm Meister's Journeyman Years (Wilhelm Meisters Wanderjahre)
* Ann Hatton – Lovers and Friends
* Hannah Maria Jones – Gretna Green
* John Gibson Lockhart – Valerius
* Charles Nodier – Smarra
* Anna Maria Porter – The Village of Mariendorpt
* Jane Porter – The Scottish Chiefs
* Sir Walter Scott – Kenilworth

### Children

* Maria Hack – Harry Beaufoy; or the Pupil of Nature
* Thomas Love Peacock – Maid Marian

### Drama

* John Banim and Richard Lalor Sheil – Damon and Pythias
* Lord Byron
** Marino Faliero, Doge of Venice (published & performed)
** Sardanapalus: a tragedy; The Two Foscari: a tragedy; Cain: a mystery (published together)
* Alfred Bunn –Kenilworth
* Barry Cornwall – Mirandola
* Alexandre-Vincent Pineux Duval – Le Faux Bonhomme
* Aleksander Fredro – Pan Geldhab (Mr. Gelhab)
* Franz Grillparzer – Das goldene Vliess (The Golden Fleece trilogy)
* James Haynes – Conscience
* Heinrich von Kleist (died 1811) – The Prince of Homburg (Prinz Friedrich von Homburg oder die Schlacht bei Fehrbellin, first performance, in abridged version as Die Schlacht von Fehrbellin; completed 1810)

### Poetry

* Heinrich Heine – Poems
* Alessandro Manzoni – Il Cinque Maggio (May 5)
* Alexander Pushkin - The Gabrieliad
* Percy Bysshe Shelley – Adonaïs

### Non-fiction

* James Burney – An Essay, by Way of Lecture, on the Game of Whist
* Owen Chase – Narrative of the Most Extraordinary and Distressing Shipwreck of the Whale-Ship Essex
* William Cobbett – The American Gardener
* George Grote – Statement of the Question of Parliamentary Reform
* William Hazlitt – Table-Talk
* James Mill – Elements of Political Economy
* Robert Owen – Report to the County of Lanark, of a plan for relieving public distress and removing discontent
* John Roberton – Kalogynomia, or the Laws of Female Beauty
* Robert Southey – Life of Cromwell

## Births

* February 22 – Athalia Schwartz, Danish writer, journalist and educator (died 1871)
* March 15 – William Milligan, Scottish theologian (died 1893)
* March 19 – Richard Francis Burton, English polymath (died 1890)
* March 20 – Ned Buntline (Edward Zane Carroll Judson Sr.), American publisher, dime novelist and publicist (died 1886)
* March 25 – Isabella Banks, English poet and novelist (died 1897)
* April 9 – Charles Baudelaire, French poet (died 1867)
* May 8 – Charlotte Maria Tucker, English children's writer (died 1893)
* May 11 – Grigore Sturdza, Moldavian and Romanian adventurer, literary sponsor and philosopher (died 1901)
* June 30 – William Hepworth Dixon, English historian, traveler and journal editor (died 1879)
* July 21 – Vasile Alecsandri, Romanian patriot, poet, dramatist, politician and diplomat (died 1890)
* October 30 – Fyodor Dostoevsky, Russian novelist (died 1881)
* November 28 – Nikolai Alekseevich Nekrasov, Russian poet, writer and critic (died 1877)
* September 21 – Aurora Ljungstedt, Swedish horror writer (died 1908)
* September 24 – Cyprian Norwid Polish poet (died 1883)
* December 1 – Jane C. Bonar, Scottish hymnwriter (died 1884)
* December 6 – Dora Greenwell, English poet (died 1882)
* December 12 – Gustave Flaubert, French novelist (died 1880)

## Deaths

* January 7 – Anne Hunter, Scottish poet and salonnière (born 1742)
* January 14 – Jens Zetlitz, Norwegian poet (born 1761)
* February 23 – John Keats, English poet (tuberculosis, born 1795)
* February 26 – Joseph de Maistre, Savoyard philosopher (born 1753)
* March 17 – Louis-Marcelin de Fontanes, French poet (born 1757)
* April 14 – Susan Carnegie, writer and founder of the first public asylum in Scotland (born 1743)
* April 16 – Thomas Scott, English cleric and religious writer (born 1747)
* May 2 – Hester Thrale (Mrs Piozzi), English diarist and arts patron (born 1741)
* May 21 – John Jones (Jac Glan-y-gors), Welsh poet and satirist (born 1766)
* May 22 – Johann Georg Heinrich Feder, German philosopher (born 1740)
* June 15 – John Ballantyne, publisher (born 1774)
* August 1 – Elizabeth Inchbald, English novelist and dramatist (born 1753)
* August 24 – John William Polidori, English physician, writer (born 1795) (suicide)
* November 17 – James Burney, English rear-admiral and naval writer (born 1750)
* November – Richard Fenton, poet and author (born 1747)

## Awards

* Chancellor's Gold Medal and Newdigate Prize – George Howard