1819 in literature

Events

• January 30 – Romney Literary Society is established as the Polemic Society of Romney, West Virginia.
• April – John Keats begins his "Great Year" or "Living Year", during which he is at his most productive, having given up work at Guy's Hospital and moved into a new house, Wentworth Place, on Hampstead Heath on the edge of London. On April 3, Charles Wentworth Dilke lets his house, next door to Keats, to Mrs Brawne, whose daughter Fanny would become the love of Keats's life. Between April 21 and the end of May Keats writes La Belle Dame sans Merci and most of his major odes: Ode to Psyche, Ode on a Grecian Urn, Ode to a Nightingale, Ode on Indolence and Ode on Melancholy. In the summer he writes Lamia; on September 19 he writes his ode To Autumn at Winchester; and on October 19 proposes marriage to Fanny.
• April 1 – In London The New Monthly Magazine publishes John Polidori's Gothic fiction The Vampyre, the first significant piece of prose vampire literature in English, attributing it to Lord Byron. It is first published in book form later in the year.
• June 23 – Washington Irving begins publishing The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. in seven installments — the first including "Rip Van Winkle" and a later one including "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" — simultaneously in New York and London.
• August 16 – The Peterloo Massacre takes place in England, inspiring Percy Bysshe Shelley, in Italy, who, like Keats, has one of his most productive years. After hearing the news on September 5 he writes The Masque of Anarchy and sends it to a newspaper, also writing the political sonnet England in 1819, Ode to the West Wind, The Cenci: A Tragedy, in Five Acts and Julian and Maddalo and beginning his prose work A Philosophical View of Reform.
• September 20 – The Carlsbad Decrees are issued throughout the German Confederation, suppressing liberal and nationalist views and censoring the press.
• October – In Britain, Richard Carlile is convicted of blasphemy and sent to prison for publishing The Age of Reason by Thomas Paine.
• Joseph Perl's epistolary novel Megalleh Temirim, written under the name "Obadiah ben Pethahiah" and published in Vienna, is the first novel in the Hebrew language.
• The publisher Collins is founded as a printer of religious literature in Glasgow by William Collins.
• W. & R. Chambers, established by brothers William Chambers of Glenormiston and Robert Chambers in Edinburgh, begin publishing.

  New books

Fiction

• Ann Hatton – The Oath of Vengeance
• Thomas Hope – Anastasius
• Washington Irving – The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent.
• E. T. A. Hoffmann
• *Das Fräulein von Scuderi: Erzählung aus dem Zeitalter Ludwig des Vierzehnten
• *The Life and Opinions of the Tomcat Murr with a Fragmentary Biography of the Music Director Johannes Kreisler on Random Sheets of Waste Paper
• Joseph Perl – Megalleh Temirim
• John William Polidori – The Vampyre
• Walter Scott
• *The Bride of Lammermoor
• *A Legend of Montrose

  Children

• Maria Hack – Grecian Stories
• Washington Irving – "Rip Van Winkle"

  Drama

• József Katona – Bánk bán
• Alessandro Manzoni – Il Conte di Carmagnola
• Percy Bysshe Shelley – The Cenci, a Tragedy, in Five Acts

  Poetry

• Lord Byron – Mazeppa, with "Fragment of a Novel" as a supplement
• Thomas Campbell – Specimens of the British Poets
• Barry Cornwall – Dramatic Scenes and other Poems
• Marceline Desbordes-Valmore – Élégies et romances
• Johann Wolfgang von Goethe – West-östlicher Divan
• John Keats
• *La Belle Dame sans Merci
• *Odes
• Percy Bysshe Shelley
• *The Cenci, a Tragedy, in Five Acts
• *Ode to the West Wind
• *The Masque of Anarchy
• *Men of England
• *England in 1819
• *The Witch of Atlas
• *Julian and Maddalo

  Non-fiction

• Abbé Faria – Le Sommeil lucide
• Jakob Grimm – German Grammar
• Georg Hermes – Philosophical Introduction to Christian Theology
• Louisa Gurney Hoare – Hints for the Improvement of Early Education and Nursery Discipline
• Richard Colt Hoare – A Classical Tour through Italy and Sicily
• John Lingard – The History of England, From the First Invasion by the Romans to the Accession of Henry VIII
• Arthur Schopenhauer – The World as Will and Representation
• Percy Bysshe Shelley – A Philosophical View of Reform

  Births

• January 1 – Arthur Hugh Clough, English poet
• January 21 – Edward Capern, English postman poet
• January 22 – Giovanni Battista Cavalcaselle, Italian writer and art critic
• February 22 – James Russell Lowell, American poet
• April 23 – Bernard Quaritch, German-born English philologist and bookseller
• May 27 – Julia Ward Howe, American poet and abolitionist
• May 31 – Walt Whitman, American poet
• June 12 – Charles Kingsley, English novelist and cleric
• July 4 – Marie Sophie Schwartz, Swedish novelist
• July 11 – Susan Warner, American religious and children's writer
• July 24 – Josiah Gilbert Holland, American novelist and poet
• August 1 – Herman Melville, American novelist
• November 22 – George Eliot, English novelist, poet and journalist
• December 26 – E. D. E. N. Southworth, American writer
• December 30 – Theodor Fontane, German novelist
• Unknown dates
• *Butrus al-Bustani, Lebanese writer
• *Harriet Anne Scott, Scottish novelist

  Deaths

• January 8 – Valentin Vodnik, Carniolan Slovene poet, writer and priest
• January 12
• *André Morellet, French economist and philosopher
• *Benedikte Naubert, German historical novelist
• February 12 – Juan Ramis, Spanish historian
• March 23
• *August von Kotzebue, German dramatist
• *Jean-Antoine-Marie Monperlier, French poet and dramatist
• April 17 – William Holland, English diarist
• October 30 – John Bowles, English political writer and lawyer
• November 2 – Théodore-Pierre Bertin, French writer and pioneer of shorthand
• November 23 – Quintin Craufurd, Scottish historian
• Unknown dates
• *Abu Rumi, Ethiopian translator of the Bible into Amharic
• *Wang Yun, Chinese poet and playwright

  Awards

• Chancellor's Gold Medal for Poetry – Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay
• Newdigate Prize – H. J. Urquhart

  In literature

• Honoré de Balzac – Le Père Goriot