1879 in literature

Events

• January 1 – Benjamin Henry Blackwell opens the first Blackwell's bookshop, in Oxford.
• January 11 – During construction of an extension to Birmingham Central Library in England, a fire destroys 50,000 books and the original manuscript of the Coventry Mystery Plays.
• September 6 – Arthur Conan Doyle has his first story, "The Mystery of Sasassa Valley", published anonymously in Chambers's Journal.
• October 10 – The collected works of the American poet Ethel Lynn Beers are published as All Quiet Along The Potomac and Other Poems. The title poem is her best-known work. On the following day she dies aged 52 at Orange, New Jersey.
• December 21 – The first production of Henrik Ibsen's controversial "modern drama" A Doll's House takes place at the Royal Danish Theatre in Copenhagen, after publication there on December 4.

• Publication of the first complete edition of Georg Büchner's works, edited by Karl Emil Franzos, is completed in Frankfurt. It includes the first printing of the play Wozzeck, left unfinished on the writer's death in 1837.
• The English critic and poet Theodore Watts-Dunton takes the alcoholic poet Algernon Charles Swinburne into permanent care at his Putney home.
• The Rabelais Club, founded in London, holds a literary dinner once every two months. Well-known members include the novelists Henry James, Thomas Hardy, Bret Harte, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Walter Besant, and George du Maurier.
• The Swiss publisher Birkhäuser is founded in Basel.

  New books

Fiction

• W. Harrison Ainsworth – Beau Nash
• Emilia Pardo Bazán – Pascual López: autobiografía de un estudiante de medicina
• Mary Elizabeth Braddon
• *The Cloven Foot
• *Vixen
• Wilkie Collins
• *The Fallen Leaves
• *A Rogue's Life
• Alphonse Daudet – Kings in Exile
• Silas Hocking – Her Benny
• Joris-Karl Huysmans – Les Soeurs Vatard
• Henry James – Daisy Miller
• Reinis and Matīss Kaudzīte – Mērnieku laiki
• Charles Kickham – Knocknagow, or The Homes of Tipperary
• Pierre Loti – Aziyadé
• George Meredith – The Egoist
• John Boyle O'Reilly – Moondyne
• Samuel Vedanayagam Pillai – Prathapa Mudaliar Charithram
• Shi Yukun – The Tale of Loyal Heroes and Righteous Gallants
• August Strindberg – The Red Room
• Anthony Trollope
• *Cousin Henry
• *The Duke's Children
• *John Caldigate
• Jules Verne
• *The Begum's Fortune
• *Tribulations of a Chinaman in China
• Friedrich Theodor Vischer – Auch einer: eine Reisebekanntschaft

  Children and young people

• Louisa May Alcott –
• E. W. Cole – Cole's Funny Picture Book
• Evelyn Whitaker – Laddie

  Drama

• Vasile Alecsandri – Despot-Vodă
• Émile Augier – Les Fourchambault
• Edmond Gondinet – Les Tapageurs
• James Herne – Hearts of Oak
• Henrik Ibsen – A Doll's House
• George Robert Sims – Crutch and Toothpick

  Poetry

• Ethel Lynn Beers – All Quiet Along The Potomac and Other Poems
• Kate Greenaway – Under the Window: Pictures & Rhymes for Children

  Non-fiction

• Lewis Carroll – Euclid and his Modern Rivals
• Charles Darwin – The Life of Erasmus Darwin
• Emilia, Lady Dilke – The Renaissance of Art in France
• Edward Dowden – Southey
• Gottlob Frege – Begriffsschrift
• Henry George – Progress and Poverty
• Agnes Giberne – Sun, Moon and Stars: Astronomy for Beginners
• George Grove – A Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 1st edition begins publication
• Yngvar Nielsen – Reisehaandbog over Norge
• Robert Louis Stevenson – Travels with a Donkey in the Cévennes

  Births

• January 1 – E. M. Forster, English novelist and critic
• January 26 – Alfred Eckhard Zimmern, German-born English historian and political scientist
• February 13 – Sarojini Naidu, Indian poet and politician
• February 17 – Dorothy Canfield Fisher, American activist and novelist
• March 14 – Harold Monro, English poet and promoter of poetry
• April 14 – James Branch Cabell, American novelist
• May 8 – Ioan C. Filitti, Romanian historian, political theorist and essayist
• June 4 – Percy Lubbock, English essayist, critic and biographer
• July 19 – Ferenc Móra, Hungarian children's writer and editor
• July 20 – Claude Scudamore Jarvis, English writer, Arabist and naturalist
• August 19 – Lascăr Vorel, Romanian visual artist and short story writer
• September 19 – Louis Joseph Vance, American novelist
• October 2 – Wallace Stevens, American poet
• November 19 – Mait Metsanurk, Estonian author and playwright
• December 3 – Kafū Nagai, Japanese novelist
• December 24 – Émile Nelligan, French Canadian poet

  Deaths

• January 16 – Octave Crémazie, "the father of French Canadian poetry"
• February 28 – Hortense Allart, French feminist novelist
• March 3
• *William Howitt, English historical writer and poet
• *Annie Keary, English novelist, poet and children's writer
• March 9 – Mark Prager Lindo, Dutch historian
• March 19 – Claire Clairmont, English-born diarist and correspondent
• April 8 – Anthony Panizzi, Italian-born English librarian
• April 21 – George Hadfield, English radical author and politician
• April 25 – Charles Tennyson Turner, English poet
• April 30 – Sarah Josepha Hale, American novelist and poet
• June 19 – George W. M. Reynolds, English popular novelist
• July 4 – Sarah Dorsey, American novelist and historian
• July 30 – Aasmund Olavsson Vinje, Norwegian poet and journalist
• September 20 – Rosanna Eleanor Leprohon, Canadian novelist and poet
• September 23 – Francis Kilvert, English diarist and cleric
• October 11 – Ethel Lynn Beers, American poet
• October 13 – Henry Charles Carey, American economist
• October 28 – Marie Roch Louis Reybaud, French political economist
• October 31
• *Jacob Abbott, American children's writer
• *John Baldwin Buckstone, English dramatist
• December 27 – William Hepworth Dixon, English historian, traveller and journal editor

  Awards

• Newdigate Prize – Thomas Mosse Macdonald