1821 in literature

See also: 1820 in literature, other events of 1821, 1822 in literature, list of years in literature.

Events

• In the first known obscenity case in the United States, a Massachusetts court outlawed the John Cleland novel, Fanny Hill . The publisher, Peter Holmes, was convicted for printing a "lewd and obscene" novel.

New books

• Annals of the Parish – John Galt
• The Ayrshire Legatees – John Galt
• Confessions of an English Opium Eater – Thomas De Quincey
• The Irish Necromancer – Thomas H. Marshall
• Kenilworth – Sir Walter Scott
• Life in London – Pierce Egan
• Lovers and Friends – Anne Hatton
• Maid Marian – Thomas Love Peacock
• Smarra – Charles Nodier
• The Spectre of St. Michael's – C. D. Haynes
• The Spy – James Fenimore Cooper
• Talisman, a Tale of Mystery – I. M. H. Hales
• The Village of Mariendorpt – Anna Maria Porter

New drama

• Franz Grillparzer – Das Goldene Vliess

Births

• March 19 – Richard Francis Burton (+ 1890)
• April 9 – Charles-Pierre Baudelaire (+ 1867)
• October 30 – Fyodor Dostoevsky (+ 1881)
• November 28 – Nikolai Alekseevich Nekrasov (+ 1877)
• December 6 – Dora Greenwell (+ 1882)
• December 12 – Gustave Flaubert (+ 1880)

Deaths

• February 23 – John Keats, poet
• August 1 – Elizabeth Inchbald, writer

Awards