1849 in literature

See also: 1848 in literature, other events of 1849, 1850 in literature, list of years in literature.

Events

New books

• David Copperfield – Charles Dickens
• The Diamond and the Pearl – Catherine Gore
• The Lancashire Witches – William Harrison Ainsworth
• Little Fadette – George Sand
• Mardi – Herman Melville
• Memoirs From Beyond the Grave – François-René de Chateaubriand
• On the Duty of Civil Disobedience – Henry David Thoreau
• The Oregon Trail – Francis Parkman
• Redburn – Herman Melville
• The Rifle Rangers – Mayne Reid
• Shirley – Charlotte Brontë
• Freedom and Necessity – Steven Brust and Emma Bull

New drama

• Christian Friedrich Hebbel – Der Rubin

Births

• January 22 – August Strindberg, Swedish writer (d. 1912)
• August 23 – William Henley, British poet (d. 1903)
• November 24 – Frances Hodgson Burnett writer (d. 1924)

Deaths

• May 22 – Maria Edgeworth, writer
• May 28 – Anne Brontë, writer
• October 7 – Edgar Allan Poe, author

Awards