1811 in literature

This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1811.

Events

 * March 25 – The University of Oxford expels the first-year undergraduate Percy Bysshe Shelley after he and Thomas Jefferson Hogg refuse to answer questions on The Necessity of Atheism, a pamphlet they have published anonymously. Earlier this year, Shelley, as "A Gentleman of the University of Oxford", has published in London Poetical Essay on the Existing State of Things, containing a 172-line anti-monarchy, anti-war poem in support of Peter Finnerty (jailed this year for libel against Lord Castlereagh) and dedicated to Harriet Westbrook. Shelley's Gothic fiction St. Irvyne; or, The Rosicrucian: A Romance, published under the same designation and dated this year was actually issued in December 1810.
 * June – Walter Scott buys a farm at Abbotsford, Scotland, and commences building his future residence, Abbotsford House.
 * October 30 – Jane Austen publishes her first novel: Sense and Sensibility ("by a lady") at her own expense in three volumes, priced at 15 shillings, in Thomas Egerton's Military Library (Whitehall, London).
 * November 4 – Lord Byron meets Thomas Campbell and Thomas Moore at the home of Samuel Rogers, where the company discusses literary topics.
 * November 21 – German poet Heinrich von Kleist shoots his terminally ill lover Henriette Vogel and then himself, on the shore of the Kleiner Wannsee near Potsdam.
 * unknown dates
 * Friedrich Koenig, with the assistance of Andreas Friedrich Bauer, produces the first steam printing press, in London.
 * The first complete publication of the Bible in the Ume Sami language appears.

Fiction

 * Jane Austen – Sense and Sensibility
 * Mary Brunton – Self-Control
 * Charlotte Dacre – The Passions
 * Friedrich de la Motte Fouqué – Undine
 * Johann Peter Hebel – Schatzkästlein des rheinischen Hausfreundes
 * Rachel Hunter – The Schoolmistress
 * Heinrich von Kleist – Michael Kohlhaas
 * Mary Meeke – Stratagems Defeated
 * Lady Morgan – The Missionary: An Indian Tale
 * Emma Parker – Elfrida, Heiress of Belgrove
 * Percy Bysshe Shelley – St. Irvyne; or, The Rosicrucian
 * Elizabeth Thomas – Mortimer Hall

Drama

 * Marianne Chambers – Ourselves
 * Joseph George Holman – The Gazette Extraordinary
 * Richard Leigh – Where to Find a Friend

Poetry

 * Anna Maria Porter – Ballad Romances, and Other Poems
 * Thomas Pringle – The Institute: a Heroic Poem
 * Mary Russell Mitford – Christina, the Maid of the South Seas

Non-fiction

 * Johann Wolfgang von Goethe – Aus meinem Leben: Dichtung und Wahrheit (The Autobiography of Goethe: Truth and Poetry from my own Life)
 * Barthold G. Niebuhr – Roman History
 * John Roberton – On Diseases of the Generative System
 * Percy Bysshe Shelley – The Necessity of Atheism

Births

 * January 9 – Gilbert Abbott à Beckett, English humorist (died 1856)
 * February 1 – Arthur Henry Hallam, English poet (died 1833)
 * February 19 – Jules Sandeau, French dramatist and novelist (died 1883)
 * February 27 – Alexandru Hrisoverghi, Moldavian poet and translator (died 1837)
 * June 14 – Harriet Beecher Stowe, American novelist and abolitionist (died 1896)
 * July 9 – Fanny Fern, American journalist, novelist and children's writer (died 1872)
 * July 18 – William Makepeace Thackeray, English novelist and satirist (died 1863)
 * August 31 – Théophile Gautier, French poet and novelist (died 1872)
 * September 17 – August Blanche, Swedish writer and statesman (died 1868)
 * October 19 – Andreas Munch, Norwegian poet (died 1884)

Deaths

 * January 10 – Joseph Chénier, French poet and dramatist (born 1764)
 * March 7 – Juraj Fándly, Slovak non-fiction writer, entomologist and priest (born 1750)
 * May 7 – Richard Cumberland, English dramatist (born 1732)
 * July 28 – Heinrich Joseph von Collin, Austrian dramatist (born 1771)
 * September 14 – James Grahame, Scottish poet (born 1765)
 * September 30 – Thomas Percy, English ballad collector and bishop (born 1729)
 * November 21 – Heinrich von Kleist, German poet (suicide, born 1777)
 * December 19 – Marjorie Fleming, Scottish child writer (born 1803 in literature)