1821 in literature

This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1821.

Events

 * May – Percy Bysshe Shelley's Queen Mab: a philosophical poem (1813) is distributed by a pirate publisher in London, leading to prosecution by the Society for the Prevention of Vice.
 * August 4 – Atkinson & Alexander publish The Saturday Evening Post for the first time as a weekly newspaper in the United States.
 * unknown dates
 * James Ballantyne begins publishing his Novelist's Library in Edinburgh edited by Sir Walter Scott.
 * In the first known obscenity case in the United States, a Massachusetts court outlaws the John Cleland novel Fanny Hill (1748). The publisher, Peter Holmes, is convicted of printing a "lewd and obscene" novel.
 * Sunthorn Phu is imprisoned and begins his epic poem Phra Aphai Mani.

Fiction

 * James Fenimore Cooper – The Spy
 * Pierce Egan – Life in London; Boxiana Vol. III
 * John Galt
 * Annals of the Parish
 * The Ayrshire Legatees
 * Thomas Gaspey – Calthorpe
 * Johann Wolfgang von Goethe – Wilhelm Meister's Journeyman Years (Wilhelm Meisters Wanderjahre)
 * Ann Hatton – Lovers and Friends
 * Hannah Maria Jones – Gretna Green
 * John Gibson Lockhart – Valerius
 * Charles Nodier – Smarra
 * Anna Maria Porter – The Village of Mariendorpt
 * Jane Porter – The Scottish Chiefs
 * Sir Walter Scott – Kenilworth

Children

 * Maria Hack – Harry Beaufoy; or the Pupil of Nature
 * Thomas Love Peacock – Maid Marian

Drama

 * John Banim and Richard Lalor Sheil – Damon and Pythias
 * Lord Byron
 * Marino Faliero, Doge of Venice (published & performed)
 * Sardanapalus: a tragedy; The Two Foscari: a tragedy; Cain: a mystery (published together)
 * Alfred Bunn –Kenilworth
 * Barry Cornwall – Mirandola
 * Alexandre-Vincent Pineux Duval – Le Faux Bonhomme
 * Aleksander Fredro – Pan Geldhab (Mr. Gelhab)
 * Franz Grillparzer – Das goldene Vliess (The Golden Fleece trilogy)
 * James Haynes – Conscience
 * Heinrich von Kleist (died 1811) – The Prince of Homburg (Prinz Friedrich von Homburg oder die Schlacht bei Fehrbellin, first performance, in abridged version as Die Schlacht von Fehrbellin; completed 1810)

Poetry

 * Heinrich Heine – Poems
 * Alessandro Manzoni – Il Cinque Maggio (May 5)
 * Alexander Pushkin - The Gabrieliad
 * Percy Bysshe Shelley – Adonaïs

Non-fiction

 * James Burney – An Essay, by Way of Lecture, on the Game of Whist
 * Owen Chase – Narrative of the Most Extraordinary and Distressing Shipwreck of the Whale-Ship Essex
 * William Cobbett – The American Gardener
 * George Grote – Statement of the Question of Parliamentary Reform
 * William Hazlitt – Table-Talk
 * James Mill – Elements of Political Economy
 * Robert Owen – Report to the County of Lanark, of a plan for relieving public distress and removing discontent
 * John Roberton – Kalogynomia, or the Laws of Female Beauty
 * Robert Southey – Life of Cromwell

Births

 * February 22 – Athalia Schwartz, Danish writer, journalist and educator (died 1871)
 * March 15 – William Milligan, Scottish theologian (died 1893)
 * March 19 – Richard Francis Burton, English polymath (died 1890)
 * March 20 – Ned Buntline (Edward Zane Carroll Judson Sr.), American publisher, dime novelist and publicist (died 1886)
 * March 25 – Isabella Banks, English poet and novelist (died 1897)
 * April 9 – Charles Baudelaire, French poet (died 1867)
 * May 8 – Charlotte Maria Tucker, English children's writer (died 1893)
 * May 11 – Grigore Sturdza, Moldavian and Romanian adventurer, literary sponsor and philosopher (died 1901)
 * June 30 – William Hepworth Dixon, English historian, traveler and journal editor (died 1879)
 * July 21 – Vasile Alecsandri, Romanian patriot, poet, dramatist, politician and diplomat (died 1890)
 * October 30 – Fyodor Dostoevsky, Russian novelist (died 1881)
 * November 28 – Nikolai Alekseevich Nekrasov, Russian poet, writer and critic (died 1877)
 * September 21 – Aurora Ljungstedt, Swedish horror writer (died 1908)
 * September 24 – Cyprian Norwid Polish poet (died 1883)
 * December 1 – Jane C. Bonar, Scottish hymnwriter (died 1884)
 * December 6 – Dora Greenwell, English poet (died 1882)
 * December 12 – Gustave Flaubert, French novelist (died 1880)

Deaths

 * January 7 – Anne Hunter, Scottish poet and salonnière (born 1742)
 * January 14 – Jens Zetlitz, Norwegian poet (born 1761)
 * February 23 – John Keats, English poet (tuberculosis, born 1795)
 * February 26 – Joseph de Maistre, Savoyard philosopher (born 1753)
 * March 17 – Louis-Marcelin de Fontanes, French poet (born 1757)
 * April 14 – Susan Carnegie, writer and founder of the first public asylum in Scotland (born 1743)
 * April 16 – Thomas Scott, English cleric and religious writer (born 1747)
 * May 2 – Hester Thrale (Mrs Piozzi), English diarist and arts patron (born 1741)
 * May 21 – John Jones (Jac Glan-y-gors), Welsh poet and satirist (born 1766)
 * May 22 – Johann Georg Heinrich Feder, German philosopher (born 1740)
 * June 15 – John Ballantyne, publisher (born 1774)
 * August 1 – Elizabeth Inchbald, English novelist and dramatist (born 1753)
 * August 24 – John William Polidori, English physician, writer (born 1795) (suicide)
 * November 17 – James Burney, English rear-admiral and naval writer (born 1750)
 * November – Richard Fenton, poet and author (born 1747)

Awards

 * Chancellor's Gold Medal and Newdigate Prize – George Howard