1846 in literature

This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1846.

Events

 * January 3 – The American author Edgar Allan Poe issues the final edition of the Broadway Journal, a journal he owned for just a few months.
 * January 15 – Fyodor Dostoevsky's first original novel, Poor Folk (Бедные люди, Bednye Lyudi), is published in the St. Petersburg Collection.
 * January 21 – The Daily News, edited by Charles Dickens, first appears in London. After 17 issues Dickens hands over as editor to his friend John Forster. It continues until 1930.
 * April
 * Hans Christian Andersen's Fairy Tales are first translated into English, beginning with "The Little Mermaid" in Bentley's Miscellany.
 * Poe's essay "The Philosophy of Composition" is published in Graham's Magazine.
 * c. May 22 – The Brontë sisters' first published work, the collection Poems by Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell, appears in London. It sells only two copies in the first year.
 * June 27 – Charlotte Brontë completes the manuscript of her novel The Professor. It is offered to several publishers during the year but rejected.
 * August 15 – The Scott Monument to Sir Walter Scott in Edinburgh (Scotland) is inaugurated.
 * September 12 – The poets Elizabeth Barrett and Robert Browning marry privately in St Marylebone Parish Church, London, and depart for the continent a week later.
 * October 1 – Serial publication of Charles Dickens's Dombey and Son begins.
 * November 21 – The String of Pearls: a Romance, probably written by James Malcolm Rymer and Thomas Peckett Prest, begins serialization in Britain. This is the first literary appearance of Sweeney Todd.
 * unknown dates
 * Mary Howitt's Wonderful Stories for Children is the first English translation of works by Hans Christian Andersen to be published in book format.
 * Isaac D. Baker and Charles Scribner form the New York City publisher Baker & Scribner, predecessor of Charles Scribner's Sons.

Fiction

 * Honoré de Balzac – Cousin Bette (La Cousine Bette)
 * Edward Bulwer-Lytton – The Children of the Night
 * James Fenimore Cooper – The Redskins
 * Charles Dickens
 * The Battle of Life (novella)
 * Dombey and Son (serialization begins)
 * Fyodor Dostoevsky
 * The Double: A Petersburg Poem (Двойник, Dvoynik; novella)
 * Poor Folk (Бедные люди, Bednye Lyudi)
 * Alexandre Dumas, père
 * Le Chevalier de Maison-Rouge (The Knight of the Maison-Rouge: A Novel of Marie Antoinette)
 * The Count of Monte Cristo (Le Comte de Monte-Cristo, serialization concluded; first English translation)
 * La Dame de Montsoreau
 * Mémoires d'un médecin: Joseph Balsamo ("Memoirs of a Physician: vol. 1, Joseph Balsamo")
 * Thomas Dunn English – MDCCCXLII, or The Power of the "S. F"
 * Dmitry Grigorovich – The Village (Деревня, Derevnya)
 * Nathaniel Hawthorne – Mosses from an Old Manse
 * Mór Jókai – Weekdays (Hétköznapok)
 * James Sheridan Knowles – Fortescue
 * Frederick Marryat – The Privateersman
 * Herman Melville – Typee
 * George Sand – La Mare au diable (The Devil's Pond)

Children

 * Anne Knight – School-Room Lyrics
 * Hannah and Mary Townsend – The Anti-Slavery Alphabet

Drama

 * Paul Bocage – Échec et mat
 * Carolina Coronado – El cuadro de la esperanza
 * Gustav Freytag – Die Valentine
 * Eugène Marin Labiche and Auguste Lefranc – Frisette
 * George William Lovell
 * Look Before You Leap
 * The Wife's Secret
 * Martins Pena – first performances
 * A Barriga do Meu Tio
 * Os Ciúmes de um Pedestre, ou O Terrível Capitão do Mato
 * As Desgraças de uma Criança
 * Os Meirinhos
 * Um Segredo de Estado
 * O Usurário
 * Joseph Isidore Samson – La Famille poisson

Poetry

 * Gottfried Keller – Gedichte (Poems)
 * Edward Lear – Book of Nonsense
 * Henry Wadsworth Longfellow – The Belfry of Bruges

Non-fiction

 * Selim Aga – Incidents Connected with the Life of Selim Aga, A Native of Central Africa
 * Mary Anne Atwood (as Θυος Μαθος) – Early Magnetism in its Higher Relations to Humanity
 * Curtis H. Cavender (as H.C. Decanver) – Catalogue of Works in Refutation of Methodism
 * Charles Dickens – Pictures from Italy
 * F. W. Fairholt – Costume in England
 * George Grote – A History of Greece (publication begins)
 * George W. Johnson – A Dictionary of Gardening
 * Søren Kierkegaard – Concluding Unscientific Postscript to Philosophical Fragments (Afsluttende uvidenskabelig Efterskrift til de philosophiske Smuler)
 * David Strauss – The Life of Jesus, Critically Examined, translated by George Eliot from Das Leben Jesu, kritisch bearbeitet
 * Theodor Waitz – Grundlegung der Psychologie (Foundation of Psychology)
 * William Whewell – Elements of Morality

Births

 * March 17 – Kate Greenaway, English book illustrator and writer (died 1901)
 * March 20 – Rebecca Richardson Joslin, American non-fiction writer (died 1934)
 * March 25 – Helen Zimmern, German-born English writer and translator (died 1934)
 * April 4 – Comte de Lautreamont (pen name of Isidore Lucien Ducasse), Uruguayan-born French poet and writer (died 1870)
 * April 24 – Marcus Clarke, Australian novelist and poet (died 1881)
 * May 5 – Henryk Sienkiewicz, Polish novelist (died 1916)
 * May 25 – Naim Frashëri, Albanian poet (died 1900)
 * June 3 – Estelle Mendell Amory, American educator and author (died 1923)
 * June 30 – Frances Margaret Milne, Irish-born American author and librarian (died 1910)
 * July 5 – Christian Reid (pen name of Frances Christine Fisher Tiernan), American author (died 1920)
 * August 2 – Lucy Clifford (née Lucy Lane), English novelist, dramatist and screenwriter (died 1929)
 * August 5
 * Louise Manning Hodgkins, American educator, author, and editor (died 1935)
 * Alvilde Prydz, Norwegian novelist (died 1922)
 * September 3 – Emma Shaw Colcleugh, American author (died 1940)
 * October 1 – John Cadvan Davies, Welsh poet and Wesleyan Methodist minister (died 1923)
 * October 21 – Edmondo De Amicis, Italian novelist, journalist, poet and short-story writer (died 1908)
 * unknown date – Mary Foot Seymour, American businesswoman and writer (died 1893)

Deaths

 * January 6 – Lewis Goldsmith, Anglo-French journalist (born c. 1763)
 * February 9 – Henry Gally Knight, English writer and traveler (born 1786)
 * March 10 – Harriette Wilson, English memoirist (born 1786)
 * June 24 – Jan Frans Willems, Flemish poet and political activist (born 1793)
 * July 12 – Charlotte Elizabeth Tonna, English novelist (born 1790)
 * September 4 – Victor-Joseph Étienne de Jouy, French dramatist (born 1764)
 * November 23 – George Darley, Irish poet, novelist, and critic (born 1795)
 * December 13 – Pasquale Galluppi, Italian philosopher (born 1770)

Awards

 * Chancellor's Gold Medal – Edward Henry Bickersteth
 * Newdigate Prize – G. O. Morgan