1869 in literature

This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1869.

Events

 * February 3 – Booth's Theatre opens on Manhattan with the owner, Edwin Booth, playing the male lead in Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet.
 * May 10 – As a protest against her drama school having been closed down by the Russian authorities, Swedish-born actress Hedvig Raa-Winterhjelm delivers the lines in her next performance, Aleksis Kivi's Lea, in the Finnish language, the first time it has been spoken in the public theatre in Finland.
 * May 22 – Serial publication of Anthony Trollope's novel He Knew He Was Right concludes and it appears in London as the first book to include a fictional private investigator, ex-policeman Samuel Bozzle.
 * August
 * Ambrose Bierce, writing a satirical column for the San Francisco News Letter, begins to produce the cynical definitions which will eventually become The Devil's Dictionary.
 * Macmillan Publishing opens its first American office in New York City, headed by George Edward Brett.
 * October 5 – Model, poet and artist Elizabeth Siddal (d. 1862) is exhumed at Highgate Cemetery in London in order to recover the manuscript of Dante Gabriel Rossetti's Poems buried with her.
 * December – Publication of Leo Tolstoy's novel War and Peace («Война и миръ», Voyna i mir) complete in book form concludes. It is printed in Moscow and sold by the author on subscription.
 * unknown dates – Eiríkur Magnússon and William Morris publish their first translations of Old Icelandic sagas into English: Grettis Saga: The Story of Grettir the Strong (from Grettis saga) and The Story of Gunnlaug the Worm-tongue and Raven the Skald (from Gunnlaugs saga ormstungu).

Fiction

 * Thomas Bailey Aldrich – The Story of a Bad Boy
 * Ignacio Manuel Altamirano – Clemencia (debut novel)
 * Horatio Alger, Jr. – Luck and Pluck
 * R. M. Ballantyne – Erling the Bold
 * R. D. Blackmore – Lorna Doone
 * Fyodor Dostoyevsky – The Idiot (Идіотъ)
 * Alexandre Dumas, père – The Knight of Sainte-Hermine (Le Chevalier de Sainte-Hermine, unfinished; first published 2005)
 * Gustave Flaubert – Sentimental Education (L'Éducation sentimentale)
 * Émile Gaboriau – Monsieur Lecoq
 * Ivan Goncharov – The Precipice (Обрыв)
 * Edmond and Jules de Goncourt – Madame Gervaisais
 * Victor Hugo – The Man Who Laughs (L'Homme qui rit)
 * Sheridan Le Fanu – The Wyvern Mystery
 * Nikolai Leskov – Old Years in Plodomasovo («Ста′рые го′ды в селе′ Плодома′сове» published serially in Russkiy Vestnik)
 * Joaquim Manuel de Macedo – A Luneta Mágica (The Magical Glasses)
 * Hector Malot – Romain Kalbris
 * Florence Montgomery – Misunderstood
 * Charles Reade – Foul Play
 * Capt. Hawley Smart – Breezie Langton
 * Hesba Stretton – Alone in London
 * Leo Tolstoy – War and Peace
 * Charlotte M. Yonge – The Chaplet of Pearls

Children and young people

 * Louisa May Alcott – Good Wives
 * Frances Freeling Broderip
 * Tales of the Toys told by Themselves
 * The Daisy and her Friends: Tales and Stories for Children
 * Juliana Horatia Ewing – Mrs. Overtheway's Remembrances
 * Jean Ingelow – Mopsa the Fairy
 * A. D. T. Whitney – Hitherto

Drama

 * Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson – Sigurd Slembe (Sigurd the Bastard, trilogy, first performed, in Germany)
 * François Coppée – Le Passant
 * Navalram Pandya – Veermati
 * Mendele Mocher Sforim – Di Takse (The Tax, unperformed)
 * Alexander Sukhovo-Kobylin – Scenes from the Past

Poetry

 * Henry Kendall – Leaves from Australian Forests

Non-fiction

 * Matthew Arnold – Culture and Anarchy
 * P. T. Barnum – Struggles and Triumphs
 * Josephine Butler (editor) – Women's Work and Women's Culture
 * Warren Felt Evans – The Mental Cure, illustrating the influence of the Mind on the Body
 * William Ewart Gladstone – Juventus Mundi: The gods and men of "the heroic" age
 * John Stuart Mill – The Subjection of Women
 * John Neal — Wandering Recollections of a Somewhat Busy Life: An Autobiography
 * Mark Twain – The Innocents Abroad
 * Richard Wagner – Das Judenthum in der Musik (Jewishness in Music)
 * Garnet Wolseley – Soldier’s Pocket-book for Field Service

Births

 * January 10 – Rachel Davis Harris, African American librarian (died 1969)
 * January 15 – Stanisław Wyspiański, Polish dramatist, poet, painter and architect (died 1907)
 * February 8 – Victor Ido, born Hans van de Wall, Dutch East Indian journalist, novelist and playwright (died 1948)
 * February 11 – Else Lasker-Schüler, German-born poet, playwright and short story writer (died 1945)
 * March 11
 * F. G. Loring, English writer and naval officer (died 1951)
 * Rosa Louise Woodberry, American journalist and educator (died 1932)
 * March 14 – Algernon Blackwood, English writer (died 1951)
 * May 10 – Rachel Davis Harris, African American librarian (died 1969)
 * May 23 – Olivia Ward Bush-Banks, American poet (died 1944)
 * June 10 – Arthur Shearly Cripps, English-born poet, short story writer and Anglican priest in Africa (died 1952)
 * July 1 – William Strunk, Jr., American professor of English (died 1946)
 * July 8 – William Vaughn Moody, American dramatist and poet (died 1910)
 * July 29 – Booth Tarkington, American novelist (died 1946)
 * August 10 – Laurence Binyon, English poet and dramatist (died 1943)
 * September 6 – Felix Salten, Austrian author and critic (died 1945)
 * October 6 – Bo Bergman, Swedish poet (died 1967)
 * November 15 – Charlotte Mew, English poet (died 1928)
 * November 20 – Zinaida Gippius, Russian writer (died 1945)
 * November 22 – André Gide, French writer (died 1951)
 * December 22 – Edwin Arlington Robinson, American poet (died 1935)
 * December 30 – Stephen Leacock, English-born Canadian humorist and economist (died 1944)

Deaths

 * January 20 – Carl Wilhelm Göttling, German classical commentator (born 1793)
 * January 28 – Sophie Bolander, Swedish writer (born 1807)
 * January 30
 * Frances Catherine Barnard, English writer (born 1796)
 * William Carleton, Irish writer (born 1794)
 * February 15 – Ghalib, Indian poet (born 1796)
 * February 28 – Alphonse de Lamartine, French poet and politician (born 1790)
 * March 31 – David Rees (Y Cynhyrfwr), Nonconformist leader and author (born 1801)
 * May 18 – Peter Cunningham, British literary scholar and antiquarian (born 1816)
 * July 7 – Paul Botten-Hansen, Norwegian librarian, book collector, magazine editor and literary critic (born 1824)
 * July 11 – William Jerdan, Scottish-born editor (born 1782)
 * July 15 – Carl Friedrich Wilhelm Duncker, German publisher (born 1781)
 * July 19 – Victor Aimé Huber, German travel writer and literary historian (born 1800)
 * July 22 – Julius Braun, German historian (born 1825)
 * August 2 – Thomas Medwin, English poet, biographer and translator (born 1788)
 * September 12 – Peter Mark Roget, British lexicographer (born 1779)
 * October – John Jones (Talhaiarn), poet (born 1810)
 * October 13 – Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve, French literary critic (b. 1804)
 * October 18 – Simon Jenko, Slovene poet (born 1835)
 * November 3 – Andreas Kalvos, Greek Romantic poet and dramatist (born 1792)
 * November 12 – Gheorghe Asachi, Moldavian polymath (born 1788)