1883 in literature

This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1883.

Events

 * January 13 – Henrik Ibsen's play An Enemy of the People (En folkefiende, 1882) gains its first performance at the Christiania Theatre.
 * February – Carlo Collodi's children's story The Adventures of Pinocchio appears first in Italy complete in book form as Le avventure di Pinocchio.
 * May 23 – Robert Louis Stevenson's children's pirate adventure novel Treasure Island first appears in book form from Cassell in London.
 * June – Footlights, the University of Cambridge drama club in England, gives its first performance.
 * June 4 – Mihai Eminescu reads his nationalist poem Doina to an enthusiastic crowd at Junimea in Iași. It is sometimes described as his last work before a mental breakdown later this year. Eminescu's host Ion Creangă recalls it being composed on the spot, but some researchers date it back to 1870.
 * June 30–October 20 – Robert Louis Stevenson's novel The Black Arrow: A Tale of Tunstall Forest is serialized in the British magazine Young Folks as by "Captain George North". Stevenson completes writing it at the end of the summer in France.
 * July – The first issue of Fiamuri Arbërit, an Albanian literary and political magazine, is published from Cosenza. Managed by Girolamo de Rada, it promotes Ottomanism against Philhellenism.
 * August – Ivan Turgenev dictates his last story, "An end", to Pauline Viardot (who writes it in French) on his deathbed at Bougival in France.
 * August 29 – Dunfermline Carnegie Library, the first Carnegie library, opens in Andrew Carnegie's home town, Dunfermline, Scotland.
 * October 3–9 – Turgenev's body is returned by train from Paris to Saint Petersburg with crowds turning out to honor him.
 * December 27–28 – The Modern Language Association of America holds its first meeting.
 * Uncertain dates
 * Mark Twain's memoirs Life on the Mississippi are published simultaneously in Boston (Massachusetts) and London, as the first major book submitted to a publisher in typescript.
 * Kisari Mohan Ganguli begins publication of the first English-language translation of the Mahabharata.
 * The Deutsches Theater company is formed in Berlin.

Fiction

 * Margaret Oliphant – "Hester (novel)"
 * Emilia Pardo Bazán – La tribuna
 * Mary Elizabeth Braddon – Phantom Fortune
 * Rhoda Broughton – Belinda
 * Hugh Conway – Called Back
 * Wilkie Collins – Heart and Science
 * Anne Elliot – Dr. Edith Romney
 * Ludwig Ganghofer – The Hunter of Fall
 * Auguste Villiers de l'Isle-Adam – Contes cruels
 * John Hay – The Bread-Winners (anonymous serialization in The Century Magazine)
 * Alexander Kielland – Poison (Gift)
 * Jonas Lie – Familien paa Gilje (The Gilje family)
 * John Macnie (as Ismar Thiusen) – The Diothas; or, A Far Look Ahead
 * Mary E. Mann – The Parish of Hilby
 * Guy de Maupassant – Une Vie
 * George A. Moore – A Modern Lover
 * Friedrich Nietzsche – Thus Spoke Zarathustra (Also sprach Zarathustra, publication begins)
 * Sir Thomas Wemyss Reid – Gladys Fane
 * Charlotte Riddell – A Struggle for Fame
 * Annie S. Swan – Aldersyde
 * Giovanni Verga – Novelle rusticane (Rustic short stories, about Sicily)
 * Jules Verne – Kéraban the Inflexible (Kéraban-le-têtu)

Children and young people

 * Carlo Collodi – The Adventures of Pinocchio (Le avventure di Pinocchio)
 * George MacDonald – The Princess and Curdie
 * Howard Pyle – The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood
 * Robert Louis Stevenson – Treasure Island (book publication)

Drama

 * Frances Hodgson Burnett and William Gillette – Esmeralda
 * François Coppée – Severo Torelli
 * Imre Madách – The Tragedy of Man (Az ember tragédiája, first performed)
 * Edward Rose – Vice Versa
 * George Robert Sims – In the Ranks
 * August Strindberg – Lycko-Pers resa (Lucky Peter's Travels or Lucky Pehr)
 * Oscar Wilde – Vera; or, The Nihilists (first performed)
 * William Young – The Rajah; or Wyncot's Ward

Non-fiction

 * American Medical Association – Journal of the American Medical Association
 * Mathilde Blind – George Eliot
 * Hall Caine – Cobwebs of Criticism
 * Thomas Hill Green (died 1882) – Prolegomena to Ethics
 * J.-K. Huysmans – L'Art moderne
 * Agnes Catherine Maitland (as A. C. M., Examiner...) – The Rudiments of Cookery: a Manual for Use in Schools and Homes
 * William Robinson – The English Flower Garden
 * J. R. Seeley – The Expansion of England
 * Alfred Percy Sinnett – Esoteric Buddhism
 * John Addington Symonds – A Problem in Greek Ethics: an inquiry into the phenomenon of sexual inversion, addressed especially to medical psychologists and jurists
 * Mark Twain – Life on the Mississippi

Births

 * January 1 – Alberto Gerchunoff, Argentine writer (died 1949)
 * January 6 – Kahlil Gibran, Lebanese-born poet and novelist writing in Arabic and English (died 1931)
 * January 10 – Aleksei Tolstoy, Russian writer (died 1945)
 * January 20 – Forrest Wilson, American journalist and author (died 1942)
 * January 21 – Olav Aukrust, Norwegian poet and teacher (died 1929)
 * February 8 – Joseph Schumpeter, Austrian/American political economist (died 1950)
 * February 15 – Sax Rohmer (Arthur Henry Ward), English novelist (died 1959)
 * February 16 – Elizabeth Craig, British writer (died [1980)
 * February 20 – Naoya Shiga, Japanese novelist (died 1971)
 * March 2 (February 18 O.S.) – Nikos Kazantzakis, Greek novelist (died 1957)
 * March 9 – Umberto Saba, Italian poet and novelist (died 1957)
 * March 17 – Urmuz, Romanian short prose writer (died 1923)
 * March 27 (March 15 O.S.) – Marie Under, Estonian poet (died 1980)
 * April 18 – Aleksanteri Aava, Finnish poet (died 1956)
 * April 27 – Hubert Harrison, African-American writer, critic, and activist (died 1927)
 * April 30 – Jaroslav Hašek, Czech novelist (died 1923)
 * June 3 – Franz Kafka, Czech novelist writing in German (died 1924)
 * June 4 – Joseph Jefferson Farjeon, English crime writer (died 1955)
 * July 29 – Porfirio Barba-Jacob, Colombian writer (died 1942)
 * September 14 – Rose Combe, French writer and railway worker (died 1932)
 * September 22 – Ferenc Oslay, Hungarian-Slovene historian, writer and irredenta (died 1932)
 * October 18 – Helena Boguszewska, Polish writer, columnist and a social activist (died 1978)
 * December 13 – Belle da Costa Greene, American librarian (died 1950)
 * December 23 – Yoshishige Abe, Japanese philosopher and politician (died 1966)
 * December 30 – Marie Gevers, Belgian novelist writing in French (died 1975)
 * unknown date – May Edginton, English popular novelist (died 1957)

Deaths

 * January 21 – Anna Eliza Bray, English novelist and travel writer (born 1790)
 * March 14 – Karl Marx, German philosopher (born 1818)
 * April 24 – Jules Sandeau, French novelist (born 1811)
 * May 15 – Mary Elizabeth Mohl ("Clarkey"), English-born literary salonnière (born 1793)
 * May 23 – Cyprian Norwid, Polish poet, dramatist and artist (born 1821)
 * June 20 – Gustave Aimard, French novelist (born 1818)
 * June 11 – Caroline Leigh Gascoigne, English poet, novelist, short story writer (born 1813)
 * July 16 – Edward Backhouse Eastwick, Anglo-Indian orientalist and translator (born 1814)
 * August 31 – Levin Schücking, German novelist (born 1814)
 * September 2 – Léon Halévy, French historian and dramatist (born 1802)
 * September 3 – Ivan Turgenev, Russian novelist (born 1818)
 * September 10 – Hendrik Conscience, Flemish novelist (born 1812)
 * September 25 – George Ayliffe Poole, English writer and cleric (born 1809)
 * November 26 – Sojourner Truth, African American abolitionist, women's rights activist, and author (born 1797)
 * December 13 – Victor de Laprade, French poet and critic (born 1812)
 * unknown date – Mary S. B. Shindler, American poet (born 1810)