1854 in literature

List of years in literature (table)
... 1844 1845 1846 1847 1848 1849 1850 ... 1851 1852 1853 1854 1855 1856 1857 ... 1858 1859 1860 1861 1862 1863 1864 ...
In poetry 1851 1852 1853 1854 1855 1856 1857
Art Archaeology Architecture Literature Music Philosophy Science +...

This article presents lists of the literary events and publications in 1854.

Events

Tolstoy during the Crimean War, c. 1854

• April 1–August 12 – Charles Dickens's novel Hard Times is serialised in his magazine Household Words. From September 2, it is followed in the magazine by Elizabeth Gaskell's North and South, another social novel based in the Lancashire manufacturing district.
• November – Crimean War: Future novelist Leo Tolstoy arrives to take part as a defending soldier in the Siege of Sevastopol (1854–55). Off-duty he is reading Thackeray's novels in French translation.
• December 14 – Wilkie Collins's "The Lawyer's Story of a Stolen Letter", published as "The Fourth Poor Traveller" in The Seven Poor Travellers – the Household Words special Christmas number – is the first non-police detective fiction published in Britain.
• John Rollin Ridge's The Life and Adventures of Joaquín Murieta, The Celebrated California Bandit is the first novel by a Native American in the United States (writing as "Yellow Bird"), although concerning a Mexican immigrant.
• The Polyglotta Africana, an early classification of African languages based on field work under freed slaves in Freetown, Sierra Leone, is published by Sigismund Wilhelm Koelle.

New books

• Margaret Jewett Smith Bailey (anonymously) – The Grains, or, Passages in the Life of Ruth Rover, with Occasional Pictures of Oregon, Natural and Moral
• Jules Amédée Barbey d'Aurevilly – L'Ensorcelée
• William Wells Brown – Sketches of Places and People Abroad
• John Esten Cooke – The Virginia Comedians
• Wilkie Collins – Hide and Seek
• Maria Cummins – The Lamplighter
• Charles Dickens – Hard Times
• Fanny Fern – Ruth Hall
• Mathilde Fibiger – Minona
• Francesco Domenico Guerrazzi – Beatrice Cenci
• Nathaniel Hawthorne – Mosses from an Old Manse
• Caroline Lee Hentz – The Planter's Northern Bride
• Mary Jane Holmes – Tempest and Sunshine
• Mary Russell Mitford – Atherton
• Gérard de Nerval – Les Filles du feu (short stories)
• Charles Reade – The Courier of Lyons
• Solon Robinson – Hot Corn
• E. D. E. N. Southworth – The Lost Heiress
• Leo Tolstoy – Boyhood («Отрочество», Otrochestvo)

New drama

• Émile Augier and Jules Sandeau – Le Gendre de M. Poirier
• Andreas Munch – Salomon de Caus
• Alexander Ostrovsky – Bednost ne porok

Poetry

• R. D. Blackmore – Poems by Melanter
• Coventry Patmore – The Angel in the House
• Alfred Tennyson – The Charge of the Light Brigade

Non-fiction

• George Boole – The Laws of Thought
• Ludwig Feuerbach – The Essence of Christianity (Das Wesen des Christentums)
• Kuno Fischer – History of Modern Philosophy (Geschichte der neueren Philosophie) vol. 1
• Elisha Kane – The U.S. Grinnell Expedition in Search of Sir John Franklin: a Personal Narrative
• Eliphas Levi – Dogme et Rituel de la Haute Magie ("Dogma and Ritual of High Magic") vol. 1, Dogme
• Theodor Mommsen – History of Rome (Römische Geschichte) vol. 1
• Henry David Thoreau – Walden, or Life in the Woods

Births

• March 13 – Kolachalam Srinivasa Rao, Indian dramatist (died 1919)
• June 10
  • François, Vicomte de Curel, French dramatist (died 1928)
  • Sarah Grand, Irish author and women's rights advocate (died 1943)
• July 7 – W. C. Morrow, American writer, noted for his stories of horror and suspense. (died 1923)
• August 2 – Francis Marion Crawford, American novelist (died 1909)
• October 16 – Oscar Wilde, Irish dramatist, poet and wit (died 1900)
• October 20 – Arthur Rimbaud, French poet (died 1891)

Deaths

• January 5 – Gottschalk Eduard Guhrauer, German philologist and biographer (born 1809)
• February 4 – George Watterston, American librarian of Congress (born 1783)
• April 3 – John Wilson, Scottish poet and journalist (born 1785)
• April 7 – Pierre-François Tissot, French historian and memoirist (born 1768)
• April 16 – Julia Nyberg, Swedish poet (born 1784)
• April 24 – Gabriele Rossetti, Italian poet (born 1783)
• April 30 – James Montgomery, Scottish-born poet and hymnist (born 1771)
• July 20 – Caroline Anne Southey (Caroline Anne Bowles), English poet (born 1786)
• October 14 – Samuel Phillips, English journalist (born 1814)
• November 5 – Susan Edmonstone Ferrier, Scottish novelist (born 1782)
• November 25 – John Kitto, English Biblical commentator (born 1804)
• December 9 – Almeida Garrett, Portuguese poet, novelist and dramatist (born 1799)

Awards

• Chancellor's Gold Medal – Herbert John Reynolds

In literature

• July – Opening of Anthony Trollope's novel Barchester Towers (1857).