• January –
Arthur Conan Doyle's anonymous story "
J. Habakuk Jephson's Statement" appears in the
Cornhill Magazine. It is inspired by the disappearance of the crew of the
Mary Celeste in 1872. •
January 11 – Britain's poet laureate
Alfred Tennyson is created 1st
Baron Tennyson of
Aldworth in the County of
Sussex and of
Freshwater, Isle of Wight, in the
Peerage of the United Kingdom. Thus he becomes known as Alfred, Lord Tennyson. •
January 14 –
Giovanni Verga's play
Cavalleria rusticana, taken from his short story, is first performed, by Cesare Rossi's company at the
Teatro Carignano in
Turin, starring
Eleonora Duse. •
February 1 –
A New English Dictionary on Historical Principles, part 1 (covering A–Ant) appears in England, edited by
James A. H. Murray, the first fascicle of what will become
The Oxford English Dictionary. •
February 12 –
Henry James visits the home of
Alphonse Daudet and meets
Goncourt,
Émile Zola,
François Coppée and others. In a discussion with Daudet, James describes the average Frenchman as "infinitely sharper in his observation than the average Englishman or American." •
February 18 – The English
Jesuit poet
Gerard Manley Hopkins becomes Professor of Greek and Latin at
University College Dublin in Ireland, where he will remain until his death in
1889 and write (but not publish) his innovative
sonnets and other poems. •
May 29 –
Oscar Wilde marries Constance Mary Lloyd (1858–1898), a Protestant Dubliner, at
St James's Church, Paddington, London. •
June 25 –
Hallam Tennyson, son of the poet laureate, marries Audrey Boyle, a granddaughter of
Sir Lorenzo Moore and great-granddaughter of
Edmund Boyle, 7th Earl of Cork. •
September 27 –
August Strindberg's short stories
Getting Married (Giftas) are published in Sweden. A week later, the author is prosecuted for
blasphemy, but will be acquitted on November 17. •
December 10 – The first London publication of
Mark Twain's
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn occurs. •
Uncertain dates •
Lie Kim Hok's collection of children's stories
Sobat Anak-anak is published in
Buitenzorg, the first work of popular literature in the
Dutch East Indies. His
Malay language syair (poem)
Sair Tjerita Siti Akbari is also first published. • The first translation of Shakespeare's plays in Japan is made, an adaptation of
Julius Caesar by
Tsubouchi Shōyō as a
Bunraku puppet play, entitled
The Strange Case of Caesar: the renowned sharpness of the blade of liberty. ==New books==