•
January 1 – The
Dictionary of National Biography begins publication in London under the editorship of
Leslie Stephen. •
February 18 –
Mark Twain's
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is published in the United States for the first time, in
New York by the author's own publishing house,
Charles L. Webster, illustrated by
E. W. Kemble, the first impression having been delayed for replacement of an unauthorized obscene alteration to one of the illustrative plates. Its
first-person narrative in
colloquial language is initially controversial but ultimately influential in the development of
realism in
American literature. •
March 7 –
José Echegaray's play
La vida alegre y muerte triste opens in Spain. •
March 19 –
Bolesław Prus's first major naturalistic novel,
The Outpost (
Placówka), begins serialization in the Polish illustrated weekly,
Wędrowiec. • May –
Henri Beauclair and
Gabriel Vicaire, using the
pseudonym Adoré Floupette, publish ''Les Déliquescences d'Adoré Floupette'', a
parodic collection of poems
satirising French
symbolism and the
Decadent movement. •
May 16 –
Sakuradoki Zeni no Yononaka ("The Season of Cherry Blossoms; The World of Money"), an adaptation by Genzo Katsu after Bunkai Udagawa of
The Merchant of Venice set in the
Edo period, is performed by the Nakamura Sojuro
Kabuki company at the Ebisu-za Theater in
Osaka, the first of
Shakespeare's plays to be staged with actors in
Japan. •
May 19 – The
Revised Version Old Testament is published. •
June 1 – More than two million people join
Victor Hugo's funeral procession in Paris from the
Arc de Triomphe to the
Panthéon, where he is the first author to be buried, following his death on May 22 in the city from
pneumonia aged 83. •
June 29 –
Thomas Hardy moves to a house he designed for himself and built by his brother at
Max Gate on the outskirts of
Dorchester, Dorset. •
December 6 –
Frederick James Furnivall founds the
Shelley Society. •
unknown dates •
Arthur Napier is appointed first
Merton Professor of English Language and Literature in the
University of Oxford. •
John Ormsby's English translation of
Miguel de Cervantes's
Don Quixote is published. For many years it is regarded as the most accurate translation of the novel. • The first translation of
Leo Tolstoy's
War and Peace into English begins publication. It has been done by Clara Bell from a French version. • The first translation of
Amy Catherine Walton (Mrs. O. F. Walton)'s Christian novel ''Christie's Old Organ'' into Japanese, made by Tajima Kashi, is published, one of the earliest examples of
children's literature in
Japan. •
Daniel Owen's long novel
Hunangofiant Rhys Lewis, Gweinidog Bethel is published as the first written in
Welsh. ==New books==