1821 in literature

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This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1821.

Events

May – Percy Bysshe Shelley's Queen Mab: a philosophical poem (1813) is distributed by a pirate publisher in London, leading to prosecution by the Society for the Prevention of Vice.^[1]
August 4 – Atkinson & Alexander publish The Saturday Evening Post for the first time as a weekly newspaper in the United States.^[2]
unknown dates
- James Ballantyne begins publishing his Novelist's Library in Edinburgh edited by Sir Walter Scott.^[3]
- In the first known obscenity case in the United States, a Massachusetts court outlaws the John Cleland novel Fanny Hill (1748). The publisher, Peter Holmes, is convicted of printing a "lewd and obscene" novel.^[4]
- Sunthorn Phu is imprisoned and begins his epic poem Phra Aphai Mani.^[5]

John Banim and Richard Lalor Sheil – Damon and Pythias
Lord Byron
- Marino Faliero, Doge of Venice (published & performed)
- Sardanapalus: a tragedy; The Two Foscari: a tragedy; Cain: a mystery (published together)
Alfred Bunn –Kenilworth
Barry Cornwall – Mirandola
Alexandre-Vincent Pineux Duval – Le Faux Bonhomme
Aleksander Fredro – Pan Geldhab (Mr. Gelhab)
Franz Grillparzer – Das goldene Vliess (The Golden Fleece trilogy)
James Haynes – Conscience
Heinrich von Kleist (died 1811) – The Prince of Homburg (Prinz Friedrich von Homburg oder die Schlacht bei Fehrbellin, first performance, in abridged version as Die Schlacht von Fehrbellin; completed 1810)

James Burney – An Essay, by Way of Lecture, on the Game of Whist
Owen Chase – Narrative of the Most Extraordinary and Distressing Shipwreck of the Whale-Ship Essex^[6]
William Cobbett – The American Gardener^[7]
George Grote – Statement of the Question of Parliamentary Reform
William Hazlitt – Table-Talk^[8]
James Mill – Elements of Political Economy
Robert Owen – Report to the County of Lanark, of a plan for relieving public distress and removing discontent
John Roberton – Kalogynomia, or the Laws of Female Beauty
Robert Southey – Life of Cromwell

February 22 – Athalia Schwartz, Danish writer, journalist and educator (died 1871)^[9]
March 15 – William Milligan, Scottish theologian (died 1893)^[10]
March 19 – Richard Francis Burton, English polymath (died 1890)
March 20 – Ned Buntline (Edward Zane Carroll Judson Sr.), American publisher, dime novelist and publicist (died 1886)^[11]
March 25 – Isabella Banks, English poet and novelist (died 1897)
April 9 – Charles Baudelaire, French poet (died 1867)^[12]
May 8 – Charlotte Maria Tucker, English children's writer (died 1893)
May 11 – Grigore Sturdza, Moldavian and Romanian adventurer, literary sponsor and philosopher (died 1901)
June 30 – William Hepworth Dixon, English historian, traveler and journal editor (died 1879)
October 30 – Fyodor Dostoevsky, Russian novelist (died 1881)^[13]
November 28 – Nikolai Alekseevich Nekrasov, Russian poet, writer and critic (died 1877)
September 21 – Aurora Ljungstedt, Swedish horror writer (died 1908)
September 24 – Cyprian Norwid Polish poet (died 1883)
December 1 – Jane C. Bonar, Scottish hymnwriter (died 1884)^[14]
December 6 – Dora Greenwell, English poet (died 1882)
December 12 – Gustave Flaubert, French novelist (died 1880)^[15]

January 7 – Anne Hunter, Scottish poet and salonnière (born 1742)^[16]
January 14 – Jens Zetlitz, Norwegian poet (born 1761)
February 23 – John Keats, English poet (tuberculosis, born 1795)^[17]
February 26 – Joseph de Maistre, Savoyard philosopher (born 1753)
March 17 – Louis-Marcelin de Fontanes, French poet (born 1757)
April 14 – Susan Carnegie, writer and founder of the first public asylum in Scotland (born 1743)^[18]
April 16 – Thomas Scott, English cleric and religious writer (born 1747)
May 2 – Hester Thrale (Mrs Piozzi), English diarist and arts patron (born 1741)^[19]
May 21 – John Jones (Jac Glan-y-gors), Welsh poet and satirist (born 1766)^[20]
May 22 – Johann Georg Heinrich Feder, German philosopher (born 1740)
June 15 – John Ballantyne, publisher (born 1774)^[21]
August 1 – Elizabeth Inchbald, English novelist and dramatist (born 1753)
August 24 – John William Polidori, English physician, writer (born 1795) (suicide)^[22]
November 17 – James Burney, English rear-admiral and naval writer (born 1750)
November – Richard Fenton, poet and author (born 1747)^[23]