1844 in literature

• January 4 – Swedish-language newspaper Saima, founded by J. V. Snellman, is published for the first time, in Finland.^[1][2]
• February 5 – The first three of many theatrical adaptations of A Christmas Carol open in London.^[3]
• March–July – Alexandre Dumas père's historical adventure story The Three Musketeers (Les Trois Mousquetaires) is serialised in the Paris newspaper Le Siècle.^[4]
• August 28 – Alexandre Dumas père's near-recent historical adventure story The Count of Monte Cristo (Le Comte de Monte-Cristo) begins serialization in the Paris newspaper Journal des débats, and continues through to January 1846. Book publication also begins this year.
• October – George W. M. Reynolds begins publication of the bestselling "penny dreadful" city mysteries series The Mysteries of London.
• Autumn – Margaret Fuller joins Horace Greeley's New-York Tribune as literary critic, becoming the first full-time female book reviewer in American journalism.
• December 2 – Emily Brontë writes the poem "A Death-Scene".^[5]
• unknown date – The first volumes of Patrologia Latina, a 217-volume collection of works in Latin, are published in Paris by Jacques Paul Migne. These include the writings of Tertullian and Cyprian, among other authors.

Fiction

• José de Alencar – Os contrabandistas (unpublished, lost)
• Honoré de Balzac – Les Paysans
• Charles Dickens
  • The Chimes
  • Martin Chuzzlewit (serial publication ends)
• Benjamin Disraeli – Coningsby
• Alexandre Dumas
  • The Count of Monte Cristo
  • The Three Musketeers
• Charles Lever – Tom Burke of Ours
• Joaquim Manuel de Macedo – A Moreninha
• Edgar Allan Poe – short stories
  • "The Angel of the Odd"
  • "The Premature Burial"
• G. W. M. Reynolds – The Mysteries of London
• Eugène Sue – The Wandering Jew (Le Juif Errant)
• William Makepeace Thackeray – The Luck of Barry Lyndon
• Charlotte Elizabeth Tonna – The Wrongs of Women
• Charlotte Mary Yonge – Abbeychurch, or, Self Control and Self Conceit

Children and young people

• Hans Christian Andersen – New Fairy Tales. First Volume. Second Collection (Nye Eventyr. Første Bind. Anden Samling) comprising "The Fir-Tree" ("Grantræet") and "The Snow Queen" ("Snedronningen")
• Heinrich Hoffmann – Struwwelpeter
• Frederick Marryat – Settlers in Canada
• Elizabeth Missing Sewell – Amy Herbert

Drama

• Émile Augier – La Ciguë^[6]
• Dimitrija Demeter – Teuta
• Gustav Freytag – Die Brautfahrt, oder Kunz von der Rosen
• Catherine Gore – Quid Pro Quo
• Christian Friedrich Hebbel – Maria Magdalene
• William H. Smith – The Drunkard^[7]
• José Zorilla – Don Juan Tenorio

Poetry

• Elizabeth Barrett Browning – Poems
• Lydia Maria Child – "Over the River and Through the Wood"
• Heinrich Heine – Neue Gedichte^[8]
• James Russell Lowell – Poems
• Coventry Patmore – Poems

Non-fiction

• Robert Chambers (anonymously) – Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation
• Joseph Ennemoser – Geschichte der Magie (History of Magic)
• Søren Kierkegaard (as Vigilius Haufniensis) – The Concept of Anxiety (Begrebet Angest)
• Karl Marx – "On the Jewish Question" ("Zur Judenfrage")
• John Stuart Mill – Essays on Some Unsettled Questions of Political Economy
• William Smith (editor) – Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology
• Arthur Penrhyn Stanley – Life of Arnold
• Max Stirner – The Ego and Its Own (Der Einzige und sein Eigentum)
• Henry Fox Talbot – The Pencil of Nature (first book illustrated with photographs from a camera)

• January 2 – Emeline Harriet Howe, American writer and social activist (died 1934)
• January 8 – Sarah Carmichael Harrell, American educator, reformer, and writer (died 1929)
• January 14 – Susan F. Ferree, American writer and activist (died 1910)
• February 25 – Alice Diehl (née Mangold), English novelist and concert pianist (died 1912)^[9]
• March 19 – Minna Canth, Finnish writer and social activist (died 1897)^[10]
• March 30 – Paul Verlaine, French lyric poet (died 1896)
• April 2 – George Haven Putnam, American author, publisher (died 1930)
• April 16 – Anatole France, French writer (died 1924)^[11]
• April 12 – Mollie Evelyn Moore Davis, American poet, writer, and editor (died 1909)
• May 9 – Sarah Newcomb Merrick, American teacher, writer, and physician (unknown year of death)
• June 28 – John Boyle O'Reilly, Irish-born poet, journalist and fiction writer (died 1890)^[12]
• July 8 – Janet Milne Rae, Scottish novelist (died 1933)^[13]
• July 21 – Matilda Maranda Crawford, American-Canadian writer and poet (died 1920)
• July 22 – William Archibald Spooner, English academic and instigator of spoonerisms (died 1930)
• July 28 – Gerard Manley Hopkins, English poet (died 1889)^[14]
• August 29 – Edward Carpenter, English socialist poet and philosopher (died 1929)^[15]
• September 9 – Maurice Thompson, American novelist (died 1901)
• October 1 – H. Maria George Colby, American author of novelettes and juvenile literature (died 1910)
• October 6 – Margret Holmes Bates, American novelist and poet (died 1927)
• October 15 – Friedrich Nietzsche, German philosopher (died 1900)^[16]
• October 22 or 23 – Sarah Bernhardt, French actress (died 1923)
• October 23
  • Robert Bridges, English poet (died 1930)^[17]
  • Laura Rosamond White, American author, poet, editor (died 1922)
• October 25 – Joseph Marmette, Canadian novelist and historian (died 1895)
• October 27 – Klas Pontus Arnoldson, Swedish writer and pacifist (died 1916)
• November 21 – Ada Cambridge, English/Australian writer and poet (died 1926)^[18]
• December 13 – Catharine H. T. Avery, American author, editor, and educator (died 1911)
• December 27 – Lisa Anne Fletcher, American poet and correspondent (died 1905)
• unknown dates
  • Mrs. Lovett Cameron (Caroline "Emily" Sharp), English romantic novelist (died 1921)^[19]
  • Evelyn Whitaker, English children's writer (died 1929)

• January 4 – Maria Hack, English educational writer (born 1777)
• January 27 – Charles Nodier, French novelist (born 1780)^[20]
• February 11 – Tamenaga Shunsui, Japanese novelist (born 1790)
• February 12 – Jan Nepomuk Štěpánek, Czech dramatist (born 1783)
• May 2 – William Thomas Beckford, English novelist and travel writer (born 1760)
• June 11 – Urban Jarnik, Slovene poet and historian (born 1784)
• June 15 – Thomas Campbell, Scottish poet (born 1777)
• July 11 – Evgeny Baratynsky, Russian poet and philosopher (born 1800)
• August 14 – Henry Cary, Gibraltar-born Irish author and translator (born 1772)
• September 18 – John Sterling, Scottish novelist and poet (born 1806)
• October 28 – Sándor Kisfaludy, Hungarian poet and dramatist (born 1772)^[21]
• November 4 – Barbara Hofland, English children's and schoolbook author (born 1770)
• November 21 – Ivan Krylov, Russian fabulist (born 1769)
• December 27 – John Caradja, Greek Prince of Wallachia, translator and theatrical promoter (asthma, born 1754)

• Chancellor's Gold Medal – Edward Bickersteth, "The Tower of London"^[22]
• Newdigate Prize – Evgeny Baratynsky