1801 in literature

Events

• April 1 - A letter from "the author of Génie du christianisme" is published in Le Publiciste, Chateaubriand having returned to France the previous year under an amnesty issued to émigrés.
• April 2 - Battle of Copenhagen: In recognition of the English attack on Copenhagen, Adam Oehlenschläger produces his first dramatic sketch April the Second 1801.
• May - Jane Austen moves with her family to Bath.
• Hindusthani Press established in Calcutta, India, by John Gilchrist.
• The second edition of Specimens of the Early English Poets, edited by George Ellis and covering poems from the Old English through to the 17th century, is influential in acquainting the general reading public with Middle English poetry, going through a further 4 editions.
• The first complete Bible translation into Scottish Gaelic, Am Bìoball Gàidhlig, is published.

  New books

Fiction

• François-René de Chateaubriand - Atala
• Sophie Ristaud Cottin - Malvina
• Anne Seymour Damer - Belmour
• Maria Edgeworth - Belinda
• Elizabeth Helme - St. Margaret's Cave
• Rachel Hunter - Letitia
• Isabella Kelly - Ruthinglenne
• Sophia King - The Fatal Secret
• Mary Meeke - Which is the Man
• Amelia Opie - The Father and Daughter
• Eliza Parsons - The Peasant of Ardenne Forest

  Children

• Christoph von Schmid – Biblische Geschichte für Kinder
• Priscilla Wakefield – The Juvenile Travellers: Containing the Remarks of a Family during a Tour through the Principal States and Kingdoms of Europe

  Drama

• Heinrich Joseph von Collin – Regulus
• Friedrich von Schiller
• *The Maid of Orleans
• *Maria Stuart
• Thomas Moore and Michael Kelly – The Gypsy Prince

  Poetry

• Henry James Pye – Alfred
• William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge – Lyrical Ballads

  Non-fiction

• Francis Barrett – The Magus, or Celestial Intelligencer
• Elizabeth Hamilton – Letters on the Elementary Principles of Education
• Arthur Murphy – Life of David Garrick
• Jane West – Letters to a Young Man

  Births

• February 16 – Frederic Madden, English palaeographer
• February 21 – Cardinal John Henry Newman, English theologian and autobiographer
• March 4 – Karl Rudolf Hagenbach, Swiss theologian and historian
• March 15 – George Perkins Marsh, American philologist
• May 9 – Ulrika von Strussenfelt, Swedish novelist
• May 31 – Johann Georg Baiter, Swiss philologist and textual critic
• August 10 – Christian Hermann Weisse, German Protestant religious philosopher
• September 4 – Alfred d'Orsay, French wit and dandy
• September 7 – Hortense Allart, Milanese-born French feminist novelist
• November 3 – Karl Baedeker, German guidebook publisher
• November 10 – Vladimir Dal, Russian lexicographer
• November 22 – Abraham Hayward, English man of letters
• November 24 – Ludwig Bechstein, German writer and collector of folk tales
• December 4 – Karl Ludwig Michelet, German philosopher
• December 7 – Johann Nestroy, Austrian dramatist
• December 11 – Christian Dietrich Grabbe, German dramatist
• December 12 – Edward Moxon, English poet and publisher

  Deaths

• January 2 – Johann Kaspar Lavater, Swiss poet
• January 9 – Margaretta Faugères, American playwright, poet and political activist
• January 13 – Robert Orme, English historian of India
• March 14 – Ignacy Krasicki, Polish poet and prince-bishop
• March 21 – John Holt, English scholar
• March 25 – Novalis, German poet
• April 11 – Antoine de Rivarol, French scholar and epigrammatist
• September 1 – Robert Bage, English novelist
• September 7 – Giovanni Andrea Lazzarini, Italian painter, poet and art historian
• September 23 – Thomas Nowell, Welsh-born controversialist and historian
• December 25 – Hester Chapone, English writer of conduct books