1838 in literature

Events

• January 25 – William Macready opens a performance of King Lear at the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden, London, restoring most of Shakespeare's original text, including the character of the Fool.
• January 28 – The second night of Henrik Wergeland's satirical musical play Campbellerne in Christiania provokes a riot.
• March – The Monthly Chronicle, "a national journal of politics, literature, science, and art", begins publication by Longman in London.
• June 7 – English poet and novelist Letitia Elizabeth Landon marries George Maclean, travelling with him in early August to Cape Coast Castle, Gold Coast, where she dies on October 15 of a spasm arising from a heart defect.
• October 19 – Poet Alfred de Musset is appointed librarian of the Ministry of the Interior in France.
• November 3 – The Times of India is founded as The Bombay Times and Journal of Commerce by Raobahadur Narayan Dinanath Velkar in Bombay.
• November 8 – French novelist George Sand begins an uncomfortable winter living with her lover, the ailing Polish-born composer and pianist Frédéric Chopin, on the Mediterranean island of Majorca in the abandoned Carthusian monastery of Valldemossa.

• Anna Maria Bunn's Gothic fiction The Guardian: a tale is published in Sydney. It is the first Australian novel printed and published in mainland Australia and the first by a woman.
• George Palmer Putnam and John Wiley form the book publishing and retail firm of Wiley & Putnam in New York City. It is the forerunner of G. P. Putnam's Sons.
• Lady Charlotte Guest begins publication of her translation into English of the Welsh traditional tales known as the Mabinogion.

  New books

Fiction

• Hendrik Conscience – De Leeuw van Vlaanderen
• Charles Dickens
• *Nicholas Nickleby
• *Oliver Twist
• Théophile Gautier – "One of Cleopatra's Nights"
• William Nugent Glascock – Land Sharks and Sea Gulls
• Edward Howard – Rattling the Reefer
• Karl Leberecht Immermann – Münchhausen
• John Pendleton Kennedy – Rob of the Bowl
• Edgar Allan Poe
• *The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket
• *"Ligeia"
• George Sand
• *L'Oreo
• *L'Uscoque
• Ann Sophia Stephens – Mary Derwent
• Robert Smith Surtees – Jorrocks' Jaunts and Jollities

  Children

• Hans Christian Andersen – Fairy Tales Told for Children. New Collection. First Booklet comprising "The Daisy", "The Steadfast Tin Soldier" and "The Wild Swans"

  Drama

• Dion Boucicault – A Legend of the Devil's Dyke
• Edward Bulwer – The Lady of Lyons
• Charles Dickens – The Lamplighter: a farce in one act
• Franz Grillparzer – :de:Weh dem, der lügt!|Weh dem, der lügt!
• Victor Hugo – Ruy Blas
• Martins Pena – :pt:O Juiz de Paz na Roça|O Juiz de Paz na Roça

  Poetry

• Elizabeth Barrett Browning – The Seraphim and Other Poems
• Eliza Hamilton Dunlop – "The Aboriginal Mother"

  Non-fiction

• Lady Charlotte Bury – Diary Illustrative of the Times of George IV
• Giacomo Casanova – Memoirs
• Ralph Waldo Emerson – The Divinity School Address
• Anna Brownell Jameson – Winter Studies and Summer Rambles in Canada
• Gideon Mantell – The Wonders of Geology, or, A Familiar Exposition of Geological Phenomena...
• Harriet Martineau – How to Observe Morals and Manners
• Samuel Smiles – Physical Education
• Baron Jules Dupotet de Sennevoy – Introduction to the Study of Animal Magnetism''

  Births

• January 4 – Eliza Archard Conner, American novelist, journalist, and feminist
• February 6 – Henry Irving, English actor and theatre manager
• February 22 – Margaret Elizabeth Sangster, American author, poet, and editor
• March 6 – Mary Dickens, English memoirist, editor and novelist
• April 25 – Mary Torrans Lathrap, American author and reformer
• April 30 – Abba Goold Woolson, American writer
• June 26 – Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay, Bengali writer
• July 20 – Augustin Daly, American dramatist and theatre manager
• October 25 – Annie Hall Cudlip, English novelist, journalist and editor
• November 7 – Auguste Villiers de l'Isle-Adam, French Symbolist writer
• December 22 – Clara Doty Bates, American author

• Josephine E. Keating, American literary critic, musician and music teacher
• Emma Pike Ewing, American author and educator

  Deaths

• March 28 – Thomas Morton, English playwright
• April 12 – Johann Adam Möhler, German theologian
• July 12 – John Jamieson, Scottish lexicographer
• August 24 – Ferenc Kölcsey, Hungarian poet and critic
• October 15 – Letitia Elizabeth Landon, English poet and novelist
• November 10 – Ivan Kotliarevsky, Ukrainian writer
• December 17 – Józef Zawadzki, Polish publisher
• December 20 – Hégésippe Moreau, French poet
• December 26 – Ann Hatton, English novelist

• Amhlaoibh Ó Súilleabháin, Irish writer in Gaelic
• Mariana Starke, English playwright and travel writer

  In literature

• Amitav Ghosh's novel River of Smoke is set during this year.
• Diane Glancy's novel Pushing the Bear opens on the Trail of Tears during this year.
• Jason Goodwin's detective novel The Snake Stone is set in Istanbul during this year.