1846 in literature

Events

• January 3 – The American author Edgar Allan Poe prints the final edition of the Broadway Journal, a journal he owned for just a few months. He also publishes "The Philosophy of Composition".
• January 15 – Fyodor Dostoevsky's first original novel, Poor Folk, is published in the St. Petersburg Collection.
• January 21 – The Daily News, edited by Charles Dickens, first appears in London. After 17 issues Dickens hands over as editor to his friend John Forster. It continues until 1930.
• c. May 22 – The Brontë sisters' first published work, the collection Poems by Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell, appears in London. It sells only two copies in the first year.
• June 27 – Charlotte Brontë completes the manuscript of her novel The Professor. It is offered to several publishers during the year but rejected.
• August 15 – The Scott Monument to Sir Walter Scott in Edinburgh is inaugurated.
• September 12 – The poets Elizabeth Barrett and Robert Browning marry privately in St Marylebone Parish Church, London, and depart for the continent a week later.
• October 1 – Serial publication of Charles Dickens's Dombey and Son begins.
• November 21 – The String of Pearls: a Romance, probably written by James Malcolm Rymer and Thomas Peckett Prest, begins serialization in Britain. This is the first literary appearance of Sweeney Todd.
• Mary Howitt's Wonderful Stories for Children is the first English translation of works by Hans Christian Andersen to be published in book format.
• Isaac D. Baker and Charles Scribner form the New York City publisher Baker & Scribner, predecessor of Charles Scribner's Sons.

  New books

Fiction

• Honoré de Balzac – Cousin Bette
• Edward Bulwer-Lytton – The Children of the Night
• James Fenimore Cooper – The Redskins
• Charles Dickens
• *The Battle of Life
• *Dombey and Son
• Fyodor Dostoevsky
• * The Double: A Petersburg Poem
• * Poor Folk
• Alexandre Dumas, père
• *Le Chevalier de Maison-Rouge
• *The Count of Monte Cristo
• *La Dame de Montsoreau
• *Mémoires d'un médecin: Joseph Balsamo
• Dmitry Grigorovich – The Village
• Nathaniel Hawthorne – Mosses from an Old Manse
• Mór Jókai – Weekdays
• Frederick Marryat – The Privateersman
• Herman Melville – Typee
• George Sand – :fr:La Mare au diable|La Mare au diable

  Children

• Anne Knight – School-Room Lyrics
• Hannah and Mary Townsend – The Anti-Slavery Alphabet

  Drama

• Paul Bocage – Échec et mat
• Carolina Coronado – El cuadro de la esperanza
• Gustav Freytag – Die Valentine
• Eugène Marin Labiche and Auguste Lefranc – Frisette
• Martins Pena – first performances
• *A Barriga do Meu Tio
• *Os Ciúmes de um Pedestre, ou O Terrível Capitão do Mato
• *:pt:As Desgraças de uma Criança|As Desgraças de uma Criança
• *Os Meirinhos
• *Um Segredo de Estado
• *O Usurário
• Joseph Isidore Samson – La Famille poisson

  Poetry

• Gottfried Keller – Gedichte
• Edward Lear – Book of Nonsense
• Henry Wadsworth Longfellow – The Belfry of Bruges

  Non-fiction

• Mary Anne Atwood – Early Magnetism in its Higher Relations to Humanity
• Charles Dickens – Pictures from Italy
• F. W. Fairholt – Costume in England
• George Grote – A History of Greece
• George W. Johnson – A Dictionary of Gardening
• Søren Kierkegaard – Concluding Unscientific Postscript to Philosophical Fragments
• David Strauss – The Life of Jesus, Critically Examined, translated by George Eliot from Das Leben Jesu, kritisch bearbeitet
• Theodor Waitz – Grundlegung der Psychologie
• William Whewell – Elements of Morality

  Births

• March 17 – Kate Greenaway, English book illustrator and writer
• March 25 – Helen Zimmern, German-born English writer and translator
• April 4 – Comte de Lautreamont, Uruguayan-born French poet and writer
• April 24 – Marcus Clarke, Australian novelist and poet
• May 5 – Henryk Sienkiewicz, Polish novelist
• May 25 – Naim Frashëri, Albanian poet
• June 30 – Frances Margaret Milne, Irish-born American author and librarian
• July 5 – Christian Reid, American author
• August 2 – Lucy Clifford, English novelist, dramatist and screenwriter
• August 5
• *Louise Manning Hodgkins, American educator, author, and editor
• *Alvilde Prydz, Norwegian novelist
• October 21 – Edmondo De Amicis, Italian novelist, journalist, poet and short-story writer

• John Cadvan Davies, Welsh poet and Wesleyan Methodist minister
• Mary Foot Seymour, American businesswoman and writer

  Deaths

• January 6 – Lewis Goldsmith, Anglo-French journalist
• February 9 – Henry Gally Knight, English writer and traveler
• March 10 – Harriette Wilson, English memoirist
• June 24 – Jan Frans Willems, Flemish poet and political activist
• July 12 – Charlotte Elizabeth Tonna, English novelist
• September 4 – Victor-Joseph Étienne de Jouy, French dramatist
• November 23 – George Darley, Irish poet, novelist, and critic
• December 13 – Pasquale Galluppi, Italian philosopher

  Awards

• Chancellor's Gold Medal - Edward Henry Bickersteth