1853 in literature

Events

• September – The 20th and final instalment of Charles Dickens's Bleak House is published, followed shortly by its book publication.
• November – Poet Friedrich Reinhold Kreutzwald completes the Estonian national epic Kalevipoeg but Russian censorship makes it impossible to publish.
• November 25 – English poet Alfred Tennyson settles at Farringford House on the Isle of Wight.
• unknown dates
• *Abraham Mapu's historical novel Ahavat Zion, set in ancient Israel and self-published in Kaunas, is the first narrative novel in the Hebrew language.
• *Uriah Maggs establishes what will become the antiquarian bookselling business of Maggs Bros Ltd in London.

  New books

Fiction

• Edward Bradley – The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green
• Charlotte Brontë – Villette
• William Wells Brown – Clotel; or, The President's Daughter
• Martha Haines Butt –
• Charles Dickens – Bleak House
• Alexandre Dumas, père – La Comtesse de Charny
• Elizabeth Gaskell
• *Cranford
• *Ruth
• Sarah J. Hale – Liberia; or, Mr. Peyton's Experiments
• Caroline Lee Hentz – Helen and Arthur
• Charles Kingsley – Hypatia
• Sheridan Le Fanu – An Account of Some Strange Disturbances in Aungier Street
• Maria McIntosh – The Lofty and the Lowly, or Good in All and None All Good
• Abraham Mapu – Ahavat Zion
• Herman Melville – Bartleby, the Scrivener
• Susanna Moodie – Life in the Clearings
• Gérard de Nerval – Sylvie
• J. W. Page – Uncle Robin, in His Cabin in Virginia, and Tom Without One in Boston
• Charles Reade
• *Christie Johnstone
• *Peg Woffington
• George Sand – Les Maîtres sonneurs
• Elizabeth Sara Sheppard - Charles Auchester
• Robert Smith Surtees – Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour
• Vidi – Mr. Frank, the Underground Mail-Agent
• George J. Whyte-Melville – Digby Grand
• Charlotte M. Yonge – The Heir of Redclyffe

  Children and young people

• Philip J. Cozans –
• Fanny Fern – Little Ferns for Fanny's Little Friends

  Drama

• Gustav Freytag – Die Journalisten
• Alexander Ostrovsky – The Poor Bride
• Charles Reade – Gold
• George Sand – Le Pressoir

  Poetry

• Álvares de Azevedo – Lira dos Vinte Anos
• Matthew Arnold – The Scholar Gipsy
• Victor Hugo – Les Châtiments

  Non-fiction

• Arthur de Gobineau – An Essay on the Inequality of the Human Races, vol. 1
• Judge Edmonds, George Dexter – Spiritualism
• Johann Jakob Herzog – Real-Encyklopädie für protestantische Theologie und Kirche begins publication
• Ferdinand Hoefer – Nouvelle Biographie Générale, vol. 1
• George Holyoake – Christianity and Secularism. Report of a Debate between the Rev. Bruin Grant B.A. and George Jacob Holyoake Esq.
• Solomon Northup – Twelve Years a Slave: Narrative of Solomon Northup, citizen of New-York, kidnapped in Washington city in 1841, and rescued in 1853, from a cotton plantation near the Red River in Louisiana
• Karl Rosenkrantz – Aesthetic of Ugliness
• Hippolyte Taine – Essai sur les fables de La Fontaine
• Otto von Böhtlingk – Sanskrit-Wörterbuch'' begins publication.

  Births

• April 17 – Mrs. Henry Clarke, English historical novelist and children's writer
• April 23 – Thomas Nelson Page, American writer and lawyer
• April 27 – Jules Lemaître, French dramatist and critic
• May 3 – E. W. Howe, American author and editor
• May 14 – Hall Caine, British novelist and playwright
• July 27 – Clementina Black, English novelist and political writer
• September 14 – Radu Rosetti, Romanian politician, historical novelist and memoirist
• November 1 – Lie Kim Hok, Dutch East Indian Chinese journalist, novelist, poet and translator
• Unknown date – Dharmavaram Ramakrishnamacharyulu, Telugu dramatist

  Deaths

• January 26 – Sylvester Judd, American novelist
• February 3 – August Kopisch, German poet
• April 4 – James Scholefield, English classicist
• April 28 – Ludwig Tieck, German poet, novelist and translator
• May 3 – Juan Donoso Cortés, Spanish diplomat and writer
• June 4 – Pavel Katenin, Russian classicist, poet and dramatist
• September 5 – Georges Depping, German-French historian
• October 29 – Thomas Jonathan Wooler, English satirist
• December 2 – Amelia Opie, English poet and novelist

  Awards

• Newdigate Prize – Samuel Harvey Reynolds, "The Ruins of Egyptian Thebes"