1868 in literature

Events

• January – Émile Zola defends his first major novel, Thérèse Raquin, against charges of pornography and corruption of morals.
• January 4 – August 8 Wilkie Collins' epistolary novel The Moonstone: a Romance is serialised in All the Year Round, being published in book format in July by Tinsley Brothers of London. It is seen as a precursor of full-length mystery fiction and the psychological thriller.
• January 9 – John William De Forest, writing for The Nation, calls for a more specifically American literature; the essay's title, "The Great American Novel", is the first known use of the term.
• April 29 – The Court of King's Bench decides on appeal the legal case Regina v. Hicklin on interpretation of the word "obscene" in the Obscene Publications Act 1857, applying the "Hicklin test": that any part of a publication with a "tendency... to deprave and corrupt those whose minds are open to such immoral influences, and into whose hands a publication of this sort may fall" makes the whole publication obscene, regardless of the author's intentions.
• September – The first volume of Louisa May Alcott's novel for girls Little Women is published by Roberts Brothers of Boston, Massachusetts.
• November
• *Robert Browning's narrative poem The Ring and the Book begins four-part publication by Smith, Elder & Co. in London. It is a major commercial and critical success.
• *Norman MacLeod, editor of Good Words, begins publishing its companion juvenile version, Good Words for the Young. The first issue begins the serial publication of George MacDonald's At the Back of the North Wind.
• December – The Globe Theatre in London opens with the première of the recently bankrupted Henry James Byron's semi-autobiographical comedy Cyril's Success.

• The first edition of The World Almanac and Book of Facts is published by the New York World.
• The first substantial translation into English from Dream of the Red Chamber is made by Edward Charles Bowra.
• Tauchnitz publishers of Leipzig begin their Collection of German Authors, a series of cheap, authorized paperback reprints.

  New books

Fiction

• R. M. Ballantyne – Deep Down
• Henry Ward Beecher – Norwood, or Village Life in New England
• Mary Elizabeth Braddon – Dead-Sea Fruit
• Mortimer Collins – Sweet Anne Page
• Wilkie Collins – The Moonstone
• Comte de Lautréamont – Les Chants de Maldoror, Chant premier
• Fyodor Dostoevsky – The Idiot
• Émile Gaboriau – Slaves of Paris
• Hermann Goedsche – Biarritz
• Bret Harte – The Luck of Roaring Camp
• Sheridan Le Fanu – Haunted Lives
• George MacDonald – Robert Falconer
• Émile Zola – Madeleine Ferat

  Children and young people

• Louisa May Alcott – Little Women
• Horatio Alger Jr. – Ragged Dick
• Rosa Nouchette Carey – Nellie's Memories
• James Greenwood – The Purgatory of Peter the Cruel
• Hesba Stretton – Little Meg's Children
• Jules Verne – In Search of the Castaways

  Drama

• Samson Bodnărescu – Rienzi
• Henry James Byron – Cyril's Success
• Aleksandr Ostrovsky – Enough Stupidity in Every Wise Man
• Hendrik Jan Schimmel – Struensee
• Aleksey Konstantinovich Tolstoy – Tsar Fyodor Ioannovich

  Poetry

• William Morris – The Earthly Paradise Volume 1

  Non-fiction

• Eliza Lynn Linton – "The Girl of the Period"
• Edward A. Pollard – The Lost Cause Regained
• John Wisden – Cricket and How to Play it
• World Almanac

  Births

• January 5 – Edward Garnett, English writer, critic and literary editor
• February 23 – W. E. B. Du Bois, American sociologist, historian and Pan-Africanist
• March 28 – Maxim Gorky, Russian novelist and dramatist
• April 1 – Edmond Rostand, French poet and novelist
• May 6 – Gaston Leroux, French journalist and novelist
• May 7 – Stanisław Przybyszewski, Polish novelist, dramatist and poet
• July 10 – Afevork Ghevre Jesus, Ethiopian novelist and linguist
• August 6 – Paul Claudel, French poet, dramatist and diplomat
• August 23 – Edgar Lee Masters, American poet, biographer, dramatist and lawyer
• September 14 – Théodore Botrel, French poet and dramatist
• October 18 – Ernst Didring, Swedish novelist
• November 5 – Kassian Bogatyrets, Rusyn priest, politician and historian
• November 30 – Angela Brazil, English writer of schoolgirl fiction
• c. December 12 – Stephen Hudson, English novelist, translator and arts patron
• December 19 – Eleanor H. Porter, American novelist
• December 25 – Ahmed Shawqi, Egyptian poet
• December 28 – Bucura Dumbravă, Romanian novelist and spiritualist

  Deaths

• January 6 – Scarlat Vârnav, Romanian journalist, educationist and librarian
• January 24 – John David Macbride, English Arabist and academic
• March 8 – Jón Thoroddsen elder, Icelandic poet and novelist
• June 6 – Daniel Pierce Thompson, American novelist and lawyer
• June 15 – Robert Vaughan, English historian and religious writer
• June 18 – Charles Harpur, Australian poet
• July 30 – Mihály Tompa, Hungarian lyric poet
• August 24 – Constantin Negruzzi, Romanian poet, novelist and playwright
• August 25 – Jacob van Lennep, Dutch poet and novelist
• September 24 – Henry Hart Milman, English historian
• November 30 – August Blanche, Swedish journalist, novelist and statesman

  Awards

• Newdigate Prize – John Alexander Stewart