• February 3 – Booth's Theatre opens on Manhattan with the owner, Edwin Booth, playing the male lead in Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet.^[1]
• May 10 – As a protest against her drama school having been closed down by the Russian authorities, Swedish-born actress Hedvig Raa-Winterhjelm delivers the lines in her next performance, Aleksis Kivi's Lea, in the Finnish language, the first time it has been spoken in the public theatre in Finland.
• May 22 – Serial publication of Anthony Trollope's novel He Knew He Was Right concludes and it appears in London as the first book to include a fictional private investigator, ex-policeman Samuel Bozzle.^[2]
• August
  • Ambrose Bierce, writing a satirical column for the San Francisco News Letter, begins to produce the cynical definitions which will eventually become The Devil's Dictionary.
  • Macmillan Publishing opens its first American office in New York City, headed by George Edward Brett.^[3]
• October 5 – Model, poet and artist Elizabeth Siddal (d. 1862) is exhumed at Highgate Cemetery in London in order to recover the manuscript of Dante Gabriel Rossetti's Poems buried with her.^[4]
• December – Publication of Leo Tolstoy's novel War and Peace («Война и миръ», Voyna i mir) complete in book form concludes. It is printed in Moscow and sold by the author on subscription.^[5]
• unknown dates – Eiríkur Magnússon and William Morris publish their first translations of Old Icelandic sagas into English: Grettis Saga: The Story of Grettir the Strong (from Grettis saga) and The Story of Gunnlaug the Worm-tongue and Raven the Skald (from Gunnlaugs saga ormstungu).

Fiction edit

• Thomas Bailey Aldrich – The Story of a Bad Boy^[6]
• Ignacio Manuel Altamirano – Clemencia (debut novel)^[7]
• Horatio Alger, Jr. – Luck and Pluck^[8]
• R. M. Ballantyne – Erling the Bold
• R. D. Blackmore – Lorna Doone^[9]
• Fyodor Dostoyevsky – The Idiot (Идіотъ)
• Alexandre Dumas, père – The Knight of Sainte-Hermine (Le Chevalier de Sainte-Hermine, unfinished; first published 2005)
• Gustave Flaubert – Sentimental Education (L'Éducation sentimentale)^[10]
• Émile Gaboriau – Monsieur Lecoq
• Ivan Goncharov – The Precipice (Обрыв)
• Edmond and Jules de Goncourt – Madame Gervaisais
• Victor Hugo – The Man Who Laughs (L'Homme qui rit)
• Sheridan Le Fanu – The Wyvern Mystery
• Nikolai Leskov – Old Years in Plodomasovo («Ста′рые го′ды в селе′ Плодома′сове» published serially in Russkiy Vestnik)
• Joaquim Manuel de Macedo – A Luneta Mágica (The Magical Glasses)^[11]
• Hector Malot – Romain Kalbris^[12]
• Florence Montgomery – Misunderstood^[13]
• Charles Reade – Foul Play
• Capt. Hawley Smart – Breezie Langton
• Hesba Stretton – Alone in London
• Leo Tolstoy – War and Peace
• Charlotte M. Yonge – The Chaplet of Pearls

Children and young people edit

• Louisa May Alcott – Good Wives^[14]
• Frances Freeling Broderip
  • Tales of the Toys told by Themselves^[15]
  • The Daisy and her Friends: Tales and Stories for Children
• Juliana Horatia Ewing – Mrs. Overtheway's Remembrances^[16]
• Jean Ingelow – Mopsa the Fairy^[17]
• A. D. T. Whitney – Hitherto

Drama edit

• Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson – Sigurd Slembe (Sigurd the Bastard, trilogy, first performed, in Germany)
• François Coppée – Le Passant
• Navalram Pandya – Veermati
• Mendele Mocher Sforim – Di Takse (The Tax, unperformed)
• Alexander Sukhovo-Kobylin – Scenes from the Past

Poetry edit

• Henry Kendall – Leaves from Australian Forests

Non-fiction edit

• Matthew Arnold – Culture and Anarchy^[18]
• P. T. Barnum – Struggles and Triumphs
• Josephine Butler (editor) – Women's Work and Women's Culture
• Warren Felt Evans – The Mental Cure, illustrating the influence of the Mind on the Body
• William Ewart Gladstone – Juventus Mundi: The gods and men of "the heroic" age
• John Stuart Mill – The Subjection of Women
• John Neal — Wandering Recollections of a Somewhat Busy Life: An Autobiography^[19]
• Mark Twain – The Innocents Abroad
• Richard Wagner – Das Judenthum in der Musik (Jewishness in Music)
• Garnet Wolseley – Soldier’s Pocket-book for Field Service

• January 10 – Rachel Davis Harris, African American librarian (died 1969)
• January 15 – Stanisław Wyspiański, Polish dramatist, poet, painter and architect (died 1907)
• February 8 – Victor Ido, born Hans van de Wall, Dutch East Indian journalist, novelist and playwright (died 1948)
• February 11 – Else Lasker-Schüler, German-born poet, playwright and short story writer (died 1945)
• March 11
  • F. G. Loring, English writer and naval officer (died 1951)
  • Rosa Louise Woodberry, American journalist and educator (died 1932)
• March 14 – Algernon Blackwood, English writer (died 1951)^[20]
• May 10 – Rachel Davis Harris, African American librarian (died 1969)
• May 23 – Olivia Ward Bush-Banks, American poet (died 1944)
• June 10 – Arthur Shearly Cripps, English-born poet, short story writer and Anglican priest in Africa (died 1952)
• July 1 – William Strunk, Jr., American professor of English (died 1946)
• July 8 – William Vaughn Moody, American dramatist and poet (died 1910)
• July 29 – Booth Tarkington, American novelist (died 1946)
• August 10 – Laurence Binyon, English poet and dramatist (died 1943)^[21]
• September 6 – Felix Salten, Austrian author and critic (died 1945)^[22]
• October 6 – Bo Bergman, Swedish poet (died 1967)^[23]
• November 15 – Charlotte Mew, English poet (died 1928)^[24]
• November 20 – Zinaida Gippius, Russian writer (died 1945)
• November 22 – André Gide, French writer (died 1951)^[25]
• December 22 – Edwin Arlington Robinson, American poet (died 1935)^[26]
• December 30 – Stephen Leacock, English-born Canadian humorist and economist (died 1944)

• January 20 – Carl Wilhelm Göttling, German classical commentator (born 1793)^[27]
• January 28 – Sophie Bolander, Swedish writer (born 1807)^[28]
• January 30
  • Frances Catherine Barnard, English writer (born 1796)
  • William Carleton, Irish writer (born 1794)
• February 15 – Ghalib, Indian poet (born 1796)
• February 28 – Alphonse de Lamartine, French poet and politician (born 1790)^[29]
• March 31 – David Rees (Y Cynhyrfwr), Nonconformist leader and author (born 1801)^[30]
• May 18 – Peter Cunningham, British literary scholar and antiquarian (born 1816)
• July 7 – Paul Botten-Hansen, Norwegian librarian, book collector, magazine editor and literary critic (born 1824)^[31]
• July 11 – William Jerdan, Scottish-born editor (born 1782)
• July 15 – Carl Friedrich Wilhelm Duncker, German publisher (born 1781)
• July 19 – Victor Aimé Huber, German travel writer and literary historian (born 1800)
• July 22 – Julius Braun, German historian (born 1825)
• August 2 – Thomas Medwin, English poet, biographer and translator (born 1788)
• September 12 – Peter Mark Roget, British lexicographer (born 1779)
• October – John Jones (Talhaiarn), poet (born 1810)^[32]
• October 13 – Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve, French literary critic (b. 1804)^[33]
• October 18 – Simon Jenko, Slovene poet (born 1835)
• November 3 – Andreas Kalvos, Greek Romantic poet and dramatist (born 1792)
• November 12 – Gheorghe Asachi, Moldavian polymath (born 1788)

• Hahn, Daniel (2015). The Oxford Companion to Children's Literature (Second ed.). New York, NY: Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780198715542.