1811 in literature

Template:Short description Template:Refimprove Template:Year nav topic5 This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1811.

EventsEdit

March 25 – The University of Oxford expels the first-year undergraduate Percy Bysshe Shelley after he and Thomas Jefferson Hogg refuse to answer questions on The Necessity of Atheism, a pamphlet they have published anonymously.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Earlier this year, Shelley, as "A Gentleman of the University of Oxford", has published in London Poetical Essay on the Existing State of Things, containing a 172-line anti-monarchy, anti-war poem in support of Peter Finnerty (jailed this year for libel against Lord Castlereagh) and dedicated to Harriet Westbrook. Shelley's Gothic fiction St. Irvyne; or, The Rosicrucian: A Romance, published under the same designation and dated this year was actually issued in December 1810.<ref>Template:Cite ODNB </ref>
June – Walter Scott buys a farm at Abbotsford, Scotland, and commences building his future residence, Abbotsford House.
October 30 – Jane Austen publishes her first novel: Sense and Sensibility ("by a lady") at her own expense in three volumes, priced at 15 shillings, in Thomas Egerton's Military Library (Whitehall, London).<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

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November 4 – Lord Byron meets Thomas Campbell and Thomas Moore at the home of Samuel Rogers, where the company discusses literary topics.
November 21 – German poet Heinrich von Kleist shoots his terminally ill lover Henriette Vogel and then himself, on the shore of the Kleiner Wannsee near Potsdam.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

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unknown dates
- Friedrich Koenig, with the assistance of Andreas Friedrich Bauer, produces the first steam printing press, in London.<ref>Patented in 1810.Template:Cite book</ref>
- The first complete publication of the Bible in the Ume Sami language appears.<ref name="BandleBraunmüller200">Template:Cite book</ref>

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Johann Wolfgang von Goethe – Aus meinem Leben: Dichtung und Wahrheit (The Autobiography of Goethe: Truth and Poetry from my own Life)
Barthold G. Niebuhr – Roman History
John Roberton – On Diseases of the Generative System
Percy Bysshe Shelley – The Necessity of Atheism

January 9 – Gilbert Abbott à Beckett, English humorist (died 1856)
February 1 – Arthur Henry Hallam, English poet (died 1833)
February 19 – Jules Sandeau, French dramatist and novelist (died 1883)
February 27 – Alexandru Hrisoverghi, Moldavian poet and translator (died 1837)
June 14 – Harriet Beecher Stowe, American novelist and abolitionist (died 1896)
July 9 – Fanny Fern, American journalist, novelist and children's writer (died 1872)
July 18 – William Makepeace Thackeray, English novelist and satirist (died 1863)
August 31 – Théophile Gautier, French poet and novelist (died 1872)
September 17 – August Blanche, Swedish writer and statesman (died 1868)
October 19 – Andreas Munch, Norwegian poet (died 1884)<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

January 10 – Joseph Chénier, French poet and dramatist (born 1764)
March 7 – Juraj Fándly, Slovak non-fiction writer, entomologist and priest (born 1750)
May 7 – Richard Cumberland, English dramatist (born 1732)
July 28 – Heinrich Joseph von Collin, Austrian dramatist (born 1771)
September 14 – James Grahame, Scottish poet (born 1765)
September 30 – Thomas Percy, English ballad collector and bishop (born 1729)
November 21 – Heinrich von Kleist, German poet (suicide, born 1777)<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
December 19 – Marjorie Fleming, Scottish child writer (born 1803 in literature)<ref>Template:Cite ODNB</ref>