1887 in literature

File:The Canterville Ghost illustration.jpg

This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1887.

Events

• February – Oscar Wilde publishes "The Canterville Ghost", his first short story, in The Court and Society Review.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
• March 30 – Théâtre Libre, established by André Antoine to promote naturalism in theatre, gives its first performances in Paris, originally as an amateur ensemble.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
• April 22 – Syracuse University in New York State purchases the Ranke Library from the estate of historian Leopold von Ranke, outbidding the Prussian government.
• November – Arthur Conan Doyle's first detective novel, A Study in Scarlet, is published in Beeton's Christmas Annual by Ward Lock & Co. in London, introducing the consulting detective Sherlock Holmes and his friend and chronicler Dr. Watson (illustrated by D. H. Friston).
• December 5 – The Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works (1886) comes into effect.
• December 15 – The Romanian literary magazine Revista Nouă is launched in Bucharest by Bogdan Petriceicu Hasdeu, who answers a request made by Ioan Bianu, Barbu Ștefănescu Delavrancea, Alexandru Vlahuță and others. The first issue, illustrated by George Demetrescu Mirea, hosts Delavrancea's Hagi Tudose and Petre Ispirescu's Sarea în bucate<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> (a localized folkloric version of the King Leir myth).<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
• unknown dates
  • Futabatei Shimei writes and begins to publish The Drifting Cloud (浮雲, Ukigumo), the first modern novel in Japan.
  • George Hutchinson establishes Hutchinson & Co. as a publisher in London.
  • John Lane and Elkin Mathews set up in partnership under the name The Bodley Head in London, originally as antiquarian booksellers.

New books

Fiction

• Herman Bang – Stucco (Stuk)
• Mary Elizabeth Braddon – Cut by the County
• Hall Caine – The Deemster<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
• Marie Corelli – Thelma
• F. Marion Crawford – Saracinesca
• José Maria de Eça de Queiroz – A Relíquia (The Relic)
• Barbu Ștefănescu Delavrancea – Hagi Tudose
• Anna Bowman Dodd – The Republic of the Future
• Arthur Conan Doyle – A Study in Scarlet
• Édouard Dujardin – Les Lauriers sont coupés (early example of Stream of consciousness, narrative mode)
• Benito Pérez Galdós – Fortunata y Jacinta (publication completed)
• Enrique Gaspar – El anacronópete, first fiction to feature a time machine<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

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• George Gissing – Thyrza
• H. Rider Haggard
  • Allan Quatermain
  • Jess
  • She
• Thomas Hardy – The Woodlanders
• W. H. Hudson – A Crystal Age
• Joris-Karl Huysmans – En rade (Becalmed; serialization concludes, book publication)
• Petre Ispirescu – Sarea în bucate
• Pierre Loti – Madame Chrysanthème
• Paolo Mantegazza – Testa
• William Morris – The Tables Turned, Or, Nupkins Awakened: A Socialist Interlude<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
• Appu Nedungadi – Kundalatha (കുന്ദലത)
• Bolesław Prus – The Doll (Lalka; serialization begins)
• José Rizal – Noli Me Tangere
• William James Roe (as Hudor Genone) – Bellona's Husband: A Romance
• Mark Rutherford (pseudonym of Hale White) – Revolution in Tanner's Lane
• Futabatei Shimei – The Drifting Cloud
• August Strindberg – The People of Hemsö (Hemsöborna)
• Jules Verne
  • The Flight to France (Le Chemin de France)<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
  • Texar's Revenge, or, North Against South (Nord contre Sud)
• Émile Zola – La Terre (The Earth)

Children and young people

• Palmer Cox – The Brownies, Their Book
• Robert Louis Stevenson – The Merry Men and Other Tales and Fables

Drama

• Anton Chekhov – Ivanov
• Arthur Wing Pinero – Dandy Dick
• Victorien Sardou – La Tosca
• August Strindberg – The Father
• Thomas Russell Sullivan – Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, adapted from 1886 Robert Louis Stevenson novella Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde

Non-fiction

• Mikhail Bakunin – God and the State
• Hall Caine – Life of Samuel Taylor Coleridge
• Charles Darwin (died 1882) – The Autobiography of Charles Darwin
• Julius Dresser – The True History of Mental Science<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
• Friedrich Engels (translated by Florence Kelley) – The Condition of the Working Class in England in 1844 (first English language edition)
• George William Foote – Royal Paupers: a radical's contribution to the Jubilee
• Franz Hartmann – The Life of Philippus Theophrastus Bombast of Hohenheim, better known by the name of Paracelsus, and the substance of his teachings
• David MacGibbon and Thomas Ross - The Castellated and Domestic Architecture of Scotland
• Samuel Liddell MacGregor Mathers – The Kabbalah Unveiled
• Friedrich Nietzsche – On the Genealogy of Morality
• Marius Nygaard, Jan Johanssen and Emil Schreiner – Latinsk Ordbog
• E. J. Richmond – Woman, First and Last, and What She has Done
• A. E. Waite – The Real History of the Rosicrucians
• Mary Allen West – Childhood: Its Care and Culture
• L. L. Zamenhof – Unua Libro

Births

• January 2 – Dmitrii Milev, Soviet Moldovan shorty story writer and critic (died 1937)
• January 7 – Oskar Luts, Estonian author and playwright (died 1953)
• January 10 – Robinson Jeffers, American poet (died 1962)
• January 22 – Helen Hoyt, American poet (died 1972)
• February 1 – Charles Nordhoff, English-born author (died 1947)<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
• February 3 – Georg Trakl, Austrian poet (died of overdose 1914)<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
• February 4 – Sheila Kaye-Smith, English writer (died 1955)<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
• February 11 – John van Melle, South African writer (died 1953)
• February 13 – Géza Csáth, Hungarian writer, and psychiatrist (died 1919)
• February 20 – Carl Ebert, German theatre and opera director (died 1980)<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
• March 9 – Ion Buzdugan, Romanian poet and political figure (died 1967)
• March 14 – Sylvia Beach (Nancy Woodbridge Beach), American publisher and memoirist (died 1962)<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
• May 15 – Edwin Muir, Scottish poet and translator (died 1959)<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
• May 31 – Saint-John Perse, French diplomat, writer and Nobel Prize laureate (died 1975)<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
• June 2 – Orrick Glenday Johns, American poet and playwright (died 1946)<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
• June 25 – George Abbott, American playwright, director and screenwriter (died 1995)<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
• July 1 – Amber Reeves, New Zealand-born English scholar, feminist and novelist (died 1981)
• July 6 – Walter Flex, German war writer (died 1917)<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
• August 3 – Rupert Brooke, English poet (died 1915)<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
• August 17 – Marcus Garvey, African American publisher, entrepreneur and Pan Africanist (died 1940)<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
• August 28 – István Kühár, Prekmurje Slovene poet, writer and politician (died 1922)
• September 1 – Blaise Cendrars (Frédéric-Louis Sauser), Swiss-born French writer (died 1961)<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
• September 8 – Constantin Beldie, Romanian literary promoter and memoirist (died 1954)
• September 26 – Edwin Keppel Bennett, British writer (died 1958)
• October 1 – Barbu Nemțeanu, Romanian poet and translator (died 1919)
• October 22 – John Reed, American journalist and poet (died 1920)<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
• November 10 – Arnold Zweig, German novelist (died 1968)<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
• December 15 – A. de Herz, Romanian playwright and journalist (died 1936)

Deaths

• February 10 – Mrs Henry Wood (Ellen Wood), English novelist (born 1814)
• February 11 – François Laurent, Belgian historian (born 1810)<ref>Template:Cite EB1911</ref>
• February 19 – Multatuli (Eduard Douwes Dekker), Dutch-born writer (born 1820)<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
• February 21 – Elizabeth Caroline Gray, historian and travel author (born 1800)<ref>Template:Cite encyclopedia</ref>
• March 20 – Pavel Annenkov, Russian critic and memoirist (born 1813)
• April 23 – John Ceiriog Hughes, Welsh poet and folk song collector (born 1832)<ref>Template:Cite DWB</ref>
• May 4 – William Murdoch, Scottish-born Canadian poet (born 1823)
• May 5 – James Grant, Scottish novelist and historian (born 1822)<ref>Template:DNB</ref>
• August 20 – Jules Laforgue, French poet (born 1860)<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
• August 25 – Emma Jane Guyton (Worboise), English novelist and magazine editor (born 1825)
• September 14 – Friedrich Theodor Vischer, German novelist, poet, playwright and art theorist (born 1807)
• September 27 – Mikalojus Akelaitis, Lithuanian writer, linguist and publicist (born 1829)
• October 12 – Dinah Craik, English novelist and poet (born 1826)<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
• November 2 – Alfred Domett, English-born New Zealand poet and politician (born 1811)<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
• November 19 – Emma Lazarus, American poet (born 1849)<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
• December 5 – Eliza Roxcy Snow, American poet (born 1804)<ref name="Bushman1997">Template:Cite book</ref>