Editing 1877 in literature

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{{Year nav topic5|1877|literature|poetry}}

This article contains information about the literary events and publications of '''1877'''.

==Events==
*[[January 24]] – [[Émile Zola]]'s ''[[L'Assommoir]]'' (sometimes translated as "The Dram Shop"), seventh in his [[novel sequence]] ''[[Les Rougon-Macquart]]'', is first published in book format a few weeks after its serialisation ends in ''Le Bien public'' (Paris). It sells more than 50,000 copies by the end of the year.
*[[February 24]]–[[March 17]] – [[Robert Louis Stevenson]]'s first published work of fiction, the novella "An Old Song", appears anonymously in four episodes in the magazine ''London''. It is first attributed to Stevenson in 1980.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Swearingen |first1=Roger G. |title="An Old Song" (1877): Robert Louis Stevenson's First Published Story, A New Discovery in the Yale Libraries |journal=The Yale University Library Gazette |date=1980 |volume=54 |issue=3 |pages=101-113 |url=http://www.jstor.org/stable/40858711 |access-date=Sep 9, 2021}}</ref>
*July – The ending of [[Leo Tolstoy]]'s ''[[Anna Karenina]]'' is published in ''[[The Russian Messenger#The Russian Messenger of Mikhail Katkov|Russkiy vestnik]]''.<ref>{{Cite book |first=Elizabeth |last=Stenbock-Fermor |title=The Architecture of Anna Karenina |publisher=B. R. Grüner |year=1975 |isbn=1588116751}}</ref>
*[[July 15]] – "[[Michele Coppino|Coppino]] Law" in Italy makes elementary schools mandatory, free and secular.
*October – Robert Louis Stevenson publishes the short story "A Lodging for the Night" (in ''[[Temple Bar (magazine)|Temple Bar]]'' magazine), later collected in ''[[New Arabian Nights]]''.
*[[October 15]] – [[Edward Lytton Wheeler|Edward L. Wheeler]]'s first story featuring [[Deadwood Dick]], set on the [[American frontier]], opens the first number of ''Beadle's Half-Dime Library'', published in [[New York City|New York]].<ref>{{Cite web |title=Wheeler, Edward L. |url=http://www.ulib.niu.edu/badndp/wheeler_edward.html |last=Johannsen |first=Albert |work=The House of Beadle and Adams and its dime and nickel novels: the story of a vanished literature |publisher=Northern Illinois University Libraries |location=DeKalb |year=1950 |accessdate=2014-05-30}}</ref>
*[[November 5]] – The [[Mitchell Library]] is established in [[Glasgow]].<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.scotsman.com/arts-and-culture/opening-mitchell-library-1490573|title=The opening of the Mitchell Library|website=The Scotsman|date=5 November 2015|access-date=27 October 2020}}</ref>
*[[November 14]] – [[Henrik Ibsen]]'s first contemporary realist drama ''[[The Pillars of Society]]'' is premièred at the [[Odense Teater]] (having been first published on October 11 in [[Copenhagen]]).<ref>{{Cite web |title=Facts about Pillars of Society |url=http://www.ibsen.net/index.gan?id=473 |work=Ibsen.net |date=2001-08-10 |first=Jens-Morten |last=Hanssen |accessdate=2013-02-08}}</ref>
*[[November 24]] – [[Anna Sewell]]'s novel ''[[Black Beauty]], his grooms and companions: the autobiography of a horse'' "translated from the equine" is published by [[Jarrolds]] of [[Norwich]] in England. Her only book, published five months before her death arising from long-standing illness, it rapidly establishes its position as an all-time [[List of best-selling books|bestseller]], going on to sell fifty million copies<ref>{{Cite news |url=http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/books/children/article3459873.ece |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080718203951/http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/books/children/article3459873.ece |url-status=dead |archive-date=July 18, 2008 |newspaper=[[The Times]] |location=London |title=Fifty million copies of ''Black Beauty'' have been sold in the years since Anna Sewell's publisher paid her £20 for the story |date=29 February 2008}}</ref> and becoming the sixth best seller in the English language.<ref>{{Cite book |editor1=Wells, E. B. |editor2=Grimshaw, A. |title=The annotated "Black Beauty"|year=1989}}</ref>
*[[December 30]] – Swedish dramatist [[August Strindberg]] marries his mistress, the divorced actress [[Siri von Essen]], a member of the Finnish-Swedish minor nobility.

==New books==
===Fiction===
*[[R. M. Ballantyne]] – ''The Settler and the Savage''
*[[R. D. Blackmore]] – ''[[Erema]]; or, my father's sin''
*[[Ned Buntline]] – ''Buffalo Bill Trails the Devil Head''
*[[Bankim Chatterjee]]
**''Chandrasekhar''
**''Rajani''
*[[Ion Creangă (writer)|Ion Creangă]] – ''[[Harap Alb]]''
*[[Fyodor Dostoevsky]] – "[[The Dream of a Ridiculous Man]]" (Сон смешного человека, short story)
*[[Maria Fetherstonhaugh]] – ''Kilcorran''
*[[Gustave Flaubert]] – ''[[Three Tales (Flaubert)|Three Tales]]''
*[[Henry James]] – ''[[The American (novel)|The American]]''
*[[Jan Neruda]] – ''[[Povídky malostranské]]'' (Tales of the Little Quarter)
*[[Margaret Oliphant]] – ''Carità''
*[[William Clark Russell]] – ''The Wreck of the Grosvenor''
*[[Theodor Storm]] – ''[[Aquis Submersus (novella)|Aquis Submersus]]''
*[[Anthony Trollope]]
**''[[The American Senator]]''
**''Is He Popenjoy?''
*[[Jacint Verdaguer]] – ''[[L'Atlàntida]]''
*[[Jules Verne]]
**''[[Off On A Comet|Hector Servadac]]''
**''[[The Child of the Cavern|Les Indes noires]]''
*[[Émile Zola]] – ''[[L'Assommoir]]''

===Children and young people===
*[[Louisa May Alcott]] – ''[[Under the Lilacs]]''
*[[Mary Louisa Molesworth]] (Mrs. Molesworth) – ''[[The Cuckoo Clock]]''
*[[Anna Sewell]] – ''[[Black Beauty]]''
*[[Amy Catherine Walton]] (Mrs. O. F. Walton) – ''[[A Peep Behind the Scenes (novel)|A Peep Behind the Scenes]]''

===Drama===
*[[James Albery]] – ''[[The Pink Dominos]]''
*[[José Echegaray]] – ''Saint or Madman? (O locura o santidad)''
*[[W. S. Gilbert]] – ''[[Engaged (play)|Engaged]]''
*[[Henrik Ibsen]] – ''[[The Pillars of Society]] (Samfundets støtter)''
*[[Adolphe L'Arronge]] – ''[[Hasemann's Daughters]]''

===Poetry===
*[[Edward Lear]] – ''Laughable Lyrics'' (published December 1876, dated 1877)<ref>{{cite web|title=A Chronology of Edward Lear's Life|url=http://www.nonsenselit.org/Lear/learbio.html|work=Edward Lear Home Page|publisher=nonsenselit.org|date=2012-08-10|accessdate=2017-02-24}}</ref>
*[[Stéphane Mallarmé]] – ''[[Poésies (Mallarmé collection)|Poésies]]''

===Non-fiction===
*[[Henry Spencer Ashbee]] (as Pisanus Fraxi) – ''Index Librorum Prohibitorum: being Notes Bio- Biblio- Icono- graphical and Critical on Curious and Uncommon Books''
*[[Helena Blavatsky]] – ''[[Isis Unveiled]]''
*[[Florence Caddy]] – ''Household Organisation''
*[[Amelia Edwards]] – ''A Thousand Miles up the Nile''
*[[Henry Miers Elliot]] (ed. by [[John Dowson]]) – ''[[The History of India, as Told by Its Own Historians]]''
*Kenneth Mackenzie – ''Royal Masonic Cyclopedia''
*[[Lewis H. Morgan]] – ''[[Ancient Society]]''
*[[Shen Fu]] (沈復) – ''[[Six Records of a Floating Life]]'' (autobiography; first printed edition)

==Births==
*[[January 4]] – [[Sextil Pușcariu]], Romanian linguist, philologist and journalist (died [[1948 in literature|1948]])
*[[February 7]] – [[Alfred Williams (poet)|Alfred Williams]], English "hammerman poet" (died [[1930 in literature|1930]])
*[[March 6]] – [[Rose Fyleman]], English writer and poet (died [[1957 in literature|1957]])<ref>{{cite book|last=Hay|first=Ann G.|chapter=Fyleman, Rose (Amy)|editor-first=D.L.|editor-last=Kirkpatrick|title=Twentieth-century Children's Writers|location=London|publisher=Macmillan|year=1978|isbn=978-0-33323-414-3|page=485}}</ref>
*[[April 14]] – [[Donald Maxwell (illustrator)|Donald Maxwell]], English travel writer and illustrator (died [[1936 in literature|1936]])<ref>{{cite book|title=The Year's Art|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Cb9FAAAAIAAJ|year=1937|page=314}}</ref>
*[[April 29]] – [[Henri Stahl]], Romanian historian, short story writer, memoirist and stenographer (died [[1942 in literature|1942]])
*[[June 11]] – [[Renée Vivien]], born Pauline Mary Tarn, English-born French-language Symbolist poet (died [[1909 in literature|1909]])
*[[July 2]] – [[Hermann Hesse]], German-Swiss poet, novelist and painter (died [[1962 in literature|1962]])
*[[August 27]] – [[Lloyd C. Douglas]], American novelist and pastor (died [[1951 in literature|1951]])
*[[September 1]] – [[Rex Beach]], American novelist and playwright (died [[1949 in literature|1949]])
*[[September 9]] – [[James Agate]], English diarist and critic (died [[1947 in literature|1947]])
*[[November 15]] – [[William Hope Hodgson]], English fiction writer (killed in action [[1918 in literature|1918]])

==Deaths==
*[[January 29]] – [[Caroline Howard Jervey]], American author, poet, and teacher (born [[1823 in literature|1823]])
*[[February 18]] – [[Henrietta A. Bingham]], American writer and editor (born [[1841 in literature|1841]])
*April – [[Ernst Moritz Ludwig Ettmüller]], German philologist (born [[1802 in literature|1802]])
*[[June 15]] – [[Caroline Norton]] (née Caroline Sheridan), English poet, pamphleteer and social reformer (born [[1808 in literature|1808]])
*[[June 17]] – [[John Stevens Cabot Abbott]], American historian and pastor (born [[1805 in literature|1805]])
*[[August 30]] – [[Toru Dutt]], multilingual Indian Bengali poet, novelist and translator, of pulmonary tuberculosis (born [[1856 in literature|1856]])
*[[September 12]] – [[Emily Pepys]], English child diarist (born [[1833 in literature|1833]])
*[[October 10]] – [[Johann Georg Baiter]], Swiss philologist and critic (born [[1801 in literature|1801]])
*[[October 16]] – [[Théodore Barrière]], French dramatist (born [[1823 in literature|1823]])
*[[October 28]] – [[Julia Kavanagh]], Irish novelist (born [[1824 in literature|1824]])
*[[December 12]] – [[José de Alencar]], Brazilian novelist (born [[1829 in literature|1829]])

==References==
{{reflist|30em}}

{{Year in literature article categories}}