1856 in literature

List of years in literature (table)
	... 1846 . 1847 . 1848 . 1849 . 1850 . 1851 . 1852 ...; 1853 1854 1855 -1856- 1857 1858 1859; ... 1860 . 1861 . 1862 . 1863 . 1864 . 1865 . 1866 ... In poetry: 1853 1854 1855 -1856- 1857 1858 1859
	Art . Archaeology . Architecture . Literature . Music . Philosophy . Science +...

The year 1856 in literature involved some significant events and new books.

Events [edit]

March 5 - The second Royal Opera House in Covent Garden, London, is destroyed by fire (as the first was in 1808).
September 29 - English actor Henry Irving makes his stage début at Sunderland as Gaston, Duke of Orleans, in Bulwer Lytton's play Richelieu.
Mikhail Katkov revives the title The Russian Messenger (Russian: Ру́сский ве́стник Russkiy vestnik, Pre-reform Russian: Русскій Вѣстникъ Russkiy Vestnik) for an influential literary magazine published in Moscow. In its first year he publishes Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin's Provincial Sketches (beginning in August, signed "N. Schedrin") and the text of Alexander Ostrovsky's play V chuzhom miru pohmelye ("Hangover at a Stranger's Feast"; premiered in Moscow on January 9).
Arthur Schopenhauer adds a chapter on "The Metaphysics of Sexual Love" to the third edition of his The World as Will and Representation.
Lewis Carroll takes up photography as a hobby.
Bookseller W. H. Smith first publishes the Baconian theory of Shakespeare authorship.
Richard Francis Burton serves in the army in the Crimean War and becomes engaged to Isabel Arundel.
Alphonse Daudet begins his teaching career.

Sava Dobroplodni - Mihal the Mouse-Eater (first authorised theatrical production in Bulgaria)
Colin Henry Hazlewood - Jessie Vere, or the Return of the Wanderer
Henrik Ibsen - Olaf Liljekrans
Gustav Räder - Robert and Bertram

Lord Dufferin -Letters From High Latitudes
J. A. Froude - History of England
Washington Irving - The Life of George Washington, Volume 3
Hermann Lotze - Mikrokosmos
William Ridley - gurre kamilaroi
Alexis de Tocqueville - L'Ancien régime et la révolution
Henry Morley - Cornelius Agrippa: The Life of Henry Cornelius Agrippa von Nettesheim, Doctor and Knight, Commonly known as a Magician.

January 9 - Lizette Woodworth Reese, poet (died 1935)
February 14 - Frank Harris, journalist, publisher and memoirist (died 1931)
April 5 - Booker T. Washington, African-American educator, author, orator, and political advisor (died 1915)
May 15 - L. Frank Baum, Wizard of Oz author (died 1919)
July 25 - Charles Major, novelist (died 1913)
July 26 - George Bernard Shaw, dramatist (died 1950)
date unknown - Maria Cederschiöld, journalist (died 1935)

January - James Baillie Fraser, travel writer, 72
February 17 - Heinrich Heine, poet, 58
April 26 - Pyotr Chaadaev, philosopher, 61
June 11 - Friedrich Heinrich von der Hagen, philologist, 76
June 26 - Max Stirner, philosopher, 49
June 27 - Joseph Meyer, publisher and encyclopaedist, 60
July 11 - Josef Kajetán Tyl, dramatist and author of the Czech national anthem, 48
July 21 - Emil Aarestrup, poet, 55
July 29 - Karel Havlíček Borovský, poet, critic and publisher, 34 (tuberculosis)
August 24 - William Buckland, antiquarian, 72
August 30 - Gilbert Abbott à Beckett, humorous writer, 45 (typhoid)
October 13 - Robert Christie, historian and journalist, 69
November 10 - Johann Kaspar Zeuss, historian, 50

^ King Alfred surveying Oxford University at the present time: A prize poem, recited in the Theatre, Oxford, June 4th, 1856 (Newdigate prize poem; T & G Shrimpton, 1856)