1880 in literature

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This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1880.

Events

April – Publication in France of Les Soirées de Médan, a collection of six Naturalist short stories set during the Franco-Prussian War by six authors who frequent Émile Zola's home, including Guy de Maupassant's first, Boule de Suif, which launches his career.^[1]
April 20 (O. S.: April 8) – At the Romanian Academy, Titu Maiorescu announces a reformed Romanian alphabet, adopted by a commission also comprising George Bariț and Bogdan Petriceicu Hasdeu.^[2] The rationalized spelling reflects ideas endorsed by Maiorescu since the 1860s, replacing the deep orthography favored by "Latinists".^[3]
May – In the United States, the publishing business of Henry Oscar Houghton and George H. Mifflin is reconstructed as Houghton, Mifflin and Company.^[4]
June 6 – Statue of Alexander Pushkin (d. 1837), sculpted by Alexander Opekushin, is unveiled in Strastnaya Square, Moscow.
October – Henry James's novel The Portrait of a Lady begins serial publication in Macmillan's Magazine (U.K.) and The Atlantic Monthly (U.S.)
December 15 – First performance of a play by Henrik Ibsen in English, The Pillars of Society (under the title Quicksands) at the Gaiety Theatre, London.^[5]

Anne Evans (died 1870) – Poems and Music (with a memorial preface by Anne Isabella Thackeray)

Henry Charlton Bastian – The Brain as an Organ of Mind
James Legge – The Religions of China
Algernon Charles Swinburne – A Study of Shakespeare
Charles Warren – The Temple or the Tomb. Giving further evidence in favour of the authenticity of the present site of the Holy Sepulchre

February 21 – Waldemar Bonsels, German writer (died 1952)
February 27 – Angelina Weld Grimké, African-American playwright and poet (died 1958)
March 13 – Frank Thiess, German writer (died 1977)
March 21 – E. H. Young, English novelist (died 1949)
March 30 – Seán O'Casey, Irish dramatist (died 1964)^[6]
June 10 – Margit Kaffka, Hungarian novelist, short story writer and poet (died 1918)
June 17 – Carl Van Vechten, American writer (died 1964)
July 4 – Anne Beffort, Luxembourg literary writer and biographer (died 1966)
July 10 – Greye La Spina, American writer (died 1969)
August 5 – Ruth Sawyer, American children's writer and novelist (died 1970)
September 12 – H. L. Mencken, American journalist and English language scholar (died 1956)
October 18 – Ze'ev Jabotinsky, Russian-born Zionist leader, novelist and poet (died 1940)
November 1 – Grantland Rice, American sports writer (died 1954)
November 6 – Robert Musil, Austrian novelist (died 1942)
November 25 – Elsie J. Oxenham (Elsie Jeanette Dunkerley), English story writer for girls (died 1960)
November 29 – N. D. Cocea, Romanian novelist, critic and journalist (died 1949)

February 12 – Karl Eduard von Holtei, German poet and dramatist (born 1798)
February 17 – James Lenox, American bibliophile (born 1800)
April 9 – Louis Edmond Duranty, French novelist and critic (born 1833)
April 16 – Edward Vaughan Hyde Kenealy, Irish writer and barrister (born 1819)
April 18 – Costache Aristia, Wallachian translator, poet, dramatist and actor (born 1800)
May 5 – Andrei Mocioni, Hungarian-Romanian journalist and literary patron (born 1812)
May 6 – Ivan Surikov, Russian poet (born 1841)
May 8 – Gustave Flaubert, French novelist (born 1821)
May 30 – James Planché, English dramatist (born 1796)
June 7 – Karl Christian Planck, German philosopher (born 1819)
July 7 – Lydia Maria Child, American writer and abolitionist (born 1802)
July 12 – Tom Taylor, English dramatist and journalist (born 1817)
September 23 – Geraldine Jewsbury, English novelist and woman of letters (born 1812)
December 22 – George Eliot (Mary Anne Cross), English novelist (born 1819)^[7]

^ M. Paul Holsinger; Mary Anne Schofield (1992). Visions of War: World War II in Popular Literature and Culture. Popular Press. p. 192. ISBN 978-0-87972-556-3.
^ Urziceanu, Florentina (2005). Titu Maiorescu 1840–1917. Bio-bibliografie selectivă. Craiova: Aman County Library. p. 12.
^ Ivașcu, George (1973). "Titu Maiorescu". In Cioculescu, Șerban; Papadima, Ovidiu; Piru, Alexandru (eds.). Istoria literaturii române. III: Epoca marilor clasici. Bucharest: Editura Academiei. pp. 95–99, 129.
^ Henry James (15 October 2016). The Complete Letters of Henry James, 1880–1883: Volume 1. U of Nebraska Press. p. 207. ISBN 978-0-8032-8827-0.
^ "English first performances". Ibsen.net. 2004-05-12. Retrieved 2013-02-08.
^ "Sean O'Casey - Irish dramatist". Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved 7 July 2017.
^ Nancy Henry (7 April 2008). The Cambridge Introduction to George Eliot. Cambridge University Press. p. 13. ISBN 978-1-139-46968-5.
^ T. Bose; R. N. Colbeck (1 November 2011). A Bookman's Catalogue Vol. 2 M-End: The Norman Colbeck Collection of Nineteenth-Century and Edwardian Poetry and Belles Lettres. UBC Press. p. 677. ISBN 978-0-7748-4481-9.