1869 in literature

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This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1869.

Events

February 3 – Booth's Theatre opens on Manhattan with the owner, Edwin Booth, playing the male lead in Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet.^[1]
May 22 – Serial publication of Anthony Trollope's novel He Knew He Was Right concludes and it appears in London as the first book to include a fictional private investigator, ex-policeman Samuel Bozzle. It concerns a case of marital breakdown.
August
- Ambrose Bierce, writing a satirical column for the San Francisco News Letter, begins to produce the cynical definitions which will eventually become The Devil's Dictionary.
- Macmillan Publishing opens its first American office in New York City, headed by George Edward Brett.^[2]
October 5 – Model, poet and artist Elizabeth Siddal (d. 1862) is exhumed at Highgate Cemetery in London in order to recover the manuscript of Dante Gabriel Rossetti's Poems buried with her.^[3]
December – Publication of Leo Tolstoy's novel War and Peace («Война и миръ», Voyna i mir) complete in book form concludes. It is printed in Moscow and sold by the author on subscription.^[4]
unknown dates – As a protest against her drama school having been closed down by the Russian authorities, Swedish-born actress Hedvig Raa-Winterhjelm delivers the lines in her next performance, Aleksis Kivi's Lea, in the Finnish language, the first time it has been spoken in the public theatre in Finland.

Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson – Sigurd Slembe (Sigurd the Bastard, trilogy, first performed, in Germany)
François Coppée – Le Passant
Navalram Pandya – Veermati
Mendele Mocher Sforim – Di Takse (The Tax, unperformed)

Matthew Arnold – Culture and Anarchy
P. T. Barnum – Struggles and Triumphs
Josephine Butler (editor) – Women's Work and Women's Culture
Warren Felt Evans – The Mental Cure, illustrating the influence of the Mind on the Body
William Ewart Gladstone – Juventus Mundi: The gods and men of "the heroic" age
John Stuart Mill – The Subjection of Women
John Neal — Wandering Recollections of a Somewhat Busy Life: An Autobiography^[6]
Mark Twain – The Innocents Abroad
Richard Wagner – Das Judenthum in der Musik (Jewishness in Music)
Garnet Wolseley – Soldier’s Pocket-book for Field Service

January 10 – Rachel Davis Harris, African American librarian (died 1969)
January 15 – Stanisław Wyspiański, Polish dramatist, poet, painter and architect (died 1907)
February 8 – Victor Ido, born Hans van de Wall, Dutch East Indian journalist, novelist and playwright (died 1948)
February 11 – Else Lasker-Schüler, German-born poet, playwright and short story writer (died 1945)
March 11 – F. G. Loring, English writer and naval officer (died 1951)
March 14 – Algernon Blackwood, English writer (died 1951)
May 10 – Rachel Davis Harris, African American librarian (died 1969)
May 23 – Olivia Ward Bush-Banks, American poet (died 1944)
June 10 – Arthur Shearly Cripps, English-born poet, short story writer and Anglican priest in Africa (died 1952)
July 1 – William Strunk, Jr., American professor of English (died 1946)
July 8 – William Vaughn Moody, American dramatist and poet (died 1910)
July 29 – Booth Tarkington, American novelist (died 1946)
August 10 – Laurence Binyon, English poet and scholar (died 1943)
October 6 – Bo Bergman, Swedish poet (died 1967)
November 15 – Charlotte Mew, English poet (suicide, 1928)
November 20 – Zinaida Gippius, Russian writer (died 1945)
November 22 – André Gide, French writer (died 1951)
December 22 – Edwin Arlington Robinson, American poet (died 1935)
December 30 – Stephen Leacock, English-born Canadian humorist and economist (died 1944)

January 20 – Carl Wilhelm Göttling, German classical commentator (born 1793)^[7]
January 30
- Frances Catherine Barnard, English writer (born 1796)
- William Carleton, Irish writer (born 1794)
February 15 – Ghalib, Indian poet (born 1796)
February 28 – Alphonse de Lamartine, French poet and politician (born 1790)
May 18 – Peter Cunningham, British literary scholar and antiquarian (born 1816)
July 11 – William Jerdan, Scottish-born editor (born 1782)
July 19 – Victor Aimé Huber, German travel writer and literary historian (born 1800)
August 2 – Thomas Medwin, English poet, biographer and translator (born 1788)
October 18 – Simon Jenko, Slovene poet (born 1835)
November 3 – Andreas Kalvos, Greek Romantic poet and dramatist (born 1792)

^ Mark Twain (28 July 1992). Mark Twain's Letters, Volume 3: 1869. University of California Press. p. 205. ISBN 978-0-520-90608-2.
^ Trager, James. The New York Chronology: The Ultimate Compendium of Events, People, and Anecdotes from the Dutch to the Present. p. 154.
^ Jeremy Cooper (1998). Victorian and Edwardian Decor: From the Gothic Revival to Art Nouveau. Abbeville Press. p. 118. ISBN 978-0-7892-0446-2.
^ Martin, R. Eden (July 2012). "The Original War and Peace" (PDF). Caxtonian. 20 (7). Caxton Club: 1–5. Retrieved 2015-10-21.
^ "Reseña: Clemencia de Ignacio Manuel Altamirano" [Summary: Clemencia by Ignacio Manuel Altamirano]. Compartiendo grafias (in Spanish). Retrieved June 1, 2019.
^ Sears, Donald A. (1978). John Neal. Boston, Massachusetts: Twayne Publishers. p. 145. ISBN 080-5-7723-08.
^ Gilman, D. C.; Peck, H. T.; Colby, F. M., eds. (1905). "Göttling, Karl Wilhelm" . New International Encyclopedia (1st ed.). New York: Dodd, Mead.