1818 in literature-Cedar Herald Index

This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1818.

Events

January 1 – Mary Shelley's novel Frankenstein; or, the Modern Prometheus first appears anonymously in London. Its originality is praised by Walter Scott. January 8 – Lord Byron, in Venice, sends the final part of Childe Harold to his publisher. January 11 – Percy Bysshe Shelley's poem "Ozymandias" appears in Leigh Hunt's weekly The Examiner (London; p. 24) under the pen name "Glirastes". Horace Smith's contribution to the same informal sonnet-writing competition, "On a Stupendous Leg of Granite, Discovered Standing by Itself in the Deserts of Egypt, with the Inscription Inserted Below" is published on February 1 under his initials. March 12 – Percy Bysshe Shelley, his wife Mary and her stepsister Claire Clairmont leave England for Italy, intending to take Claire's illegitimate child Alba to her father, Lord Byron. April 11 – John Keats and Samuel Taylor Coleridge take a walk on Hampstead Heath. In a letter to his brother George, Keats writes that they talked of "a thousand things... nightingales, poetry, poetical sensation, metaphysics." May 11 – The Old Vic is founded as the Royal Coburg Theatre in South London by James King, Daniel Dunn and John Thomas Serres. June – Last issue of The Portico: A Repository of Science & Literature is published in Baltimore with John Neal as editor. June–August – Keats with his friend Charles Armitage Brown makes a walking tour of Scotland, Ireland and the English Lake District. On July 11 while in Scotland he visits Burns Cottage, the birthplace of Robert Burns (1759–1796). Before Keats arrives, he writes to a friend "one of the pleasantest means of annulling self is approaching such a shrine as the cottage of Burns — we need not think of his misery — that is all gone — bad luck to it — I shall look upon it all with unmixed pleasure." but his encounter with the cottage's alcoholic custodian returns him to thoughts of misery. On August 2 he climbs to the summit of Ben Nevis, on which he writes a sonnet. July Thomas De Quincey begins 16 months as editor of a new weekly newspaper The Westmorland Gazette, published at Kendal in the English Lake District. The Stephenson Blake type foundry begins operation in Sheffield, England. July 18 – Walter Scott's historical novel The Heart of Midlothian appears as Tales of My Landlord, 2nd series, by "Jedediah Cleishbotham", in four volumes. A shipload of copies is sent from John Ballantyne (publisher) in Edinburgh to London. August 28 – The National Library of Iceland is founded as Íslands stiftisbókasafn, at the instigation of a Danish antiquarian, Carl Christian Rafn, and the Icelandic Literary Society. September 19 – Lord Byron writes to Thomas Moore that he has completed the first canto of Don Juan, begun on July 3. November – Fanny Brawne first meets John Keats at the home of Charles Armitage Brown. December 17 – Samuel Taylor Coleridge delivers a series of lectures on poetry, drama and philosophy, beginning with Shakespeare's The Tempest. December – Keats is invited to move into Brown's home at Wentworth Place in Hampstead, at this time a pastoral suburb north of London, where he will write much of his most famous work.

1818 in literature

New books

Fiction

Jane Austen (died 1817) Northanger Abbey (completed 1803) Persuasion (so dated, but issued December 1817) Patrick Brontë (anonymous) – The Maid of Killarney Selina Davenport – An Angel's Form and a Devil's Heart Susan Edmonstone Ferrier – Marriage Franz Grillparzer – Sappho Ann Hatton – Secrets in Every Mansion Mary Meeke – The Veiled Protectress Sydney Owenson – Florence Macarthy: an Irish tale Thomas Love Peacock (anonymous) – Nightmare Abbey Anna Maria Porter – The Fast of St. Magdalen: a Romance Walter Scott (as Jedediah Cleishbotham) – The Heart of Midlothian (Tales of My Landlord, 2nd series) Mary Shelley (anonymously) – Frankenstein Louisa Stanhope The Bandit's Bride The Nun of Santa Maria di Tindaro Elizabeth Thomas – Woman, or Minor Maxims; a Sketch

1818 in literature