1821 in literature

Events

• In the first known obscenity case in the United States, a Massachusetts court outlawed the John Cleland novel, Fanny Hill . The publisher, Peter Holmes, was convicted for printing a "lewd and obscene" novel.

New Books

• Annals of the Parish[?] - John Galt[?]
• The Ayrshire Legatees[?] - John Gait[?]
• Confessions of an English Opium Eater[?] - Thomas De Quincey[?]
• The Irish Necromancer[?] - Thomas H. Marshall[?]
• Kenilworth - Sir Walter Scott
• Life in London[?] - Pierce Egan
• Lovers and Friends[?] - Anne Hatton[?]
• Maid Marian[?] - Thomas Love Peacock
• Smarra[?] - Charles Nodier[?]
• The Spectre of St. Michael's[?] - C. D. Haynes[?]
• The Spy[?] - James Fenimore Cooper
• Talisman, a Tale of Mystery[?] - I. M. H. Hales[?]
• The Village of Mariendorpt[?] - Anna Maria Porter[?]

Births

• March 19 - Richard Francis Burton (+ 1890)
• April 9 - Charles-Pierre Baudelaire (+ 1867)
• October 30 - Fyodor Dostoevsky (+ 1881)
• December 6 - Dora Greenwell[?] (+ 1882)
• December 12 - Gustave Flaubert (+ 1880)

Deaths

• February 23 - John Keats, poet
• August 1 - Elizabeth Inchbald[?], writer

Awards