1824 in literature

This article presents lists of the literary events and publications in 1824.

Events

• January 24 – First issue of the radical quarterly founded by Jeremy Bentham, The Westminster Review, is published in London.
• February 9 – Because of his family's dire financial straits, Charles Dickens, just turned 12, begins work in a blacking factory in London. On February 23 his father, John Dickens, is committed to the Marshalsea prison as a debtor.^[1]
• February 15 – Lord Byron falls ill at Missolonghi while taking part in the Greek War of Independence, dying of fever on April 19.
• April – The United States Literary Gazette, a semi-monthly, begins publication. It publishes poetry by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and William Cullen Bryant, among many others.^[2]
• May 7 – Première of Beethoven's Symphony No. 9 (the "Choral") at the Theater am Kärntnertor in Vienna, incorporating a setting of Schiller's "Ode to Joy" (Ode an die Freude, 1785).
• May 17 – The publisher John Murray, together with five of Lord Byron's friends and executors, decides to destroy the manuscript of Byron's memoirs (which he has been given to publish) because he considers the scandalous details would damage Byron's reputation. Opposed only by Thomas Moore, the two volumes of memoirs are dismembered and burnt in the fireplace at the John Murray (publisher)'s office, 50 Albemarle Street in London.^[3]
• June 21 – The Vagrancy Act in England provides for the prosecution of "every Person wilfully exposing to view, in any Street... or public Place, any obscene Print, Picture, or other indecent Exhibition".
• Julia Catherine Beckwith's St. Ursula’s Convent or, The Nun of Canada; Containing Scenes from Real Life becomes the first novel published in Canada by a native-born Canadian (anonymously).
• The periodicals The Children's Friend and The Child's Companion both publish their first issues.

1st ed. title page dated 1823, published January 1824

New books

Births

• January 7 – Julia Kavanagh, Irish novelist (died 1877)
• January 8 – Wilkie Collins, English mystery novelist (died 1889)
• January 15 – Anna Mary Howitt, English writer, painter and feminist (died 1884)
• January 26 — Katharine Sarah Macquoid, English novelist and travel writer (died 1917)^[5]
• March 5 – Lucy Larcom, American author, teacher, and poet (died 1893)
• March 19 – George Murray Smith, English publisher, founder of the Dictionary of National Biography (died 1901)
• April 27 – Edward Bruce Hamley, English military writer, general and politician (died 1893)
• May 19 – William Allingham, Irish poet (died 1889)
• June 20 – Rowena Granice Steele, American journalist, author, editor, publisher, and performer (died 1901)
• July 11 – Mary Charlotte Ward Granniss Webster Billings, American writer, activist, hymn writer, evangelist, and missionary (died 1904)^[6]
• July 27 – Alexandre Dumas, fils, French novelist (died 1895)
• September 15 – A. D. T. Whitney, American poet and girls' writer (died 1906)
• October 18 – Juan Valera y Alcalá-Galiano, Spanish realist novelist (died 1905)
• November 8 – Annie Chambers Ketchum (religious name, Sister Amabilis), American author, educator, and lecturer (died 1904)^[7]
• December 10 – George MacDonald, Scottish author, poet and Christian minister (died 1905)

Lord Byron on his deathbed as depicted by Joseph Denis Odevaere c.1826

Deaths

• January 28 – John Larpent, English theater censor (born 1741)
• March 2 – Susanna Rowson, American novelist, poet and playwright (born 1762)
• April 13 – Jane Taylor, English poet and novelist (born 1783)
• April 19 – Lord Byron, English Romantic poet (born 1788)
• September 23 – John Cartwright, English political reformer (born 1740)
• October 30 – Charles Maturin, Irish playwright, novelist and cleric (born 1782)
• November 23 – Matthäus Casimir von Collin, Austrian poet and dramatist (born 1779)

Awards

• March – Samuel Taylor Coleridge elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature
• Chancellor's Gold Medal – Winthrop Mackworth Praed
• Newdigate Prize – John Thomas Hope^[8]

References