1880 in literature

This article presents lists of the literary events and publications in 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.
• 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.^[1] The rationalized spelling reflects ideas endorsed by Maiorescu since the 1860s, replacing the deep orthography favored by "Latinists".^[2]
• 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.^[3]
• Karl May begins publishing his Orient Cycle in Deutschen Hausschatz, where he also publishes Deadly Dust: Ein Abenteuer aus dem nordamerikanischen Westen.
• In the United States, the publishing business of Henry Oscar Houghton and George H. Mifflin is reconstructed as Houghton, Mifflin and Company.

New books

Births

• 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)^[4]
• 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)

Deaths

• 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)

Awards

• Commander, First Class of the Order of St. Olav – Andreas Munch

In literature

• The dramas Gaslight by Patrick Hamilton (1938) and Another Part of the Forest by Lillian Hellman (1946) are set in this year.
• Mori Ōgai's novel The Wild Geese (雁, Gan, 1911–13) is set in this year.
• Virginia Woolf's novel The Years (1937) opens in this year.

References