1837 in literature

• February 19 – The German writer Georg Büchner (born 1813) dies of typhus in Zurich, leaving his play Woyzeck unfinished.
• June 16 – Charles Dickens is introduced to the actor William Macready by John Forster backstage at a rehearsal of Othello.[1]
• July – The English "peasant poet" John Clare first enters an asylum for the insane, at High Beach in Essex.
• September – In Burton's Gentleman's Magazine (Philadelphia), William Evans Burton publishes an early example of the detective story, "The Secret Cell", featuring a London police officer and his wife.[2]
• October – The United States Magazine and Democratic Review is first published.[3]
• October 4 – Andreas Munch's first play, Kong Sverres Ungdom, opens the Christiania Theatre´s new building in Norway.[4]

Uncertain date

• The publishers Little, Brown and Company open their doors in Boston, Massachusetts.[5]

• January 16 – Ellen Russell Emerson, American author and ethnologist (died 1907)
• January 23 – Agnes Maule Machar, Canadian novelist (died 1927)
• February 13 – Emily St. John Bouton, American author, editor, and educator (died 1927)
• February 24 – Rosalía de Castro, Spanish Galician poet and writer (died 1885)
• March 1
  • Ion Creangă, Romanian raconteur (died 1889)
  • William Dean Howells, American realist novelist (died 1920)
• March 6 – Sully Prudhomme, French poet (died 1907)
• April 1 – Jorge Isaacs (Ferrer), Colombian writer, politician and explorer (died 1895)
• April 5 – Algernon Charles Swinburne, English poet (died 1909)
• April 7 – Lou Singletary Bedford, American author and editor (unknown year of death)
• June 9 – Anne Thackeray Ritchie, English novelist and essayist (died 1919)
• June 28 – Petre P. Carp, Romanian politician, polemicist, and translator (died 1919)
• July 13 – Mary Allen West, American writer, editor, and philanthropist (died 1892)
• August 24 – Bertha Jane Grundy, English novelist (died 1912)
• October 15 – Leo Königsberger, German historian of science (died 1921)
• October 21 – Mary Alice Fonda, American music critic and editor (died 1897)
• December 4 – Angelia Thurston Newman, American poet, author, and editor (died 1910)
• December 10 – Edward Eggleston, American novelist and historian (died 1902)
• December 11 – Esther Saville Allen, American author (died 1913)
• December 17 – Celia Logan, American actress and playwright (died 1904)

Uncertain dates

• Florence Caddy (née Tompson), English non-fiction writer (died 1923)
• Anna Augusta Truitt, American essayist, philanthropist, and reformer (died 1920)

• January 29 – Alexander Pushkin, Russian poet (killed in duel, born 1799)
• February 12 – Ludwig Börne, German Jewish political writer and satirist (born 1786)
• March 9 – Alexandru Hrisoverghi, Moldavian writer and translator (tabes dorsalis, born 1811)
• March 15 – Lukijan Mušicki, Serbian poet (born 1777)
• June 12 – Carl Friedrich Ernst Frommann, German bookseller (born 1765)
• June 14 – Giacomo Leopardi, Italian poet (cholera, born 1798)
• September 21 – Georg Ludolf Dissen, German philologist (born 1784)
• October 19 – Hendrik Doeff, Dutch travel writer (born 1764)

• Jules Verne's novel Family Without a Name (Famille-sans-nom, 1889) is set during the Lower Canada Rebellion opening this year.