1854 in literature

Events

• March 2 – An adaptation of Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice into Bengali, Bhānumatī-chittavilās by Hara Chandra Ghosh, is staged; also, Dinabandhu Mitra introduces Falstaff in Nabin Tapaswini.
• April 1 – August 12 – Charles Dickens's novel Hard Times, which he has begun writing on January 3, is serialised in his magazine Household Words. From September 2, it is followed in the magazine by Elizabeth Gaskell's North and South, another social novel based in the Lancashire manufacturing district.
• July – Publication begins of Anthony Trollope's novel Barchester Towers.
• November – Crimean War: Future novelist Leo Tolstoy arrives to take part as a defending soldier in the Siege of Sevastopol. Off-duty he is reading Thackeray's novels in French translation.
• December 14 – Wilkie Collins's "The Lawyer's Story of a Stolen Letter", published as "The Fourth Poor Traveller" in The Seven Poor Travellers – the Household Words special Christmas number – is the first non-police detective fiction published in Britain.

• John Rollin Ridge's The Life and Adventures of Joaquín Murieta, The Celebrated California Bandit is the first novel by a Native American in the United States, although concerning a Mexican immigrant.
• The Polyglotta Africana, an early classification of African languages based on field work under freed slaves in Freetown, Sierra Leone, is published by Sigismund Wilhelm Koelle.

  New books

Fiction

• Margaret Jewett Smith Bailey – The Grains, or, Passages in the Life of Ruth Rover, with Occasional Pictures of Oregon, Natural and Moral
• Jules Amédée Barbey d'Aurevilly – L'Ensorcelée
• William Wells Brown – Sketches of Places and People Abroad
• Camilla Collett – :no:Amtmandens Døtre|Amtmandens Døtre
• Wilkie Collins – Hide and Seek
• John Esten Cooke – The Virginia Comedians
• Maria Cummins – The Lamplighter
• Charles Dickens – Hard Times
• Fanny Fern – Ruth Hall
• Mathilde Fibiger – Minona
• Frederick Greenwood – The Loves of an Apothecary
• Francesco Domenico Guerrazzi – Beatrice Cenci
• Nathaniel Hawthorne – Mosses from an Old Manse
• Caroline Lee Hentz – The Planter's Northern Bride
• Mary Jane Holmes – Tempest and Sunshine
• Mary Russell Mitford – Atherton
• Gérard de Nerval – Les Filles du feu
• Charles Reade – The Courier of Lyons
• Solon Robinson – Hot Corn
• E. D. E. N. Southworth – The Lost Heiress
• Leo Tolstoy – Boyhood

  Children and young people

• Anna Eliza Bray – A Peep at the Pixies, or Legends of the West

  Drama

• Émile Augier and Jules Sandeau – Le Gendre de M. Poirier
• Andreas Munch – Salomon de Caus
• Alexander Ostrovsky – Poverty is No Vice
• Charles Reade – The Courier of Lyons
• Zacharias Topelius – Regina von Emmeritz

  Poetry

• R. D. Blackmore – Poems by Melanter
• Coventry Patmore – The Angel in the House
• Emma Tatham – The Dream of Pythagoras and Other Poems
• Alfred Tennyson – "The Charge of the Light Brigade"

  Non-fiction

• Samuel Bache – Exposition of Unitarian Views of Christianity
• George Boole – The Laws of Thought
• William Erskine with Claudius James Erskine – History of India under the two first sovereigns of the house of Taimur, Baber, and Humayun
• F. W. Fairholt – Dictionary of Terms in Art
• Ludwig Feuerbach – The Essence of Christianity
• Kuno Fischer – History of Modern Philosophy , vol. 1
• Elisha Kane – The U. S. Grinnell Expedition in Search of Sir John Franklin: a Personal Narrative
• Eliphas Levi – Dogme et rituel de la haute magie, vol. 1, Dogme
• Theodor Mommsen – History of Rome , vol. 1
• Henry David Thoreau – Walden, or Life in the Woods

  Births

• March 13 – Kolachalam Srinivasa Rao, Indian dramatist
• March 14 – Alexandru Macedonski, Romanian poet, novelist and dramatist
• May 24 – Mona Caird, English novelist, essayist and feminist
• May 25 – Clara Louise Burnham, née Root, American novelist
• June 10
• *François, Vicomte de Curel, French dramatist
• *Sarah Grand, Irish author and women's rights advocate
• July 7 – W. C. Morrow, American writer, noted for his stories of horror and suspense.
• August 2 – Francis Marion Crawford, American novelist
• October 16 – Oscar Wilde, Irish dramatist, poet and wit
• October 20
• *Alphonse Allais, French humorist
• *Arthur Rimbaud, French poet

  Deaths

• January 5 – Gottschalk Eduard Guhrauer, German philologist and biographer
• February 4 – George Watterston, American librarian of Congress
• April 3 – John Wilson, Scottish poet and journalist
• April 7 – Pierre-François Tissot, French historian and memoirist
• April 16 – Julia Nyberg, Swedish poet
• April 24 – Gabriele Rossetti, Italian poet
• April 30 – James Montgomery, Scottish-born poet and hymnist
• July 20 – Caroline Anne Southey, English poet
• October 14 – Samuel Phillips, English journalist
• November 5 – Susan Edmonstone Ferrier, Scottish novelist
• November 25 – John Kitto, English Biblical commentator
• December 9 – Almeida Garrett, Portuguese poet, novelist and dramatist

  Awards

• Chancellor's Gold Medal – Herbert John Reynolds
• July – Opening of Anthony Trollope's novel Barchester Towers.