1870 in literature

The year 1870 in literature involved some significant new books.

Events

 * Thomas Hardy meets his first wife, Emma.
 * Friedrich Engels moves to London.

New books

 * Thomas Bailey Aldrich - The Story of a Bad Boy
 * Thomas Archer - The Terrible Sights of London
 * Rhoda Broughton - Red as a rose is she
 * Wilkie Collins - Man and Wife
 * Charles Dickens - The Mystery of Edwin Drood (Dickens last and un-finished novel)
 * Benjamin Disraeli - Lothair
 * Fyodor Dostoevsky - The Eternal Husband
 * Aleksis Kivi - Seven Brothers (Seitsemän veljestä)
 * George Meredith - The Adventures of Harry Richmond (began serial publication)
 * William Morris - The Earthly Paradise
 * Leopold von Sacher-Masoch - Venus in Furs (Venus im Pelz)
 * Anthony Trollope - The Vicar of Bullhampton
 * Jules Verne
 * Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea
 * Around the Moon
 * Charlotte Mary Yonge - The Caged Lion

New drama

 * James Albery - Two Roses
 * Pietro Cossa - Nero

Poetry

 * Lewis Carroll - The Hunting of the Snark
 * Bret Harte - The Heathen Chinee
 * Giovanni Marradi - Canzone moderne
 * Dante Gabriel Rossetti - The House of Life

Non-fiction

 * Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable (1st edition)

Births

 * March 5 - Frank Norris  (d. 1902)
 * June 25 - Erskine Childers  (d. 1922)
 * July 27 - Hilaire Belloc  (d. 1953)
 * December 18 - Saki  (d. 1916)
 * date unknown - Gerald Duckworth, publisher (died 1937)

Deaths

 * February 25 - Henrik Hertz, Danish poet
 * June 9 - Charles Dickens, British novelist
 * June 11 - William Gilmore Simms, author
 * July 20 - Jules de Goncourt, Prix Goncourt
 * July 24 - Anders Abraham Grafström, Swedish poet and historian
 * September 12 - Fitz Hugh Ludlow, American author and explorer
 * November 4 - Comte de Lautreamont, French poet and writer
 * December 5 - Alexandre Dumas, père, author