1884 in literature

The year 1884 in literature involved some significant new books.

Events

 * February 1 - Edition one of the Oxford English Dictionary is published.

New books

 * Edwin Abbott Abbott - Flatland
 * Henry Brooks Adams - Esther
 * Aluísio de Azevedo - Casa de Pensão
 * Richard Doddridge Blackmore - Tommy Upmore
 * Mary Elizabeth Braddon - Ishmael. A Novel
 * Wilkie Collins - I Say No
 * Joris-Karl Huysmans
 * Controcorrente
 * À rebours
 * Helen Hunt Jackson - Ramona
 * George A. Moore - A Mummer's Wife
 * Margaret Oliphant
 * The Ladies Lindores
 * The Wizard's Son
 * Rachilde - Monsieur Vénus
 * Leo Tolstoy - The Death of Ivan Ilyich
 * Jules Verne
 * The Vanished Diamond
 * The Archipelago on Fire
 * Mary Augusta Ward - Miss Bretherton

New drama

 * Henrik Ibsen - The Wild Duck

Poetry

 * William Watson -Epigrams of Art, Life and Nature

Non-fiction

 * Friedrich Engels - The Origin of the Family, Private Property, and the State
 * Herefordshire Pomona
 * Henry James - A Little Tour in France
 * George Fletcher Moore - Diary of Ten Years Eventful Life of an Early Settler in Western Australia

Births

 * January 2 - Oscar Micheaux, African-American author & filmmaker (d. 1951)
 * March 13 - Sir Hugh Walpole, novelist (d. 1941)
 * August 8 – Sara Teasdale, poet (d. 1933)
 * August 10 - Panait Istrati, Romanian novelist and short story writer (d. 1935)
 * August 24 - Earl Derr Biggers, writer (d. 1933)

Deaths

 * January 11 - Hermann Ulrici, philosopher (b. 1806)
 * March 10 - William Blanchard Jerrold, journalist (b. 1826)
 * March 24 - François Mignet, historian (b. 1796)
 * April 5 - John Wisden, originator of the Cricketers' Almanack (b. 1826)
 * April 6 - Emanuel Geibel, poet (b. 1815)
 * April 11 - Charles Reade, English writer (b. 1814)
 * May 27 - Caroline Dexter, feminist writer (b. 1819)
 * May 28 - Joseph d'Haussonville, historian (b. 1809)
 * June 10 - Johann Gustav Droysen, historian (b. 1808)
 * September 18 - Boleslav Markevich, novelist, critic (b. 1922)
 * October 16 - Paul Lacroix, novelist and journalist (b. 1806)
 * October 19 - Karl Hillebrand, literary historian and philosopher (b. 1829)
 * November 6 - William Wells Brown, African-American writer (b. 1814)
 * date unknown
 * František Doucha, translator (b. 1810)
 * John Harris, poet (b. 1820)