1868 in literature

The year 1868 in literature involved some significant new books.

Events

 * First edition of the World Almanac is published.
 * Emile Zola defends his criticized first novel against charges of pornography and corruption of morals.
 * Norman MacLeod, editor of Good Words, begins publishing its companion juvenile version, Good Words for the Young. The first issue begins the serial publication of George MacDonald's At the Back of the North Wind.

New books

 * Louisa May Alcott - Little Women
 * R M Ballantyne -Deep Down
 * Mary Elizabeth Braddon - Dead-Sea Fruit
 * Mortimer Collins - Sweet Anne Page
 * Wilkie Collins - The Moonstone
 * Fyodor Dostoevsky - The Idiot
 * Émile Gaboriau - Slaves of Paris
 * Hermann Goedsche - Biarritz
 * Bret Harte - The Luck of Roaring Camp
 * Sheridan Le Fanu - Haunted Lives
 * George MacDonald - Robert Falconer
 * Hesba Stretton - Little Meg's children
 * Jules Verne - In Search of the Castaways
 * Emile Zola - Madeleine Ferat

Poetry
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Non-fiction

 * The World Almanac and Book of Facts (first edition)

Births

 * February 23 - W.E.B. Du Bois (+ 1963)
 * March 28 - Maxim Gorky, author (+ 1936)
 * May 6 - Gaston Leroux, author   (+  1927)
 * July 10 - Afawarq Gabra Iyasus, author and linguist (+ 1947)
 * October 18 - Ernst Didring, Swedish writer (+ 1931)

Deaths

 * March 8 - Jón Thoroddsen elder, Icelandic author
 * June 18 - Charles Harpur, Australian poet
 * September 24 - Henry Hart Milman, historian
 * October 18 - Mongkut, King of Siam, subject of the memoirs of Anna Leonowens
 * November 30 - August Blanche, Swedish writer, statesman