1854 in literature

The year 1854 in literature involved some significant new books.

Events

 * 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

 * Jules Amédée Barbey d'Aurevilly -L'Ensorcelée
 * William Wells Brown - Sketches of Places and People Abroad
 * John Esten Cooke - The Virginia Comedians
 * Wilkie Collins - Hide and Seek
 * Maria Cummins - The Lamplighter
 * Charles Dickens - Hard Times
 * Fanny Fern - Ruth Hall
 * 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 (short stories)
 * E.D.E.N. Southworth - The Lost Heiress
 * Leo Tolstoy - Boyhood

New drama

 * Émile Augier and Jules Sandeau - Le Gendre de M. Poirier

Poetry

 * R.D. Blackmore - Poems by Melanter
 * Coventry Patmore - The Angel in the House
 * Alfred Tennyson - The Charge of the Light Brigade

Non-fiction

 * George Boole - The Laws of Thought
 * Ludwig Feuerbach - The Essence of Christianity
 * Theodor Mommsen - Römische Geschichte
 * Henry David Thoreau - Walden or Life in the Woods

Births

 * August 2 - Francis Marion Crawford, novelist (d. 1909)
 * October 16 - Oscar Wilde, author (d. 1900)
 * Date unknown
 * Sarah Grand, author and women's rights advocate (d. 1943)

Deaths

 * February 4 - George Watterston, librarian of Congress (born 1783)
 * April 3 - John Wilson, poet and journalist (born 1785)
 * April 7 - Pierre François Tissot, historian and memoirist (born 1768)
 * April 16 - Julia Nyberg, Swedish poet (born 1784)
 * April 24 - Gabriele Rossetti, poet (born 1783)
 * October 14 - Samuel Phillips, journalist (born 1814)
 * December 9 - Almeida Garrett, poet, novelist and dramatist (born 1799)
 * date unknown
 * Gottschalk Eduard Guhrauer, philologist and biographer (born 1809)
 * John Kitto, Biblical commentator (born 1804)
 * Abraham John Valpy, printer and publisher (born 1787)