1873 in literature

The year 1873 in literature involved some significant new books.

Events

 * 3 March - The U.S. Congress enacts the Comstock Law, making it illegal to send any "obscene, lewd, or lascivious" books through the mail.
 * Bertha Kinsky becomes governess to the Suttner family.
 * Charles M. Barnes opens his first store in Wheaton, Illinois, the genesis of Barnes & Noble.
 * 18 December - Louisa May Alcott's family satire "Transcendental Wild Oats" is published in the Boston newspaper The Independent.
 * The children's periodical St. Nicholas Magazine begins publication.

New books

 * Louisa May Alcott - Work: A Story of Experience
 * Ambrose Bierce - The Fiend's Delight
 * Mary Elizabeth Braddon - Publicans and Sinners
 * Rhoda Broughton
 * Nancy
 * Tales for Christmas Eve
 * Bankim Chatterjee - The Poison Tree
 * Wilkie Collins
 * Miss or Mrs.?
 * The New Magdalen
 * Émile Gaboriau - La Corde au cou
 * Thomas Hardy - A Pair of Blue Eyes
 * William Dean Howells - A Chance Acquaintance
 * George MacDonald - The History of Gutta-Percha Willie, the Working Genius
 * Karolina Světlá - Nemodlenec
 * Jules Verne - Around the World in Eighty Days

New drama

 * Henrik Ibsen - Emperor and Galilean (first published) and Love's Comedy (first performed)
 * Émile Zola - Thérèse Raquin

Poetry

 * Paul Bourget - Au bord de la mer
 * Robert Browning - Red Cotton Night-Cap Country
 * Tristan Corbière - only published work included in Les Amours Jaunes
 * Edmund Gosse - On Viol and Flute
 * Arthur Rimbaud - Une Saison en Enfer

Non-fiction

 * Émile Littré - Dictionnaire de la langue française
 * Leslie Stephen - Essays on Free Thinking and Plain Speaking
 * Mark Twain (with Charles Warner) - The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today
 * Charlotte Mary Yonge - Life of John Coleridge Patteson

Births

 * January 20 - Johannes Vilhelm Jensen, Danish writer, Nobel prize winner (d. 1950)
 * January 28 - Colette, writer (d. 1954)
 * April 22 - Ellen Glasgow  (d. 1945)
 * May 17 - Henri Barbusse  (d. 1935)
 * June 16 - Lady Ottoline Morrell, patron of authors and artists (d. 1938)
 * September 8 - Alfred Jarry, dramatist (d. 1907)
 * October 10 - George Cabot Lodge, poet (d. 1909)
 * December 7 - Willa Cather (d. 1947)
 * December 17 - Ford Madox Ford  (d. 1939)

Deaths

 * January 9 - Sigurd Abel, historian (b. 1837)
 * January 10 - Francesco Dall'Ongaro, poet and dramatist (b. 1808)
 * January 18 - Edward George Bulwer-Lytton, author (b. 1803)
 * February 1 - Gertrudis Gómez de Avellaneda, novelist (b. 1814)
 * February 7 - Sheridan Le Fanu, writer (b. 1814)
 * February 24 - Spiridon Trikoupis, author and orator (b. 1788)
 * May 8 - John Stuart Mill, philosopher (b. 1806)
 * May 22 - Alessandro Manzoni, poet and novelist (b. 1785)
 * May 27 - Pierre-Antoine Lebrun, poet (b. 1785)
 * August 15 - Edward Meredith Cope, classical scholar (b. 1818)
 * September 25 - Francesco Domenico Guerrazzi, novelist (b. 1804)
 * September 26 - Julius Roerich Benedix, dramatist (b. 1811)
 * September 28 - Émile Gaboriau, novelist (b. 1832)
 * October 4 - Margaret Gatty, children's author (b. 1809)