1856 in literature

The year 1856 in literature involved some significant new books.

Events

 * Arthur Schopenhauer adds a chapter on "The Metaphysics of Sexual Love" to the third edition of his The World as Will and Representation.
 * Lewis Carroll takes up photography as a hobby.
 * William Henry Smith first makes the claim that the author of Shakespeare's plays was Sir Francis Bacon.
 * Richard Francis Burton serves in the army in the Crimean War and becomes engaged to Isabel Arundel.
 * Alphonse Daudet begins his teaching career.
 * On March 5, the second Royal Opera House at Covent Garden is destroyed by fire (as the first was in 1808).

New books

 * Anonymous - Tit for Tat
 * José de Alencar - Cinco minutos
 * R M Ballantyne -The Young Fur-Traders
 * Fredrika Bremer - Hertha
 * William M. Burwell - White Acre vs. Black Acre
 * Wilkie Collins - The Dead Secret
 * Caroline Lee Hentz - Ernest Linwood
 * Geraldine Jewsbury - The Sorrows of Gentility
 * Gottfried Keller - Die Leute von Seldwyla
 * Herman Melville
 * The Piazza Tales
 * I and My Chimney
 * Eduard Mörike - Mozart auf der Reise nach Prag
 * Charles Reade - It's Never Too Late to Mend
 * Harriet Beecher Stowe - Dred: A Tale of the Great Dismal Swamp
 * Leo Tolstoy - Youth
 * Ivan Turgenev - Rudin
 * Charlotte Mary Yonge - The Daisy Chain

New drama

 * Henrik Ibsen - Olaf Liljekrans

Poetry

 * Elizabeth Barrett Browning - Aurora Leigh
 * Victor Hugo - Les Contemplations

Non-fiction

 * Lord Dufferin -Letters From High Latitudes
 * J. A. Froude - History of England
 * Washington Irving - The Life of George Washington, Volume 3
 * Hermann Lotze - Mikrokosmos
 * William Ridley - gurre kamilaroi
 * Alexis de Tocqueville - L'Ancien régime et la révolution
 * Henry Morley - Cornelius Agrippa: The Life of Henry Cornelius Agrippa von Nettesheim, Doctor and Knight, Commonly known as a Magician.

Births

 * January 9 - Lizette Woodworth Reese, poet (d. 1935)
 * February 14 - Frank Harris, journalist, publisher and memoirist (d. 1931)
 * April 5 - Booker T. Washington (d.  1915)
 * May 15 - L. Frank Baum, Wizard of Oz author (d. 1919)
 * July 25 - Charles Major (d. 1913)
 * July 26 - George Bernard Shaw, dramatist  (d.  1950)
 * date unknown - Maria Cederschiöld, journalist

Deaths

 * January - James Baillie Fraser, travel writer
 * February 17 - Heinrich Heine, poet
 * June 11 - Friedrich Heinrich von der Hagen, philologist
 * June 26 - Max Stirner, philosopher
 * June 27 - Joseph Meyer, publisher
 * July 21 - Emil Aarestrup, poet
 * July 29 - Karel Havlíček Borovský, poet, critic and publisher
 * August 24 - William Buckland, antiquarian
 * August 30 - Gilbert Abbott à Beckett, humorous writer
 * October 13 - Robert Christie, historian and journalist
 * November 10 - Johann Kaspar Zeuss, historian
 * date unknown - Pyotr Chaadaev, philosopher
 * date unknown - Josef Kajetán Tyl, dramatist and author of the Czech national anthem