1865 in literature

The year 1865 in literature involved some significant new books.

Events

 * June 9 - Charles Dickens is involved in the Staplehurst rail crash.
 * November 18 - Mark Twain's story The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County is published in a New York weekly, The Saturday Press.
 * Edwin Abbott Abbott becomes headmaster of the City of London School at the age of 26.
 * Our Young Folks, an American periodical for children, publishes its first issue.

New books

 * José de Alencar - Iracema
 * R M Ballantyne -The Lighthouse
 * Wilhelm Busch - Max und Moritz
 * Lewis Carroll - Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
 * Charles Dickens - Our Mutual Friend
 * Mary Mapes Dodge - Hans Brinker, or The Silver Skates
 * Edmond de Goncourt - Germinie Lacerteux
 * Charles Kingsley - Hereward the Wake
 * Sheridan Le Fanu - Guy Deverell
 * George MacDonald - Alec Forbes of Howglen
 * Robert Smith Surtees - Mr. Facey Romford's Hounds
 * Jules Verne - From the Earth to the Moon
 * Emile Zola - La Confession de Claude

New drama

 * Francis Burnand - Windsor Castle
 * Henrik Ibsen - Brand

Poetry

 * Edward Lear - The History of the Seven Families of the Lake Pipple-Popple

Non-fiction

 * Annals of Joseon Dynasty (final volume)
 * P. T. Barnum - The Humbugs of the World
 * Elizabeth Gaskell - The Life of Charlotte Bronte
 * Jacob Grimm - Deutsche Sagen
 * Karl Marx - Value, Price and Profit
 * John Stuart Mill - Examinations of Sir William Hamilton's Philosophy
 * James Hutchison Stirling - The Secret of Hegel: Being the Hegelian System in Origin Principle, Form and Matter
 * James Hudson Taylor - China's Spiritual Need and Claims

Births

 * February 21 - John Haden Badley, teacher and writer (+ 1967)
 * March 15 - Edith Maude Eaton (Sui-Sin Far) (+ 1914)
 * March 20 - Arthur Bayldon, poet (+ 1958)
 * March 29 - Stephen Bonsal, diplomat and writer (+ 1951)
 * June 13 - William Butler Yeats   (+  1939)
 * June 26 - Bernard Berenson, art historian (+ 1959)
 * August 14 - Pietro Gori, poet (+ 1911)
 * September 11 - Rainis, poet and dramatist (+ 1929)
 * December 30 - Rudyard Kipling  (+ 1936)
 * date unknown - Enrico Corradini, novelist and journalist (+ 1931)

Deaths

 * January 11 - Jean-Baptiste-Antoine Ferland, historian
 * January 18 - Charles Cavendish Fulke Greville, diarist
 * January 19 - Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, philosopher
 * January 21 - Joseph Xavier Saintine, novelist and dramatist
 * February 6 - Isabella Beeton, household management expert
 * February 25 - Otto Ludwig, German novelist/playwright
 * April 2
 * John Cassell, publisher
 * Richard Cobden, political writer
 * April 15 - Abraham Lincoln, 16th President of the United States of America
 * May 14 - Pierre François Xavier de Ram, historian
 * June 10 - Lydia Sigourney, poet
 * September 30 - Dudley Costello, journalist and novelist
 * November 12 - Elizabeth Gaskell, novelist
 * December 1 - Abraham Emanuel Fröhlich, poet
 * December 3 - Joseph Marie Quérard, bibliographer
 * December 20 - Barton Bouchier, English religious writer.
 * date unknown - William Edmonstoune Aytoun, poet and humorist