1891 in literature

The year 1891 in literature involved some significant new books.

Events

 * Guy de Maupassant is officially diagnosed as insane.
 * Tristan Bernard has his first work published in La Revue Blanche.
 * Thomas Hardy writes The Son's Veto, which he regarded as his best short story.
 * 13 March - Henrik Ibsen's play Ghosts achieves a single London performance (at the Royalty Theatre). To evade the Lord Chamberlain's Office's censorship it has to be staged privately by the Independent Theatre Society, but still attracts strong criticism on moral grounds.
 * Ambrose Bierce publishes Tales of Soldiers and Civilians which includes An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge one of his best known works.

New books

 * Grant Allen - The Great Taboo
 * J. M. Barrie - The Little Minister
 * Mary Elizabeth Braddon - The World, the Flesh and the Devil
 * Arthur Conan Doyle - The White Company
 * George du Maurier - Peter Ibbetson
 * George Gissing - New Grub Street
 * Thomas Hardy - Tess of the d'Urbervilles
 * Joris-Karl Huysmans - La Bas
 * Jerome K. Jerome - Diary of a Pilgrimage
 * Herman Melville - Timoleon
 * Georges Ohnet - Dernier Amour
 * Howard Pyle - Men of Iron
 * Jules Verne - Mistress Branican
 * Margaret L. Woods - Esther Vanhomrigh
 * Charlotte Mary Yonge - Two Penniless Princesses
 * Unknown to History
 * Émile Zola - L'Argent

New drama

 * Maurice Maeterlinck - Intruder (first production)
 * Frank Wedekind - Spring Awakening (Frühlings Erwachen)
 * Oscar Wilde - Salome

Poetry

 * William Morris - Poems by the Way

Non-fiction

 * Black's Law Dictionary, 1st edition
 * Errico Malatesta - L'anarchia

Births

 * January 7 - Zora Neale Hurston, American novelist (d. 1960)
 * February 10 – Elliot Paul, American writer (d. 1958)
 * August 1 - Edward Streeter, American humorist (d. 1976)
 * October 6 - John Metcalfe, UK writer (d. 1965)
 * December 26 - Henry Miller, American writer (d. 1980)

Deaths

 * August 12 - James Russell Lowell, poet (b. 1819)
 * September 15 - Ivan Goncharov, Russian writer (b. 1812)
 * September 28 - Herman Melville, author (b. 1819)
 * October 15 - Gilbert Arthur a Beckett, writer (b. 1837)
 * November 10 - Arthur Rimbaud, poet (b. 1854)