1876 in literature

The year 1876 in literature involved some significant new books.

New books

 * William Harrison Ainsworth
 * Chetwynd Calverley
 * The Leaguer of Lathom
 * Louisa May Alcott - Rose in Bloom
 * Machado de Assis - Helena
 * Rhoda Broughton - Joan
 * Robert Buchanan - The Shadow of the Sword
 * Wilkie Collins - The Two Destinies
 * Alphonse Daudet - Jack
 * Fyodor Dostoevsky - A Gentle Creature
 * George Eliot - Daniel Deronda
 * Benito Pérez Galdós - Doña Perfecta
 * John Habberton - Helen's Babies
 * Thomas Hardy - The Hand of Ethelberta
 * Joris-Karl Huysmans - Martha
 * Herman Melville - Clarel
 * Mark Twain - The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
 * Jules Verne - Michael Strogoff
 * Charlotte Mary Yonge - The Three Brides
 * Emile Zola - Son Excellence Eugène Rougon

New drama

 * Émile Augier - Madame Caverlet
 * W. S. Gilbert - Dan'l Druce, Blacksmith
 * Henrik Ibsen - Peer Gynt (first performed)

Poetry

 * Lewis Carroll - The Hunting of the Snark

Non-fiction

 * Søren Kierkegaard - Judge for Yourselves!
 * Robert's Rules of Order

Births

 * January 12 - Jack London (d. 1916)
 * February 16 - G. M. Trevelyan, historian (d. 1962)
 * March 4 - Léon-Paul Fargue, poet (d. 1947)
 * April 13 - Sidney Bradshaw Fay (d. 1967)
 * April 22 - Ole Edvart Rolvaag, Norwegian-American writer (d. 1931)
 * May 10 - Ivan Cankar, dramatist and poet (d. 1918)
 * July 12 - Max Jacob, poet (d. 1944)
 * September 13 - Sherwood Anderson  (d. 1941)
 * November 1 - Anne de Noailles, French writer (d. 1933)

Deaths

 * January 7 - Juste Olivier, poet (b. 1807)
 * January 19 - George Julius Poulett Scrope, political economist (b. 1797)
 * February 3 - Gino Capponi, historian (b. 1792)
 * February 27 - Afanasy Shchapov, historian (b. 1830)
 * March 2 - Johannes Falke, historian (b. 1823)
 * May 7 - William Buell Sprague, biographer (b. 1795)
 * May 24 - Henry Kingsley, novelist (b. 1830)
 * May 26 - František Palacký, historian (b. 1798)
 * June 8 - George Sand, French novelist (b. 1804)
 * June 27 - Harriet Martineau, philosopher and feminist writer (b. 1802)
 * July 14 - James Henry, poet (b. 1798)
 * July 24 - John William Kaye, military historian (b. 1814)
 * July 25 - Robert Caesar Childers, orientalist (b. 1838)
 * October 7 - Georg Heinrich Pertz, historian (b. 1795)
 * October 18 - Francis Preston Blair, journalist (b. 1791)
 * November 24 - Maria Francesca Rossetti, writer and sister of Dante Gabriel Rossetti and Christina Rossetti (b. 1827)
 * December 30 - Christian Winther, lyric poet (b. 1796)
 * date unknown
 * Catherine Crowe, novelist and children's writer (b. c. 1803)
 * Joshua Hobson, pamphleteer (b. 1810)