Calendar of Literary Facts

1862

George Meredith publishes “Modern Love” and Poems of the English Roadside, with Poems and Ballads
Richard Gatling develops and patents a working machine gun in the U.S.
Friedrich Hebbel’sDie Nibelungen: Ein deutsches Trauerspiel in drei Abtheilungen (The Nieblungs: A Tragedy in Three Acts) is produced
Lion Foucault calculates the speed of light
Victor Hugo publishes Les Miserables
U.S.S. Monitor and C.S.S. Virginia duel for four inconclusive hours at Hampton Roads, Virginia, in the first battle between ironclad warships
Christina Rossetti publishes Goblin Market and Other Poems
Duncan Campbell Scott is born (August 2)
Henry David Thoreau dies (May 6)
Georges Feydeau is born (December 8)
William Sydney Porter (“O. Henry”) is born (September 11)
Gerhart Hauptmann is born (November 15)
Edith Newbold Jones (Wharton) is born (January 24)
John Kendrick Bangs is born (May 27)
Maurice Maeterlinck is born (August 29)