Calendar of Literary Facts

1881

  • Arthur Wing Pinero’s The Squire is produced
  • T. S. Stribling is born
  • José Echegaray produces El gran galeoto (The Great Galeoto)
  • Great Britain recognizes the Transvaal Republic in southern Africa, after being defeated by the Boers in that region
  • Tunisia becomes a French protectorate
  • First electric tram begins operation, in Berlin, Germany
  • Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass is banned in Boston, Massachusetts
  • Thomas Bailey Aldrich assumes the position of editor of the Atlantic Monthly, a role that he retains until 1890
  • Guy de Maupassant publishes La maison Tellier
  • Joaquim María Machado de Assis publishes Memorias posthumas de Braz Cubas (Epitaph of a Small Winner)
  • The archives of the Vatican in Rome are opened to scholars of all nations
  • Anatole France publishes Le Crime de Sylvestre Bonnard, membre de l’Institut (The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard, Member of the Institute)
  • The Haymarket Bombing occurs in Chicago (May 1)
  • Thomas Carlyle dies (February 5)
  • Sidney Lanier dies (September 7)
  • Hatcher Hughes is born (February 12)
  • P. G. Wodehouse is born (October 15)
  • Roger Martin du Gard is born (March 23)
  • Juan Ramón Jiménez is born (December 24)
  • Fedor Dostoevsky dies (January 28)