Calendar of Literary Facts

1886

  • X-Ray technology is developed
  • Cosmopolitan begins publication in New York, intended as a monthly family magazine
  • Robert Louis Stevenson publishes The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
  • Hilda Doolittle (“H.D.”) is born
  • Siegfried Sassoon is born
  • Nikolai Gogol’s Mertvye dushi is published
  • H. Rider Haggard publishes She: A History of Adventure
  • Thomas Hardy publishes The Mayor of Casterbridge
  • The Statue of Liberty, a gift from France to the U.S., is dedicated in New York Harbor
  • Margaret Ayer (Barnes) is born
  • The Indian National Congress holds its first assembly
  • Primitive radio technology is developed
  • The Canadian Pacific Railway, transversing Canada from east to west, is completed
  • William Rose Benét is born (February 2)
  • John Gould Fletcher is born (January 3)
  • Emily Dickinson dies (May 15)
  • Takuboku Ishikawa is born (February 20)
  • Zoë Akins is born (October 30)