Literary timeline 1840-1850

  • The birth of Thomas Hardy

  • "Master Humphrey's Clock" - Charles Dickens

  • "Barnaby Rudge: A Tale of the Riots of Eighty" - Charles Dickens

    Date unknown
  • London Library founded in Pall Mall, London

    Date unknown
  • "The Old Curiosity Shop" - Charles Dickens

    Date unknown
  • Charles Dickens sets sail to America

  • Fanny Burney's diary and letters are posthumously published

    Date unknown
  • Alfred Tennyson – Poems including "Locksley Hall", "Morte d'Arthur", "Ulysses", "The Lady of Shalott" (2nd version), "Godiva", "Lady Clara Vere de Vere" and "The Two Voices"

    Date unknown
  • Robert Browning – Dramatic Lyrics including "My Last Duchess" and "The Pied Piper of Hamelin"

    Date unknown
  • "American Notes" - Charles Dickens

  • "The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit" - Charles Dickens

    Exact date unknown
  • The death of Robert Southey

  • William Wordsworth accepts the office of Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom

  • The Theatres Act is passed in the United Kingdom

    It ended the virtual monopoly on theatrical performances held by the patent theatres, encouraging the development of popular entertainment.
  • "A Christmas Carol" - Charles Dickens

  • "The Chimes" - Charled Dickens

    Date unknown
  • "Poems" - Elizabeth Barrett Browning

    Date unknown
  • Birth of Mrs. Lovett Cameron (Caroline "Emily" Sharp)

    Date unknown
  • "A Death-Scene" - Emily Bronte

  • Robert Browning begins his correspondence with his future wife, fellow poet Elizabeth Barrett

  • "The Cricket on the Hearth" - Charles Dickens

    Date unknown
  • "P.'s Correspondence" - Nathaniel Hawthorne (American)

    A pioneering example of alternate history in which real-life writers and political figures who have died (such as Keats, Shelley and Byron) are described as still living, and vice versa.
  • Edward Lear "A Book of Nonsense"

  • Charles Dickens' novel "Dombey and Son"

  • Charlotte Brontë's novel "Jane Eyre"

  • Anne Brontë's novel "Agnes Grey"

  • Emily Brontë's novel "Wuthering Heights"

  • The Communist Manifesto by Friedrich Engels and Karl Marx

  • Anne Brontë's novel "The Tenant of Wildfell Hall"

  • Charles Dickens' Christmas novella "The Haunted Man and the Ghost's Bargain".

  • Charlotte Brontë's novel "Shirley"

  • Charles Dickens' novel "David Copperfield"

  • William Wordsworth's poem "The Prelude"

  • Death of William Wordsworth

  • Birth of Robert Louis Stevenson