January 27 – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe first elaborates on his vision of Weltliteratur (world literature), in a letter to Johann Peter Eckermann, declaring his belief that "poetry is the universal possession of mankind", and that "the epoch of world literature is at hand, and each must work to hasten its coming."[2]
February 24 – Samuel Griswold Goodrich copyrights the first of the "Peter Parley" juvenile books in the United States, which will continue until 1860.[4]
April 16 – Nathaniel Willis Senior begins publishing a new magazine for children, The Youth's Companion, in Boston, Massachusetts, weekly from June 6. One of the most enduring of its type, the magazine continues until 1929.
June – John Neal returns to the US after two and a half years in England.[5]
Thomas Skinner Sturr's anonymous Richmond, or stories in the life of a Bow Street officer, the earliest collection of detective stories, is published in London by Henry Colburn.
John Ayrton Paris – Philosophy in Sport made Science in Earnest: Being an Attempt to Implant in the Young Mind the First Principles of Natural Philosophy by the Aid of the Popular Toys and Sports of Youth