This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1850.
Events
January – The collected works of Edgar Allan Poe (died 1849) begin posthumous publication, co-edited by Rufus Wilmot Griswold. Later in the year, Griswold adds a memoir to the third volume, denigrating Poe's reputation, based partly on forged evidence.[1]
September 26 – The first play by Henrik Ibsen to be performed, The Burial Mound (Kjæmpehøjen), opens at the Christiania Theatre under the pseudonym Brynjolf Bjarme. His first written play, Catiline, completed this year, will not be performed until 1881.
Salford Museum and Art Gallery opens as "The Royal Museum & Public Library", as England's first unconditionally free public library.[8]
November 1 – Charles Dickens's novel David Copperfield – The Personal History, Adventures, Experience and Observation of David Copperfield the Younger of Blunderstone Rookery (Which He Never Meant to Publish on Any Account) – concludes serial publication and on (November 14) appears complete in book form from Bradbury and Evans in London.
unknown date – Ivan Turgenev completes the writing of his play A Month in the Country («Месяц в деревне», Mesiats v derevne) as The Student in Paris, but it is rejected by the Saint Petersburg censor and will not be published until 1855 or performed until 1872.
^Pinion, F. B. (1988). A Wordsworth Chronology. Basingstoke: Macmillan. ISBN0-333-38860-7.
^Sutherland, John; Fender, Stephen (2011). "5 August". Love, Sex, Death & Words: Surprising Tales from a Year in Literature. London: Icon. pp. 294–5. ISBN978-184831-247-0.
^Howard Quint, The Forging of American Socialism: Origins of the Modern Movement: The Impact of Socialism on American Thought and Action, 1886–1901. Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press, 1953; p. 74.