This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1854.

Events

• March 2 – An adaptation of Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice into Bengali, Bhānumatī-chittavilās by Hara Chandra Ghosh, is staged;^[1] also, Dinabandhu Mitra introduces Falstaff in Nabin Tapaswini.
• March 20 – The Boston Public Library opens to the public in the United States.
• April 1 – August 12 – Charles Dickens's novel Hard Times, is serialised in his magazine Household Words.^[2] From September 2, it is followed in the magazine by Elizabeth Gaskell's North and South, another social novel based in the Lancashire manufacturing district.
• July – Publication begins of Anthony Trollope's novel Barchester Towers (1857).
• November – Crimean War: Future novelist Leo Tolstoy arrives to take part as a defending soldier in the Siege of Sevastopol (1854–55).^[3] Off-duty he is reading Thackeray's novels in French translation.
• December 14 – Wilkie Collins's "The Lawyer's Story of a Stolen Letter", published as "The Fourth Poor Traveller" in The Seven Poor Travellers – the Household Words special Christmas number – is the first non-police detective fiction published in Britain.^[4]
• unknown dates
  • John Rollin Ridge's The Life and Adventures of Joaquín Murieta, The Celebrated California Bandit is the first novel by a Native American in the United States (writing as "Yellow Bird") to be published.^[5]
  • The Polyglotta Africana, an early classification of African languages based on field work under freed slaves in Freetown, Sierra Leone, is published by Sigismund Wilhelm Koelle.^[6]

New books

Fiction

• Margaret Jewett Smith Bailey (anonymously) – The Grains, or, Passages in the Life of Ruth Rover, with Occasional Pictures of Oregon, Natural and Moral
• Jules Amédée Barbey d'Aurevilly – L'Ensorcelée
• William Wells Brown – Sketches of Places and People Abroad
• Camilla Collett (anonymously) – Amtmandens Døtre [no] (The District Governor's Daughters, first part)
• Wilkie Collins – Hide and Seek
• John Esten Cooke – The Virginia Comedians
• Maria Cummins – The Lamplighter
• Charles Dickens – Hard Times
• Fanny Fern – Ruth Hall
• Mathilde Fibiger – Minona
• Frederick Greenwood – The Loves of an Apothecary
• Francesco Domenico Guerrazzi – Beatrice Cenci
• Nathaniel Hawthorne – Mosses from an Old Manse
• Caroline Lee Hentz – The Planter's Northern Bride
• Mary Jane Holmes – Tempest and Sunshine
• Mary Russell Mitford – Atherton
• Gérard de Nerval – Les Filles du feu (short stories)
• Charles Reade – The Courier of Lyons
• Solon Robinson – Hot Corn
• E. D. E. N. Southworth – The Lost Heiress
• Leo Tolstoy – Boyhood («Отрочество», Otrochestvo)

Children and young people

• Anna Eliza Bray – A Peep at the Pixies, or Legends of the West (illustrated by Phiz)

Drama

• Émile Augier and Jules Sandeau – Le Gendre de M. Poirier
• Andreas Munch – Salomon de Caus^[7]
• Alexander Ostrovsky – Poverty is No Vice («Бедность не порок», Bednost ne porok)
• Charles Reade – The Courier of Lyons
• Zacharias Topelius – Regina von Emmeritz

Poetry

• R. D. Blackmore – Poems by Melanter
• Coventry Patmore – The Angel in the House
• Emma Tatham – The Dream of Pythagoras and Other Poems
• Alfred Tennyson – "The Charge of the Light Brigade"

Non-fiction

• Samuel Bache – Exposition of Unitarian Views of Christianity
• George Boole – The Laws of Thought
• William Erskine with Claudius James Erskine – History of India under the two first sovereigns of the house of Taimur, Baber, and Humayun^[8]
• F. W. Fairholt – Dictionary of Terms in Art
• Ludwig Feuerbach – The Essence of Christianity (Das Wesen des Christentums)
• Kuno Fischer – History of Modern Philosophy (Geschichte der neueren Philosophie), vol. 1
• Elisha Kane – The U. S. Grinnell Expedition in Search of Sir John Franklin: a Personal Narrative^[9]
• Éliphas Lévi – Dogme et rituel de la haute magie (Dogma and Ritual of High Magic), vol. 1, Dogme
• Theodor Mommsen – History of Rome (Römische Geschichte), vol. 1
• John Neal – One Word More: Intended for the Reasoning and Thoughtful among Unbelievers^[10]
• Henry David Thoreau – Walden, or Life in the Woods

Births

• March 11 – Jane Meade Welch, American journalist and historian (died 1931)
• March 13 – Kolachalam Srinivasa Rao, Indian dramatist (died 1919)
• March 14 – Alexandru Macedonski, Romanian poet, novelist and dramatist (died 1920)
• May 24 – Mona Caird, English novelist, essayist and feminist (died 1932)
• May 25 – Clara Louise Burnham, née Root, American novelist (died 1927)
• June 10
  • François, Vicomte de Curel, French dramatist (died 1928)
  • Sarah Grand, Irish author and women's rights advocate (died 1943)
• July 7 – W. C. Morrow, American writer, noted for his stories of horror and suspense. (died 1923)
• August 2 – Francis Marion Crawford, American novelist (died 1909)
• September 1 – Florence Trail, American educator and author (died 1944)
• October 16 – Oscar Wilde, Irish dramatist, poet and wit (died 1900)^[11]
• October 20
  • Alphonse Allais, French humorist (died 1905)^[12]
  • Arthur Rimbaud, French poet (died 1891)^[13]
• unknown date - Eliza D. Keith, American educator, author, and journalist (died 1939)

Florence Trail (September 1, 1854 - April 21, 1944) was an

Deaths

• January 5 – Gottschalk Eduard Guhrauer, German philologist and biographer (born 1809)
• February 4 – George Watterston, American librarian of Congress (born 1783)
• April 3 – John Wilson, Scottish poet and journalist (born 1785)
• April 7 – Pierre-François Tissot, French historian and memoirist (born 1768)
• April 16 – Julia Nyberg, Swedish poet (born 1784)
• April 24 – Gabriele Rossetti, Italian poet (born 1783)
• April 30 – James Montgomery, Scottish-born poet and hymnist (born 1771)
• July 20 – Caroline Anne Southey (Caroline Anne Bowles), English poet (born 1786)
• October 14 – Samuel Phillips, English journalist (born 1814)
• November 5 – Susan Edmonstone Ferrier, Scottish novelist (born 1782)
• November 25 – John Kitto, English Biblical commentator (born 1804)
• December 9 – Almeida Garrett, Portuguese poet, novelist and dramatist (born 1799)

Awards

• Chancellor's Gold Medal – Herbert John Reynolds^[14]
• July – Opening of Anthony Trollope's novel Barchester Towers (1857).