See also: 1801 in literature, other events of 1802, 1803 in literature, list of years in literature.

Events

• Jippensha Ikku begins work on the first of the satirical novels, Shank's Mare.
• William Wordsworth marries Mary Hutchinson

New Books

• The Accusing Spirit - Mary Pilkington
• Astonishment!!! - Francis Lathom
• The Baron's Daughter - Isabella Kelly
• Belinda - Maria Edgeworth
• Delphine - Anne Louise Germaine de Stael
• The Farmer's Boy - Elizabeth Gunning
• The Genius of Christianity - François-René de Chateaubriand
• The History of the Grubthorpe Family - Rachel Hunter
• History of the Rebellion of 1745 - John Home
• History of Scotland from the Union of the Crowns to the Union of the Kingdoms - Malcolm Laing
• Independence - Mary Meeke
• Justina - Harriet Ventum
• Midnight Weddings - Mary Meeke
• René - François-René de Chateaubriand
• The Rules of the Forest - Susannah Oakes
• The Soldiers of Dierenstein - Elizabeth Craven
• Warkfiefld Castle - Jane Harvey
• The White Knight - Theodore Melville

Births

• January 9 - Catharine Parr Traill, author (+ 1899)
• February 11 - Lydia Child, author (+ 1880)
• February 26 - Victor Hugo, author (+ 1885)
• June 2 - Karl Lehrs, classical scholar
• June 12 - Harriet Martineau, British writer (+ 1876)
• July 10 - Robert Chambers, Scottish writer, publisher (+ 1871)
• July 24 - Alexandre Dumas, père, novelist (+ 1870)
• July 28 - Winthrop Mackworth Praed, English poet
• December 23 - Sara Coleridge, author, daughter of Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Deaths

• February 26 - Alexander Geddes, theologian
• April 18 - Erasmus Darwin, poet, grandfather of Charles Darwin
• June 5 - Johann Christian Gottlieb Ernesti, classical scholar
• June 29 - Johann Jakob Engel
• August 10 - Franz Aepinus, philosopher

Awards