See also: 1820 in literature, other events of 1821, 1822 in literature, list of years in literature.

Events

• In the first known obscenity case in the United States, a Massachusetts court outlawed the John Cleland novel, Fanny Hill . The publisher, Peter Holmes, was convicted for printing a "lewd and obscene" novel.

New Books

• Annals of the Parish - John Galt
• The Ayrshire Legatees - John Galt
• Confessions of an English Opium Eater - Thomas De Quincey
• The Irish Necromancer - Thomas H. Marshall
• Kenilworth - Sir Walter Scott
• Life in London - Pierce Egan
• Lovers and Friends - Anne Hatton
• Maid Marian - Thomas Love Peacock
• Smarra - Charles Nodier
• The Spectre of St. Michael's - C. D. Haynes
• The Spy - James Fenimore Cooper
• Talisman, a Tale of Mystery - I. M. H. Hales
• The Village of Mariendorpt - Anna Maria Porter

Births

• March 19 - Richard Francis Burton (+ 1890)
• April 9 - Charles-Pierre Baudelaire (+ 1867)
• October 30 - Fyodor Dostoevsky (+ 1881)
• December 6 - Dora Greenwell (+ 1882)
• December 12 - Gustave Flaubert (+ 1880)

Deaths

• February 23 - John Keats, poet
• August 1 - Elizabeth Inchbald, writer

Awards