Emily Dickinson is born.

Belva Lockwood, American lawyer, first woman to practice before the Supreme Court and be nominated for presidency, is born (dies 1917).

Edgar Allen Poe: "Poems."

Southampton insurrection: Virginia slave revolt led by Nat Turner (1800-1831); 55 Whites die.

Charles Darwin (1809-1882) sails as naturalist on a surveying expedition to South America, New Zealand, and Australia (-1836)

William Lloyd Garrison begins publishing the abolitionist periodical "The Liberator," in Boston.

Louisa May Alcott, American author, is born (dies 1888).

Sir Walter Scott, Scottish poet and novelist, dies (he was born in 1771).

Tennyson: "Lady of Shalott."

Charles Dickins: "Sketches by Boz."

Charles Lamb: "Last Essays of Elia."

George Sand: "Lelia."

Slavery is abolished in the British Empire.

Abraham Lincoln enters politics as assemblyman in Illinois legislature.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge, English poet and literary critic, dies (born 1772).

Charles Lamb, English essayist, dies (born 1775).

Hans Christian Anderson publishes the first four of 168 tales for children.

Mark Twain (Samuel Langhorne Clemens), American novelist and humorist, is born (dies in 1910).

1, 098 miles of railroad are in use in America.

Dickens: "Pickwick Papers."

Texas wins independence from Mexico and becomes a republic with General Sam Houston as first president.

Sitting Bull, American Indian chief, is born (killed 1890).

Mount Holyoke Female Seminary opens. Mary Mason Lyon (1797-1849) is founder and president.

Horace Mann (1796-1859) begins educational reforms in Massachusetts.

Gag Law, aimed at suppressing the debate on slavery, is passed by U. S. Congress.

Financial and economic panic takes place in America (inflated land values, wildcat banking, and paper speculation).

Fanny Burney, English novelist, dies (born 1752).

2, 816 miles of railroad are in operation in America (1, 331 in England).

Robert Browning: "Pippa Passes."

Bestseller: Charles Dickens, "The Old Curiosity Shop."

Edgar Allen Poe: "The Murder in the Rue Morgue," his first detective story.

U. S. S. "Creole," carrying slaves from Virginia to Louisiana, is seized by the slaves and sails into Nassau where they become free.

Population statistics: Great Britain 18.5 million; America 17 million; Ireland 8 million.

Ambrose Bierce, American writer, is born (dies in 1914).

Charles Dickens: "American Notes."

Edgar Allen Poe: "The Masque of the Red Death."

Boston and Albany are connected by the railroad.

Riots and strikes take place in the industrial areas in the north of England.

Robert Browning: "A Blot in the Scutcheon."

Charles Dickens: "Martin Chuzzlewit" and "A Christmas Carol."

Tennyson: "Morte d' Arthur," "Locksley Hall."

William Wordsorth is appointed English poet laureate.

American social reformer Dorthea Dix (1802-1887) reveals the shocking conditions of prisons and asylums to the Massachusetts legislature.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning: "Poems."

Charles Dickens: "Chimes."

Ralph Waldo Emerson: "Essays," second series.

Hans Christian Anderson: "Fairy Tale of my Life," autobiography.

Herman Melville: "Typee."

George Sand: "La Mare au diable."

Charlotte Bronte: "Jane Eyre."

Emily Bronte: "Wuthering Heights."

George Sand: "Le Peche de M. Antoine."

Thackeray: "Vanity Fair."

First U. S. women's rights convention meets in Seneca Falls, New York.

Gold is discovered in California; leads to first Gold Rush.

Matthew Arnold: "The Strayed Reveller."

Charles Dickens: "David Copperfield."

Dostoyevsky is sentenced to death; the sentence is commuted to penal servitude in Siberia until 1858.

Emerson: "Representative Men."

Nathaniel Hawthorne: "The Scarlet Letter."

William Wordsworth dies (born 1770); he is succeeded as poet laureate by Alfred, Lord Tennyson.

Nathaniel Hawthorne: "The House of the Seven Gables."

Herman Melville: "Moby Dick."

Charles Dickens: "Bleak House."

Harriet Beecher Stowe: "Uncle Tom's Cabin."

Matthew Arnold: "The Scholar-Gypsy."

Charlotte Bronte: "Villette."

Nathaniel Hawthorne: "Tanglewood Tales."

Tennyson: :"The Charge of the Light Brigade" (celebrating the Battle of Balaklava).

Henry David Thoreau: "Walden, or Life in the Woods."

"War for Bleeding Kansas" between free and slave states.

Charlotte Bronte dies (born 1816).

Robert Browning: "Men and Women" poems.

Charles Dickens: "Little Dorrit."

Tennyson: "Maud," and other poems.

Walt Whitman: "Leaves of Grass."

Flaubert: "Madame Bovary."

Oscar Wilde, Anglo-Irish author, is born (dies in 1900).

Sigmund Freud, Austrian neurologist, founder of psychoanalysis, is born (dies in 1939).

Massacre of Potawatomie Creek, Kansas--slavers murdered by free-staters.

Charles Dickens: "A Tale of Two Cities."

Arthur Conan Doyle, English novelist and detective-story writer, is born (dies in 1930).

George Eliot: "Adam Bede."

A. E. Housman, English poet, is born (dies in 1936).

George Sand: "Elle et lui."

Alfred, Lord Tennyson: "Idylls of the King."

Karl Marx: "Critique of the Political Economy."

Abraham Lincoln is elected 16th President of the U. S.; South Caroling secedes from the Union in protest.

George Eliot: "The Mill on the Floss."

Anton Chekhov, Russian author, is born (dies in 1904).

Elizabeth Barrett Browning dies (born 1806).

Charles Dickens: "Great Expectations."

Dostoevsky: "The House of the Dead."

George Eliot: "Silas Marner."

Population: Russia 76 million; U. S. 32 million; Great Britain 23 million; Italy 25 million.

September 22--"Emancipation Proclamation."

Henry David Thoreau, American author, dies (born 1817).

Edith Wharton, American author, is born (dies in 1937).

Abraham Lincoln re-elected.

Massacre of the Cheyenne and Arapahoe Indians at Sand Creek, Colorado.

Dickens: "Our Mutual Friend."

Nathaniel Hawthorne, American novelist, dies (born 1804).

Tolstoi: "War and Peace," (-1869).

April 9--Confederate forces surrender at Appomattox.

April 14--Lincoln is assassinated; Andrew Johnson succeeds as president.

May 24--U. S. Civil War ends (surrender of last Confederate army).

Matthew Arnold: "Essays in Criticism."

Mark Twain: "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County," short story.

Walt Whitman: "Drum Taps."

William Butler Yeats, Irish poet, is born (dies in 1939).

Dostoevsky: "Crime and Punishment."

H. G. Wells, English author, is born (dies in 1946).

Louisa May Alcott: "Little Women."

Robert Browning: "The Ring and the Book."

Dostoevsky: "The Idiot."

Charles Darwin: "The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication."

The 14th Amendment to the U. S. Constitution protects individual's rights...

Mark Twain: "The Innocents Abroad."

Matthew Arnold: "Culture and Anarchy."

Lewis Carroll: "Through the Looking Glass."

George Eliot: "Middlemarch."

Population: U. S. 39 million.