This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1886.
Events
January – MLN: Modern Language Notes, an academic journal, introduces European literary criticism into American scholarship. It is founded at Johns Hopkins University. January 5 and January 9 – Robert Louis Stevenson's horror novella Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde appears in New York and London. Almost 40,000 copies are sold in the first six months. January 17 – The Anglo-Irish writers and cousins Somerville and Ross first meet, at Castletownshend, County Cork, Ireland. February – A list of 100 books considered "necessary for a liberal education", compiled by John Lubbock, is published. February 22 – The first performance of William Gillette's American Civil War drama Held by the Enemy is held at the Criterion Theater, Brooklyn, New York. April 10 – Anatole Baju begins publication of the magazine Le Décadent in Paris, in an effort to define and organize the Decadent movement. May–July – Robert Louis Stevenson's Scottish historical novel Kidnapped is serialized in the London magazine Young Folks. May 7 – Percy Bysshe Shelley's verse drama The Cenci, A Tragedy, in Five Acts, written and printed in Italy in 1819, is first played privately in England, sponsored by the Shelley Society, at the Grand Theatre, Islington, London, before an audience that includes Robert Browning (for whose birthday it is held), George Bernard Shaw and Oscar Wilde. Oscar Wilde's review of it in Dramatic Review appears on May 15. September 9 – The Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works is signed. September 18 – The "Symbolist Manifesto" (Le Symbolisme) is placed in the French newspaper Le Figaro by a Greek-born poet Jean Moréas, who calls Symbolism hostile to "plain meanings, declamations, false sentimentality and matter-of-fact description," and intended to "clothe the Ideal in a perceptible form" whose "goal was not in itself, but whose sole purpose was to express the Ideal." Fall – Clifford Barnes is taken on as a clerk at the Manhattan book store Arthur Hinds & Co., which will become Barnes & Noble. November – Rudyard Kipling's Plain Tales from the Hills begin to appear in the Lahore Civil and Military Gazette under the British Raj. May 15 – Emily Dickinson dies aged 55 of Bright's disease at the family home in Amherst, Massachusetts, with fewer than a dozen of her 1,800 poems published. She is buried under the self-penned epitaph "Called Back". After publication of a first collection of her verse in 1890, she will be seen with Walt Whitman as one of the two quintessential nineteenth-century American poets. unknown dates A Japanese adaptation of Shakespeare's play Hamlet as Hamuretto Yamato Nishiki-e is serialized in the newspaper Tokyo Eiri Shimbun. The first English language translation of Flaubert's novel Madame Bovary (1856), made by Eleanor Marx, is published by Henry Vizetelly in London.
New books
Fiction
Edmondo De Amicis – Heart (Cuore) Herman Bang – Ved Vejen (published in the collection Stille Eksistenser) Emilia Pardo Bazán – Los pazos de Ulloa (The House of Ulloa, publication commenced) Leon Bloy – Disperato Rhoda Broughton – Doctor Cupid Hall Caine – A Son of Hagar Mary Cholmondeley – The Danvers Jewels Wilkie Collins The Evil Genius The Guilty River Marie Corelli – A Romance of Two Worlds Alice Diehl – Griselda George Gissing – Demos; A Story of English Socialism Maxwell Gray (Mary Gleed Tuttiett) – The Silence of Dean Maitland Thomas Hardy – The Mayor of Casterbridge William Dean Howells – Indian Summer Fergus Hume – The Mystery of a Hansom Cab Henry James – The Bostonians Jerome K. Jerome – The Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow Lie Kim Hok – Tjhit Liap Seng Vladimir Korolenko – The Blind Musician Pierre Loti – Pêcheur d'Islande Jules Mary – Roger la Honte Octave Mirbeau – Le Calvaire George A. Moore A Drama in Muslin Confessions of a Young Man Bolesław Prus – The Outpost (Placówka; serialization complete, book publication) Britiffe Constable Skittowe – Sudden Death, or, My Lady the Wolf Robert Louis Stevenson –Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde August Strindberg – Getting Married (Giftas), vol. II (short stories) Leo Tolstoy – The Death of Ivan Ilyich (Смерть Ивана Ильича, Smert' Ivana Ilyicha) Jules Verne The Lottery Ticket Robur the Conqueror Eduard Vilde – Musta mantliga mees (Man in a Black Coat) Auguste Villiers de l'Isle-Adam – Eva Futura Émile Zola – L'Œuvre