This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1848.
Events
January 22 – The second edition of Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre is dedicated to William Makepeace Thackeray. It is also first published in the United States this year. February 21 – Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels publish The Communist Manifesto (Manifest der Kommunistischen Partei) in London. March 15 – Revolutions of 1848 in the Austrian Empire: Hungarian Revolution of 1848 – The poet Sándor Petőfi with Mihály Táncsics and other young men lead the bloodless revolution in Pest, reciting Petőfi's "Nemzeti dal" (National song) and the "12 points" and printing them on the presses of Landerer és Heckenast, so forcing Ferdinand I of Austria to abolish censorship. March 18 – The Boston Public Library is founded by an act of the Great and General Court of Massachusetts. April 1 – Charles Dickens's novel Dombey and Son concludes its serial publication. April 10 – John Ruskin marries Effie Gray. May 5 – Poet Alfred de Musset is dismissed as librarian of the Ministry of the Interior under the French Second Republic. c. June 27 – The second and final novel of Anne Brontë (as Acton Bell), The Tenant of Wildfell Hall is published in London. It sells out in six weeks, requiring a reissue. July – Serial publication of William Makepeace Thackeray's novel Vanity Fair by Punch magazine concludes. It appears in book format (from the same typesetting) by Bradbury and Evans in London, with illustrations by the author. October 1 – At the funeral of Branwell Brontë, his younger sister Emily begins to show symptoms of a cold, soon revealed to be tuberculosis. October 18 – Elizabeth Gaskell's first novel, Mary Barton: A Tale of Manchester Life is published anonymously by Chapman & Hall in London in two volumes. c. October – The first frescoes of scenes from English literature in the Poets' Hall of the Palace of Westminster are completed: Charles West Cope's Griselda's first Trial of Patience (based on Chaucer's The Clerk's Tale) and John Callcott Horsley's Satan touched by Ithuriel's Spear while whispering evil dreams to Eve (based on Milton's Paradise Lost). November William Makepeace Thackeray's novel The History of Pendennis begins its serial publication. The London publisher George Routledge begins issuing the Railway Library series of cheap reprint novels, pioneering the yellow-back genre, with an edition of James Fenimore Cooper's The Pilot. December 22 – Three days after her death from tuberculosis at Haworth Parsonage, aged 30, Emily Brontë is buried in her father's St Michael and All Angels' Church, Haworth. The funeral procession is led by her father and her dog, Keeper. unknown date – The first issue of the penny dreadful Gentleman Jack, or Life on the Road, probably by James Malcolm Rymer, is published in London by Edward Lloyd. Inspired by the life of the highwayman Claude Duval (hanged 1670), but opening in 1780, the series will reach over 200 parts by 1852 and be popular on both sides of the Atlantic.
New books
Fiction
W. Harrison Ainsworth – The Lancashire Witches (serialised in The Sunday Times) Willibald Alexis – Der Werwulf R. M. Ballantyne – Life in the Wilds of North America Anne Brontë – The Tenant of Wildfell Hall Edward Bulwer-Lytton – Harold, the Last of the Saxons William Carleton – The Emigrants of Ahadarra Charles Dickens Dombey and Son The Haunted Man and the Ghost's Bargain Fyodor Dostoevsky – White Nights Alexandre Dumas, fils – La Dame aux caméllias Elizabeth Gaskell – Mary Barton Geraldine Jewsbury – The Half Sisters Julia Kavanagh – Madeleine, a Tale of Auvergne Charles Kingsley – Yeast Eliza Lynn Linton – Amymone: a romance of the days of Pericles Frederick Marryat The Little Savage Valerie Henri Murger – Scènes de la vie de Bohème John Henry Newman – Loss and Gain: the story of a convert G. W. M. Reynolds The Coral Island, or the Hereditary Curse Wagner the Wehr-Wolf George Sand – François le champi (François the Waif) Adele Schopenhauer – Eine dänische Geschichte (A Danish Story) William Makepeace Thackeray – The Book of Snobs Anthony Trollope – The Kellys and the O'Kellys
Children and young people
Cecil Frances Alexander – Hymns for Little Children (includes "All Things Bright and Beautiful" and "Once in Royal David's City" Catherine Crowe – Pippie's Warning, or, Mind Your Temper