1801 in literature

• April 1 – A letter from "the author of Génie du christianisme" (François-René de Chateaubriand) is published in Le Publiciste, Chateaubriand having returned to France the previous year under an amnesty issued to émigrés.{{cite book |author=François-René de Chateaubriand |title=Atala. René les Natchez |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=5bdlSFoAxGgC&pg=PT498 |date=18 October 2012 |publisher=Le Livre de Poche |isbn=978-2-253-09467-8 |pages=498–}}
• April 2 – Battle of Copenhagen: In recognition of the English attack on Copenhagen, Adam Oehlenschläger produces his first dramatic sketch April the Second 1801.{{cite book |author=Charles Knight |title=The English Cyclopædia: A New Dictionary of Universal Knowledge. Biography |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=RpplAAAAMAAJ&pg=RA2-PA627 |year=1857 |publisher=Bradbury & Evans |pages=2}}
• April – John Borthwick Gilchrist is appointed a professor at Fort William College in Calcutta, India, where he establishes the Hindusthani Press.{{cite book |last=Das |first=Sisir Kumar |chapter=A Chronology of Literary Events, 1800–1910 |title=A History of Indian Literature: Western Impact, Indian Response, 1800–1910 |publisher=Sahitya Akademi |year=2006}}{{cite book|author=Thomas Roebuck|title=The Annals of the College of Fort William: From the Period of Its Foundation to the Present Time|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=xrc7PHs3O2QC&pg=RA1-PA53|date=18 April 2013|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-1-108-05604-5|pages=53}}
• May – Jane Austen moves with her family to Bath.{{citation |first=Gill |last=Ballinger |url=http://www.jasna.org/persuasions/on-line/vol34no1/ballinger.html |title=Austen's Bath and Bath's Jane |work=Persuasions On-line |publisher=Jane Austen Society of North America |volume=34 |issue=1 |date=Winter 2013 |accessdate=2014-06-05}}
• unknown dates
• The second edition of Specimens of the Early English Poets, edited by George Ellis and covering poems from the Old English through to the 17th century, is influential in acquainting the general reading public with Middle English poetry, going through a further 4 editions.{{cite book |author=Jane Campbell |title=The Retrospective Review (1820-1828) and the Revival of Seventeenth Century Poetry |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=JF09DgAAQBAJ&pg=PA8 |date=1 January 2006 |publisher=Wilfrid Laurier Univ. Press |isbn=978-0-88920-866-7 |pages=8–}}
• The first complete Bible translation into Scottish Gaelic, Am Bìoball Gàidhlig, is published.

• François-René de Chateaubriand – Atala
• Sophie Ristaud Cottin – Malvina
• Anne Seymour Damer – Belmour
• Maria Edgeworth – Belinda
• Elizabeth Helme – St. Margaret's Cave
• Rachel Hunter – Letitia
• Isabella Kelly – Ruthinglenne
• Sophia King – The Fatal Secret
• Mary Meeke – Which is the Man
• Amelia Opie – The Father and Daughter
• Eliza Parsons – The Peasant of Ardenne Forest{{cite book |author=Kamilla Elliott |title=Portraiture and British Gothic Fiction: The Rise of Picture Identification, 1764–1835 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=loa61PdA7nYC&pg=PA200 |date=19 October 2012 |publisher=JHU Press |isbn=978-1-4214-0717-3 |pages=200}}

• Christoph von Schmid – Biblische Geschichte für Kinder (Bible Stories for Children){{cite book |author1=Walther Killy |author-link=Walther Killy |author2=Rudolf Vierhaus |author2-link=Rudolf Vierhaus |title=Plett - Schmidseder |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=JkoK_108xJkC&pg=PT769 |date=30 November 2011 |publisher=Walter de Gruyter |isbn=978-3-11-096630-5 |pages=769}}
• Priscilla Wakefield – The Juvenile Travellers: Containing the Remarks of a Family during a Tour through the Principal States and Kingdoms of Europe

• Heinrich Joseph von Collin – Regulus{{cite book |title=A History of German Literature |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=789HjQcBNDkC&pg=PA311 |publisher=Ardent Media |pages=311 |id=GGKEY:WDSFB5WXYFD}}
• George Colman the Younger – The Poor Gentleman
• William Godwin – Abbas, King of Persia (written)
• Matthew Lewis
• Adelmorn, the Outlaw
• Alfonso, King of Castile
• Thomas Moore and Michael Kelly (tenor) – The Gypsy Prince
• Frederick Reynolds – Folly as it Flies
• Friedrich Schiller
• The Maid of Orleans (Die Jungfrau von Orleans)
• Maria Stuart
• William Sotheby – Julian and Agnes

• Henry James Pye – Alfred
• William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge – Lyrical Ballads (2nd edition, dated 1800)

• Francis Barrett – The Magus, or Celestial Intelligencer
• Elizabeth Hamilton – Letters on the Elementary Principles of Education
• Arthur Murphy – Life of David Garrick
• Jane West – Letters to a Young Man

• January 14 – Jane Welsh Carlyle, Scottish writer, wife of Thomas Carlyle (died 1866){{cite web|url=https://archiveshub.jisc.ac.uk/search/archives/1f4f4b32-0fea-3a1f-98d2-7b917a7ba7bb#|title=Correspondence of Jane Baillie Welsh Carlyle (1801-1866)|website=JISC Archives Hub|access-date=22 February 2024}}
• February 13 – János Kardos, Hungarian evangelical priest, teacher and writer (died 1875)
• February 16 – Frederic Madden, English palaeographer (died 1873)
• February 21 – Cardinal John Henry Newman, English theologian and autobiographer (died 1890)
• March 4 – Karl Rudolf Hagenbach, Swiss theologian and historian (died 1874)
• March 15 – George Perkins Marsh, American philologist (died 1882)
• May 9 – Ulrika von Strussenfelt, Swedish novelist (died 1873)
• May 31 – Johann Georg Baiter, Swiss philologist and textual critic (died 1877){{Cite EB1911|wstitle=Baiter, Johann Georg}}
• June 24 – Caroline Clive, English writer (died 1873)P. D. Edwards, "Clive , Caroline (1801–1873)", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/5693, retrieved 20 Feb 2008]
• August 10 – Christian Hermann Weisse, German Protestant religious philosopher (died 1866)
• September 4 – Alfred d'Orsay, French wit and dandy (died 1852)
• September 7 – Hortense Allart, Milanese-born French feminist novelist (died 1879)Helynne Hollstein Hansen, Hortense Allart : the woman and the novelist, Lanham, Md. : University Press of America, 1998. Page xix
• November 3 – Karl Baedeker, German guidebook publisher (died 1859){{Cite EB1911|wstitle=Baedeker, Karl}}
• November 10 – Vladimir Dal, Russian lexicographer (died 1872)
• November 22 – Abraham Hayward, English man of letters (died 1884)
• November 24 – Ludwig Bechstein, German writer and collector of folk tales (died 1860){{Cite NIE|wstitle=Bechstein, Ludwig|year=1905}}
• December 4 – Karl Ludwig Michelet, German philosopher (died 1893)
• December 7 – Johann Nestroy, Austrian dramatist (died 1862)
• December 11 – Christian Dietrich Grabbe, German dramatist (died 1836){{cite book |last1=Lob |first1=Ladislaus |editor1-last=Konzett |editor1-first=Matthias |title=Encyclopedia of German Literature. |date=2015 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-1135941222 |pages=362–3 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=5uE4CQAAQBAJ&q=%22a+drunken+Shakespeare%22+Grabbe |accessdate=12 November 2019}}
• December 12 – Edward Moxon, English poet and publisher (died 1858)
• unknown dates
• Franciszek Ksawery Godebski, Polish writer (died 1869)
• Cynthia Taggart, American poet (died 1849){{cite book|last=Duzee|first=Edward P. Van|title=Catalogue of Poetry in the English Language: In the Grosvenor Library, Buffalo, N.Y.|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=8FwEAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA112|edition=Public domain|year=1902|publisher=Grosvenor Library (London, England)}}

• January 2 – Johann Kaspar Lavater, Swiss poet (born 1741)
• January 9 – Margaretta Faugères, American playwright, poet and political activist (born 1771)
• January 13 – Robert Orme, English historian of India (born 1728)
• March 14 – Ignacy Krasicki, Polish poet and prince-bishop (born 1735)
• March 21 – John Holt, English scholar (born 1743)
• March 25 – Novalis, German poet (born 1772){{cite book|editor-last=Donehower, Bruce|date=2007|orig-year=1815|author-last=Tieck, Ludwig|author-link=Ludwig Tieck|chapter=Ludwig Tieck "Biography of Novalis, 1815|chapter-url={{Google books|id=UYpkY-G1f84C|page=126|plainurl=yes}}|title=The Birth of Novalis: Friedrich Von Hardenberg's Journal of 1797, with Selected Letters and Documents|publisher=Albany, NY: State University of New York Press|pages=126–136|isbn=9780791480687}}
• April 11 – Antoine de Rivarol, French scholar and epigrammatist (born 1753)
• September 1 – Robert Bage, English novelist (born 1728)
• September 7 – Giovanni Andrea Lazzarini, Italian painter, poet and art historian (born 1710)
• September 23 – Thomas Nowell, Welsh-born controversialist and historian (born c. 1730){{cite book |author=Sir Thomas Duffus Hardy |title=Fasti Ecclesiae Anglicanae, Or, A Calendar of the Principal Ecclesiastical Dignitaries in England and Wales, and of the Chief Officers in the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge: From the Earliest Time to Year MDCCXV |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=TP8UAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA585 |year=1854 |publisher=Oxford University Press |pages=585}}
• November 5 – Motoori Norinaga, Japanese philologist and scholar (born 1730){{cite web |url= https://bunka.nii.ac.jp/heritages/detail/210420|title=本居宣長墓(樹敬寺)附 本居春庭墓|language=Japanese |publisher=Agency for Cultural Affairs |accessdate=August 20, 2020}}
• December 25 – Hester Chapone, English writer of conduct books (born 1727){{cite book|author=Fanny Burney|title=The Journals and Letters of Fanny Burney (Madame D'Arblay) Volume V: West Humble and Paris, 1801-1803: Letters 423-549|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=GC9aAAAAMAAJ|year=1972|publisher=Clarendon Press|isbn=978-0-19-812467-2|page=106}}

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