1803 in literature

• June 30 – Novelist Mary Butt marries her cousin, Captain Henry Sherwood, acquiring the surname by which she will become best known.{{cite book|author=Aleyn Lyell Reade|title=Johnsonian Gleanings|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Mk3lfCquovwC|year=1923|publisher=Francis|page=132}}
• September 9 – Bamberg State Library is established in Upper Franconia.
• unknown date – The library which becomes the National Széchényi Library, established in 1802 by Count Ferenc Széchényi, opens to the public in Pest, Hungary.{{cite book|author1=Wayne A. Wiegand|author2=Donald G. Davis|title=Encyclopedia of Library History|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=WR9bsvhc4XMC&pg=PA458|year=1994|publisher=Taylor & Francis|isbn=978-0-8240-5787-9|pages=458}}
• Jane Austen's novel Northanger Abbey, a satire on Gothic fiction, is advertised by a London publisher but is not in fact published until 1817, after her death.{{cite book|author=Claire Tomalin|title=Jane Austen: A Life|location=New York|publisher=Alfred A. Knopf|year=1997|isbn=0-679-44628-1|page=182}}

• Charles Brockden Brown – Memoirs of Carwin the Biloquist
• Sophie Ristaud Cottin – Amélie de Mansfield
• Catherine Cuthbertson – The Romance of the Pyrenees
• Elizabeth Gunning – The War-Office
• Francis Lathom – The Mysterious Freebooter
• Mary Meeke – A Tale of Mystery, or Celina
• Jean Paul - Titan
• Jane Porter – Thaddeus of Warsaw{{cite book|first=Q. D.|last=Leavis|authorlink=Q. D. Leavis|title=Fiction and the Reading Public|edition=rev.|location=London|publisher=Chatto & Windus|year=1965}}
• Germaine de Staël – Margaret of Strafford

• John Allingham
• Hearts of Oak
• The Marriage Promise
• George Colman – John Bull
• William Dunlap – Voice of Nature (adapted from the French)
• Collin d'Harleville – Malice pour malice
• Thomas Holcroft – Hear Both Sides
• Heinrich von Kleist – Die Familie Schroffenstein
• August von Kotzebue – Die deutschen Kleinstädter (comedy, German Small-towners)
• Frederick Reynolds – The Three Per Cents
• Friedrich Schiller – The Bride of Messina (Die Braut von Messina), premiere in Weimar on March 19
• Isaac Reed (ed.) – The Plays of William Shakspeare (first variorum edition)

• Henry Kirke White – Clifton Grove, a Sketch in Verse, with other Poems
• Adam Oehlenschlager – Digte (Poems)

• Alexandre Balthazar Laurent Grimod de La Reynière – Almanach des gourmands (1st edition)
• Bahadur Ali Hussaini – Akhlaq-e-Hindi, first Urdu book printed in printing-press (ethics)Raza Ali Abadi, Ktabian Apny Aaba ki, p.15-18
• Immanuel Kant – Über Pädagogik (On Pedagogy)
• Adamantios Korais – Present Conditions of Civilisation in Greece
• Joseph Lancaster – Improvements in Education as It Respects the Industrious Classes
• Thomas Malthus – An Essay on the Principle of Population (2nd edition)
• Humphry Repton – Observations on the Theory and Practice of Landscape Gardening

• January 3 – Douglas William Jerrold, English dramatist (died 1857)
• January 15 – Marjorie Fleming, Scottish child writer (died 1811){{cite ODNB |title=Fleming, Marjory (1803–1811), child diarist |url=http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/10.1093/ref:odnb/9780198614128.001.0001/odnb-9780198614128-e-9707 |year=2004 |access-date=26 March 2019 |language=en |doi=10.1093/ref:odnb/9707|last1=Sutherland |first1=Kathryn }}
• January 27 – Eunice Hale Cobb, American writer, public speaker, and activist (died 1880)
• May 16 – Amelie von Strussenfelt, Swedish novelist (died 1847)
• May 25
• Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton, English novelist, poet and dramatist (died 1873)
• Ralph Waldo Emerson, American poet, essayist and philosopher (died 1882)
• July 20 – Dudley Costello, Irish writer and journalist (died 1865)
• September 20 – Catherine Crowe, English novelist, playwright and children's writer (died 1876)
• September 28 – Prosper Mérimée, French dramatist and historian (died 1870)
• October 25 – Maria Doolaeghe, Flemish novelist (died 1884){{cite book|first=Lia|last=Van Gemert|title=Women's Writing from the Low Countries 1200-1875: A Bilingual Anthology|location=Amsterdam|publisher=Amsterdam University Press|year=2011|page=500|isbn=978-9-08964-129-8}}
• November 14 – Jacob Abbott, American children's writer (died 1879)
• December 6 – Susanna Moodie, English-born Canadian writer (died 1885)
• December 31 – José María Heredia y Heredia, Cuban poet (died 1839)

Unknown date – Evan Bevan, Welsh writer of satirical verse (died 1866){{cite DWB|id=s-BEVA-EVA-1803|title=Bevan, Evan (1803-1866), poet|first=Griffith Milwyn|last=Griffiths|access-date=8 September 2020}}

• January 1 – James Woodforde, English diarist (born 1740){{cite web|title=James Woodforde|url=http://www.parsonwoodforde.org.uk/|publisher=The Parson Woodforde Society|access-date=2013-04-11}}
• February 11 – Jean-François de La Harpe, French dramatist and critic (born 1739)
• March 14 – Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock, German poet (born 1724)
• April 9 – Mihály Bakos (Miháo Bakoš), Slovene hymnist and Lutheran minister (born c. 1742)
• June 12 – Richard François Philippe Brunck, French classical scholar (born 1729)
• August 2 – John Hoole, English translator (born 1727)
• September 5 – Pierre Choderlos de Laclos, French novelist (born 1841){{cite book|author=Frank Northen Magill|title=Masterplots: Cyclopedia of world authors; 753 novelists, poets, playwrights from the world's fine literature|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=fe_XAAAAMAAJ|year=1958|publisher=Salem Press|page=613}}
• October 8 – Vittorio Alfieri, Italian dramatist and poet (born 1749){{cite book|author=Margaretta Jolly|title=Encyclopedia of Life Writing: Autobiographical and Biographical Forms|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=pedJAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA32|date=4 December 2013|publisher=Routledge|isbn=978-1-136-78744-7|pages=32}}
• December 18 – Johann Gottfried Herder, German philosopher, poet and critic (born 1744)

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