1812 in literature

• January 2 – Samuel Taylor Coleridge's lecture on Hamlet is given as part of a series of lectures on drama and Shakespeare; it has influenced Hamlet studies ever since.{{cite book|author=John Worthen|title=The Cambridge Introduction to Samuel Taylor Coleridge|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=be7hlnr3lkYC&pg=PA91|date=2 September 2010|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-0-521-76282-3|pages=91}}
• January 15 – Lord Byron takes his seat in the Parliament of the United Kingdom.
• March 20 – First two cantos of Byron's poem Childe Harold's Pilgrimage are published in London by John Murray.{{Cite book |last=Palmer |first=Alan |last2=Palmer |first2=Veronica |year=1992 |title=The Chronology of British History |publisher=Century Ltd |location=London |pages=240–241 |isbn=0-7126-5616-2}} This sells out in five days, giving rise to Byron's comment "I awoke one morning and found myself famous."{{Citation |language=German |first=Barbara |last=Spengler-Axiopoulos |title=Der skeptische Kosmopolit |publisher=NZZ |date=2006-07-01 |url=http://www.nzz.ch/2006/07/01/li/articleDP4LH.html |access-date=2013-04-11 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120318074038/http://www.nzz.ch/2006/07/01/li/articleDP4LH.html|archive-date=2012-03-18 |url-status=dead}}
• May–July – The library of the Duke of Roxburghe (died 1804) is auctioned in London. On June 17 a presumed first edition of Boccaccio's Decameron, printed by Christopher Valdarfer of Venice in 1471, is sold to the Marquis of Blandford for £2,260, the highest price ever given for a book at that time. This is followed by a social meeting of bibliophiles under the chairmanship of 2nd Earl Spencer, the origin of the Roxburghe Club, formed by Thomas Frognall Dibdin.
• June 24–December 14 – The French invasion of Russia will form the climax of Tolstoy's 1869 novel War and Peace and feature several other works of literature.
• October 10 – The rebuilt Theatre Royal, Drury Lane in London opens.
• December 9–20 – Leigh Hunt is tried and convicted of libel for calling the Prince Regent "a violator of his word, a libertine over head and ears in debt and disgrace" in The Examiner on March 22.{{Cite web |first=Nicholas |last=Roe |title=Hunt, (James Henry) Leigh (1784–1859) |work=Oxford Dictionary of National Biography |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=2004 |edition=Online |url=http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/14195 |accessdate=2013-12-02 |doi=10.1093/ref:odnb/14195}} {{ODNBsub}}
• December 26 – Novelist Frederick Marryat is promoted to lieutenant after distinguished service at sea in the War of 1812.{{Cite book |author=Florence Marryat |title=Life and Letters of Captain Marryat |url=https://archive.org/details/lifeandlettersc06marrgoog |year=1872 |publisher=D. Appleton |pages=[https://archive.org/details/lifeandlettersc06marrgoog/page/n98 73]}}

• Sarah Burney – Traits of Nature{{cite book |author=Sarah Harriet Burney |title=The Letters of Sarah Harriet Burney |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=v5vYkxFd-ZQC&pg=PA159 |year=1997 |publisher=University of Georgia Press |isbn=978-0-8203-1746-5 |pages=159}}
• Maria Edgeworth:{{cite book |author=Maria Edgeworth |title=Delphi Complete Novels of Maria Edgeworth (Illustrated) |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ID0bAgAAQBAJ&pg=PT5697 |date=18 November 2013 |publisher=Delphi Classics |pages=5697 |id=GGKEY:5Y2D7748AQ4}}
• The Absentee
• Emilie de Coulanges
• Vivian
• Jean-Baptiste Benoît Eyriès – Fantasmagoriana
• The Brothers Grimm – Grimm's Fairy Tales, volume 1 (Kinder- und Hausmärchen)
• Ann Hatton – The Fortress del Vechii{{cite book |author=Diane Long Hoeveler |title=The Gothic Ideology: Religious Hysteria and Anti-Catholicism in British Popular Fiction, 1780-1880 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=R2SuBwAAQBAJ&pg=PA330 |date=15 May 2014 |publisher=University of Wales Press |isbn=978-1-78316-049-5 |pages=330}}
• Frances Margaretta Jacson (misascribed to Mary Brunton) – Things by their Right Names
• Charles Maturin – The Milesian Chief
• Rebecca Rush – Kelroy{{cite book |author=Gregg Crane |title=The Cambridge Introduction to The Nineteenth-Century American Novel |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=rP5Z8Twz0rEC&pg=PA17 |date=25 October 2007 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-1-139-46565-6 |pages=17}}
• George Soane – The Eve of San Marco
• Louisa Stanhope – The Confessional of Valombre
• Elizabeth Thomas – The Vindictive Spirit
• Jane West – The Loyalists: An Historical Novel

• Barbara Hofland – The History of a Clergyman's Widow and Her Young Family{{cite book|first1=Peter|last1=Garside|first2=Patrick|last2=Parrinder|first3=Karen|last3=O'Brien|title=The Oxford History of the Novel in English|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=2iRUBgAAQBAJ&pg=PA263|year=2015|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0-19-957480-3|page=263}}
• Johann David Wyss – The Swiss Family Robinson

• Joanna Baillie – Orra
• Theodor Körner
• Die Braut (The Bride)
• Der grüne Domino (The Green Domino){{cite book|author=Wilhelm Kühlmann|title=Huh – Kräf|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=z5v5qGP7jj4C&pg=PA575|date=4 September 2009|publisher=Walter de Gruyter|isbn=978-3-11-021394-2|pages=575|language=de}}
• Der Nachtwächter (The Night Watchman)
• Zriny{{cite book |author1=Marcel Cornis-Pope |author2=John Neubauer |title=History of the Literary Cultures of East-Central Europe: Junctures and Disjunctures in the 19th and 20th Centuries |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=pV6sFB-KuU8C&pg=PA519 |date=1 January 2004 |publisher=John Benjamins Publishing |isbn=90-272-3452-3 |pages=519}}
• Adam Oehlenschläger – Stærkodder
• August von Kotzebue – Der arme Poet (The Poor Poet)

• Anna Laetitia Barbauld – Eighteen Hundred and Eleven
• Lord Byron – Childe Harold's Pilgrimage
• Percy Bysshe Shelley – The Devil's Walk: A Ballad
• James and Horace Smith (anonymously) – Rejected Addresses
• William Tennant – Anster Fair

• John Galt – Cursory Reflections on Political and Commercial Topics{{cite book|title=The Quarterly Review|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=tphKAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA475|year=1819|publisher=Murray|pages=475}}
• Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel – Die objektive Logik{{cite book |author=Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel |title=Gesammelte Werke: Die objektive logik (1812 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=n6IctQEACAAJ |year=1812 |publisher=F. Meiner}}
• Sir Richard Colt Hoare – The Ancient History of South Wiltshire
• Mirza Abu Taleb Khan – Masir Talib fi Bilad Afranji (The Travels of Taleb in the Regions of Europe)
• James Maitland, 8th Earl of Lauderdale – The Depreciation of the Paper-currency of Great Britain Proved
• John Nichols – The Literary Anecdotes of the 18th Century, volume 1
• Percy Bysshe Shelley – Declaration of Rights

• February 7 – Charles Dickens, English novelist and editor (died 1870){{cite book|author=Frank T. (Frank Thomas) Marzials|title=Life of Charles Dickens|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=eIhzXSDHzv4C&pg=PT214|date=7 February 2012|publisher=tredition|isbn=978-3-8472-0702-3|pages=214}}
• February 15 – Chandos Wren-Hoskyns (Chandos Hoskyns), English agricultural author and landowner (died 1876)
• February 19 – Zygmunt Krasiński, Polish poet (died 1859)
• May 7 – Robert Browning, English poet (died 1889){{cite book|author=Harold Bloom|title=Robert Browning|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-eDem_w7AcAC&pg=PA12|year=2009|publisher=Infobase Publishing|isbn=978-1-4381-1582-5|pages=12}}
• May 12 – Edward Lear, English nonsense poet, caricaturist and painter (died 1888){{cite book|author=John Lehmann|title=Edward Lear and his World|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=0yL9jd5mxkMC|year=1977|page=10}}
• June 9 – Camilla Dufour Crosland, English writer and poet (died 1895)
• June 18 – Ivan Goncharov, Russian novelist and critic (died 1891)
• June 27 – Andrei Mocioni, Hungarian/Romanian journalist and literary patron (died 1880)
• July 5 – Antonio García Gutiérrez, Spanish dramatist (died 1884)
• August 22 – Geraldine Jewsbury, English novelist and woman of letters (died 1880)
• September 16 – Anna Louisa Geertruida Bosboom-Toussaint, Dutch novelist (died 1886){{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=528|isbn=978-9-08964-129-8}}
• October 29 – Louise Granberg, Swedish playwright (died 1907){{Cite web |title=Litteraturbanken {{!}} Svenska klassiker som e-bok och epub |url=https://litteraturbanken.se/%C3%B6vers%C3%A4ttarlexikon/artiklar/Louise_Granberg_Stjernstr%C3%B6m |website=litteraturbanken.se |accessdate=2 April 2020}}
• December 3 – Hendrik Conscience, Flemish novelist (died 1883)
• December 10 – Caroline M. Sawyer, American poet, writer, and editor (died 1894)
• December 23 – Samuel Smiles, Scottish self-help author (died 1904)
• unknown date
• Louis du Couret, French explorer, military officer, and writer (died 1867){{cite book |url = http://www.wdl.org/en/item/11762/ |title = Life in the Desert, or, Recollections of Travel in Asia and Africa |via = World Digital Library |year = 1860 |access-date = 2013-09-23 }}
• Mohan Lal Kashmiri, Indian traveller and writer (died 1877)

• February 13 – Jacques Marie Boutet, French dramatist and actor (born 1745)
• February 24 – Hugo Kołłątaj, Polish historian and philosopher (born 1750)
• March 18 – John Horne Tooke, English controversialist and cleric (born 1736){{EB1911|wstitle=Tooke, John Horne|volume=27|last1= Courtney |first1= William Prideaux |author1-link= William Prideaux Courtney | pages = 13–14 }}
• March 24 – Johann Jakob Griesbach, German Biblical commentator (born 1745)
• May 12 – Martha Ballard, American diarist (born c. 1734)
• July 14 – Christian Gottlob Heyne, German librarian and classicist (born 1729)
• October 28 – Susanna Duncombe, English poet and painter (born 1725)
• November 11 – Platon Levshin, Russian church historian (born 1737)
• November 16 – John Walter, English founder of The Times, London (born c. 1738)
• December 22 – Pierre Henri Larcher, French classicist and archeologist (born 1726)
• unknown date – Zalkind Hourwitz, Polish essayist (born 1738){{cite book|author1=Albrecht Scholz|author2=Caris-Petra Heidel|title=Sozialpolitik und Judentum|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=zG0eAQAAIAAJ|year=2000|publisher=Union Druckerei|language=de|page=17}}

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