See also: 1880 in literature, other events of 1881, 1882 in literature, list of years in literature.
Events
- March 4 - A Study in Scarlet, the first Sherlock Holmes story, begins.
- The first of the three-volume History of Woman Suffrage, was published by Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton.
New Books
- Asphodel - Mary Elizabeth Braddon
- The Black Robe - Wilkie Collins
- The Cryptogram - Jules Verne
- Eight Hundred Leagues On The Amazon - Jules Verne
- En menage - Joris-Karl Huysmans
- God and the Man - Robert Buchanan
- The Great Infidels - Robert G. Ingersoll
- Harry Joscelyn - Margaret Oliphant
- Milly and Olly - Mary Augusta Ward
- The Portrait of a Lady - Henry James
- Rajsimha - Bankim Chatterjee
- The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government - Jefferson Davis
- Stanley Brereton - William Harrison Ainsworth
- Sylvestre Bonnard - Anatole France
Births
- March 25 - Mary Webb, writer (+ 1927)
- October 15 - P. G. Wodehouse, British-American writer (+ (1975)
Deaths
- January 28 - Fyodor Dostoevsky, author
- April 19 - Benjamin Disraeli, writer, politician
- George Robert Aberigh-Mackay - English author