This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1895 .
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Toulouse-Lautrec 's portrait of Oscar Wilde on the night before his trial opens[2]
January 3 – The première of Oscar Wilde 's comedy An Ideal Husband takes place at the Haymarket Theatre in London.
January 5
January 12 – The National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty is registered in England and begins acquiring properties and making them accessible to the public. Carlyle's House in Chelsea is one of the first to open.
February – The Bookman (New York) , a monthly, is first published by Dodd, Mead and Company with Harry Thurston Peck as editor. It publishes the first bestseller list, which is headed by Frank R. Stockton 's novel The Adventures of Captain Horn .
February 14 – Oscar Wilde 's last play, the comedy The Importance of Being Earnest , opens at St James's Theatre , London.[3]
February 18 – The Marquess of Queensberry (father of Lord Alfred Douglas , Oscar Wilde 's lover), leaves a calling card at the Albemarle Club in London inscribed: "For Oscar Wilde, posing somdomite", i. e. sodomite , inducing Wilde to charge him with criminal libel .[4] In a meeting on March 25 at the Café Royal in London, Frank Harris and George Bernard Shaw fail to dissuade Wilde from proceeding with the action.
March 4 – George du Maurier 's play, Trilby , based on his novel of the same name , serialised in 1894 and first published in book form in 1895, opens at the Boston Museum in the United States, with a New York première on April 15 at the Garden Theatre . Wilton Lackaye plays Svengali and Virginia Harned the title rôle.
April/May – Pan , a German arts and literary magazine, is first published, in Berlin.
April 3 –5 – Queensberry is acquitted in the libel case of Wilde v Queensberry at the Old Bailey in London. Evidence of Wilde 's homosexual relationships with young men renders him liable to criminal prosecution under the Labouchere Amendment , while the Libel Act 1843 renders him legally liable for the considerable expenses Queensberry has incurred in his defence, leaving Wilde penniless.
April 6 – Oscar Wilde is arrested at the Cadogan Hotel , London, in the company of Robbie Ross , for "unlawfully committing acts of gross indecency with certain male persons". He is detained on remand in Holloway Prison .
April 29 – Joseph Conrad 's novel Almayer's Folly is published in London by T. Fisher Unwin , as Conrad's first published work, after retirement from his career at sea . It marks the first appearance of his pseudonym.
May 23 – Representatives of the Astor Library and Lenox Library , with the backing of Samuel J. Tilden , agree to merge and form the New York Public Library .
May 25
June 21 – William Poel 's newly formed Elizabethan Stage Society , created to promote productions of plays by Shakespeare and his contemporaries in the assumed style of the English Renaissance theatre , gives its first performance, at Burlington Hall.[7]
September 7 – The stage version of Trilby (see March 4) has its UK première at the Theatre Royal, Manchester , with a London première on October 30 at the Haymarket Theatre), with Herbert Beerbohm Tree and Dorothea Baird . The play is so successful that Tree can use the profits to build Her Majesty's Theatre . It also popularises the trilby hat.
October
November 1 – Thomas Hardy 's last completed novel, Jude the Obscure is published by Osgood, McIlvaine, and Co. in London, dated 1896, on completion of an expurgated serialization under the title Hearts Insurgent in Harper's Magazine . It is strongly criticized on moral grounds. Hardy later claims that Walsham How , Bishop of Wakefield , burned a copy.[9]
c. December – Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili, the future Joseph Stalin , publishes his romantic poems in the newspaper Iveria , receiving accolades from a senior writer, Ilia Chavchavadze .[10]
December 19 – Robert Frost marries Elinor Miriam White at Lawrence, Massachusetts .[11]
unknown dates
Children and young people
January 24 – Eugen Roth , German poet and lyricist (died 1976 )
February 14 – Max Horkheimer , German philosopher (died 1973 )
February 28 – Marcel Pagnol , French novelist (died 1974 )
March 29 – Ernst Jünger , German novelist (died 1998 )
April 15 – Corrado Alvaro , Italian novelist and journalist (died 1968 )[15]
April 17 – Ion Vinea , Romanian poet and novelist (died 1964 )
April 20 – Henry de Montherlant , French novelist and dramatist (suicide 1972 )
April 23 – Ngaio Marsh , New Zealand detective fiction writer and theatre director (died 1982 )
May 3 – Ernst Kantorowicz , German historian (died 1963 )
May 8 – Edmund Wilson , American literary critic (died 1972 )
May 9 – Lucian Blaga , Romanian poet and philosopher (died 1961 )
May 11 – Jiddu Krishnamurti , Indian philosopher, speaker, and writer (died 1986 )[16]
May 19 – Charles Sorley , Scottish-born poet (killed in action 1915 )
May 24 – Marcel Janco , Romanian–Israeli artist, art theorist, essayist and poet (died 1984 )
June 16 – Warren Lewis , Irish-born historian (died 1973 )
June 27 – Anna Banti , Italian art historian, critic, and translator (died 1985 )
June 29 – Alice Lardé de Venturino , Salvadoran poet and writer (died 1983 )[17]
July 14 – F. R. Leavis , English literary critic (died 1978 )[18]
July 24 – Robert Graves , English poet and novelist (died 1985 )[19]
August 19 – Arnolt Bronnen , Austrian playwright and director (died 1959 )
September 2 – D. I. Suchianu , Romanian essayist, translator, social scientist and film theorist (died 1985 )
September 7 – Jacques Vaché , French writer and magazine editor (died 1919 )[20]
September 16 – Zainal Abidin Ahmad , Malayan nationalist writer (died 1973 )
September 21 – Sergei Yesenin , Russian poet (died 1925 )
October 3 – Giovanni Comisso , Italian writer (died 1969 )[21]
October 6 – Caroline Gordon , American novelist and critic (died 1981 )[22]
October 17 – C. H. B. Kitchin , English novelist (died 1967 )
October 20 – Alexandru Rosetti , Romanian linguist, editor and memoirist (died 1990 )
October 31 – B. H. Liddell Hart , English military historian (died 1970 )
November 1 – David Jones , Anglo-Welsh poet and artist (died 1974 )
November 16 – Michael Arlen , Armenian novelist and short story writer (died 1956 )
December 1 – Henry Williamson , English novelist (died 1977 )
December 9 – Vivian de Sola Pinto , English poet, literary critic, and historian (died 1969 )
December 14 – Paul Éluard , French poet (died 1952 )
December 24 – Noel Streatfeild , English novelist and children's writer (died 1986 )
December 28 – Carol Ryrie Brink , American novelist and children's author (died 1981 )[23]
Unknown date – Ionel Gherea , Romanian philosopher, essayist and novelist (died 1978 )
January 3 – Mary Torrans Lathrap , American author and reformer (born 1838 )
January 13 – John Robert Seeley , English historian and essayist (born 1834 )
January 15 – Lady Charlotte Guest , English translator of Welsh literature (born 1812 )
February 16 – Camilla Dufour Crosland , English writer and poet (born 1812 )
February 19 – Auguste Vacquerie , French journalist (born 1819 )
February 20 – Frederick Douglass , African-American abolitionist, orator and writer (born 1818 )[24]
March 5 – Nikolai Leskov , Russian journalist, novelist and short story writer (born 1831 )
March 15 – Cesare Cantù , Italian historian (born 1804 )
March 22 – Henry Coppée , American historian and biographer (born 1821 )
April 3 – Gustav Freytag , German novelist and dramatist (born 1816 )
April 17 – Jorge Isaacs , Colombian writer, politician and explorer (born 1837 )[25]
April 25 – Emily Thornton Charles , American newspaper founder (born 1845 )[26]
April 26 – Eric Stenbock , German poet (born 1858 )
May 4 – Lillian Spender (née Headland), English novelist (born 1835 )
May 26 – Ahmet Cevdet Pasha , Ottoman historian and legal writer (born 1822 )
June 27 – Sophie Adlersparre , Swedish feminist and magazine editor (born 1823 )[27]
August 1 – Heinrich von Sybel , German historian (born 1817 )
August 5 – Friedrich Engels , German socialist writer (born 1820 )[28]
September 29 – William Grainge , English local historian (born 1818 )[29]
October 14 – Clara Doty Bates , American author (born 1838 )[30]
November 4 – Eugene Field , American children's author (born 1850 )[31]
November 27 – Alexandre Dumas, fils , French novelist and dramatist (born 1824 )[32]
November 28 – L. S. Bevington , English anarchist poet and essayist (born 1845 )
Holland, Merlin, ed. (2003). The Complete Works of Oscar Wilde . London: Harper Collins. p. 300. ISBN 0-00-714436-9 . Holland, Merlin (2003). Irish Peacock & Scarlet Marquess: The Real Trial of Oscar Wilde . London: Fourth Estate. p. 300. ISBN 0-00-715418-6 .
Warner, Charles Dudley (1896). A Library of the World's Best Literature - Ancient and Modern - Vol. VII . New York: The International Society. pp. 3067–8.
Reginald, Robert (1979). Science Fiction and Fantasy Literature Vol 2 . Detroit: Gale Research. p. 831. ISBN 978-0-81031-051-3 .