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William Blake publishes Songs of Innocence
Songs of Innocence is a collection of illustrated lyrical poetry. A few first copies were printed and illuminated by William Blake himself in 1789. Blake believed that innocence and experience were "the two contrary states of the human soul", and that true innocence was impossible without experience. Songs of Innocence contains poems either written from the perspective of children or written about them. -
Mary Wollstonecraft critiques female educational restrictions in A Vindication of the Rights of Women
It was the first great feminist treatise. Wollstonecraft preached that intellect will always govern and sought “to persuade women to endeavour to acquire strength, both of mind and body, and to convince them that the soft phrases, susceptibility of heart, delicacy of sentiment, and refinement of taste, are almost synonimous with epithets of weakness. -
Charles and Mary Lamb publish Tales from Shakespeare
The book reduced the archaic English and complicated storyline of Shakespeare to a simple level that children could read and comprehend. However, as noted in the Author's Preface, "his words are used whenever it seemed possible to bring them in; and in whatever has been added to give them the regular form of a connected story. -
Brother’s Grimm begin to publish Grimm’s Fairytales
The first volume of the first edition was published, containing 86 stories; the second volume of 70 stories followed in 1814. Stories were added, and also subtracted, from one edition to the next, until the seventh held 211 tales. All editions were extensively illustrated, first by Philipp Grot Johann and, after his death in 1892, by Robert Leinweber. -
United States declares war on Great Britian
The War of 1812 was a 32-month military conflict between the United States and the British Empire and their Indian allies which resulted in no territorial change, but a resolution of many issues which remained from the American War of Independence. -
Jane Austen publishes Pride and Prejudice
Pride and Prejudice is a novel by Jane Austen, first published in 1813. The story follows the main character Elizabeth Bennet as she deals with issues of manners, upbringing, morality, education, and marriage in the society of the landed gentry of early 19th-century England. Elizabeth is the second of five daughters of a country gentleman living near the fictional town of Meryton in Hertfordshire, near London. -
Mary Shelley, daughter of Mary Wollstonecraft, publishes Frankenstein
Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus is a novel written by Mary Shelley about a creature produced by an unorthodox scientific experiment. Shelley started writing the story when she was nineteen, and the novel was published when she was twenty-one. The first edition was published anonymously in London in 1818. Shelley's name appears on the second edition, published in France in 1823. -
Noah Webster publishes An American Dictionary of the English Language
Noah Webster, Jr. (October 16, 1758 – May 28, 1843), was a lexicographer, textbook pioneer, English spelling reformer, political writer, editor, and prolific author. He has been called the "Father of American Scholarship and Education". His name became synonymous with "dictionary", especially the modern Merriam-Webster dictionary that was first published in 1828 as An American Dictionary of the English Language. -
Victor Hugo publishes The Hunchback of Notre Dame
The Hunchback of Notre-Dame is a novel by Victor Hugo published in 1831. The French title refers to the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, on which the story is centered, and is a metaphor for Esmeralda, the main character of the story. -
Slavery is abolished in British Empire
The Slavery Abolition Act 1833 was an 1833 Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom abolishing slavery throughout the British Empire (with the exceptions "of the Territories in the Possession of the East India Company," the "Island of Ceylon," and "the Island of Saint Helena", which exceptions were eliminated in 1843). The Act was repealed in 1998 as part of a wider rationalisation of English statute law, but later anti-slavery legislation remains in force.
