This article contains information about the literary events and publications of1823.

• February 7 – TheBannatyne Club is inaugurated by SirWalter Scott and others as atext publication society to print by subscription rare texts on the history, literature and traditions ofScotland.
• October –Thomas De Quincey's classic essay "On the Knocking at the Gate in Macbeth" appears in this month's issue ofThe London Magazine.
• May 23 – Russian writerAlexander Pushkin begins work on his verse novelEugene Onegin.^[1]
• July 28 – The first theatrical adaptation of theFrankenstein story,Presumption; or, the Fate of Frankenstein, opens at theRoyal Opera House,Covent Garden in London. On August 29,Mary Shelley attends a performance, the only version of her novel that she would ever see.^[2]
• December –Samuel Taylor Coleridge, suffering from opium addiction, moves to No. 3, The Grove, Highgate, a house owned by DrJames Gillman.^[3]
• December 15 –John Neal sails for England where he became the first American author published in British literary journals.^[4]
• December 23 –Clement Clarke Moore's poem,A Visit from St. Nicholas is published anonymously in the Troy, New York,Sentinel, and introduces the eponym "Santa Claus".
• Unknown dates
  • Discovery of the 1603 FirstQuarto edition of William Shakespeare'sHamlet (a so-called "bad quarto"), bySir Henry Bunbury, causes scholarly excitement.^[5]
  • London actorEdmund Kean reinstates in performance the original, tragic ending of Shakespeare's playKing Lear, not generally used since 1681, although it is not well received.^[6]
  • The London publisher C. Baldwyn brings out the first English translation ofGrimms' Fairy Tales asGerman Popular Stories. Translated from theKinder und Haus Märchen collected by MM. Grimm from Oral Tradition. The anonymous translations were made by two lawyers,Edgar Taylor andDavid Jardine, and the illustrations byGeorge Cruikshank, who is beginning to focus on this medium.^[7]

• Willibald Alexis –Walladmor
• James Fenimore Cooper –The Pioneers^[8]
• Claire de Duras –Ourika
• John Galt
  • The Entail, or The Lairds of Grippy
  • The Gathering of the West
  • Ringan Gilhaize, or The Covenanters
  • The Spaewife: a tale of the Scottish chronicles
• Thomas Gaspey –Monks of Leadenhead
• Sarah Green –The Nieces
• Jane Harvey –Mountalyth
• William Hazlitt –Liber Amoris
• Victor Hugo –Hans of Iceland
• Grace Kennedy –Father Clement
• Caroline Lamb –Ada Reis
• John Gibson Lockhart –Reginald Dalton
• Mary Meeke –What Shall Be, Shall Be
• John Neal^[9]
  • Logan, a Family History (London edition)
  • Seventy-Six
  • Randolph, A Novel
  • Errata; or, the Works of Will. Adams
• James Kirke Paulding –Koningsmarke, the Long Finne
• SirWalter Scott (anonymously)
  • Peveril of the Peak
  • Quentin Durward
  • St. Ronan's Well
• Mary Shelley –Valperga
• John Wilson –The Trials of Margaret Lyndsay
• Anonymous –Popular Tales and Romances of the Northern Nations

• Ernst Raupach – "Wake Not the Dead"

• Mrs Markham (Elizabeth Penrose) –A History of England from the First Invasion by the Romans to the End of the Reign of George III

• Aleksander Griboyedov –Woe from Wit («Горе от ума», written)
• Franz Grillparzer -König Ottokars Glück und Ende (written 1823, premiered February 19, 1825 in Vienna's Burgtheater).
• Felicia Hemans –The Vespers of Palermo
• Mary Russell Mitford –Julian
• Richard Brinsley Peake –Presumption; or, the Fate of Frankenstein
• James Planché –Cortez
• William Leman Rede –Sixteen String Jack
• Eugène Scribe
  • L'Héritière (The Heiress, for the Théâtre du Gymnase)
  • Le Menteur Veridique (The Veritable Liar)
• William Tennant –Cardinal Beaton

• Thomas Campbell –The Last Man
• Alphonse de Lamartine –Nouvelles méditations poétiques
• Adam Mickiewicz –Grażyna
• Henry Neele –Poems, Dramatic and Miscellaneous
• Percy Bysshe Shelley –Posthumous Poems

• Alexandre Bertrand –Traité du somnambulisme
• William Buckland –Reliquiæ Diluvianæ, or, Observations on the Organic Remains attesting the Action of a Universal Deluge
• Lorenzo Da Ponte –Memorie
• Emmanuel, comte de Las Cases –Le Mémorial de Sainte-Hélène
• John Franklin –Narrative of a Journey to the Shores of the Polar Sea
• Charles Lamb –Essays of Elia (first collection in book form)
• Ethan Smith –View of the Hebrews

• January 1 –Sándor Petőfi, Hungarian poet and revolutionary (died1849)
• February 28 –Ernest Renan, French philosopher and writer (died1892)
• March 20 –Ned Buntline (E. Z. C. Judson), American writer and publisher1886)
• April 6 –Julia Abigail Fletcher Carney, American poet, author, editor, and educator (died1908)^[10]
• April 12 –Alexander Ostrovsky, Russian dramatist (died1886)
• April 19 –Anna Laetitia Waring, Welsh poet and hymnist (died1910)^[11]
• June 1 –Caroline Howard Jervey, American author, poet, and teacher (died1877)
• August 2 –Edward Augustus Freeman, English historian and politician (died1892)
• August 13 –Goldwin Smith, English historian and journalist (died1910)
• September 23 –Sara Jane Lippincott, American author, poet, correspondent, lecturer, and newspaper founder (died1904)^[12]
• September 27 –Augusta Harvey Worthen, American author and educator (died1910)^[13]
• October 6 –George Henry Boker, American poet, playwright and diplomat (died1890)
• December 28 –Augusta Theodosia Drane, English religious writer and biographer (died1894)

• February 7 –Ann Radcliffe, English novelist (born1764)^[14]
• February 21 –Charles Wolfe, Irish poet (born1791)
• April 10 –Karl Leonhard Reinhold, Austrian philosopher (born1757)
• April 21 –Peter Collett, Danish judge and writer (born1767)^[15]
• May 16 –Ōta Nanpo, Japanese comic poet and painter (born1749)
• June 19 –William Combe, English writer, poet and adventurer (born1742)
• August 19 –Robert Bloomfield, English "ploughboy poet" (born1766)
• August 20 –Friedrich Arnold Brockhaus, German encyclopedia publisher and editor (born1772)
• September 11 –David Ricardo, English political economist (born1772)
• November 9 –Vasily Kapnist, Russian poet and dramatist (born1758)

• Chancellor's Gold Medal –Winthrop Mackworth Praed
• Newdigate Prize – T. S. Salmon^[16]

• 1823 in literature
• Years of the 19th century in literature

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