1880 in literature

	... 1870; 1871; 1872; 1873; 1874; 1875; 1876 ...; ; 1877; 1878; 1879; 1880; 1881; 1882; 1883; ; ... 1884; 1885; 1886; 1887; 1888; 1889; 1890 ...;
	In poetry 1877 1878 1879 1880 1881 1882 1883
	Art; Archaeology; Architecture; Literature; Music; Philosophy; Science +...;

This article presents lists of the literary events and publications in 1880.

Events[edit]

April – Publication in France of Les Soirées de Médan, a collection of six Naturalist short stories set during the Franco-Prussian War by six authors who frequent Émile Zola's home, including Guy de Maupassant's first, Boule de Suif, which launches his career.
April 20 (O. S.: April 8) – At the Romanian Academy, Titu Maiorescu announces a reformed Romanian alphabet, adopted by a commission also comprising George Bariț and Bogdan Petriceicu Hasdeu.^[1] The rationalized spelling reflects ideas endorsed by Maiorescu since the 1860s, replacing the deep orthography favored by "Latinists".^[2]
October – Henry James's novel The Portrait of a Lady begins serial publication in Macmillan's Magazine (U.K.) and The Atlantic Monthly (U.S.)
December 15 – First performance of a play by Henrik Ibsen in English, The Pillars of Society (under the title Quicksands) at the Gaiety Theatre, London.^[3]
Karl May begins publishing his Orient Cycle in Deutschen Hausschatz, where he also publishes Deadly Dust: Ein Abenteuer aus dem nordamerikanischen Westen.
In the United States, the publishing business of Henry Oscar Houghton and George H. Mifflin is reconstructed as Houghton, Mifflin and Company.

Anne Evans (died 1870) – Poems and Music (with a memorial preface by Anne Isabella Thackeray)

Henry Charlton Bastian – The Brain as an Organ of Mind
James Legge – The Religions of China
Algernon Charles Swinburne – A Study of Shakespeare
Charles Warren – The Temple or the Tomb. Giving further evidence in favour of the authenticity of the present site of the Holy Sepulchre

February 21 – Waldemar Bonsels, German writer (died 1952)
February 27 – Angelina Weld Grimké, African-American playwright and poet (died 1958)
March 13 – Frank Thiess, German writer (died 1977)
March 21 – E. H. Young, English novelist (died 1949)
March 30 – Seán O'Casey, Irish dramatist (died 1964)^[4]
June 10 – Margit Kaffka, Hungarian novelist, short story writer and poet (died 1918)
June 17 – Carl Van Vechten, American writer (died 1964)
July 4 – Anne Beffort, Luxembourg literary writer and biographer (died 1966)
July 10 – Greye La Spina, American writer (died 1969)
August 5 – Ruth Sawyer, American children's writer and novelist (died 1970)
September 12 – H. L. Mencken, American journalist and English language scholar (died 1956)
October 18 – Ze'ev Jabotinsky, Russian-born Zionist leader, novelist and poet (died 1940)
November 1 – Grantland Rice, American sports writer (died 1954)
November 6 – Robert Musil, Austrian novelist (died 1942)
November 25 – Elsie J. Oxenham (Elsie Jeanette Dunkerley), English story writer for girls (died 1960)
November 29 – N. D. Cocea, Romanian novelist, critic and journalist (died 1949)

February 12 – Karl Eduard von Holtei, German poet and dramatist (born 1798)
February 17 – James Lenox, American bibliophile (born 1800)
April 9 – Louis Edmond Duranty, French novelist and critic (born 1833)
April 16 – Edward Vaughan Hyde Kenealy, Irish writer and barrister (born 1819)
May 5 – Andrei Mocioni, Hungarian-Romanian journalist and literary patron (born 1812)
May 6 – Ivan Surikov, Russian poet (born 1841)
May 8 – Gustave Flaubert, French novelist (born 1821)
May 30 – James Planché, English dramatist (born 1796)
June 7 – Karl Christian Planck, German philosopher (born 1819)
July 7 – Lydia Maria Child, American writer and abolitionist (born 1802)
July 12 – Tom Taylor, English dramatist and journalist (born 1817)
September 23 – Geraldine Jewsbury, English novelist and woman of letters (born 1812)
December 22 – George Eliot (Mary Anne Cross), English novelist (born 1819)

The dramas Gaslight by Patrick Hamilton (1938) and Another Part of the Forest by Lillian Hellman (1946) are set in this year.
Mori Ōgai's novel The Wild Geese (雁, Gan, 1911–13) is set in this year.
Virginia Woolf's novel The Years (1937) opens in this year.

^ Urziceanu, Florentina (2005). Titu Maiorescu 1840–1917. Bio-bibliografie selectivă. Craiova: Aman County Library. p. 12.
^ Ivașcu, George (1973). "Titu Maiorescu". In Cioculescu, Șerban; Papadima, Ovidiu; Piru, Alexandru. Istoria literaturii române. III: Epoca marilor clasici. Bucharest: Editura Academiei. pp. 95–99, 129.
^ "English first performances". Ibsen.net. 2004-05-12. Retrieved 2013-02-08.
^ "Sean O'Casey - Irish dramatist". Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved 7 July 2017.