1852: "Days" to Camille

Chronology of World, British and American Literature

Ralph Waldo Emerson. American. 1852. Poetry. “Days.” “He is only rich who owns the day.”

Ivan Turgenev. Russian. 1852. Stories. A Sportsman’s Sketches. Life on typical great feudal estates in Russia; fictional narrator rambles through the countryside. Sympathetic to peasants, explicit condemnation of landowners. Serfdom abolished ten years after publication.

Harriet Beecher Stowe. American. 1852. Novel. Uncle Tom’s Cabin, or, Life Among the Lowly. Trials, suffering and human dignity of Uncle Tom; setting is Kentucky and Louisiana. Admiration for best Southern gentility; villain is a Vermonter.

Charles Dickens. British. 1852. Novel. Bleak House. Attacks the delays and archaic absurdities of the courts. Litigation uses up all the money.

Alexandre Dumas, fils. French. 1852. Play. Camille. Beautiful courtesan scorns wealthy protector and escapes with her penniless lover. Gives him up at the request of his family. Tragic reunion of lover and the dying Camille.