1846

1846:
Edgar Allan Poe: "The Philosophy of Composition" See: http://www.eapoe.org/works/essays/philcomp.htm
An Excerpt: "CHARLES DICKENS, in a note now lying before me, alluding to an examination I once made of the mechanism of "Barnaby Rudge," says — "By the way, are you aware that Godwin wrote his 'Caleb Williams' backwards? He first involved his hero in a web of difficulties, forming the second volume, and then, for the first, cast about him for some mode of accounting for what had been done."

Nathaniel Hawthorne: "Mosses from an Old Manse" See: http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext05/haw4810.txt
An excerpt:
"The winding course of the stream continually shut out the scene behind
us and revealed as calm and lovely a one before. We glided from depth
to depth, and breathed new seclusion at every turn. The shy
kingfisher flew from the withered branch close at hand to another at a
distance, uttering a shrill cry of anger or alarm. Ducks that had
been floating there since the preceding eve were startled at our
approach and skimmed along the glassy river, breaking its dark surface
with a bright streak. The pickerel leaped from among the lily pads.
The turtle, sunning itself upon a rock or at the root of a tree, slid
suddenly into the water with a plunge. The painted Indian who paddled
his canoe along the Assabeth three hundred years ago could hardly have
seen a wilder gentleness displayed upon its banks and reflected in its
bosom than we did. Nor could the same Indian have prepared his
noontide meal with more simplicity. We drew up our skiff at some
point where the overarching shade formed a natural bower, and there
kindled a fire with the pine cones and decayed branches that lay
strewn plentifully around. Soon the smoke ascended among the trees,
impregnated with savory incense, not heavy, dull, and surfeiting,
like the steam of cookery within doors, but sprightly and piquant.
The smell of our feast was akin to the woodland odors with which it
mingled: there was no sacrilege committed by our intrusion there: the
sacred solitude was hospitable, and granted us free leave to cook and
eat in the recess that was at once our kitchen and banqueting-hall.
It is strange what humble offices may be performed in a beautiful
scene without destroying its poetry. Our fire, red gleaming among the
trees, and we beside it, busied with culinary rites and spreading out
our meal on a moss-grown log, all seemed in unison with the river
gliding by and the foliage rustling over us. And, what was strangest,
neither did our mirth seem to disturb the propriety of the solemn
woods; although the hobgoblins of the old wilderness and the will-of-
the-wisps that glimmered in the marshy places might have come trooping
to share our table-talk and have added their shrill laughter to our
merriment. It was the very spot in which to utter the extremist
nonsense or the profoundest wisdom, or that ethereal product of the
mind which partakes of both, and may become one or the other, in
correspondence with the faith and insight of the auditor."

Melville: "Typee" See: http://www.melville.org/melville.htm#Writings
An Excerpt: "Six months at sea! Yes, reader, as I live, six months out of sight of land; cruising after the sperm-whale beneath the scorching sun of the Line, and tossed on the billows of the wide-rolling Pacific -- the sky above, the sea around, and nothing else! Weeks and weeks ago our fresh provisions were all exhausted. There is not a sweet potato left; not a single yam. Those glorious bunches of bananas which once decorated our stern and quarter-deck have, alas, disappeared! and the delicious oranges which hung suspended from our tops and stays -- they, too, are gone! Yes, they are all departed, and there is nothing left us but salt-horse and sea-biscuit. Oh! ye state-room sailors, who make so much ado about a fourteen days' passage across the Atlantic; who so pathetically relate the privations and hardships of the sea, where, after a day of breakfasting, lunching, dining off five courses, chatting, playing whist, and drinking champagne punch, it was your hard lot to be shut up in little cabinets of mahogany and maple, and sleep for ten hours, with nothing to disturb you but "those good-for-nothing tars, shouting and tramping over head," -- what would ye say to our six months out of sight of land?"

The Brooklin Eagle starts in 1841, and Walt Whitman becomes the editor in 1846 and is fired in 1848.
See: http://eagle.brooklynpubliclibrary.org/Default/Skins/BEagle/Client.asp?Skin=BEagle

James Fenimoore Cooper: "The Redskins"
Edward Lear: "Book of Nonsense"
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow: "The Belfry of Bruges"
Hans Christian Anderson: "Fairy Tale of my Life" (autobiography)

The Mexican American War begins, and California declares its independence from Mexico.
The Saxophone is patented by Aldophe Sax.
Elias Howe patents the Sewing Machine.
The planet Neptune is discovered.