1847

1847:
Frederick Douglass founds "The North Star" an abolitionist newspaper in Rochester, NY.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow: "Evangeline" See: http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/toc/modeng/public/LonEvan.html
An excerpt:
“Might took the place of right, and the weak were oppressed, and the mighty ruled with an iron rod. Then it chanced in a nobleman's palace
That a necklace of pearls was lost, and ere long a suspicion
Fell on an orphan girl who lived as maid in the household.
She, after form of trial condemned to die on the scaffold,
Patiently met her doom at the foot of the statue of Justice.
As to her Father in heaven her innocent spirit ascended,
Lo! o'er the city a tempest rose; and the bolts of the thunder
Smote the statue of bronze, and hurled in wrath from its left hand
Down on the pavement below the clattering scales of the balance,
And in the hollow thereof was found the nest of a magpie,
Into whose clay-built walls the necklace of pearls was inwoven."
Silenced, but not convinced, when the story was ended, the blacksmith
Stood like a man who fain would speak, but findeth no language;
All his thoughts were congealed into lines on his face, as the vapors
Freeze in fantastic shapes on the window-panes in the winter."

New Congressman, Abraham Lincoln, makes a speech opposing the Mexican War. See: http://www.animatedatlas.com/mexwar/lincoln2.html
An Excerpt: "Again, it is a singular omission in this message, that it, no where intimates when the President expects the war to terminate. At it's beginning, Gen. Scott was, by this same President, driven into disfavor, if not disgrace, for intimating that peace could not be conquered in less than three or four months. But now, at the end of about twenty months, during which time our arms have given us the most splendid successes--every department, and every part, land and water, officers and privates, regulars and volunteers, doing all that men could do, and hundreds of things which it had ever before been thought men could not do,--after all this, this same President gives us a long message, without showing us, that, as to the end, he himself, has, even an imaginary conception. As I have before said, he knows not where he is. He is a bewildered, confounded, and miserably perplexed man. God grant he may be able to show, there is not something about his conscious, more painful than all his mental perplexity!"

Karl Marx: "The Poverty of Philosophy" First half written in 1847.
See:http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1847/poverty-philosophy/index.htm

Edgar Allan Poe: "Ulalume"
See: http://www.eapoe.org/works/POEMS/ULALUMEG.HTM
An Excerpt: But Psyche, uplifting her finger,
Said — "Sadly this star I mistrust —
Her pallor I strangely mistrust: —
Oh, hasten! — oh, let us not linger!
Oh, fly! — let us fly! — for we must."
In terror she spoke, letting sink her
Wings until they trailed in the dust —
In agony sobbed, letting sink her
Plumes till they trailed in the dust —
Till they sorrowfully trailed in the dust.
William Makepeace Thackeray: "Vanity Fair"
See: http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext96/vfair12h.htm
An Excerpt:
“Pooh,” said Jos.
“You who are always good and kind--always used to be at any rate-- I’m astonished at you, Major William,” Amelia cried. “Why, what is the moment to help her but when she is so miserable? Now is the time to be of service to her. The oldest friend I ever had, and not--”
“She was not always your friend, Amelia,” the Major said, for he was quite angry. This allusion was too much for Emmy, who, looking the Major almost fiercely in the face, said, “For shame, Major Dobbin!” and after having fired this shot, she walked out of the room with a most majestic air and shut her own door briskly on herself and her outraged dignity.
“To allude to that!” she said, when the door was closed. “Oh, it was cruel of him to remind me of it,” and she looked up at George’s picture, which hung there as usual, with the portrait of the boy underneath. “It was cruel of him. If I had forgiven it, ought he to have spoken? No. And it is from his own lips that I know how wicked and groundless my jealousy was; and that you were pure--oh, yes, you were pure, my saint in heaven!”
Alexandre Dumas: "The Man in the Iron Mask" part of a three part work.
Great Novel: http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext01/ironm11.txt
Great movie: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120744/
Emily Bronte: "Wuthering Heights" (pen name Ellis Bell) See: http://www.online-literature.com/bronte/wuthering/
An Excerpt: "1801. - I have just returned from a visit to my landlord - the solitary neighbor that I shall be troubled with. This is certainly a beautiful country! In all England, I do not believe that I could have fixed on a situation so completely removed from the stir of society. A perfect misanthropist's heaven: and Mr. Heathcliff and I are such a suitable pair to divide the desolation between us. A capital fellow! He little imagined how my heart warmed towards him when I beheld his black eyes withdraw so suspiciously under their brows, as I rode up, and when his fingers sheltered themselves, with a jealous resolution, still further in his waistcoat, as I announced my name. 'Mr. Heathcliff?' I said.

A nod was the answer."
Charlotte Bronte: "Jane Eyre" (pen name Currer Bell) See: http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1260
An excerpt:
"No? oh, shocking! I have a little boy, younger than you, who knows six
Psalms by heart: and when you ask him which he would rather have, a
gingerbread-nut to eat or a verse of a Psalm to learn, he says: 'Oh! the
verse of a Psalm! angels sing Psalms;' says he, 'I wish to be a little
angel here below;' he then gets two nuts in recompense for his infant
piety."

"Psalms are not interesting," I remarked.

"That proves you have a wicked heart; and you must pray to God to change
it: to give you a new and clean one: to take away your heart of stone and
give you a heart of flesh."

Anne Bronte: "Agnes Grey" (pen name Acton Bell) See: http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/767
An excerpt:
'I was told,' said he, 'that you were a perfect bookworm, Miss
Grey: so completely absorbed in your studies that you were lost to
every other pleasure.'

'Yes, and it's quite true!' cried Matilda.

'No, Mr. Weston: don't believe it: it's a scandalous libel.
These young ladies are too fond of making random assertions at the
expense of their friends; and you ought to be careful how you
listen to them.'

'I hope THIS assertion is groundless, at any rate.'

'Why? Do you particularly object to ladies studying?'

'No; but I object to anyone so devoting himself or herself to
study, as to lose sight of everything else. Except under peculiar
circumstances, I consider very close and constant study as a waste
of time, and an injury to the mind as well as the body.'

'Well, I have neither the time nor the inclination for such
transgressions.'
We parted again.

Alexander Graham Bell is born.
The United States issued its first postage stamps.
Verdi's "Macbeth" premiers in Italy.

A letter from John Brown to his son, Springfield, March 12, 1847
DEAR SON JOHN, Yours dated Feb. 27th I this day received. It was written about the same time I reached this place again. I am glad to learn that you are relieved in a good measure from another season of suffering. Hope you will make the right improvement of it. I have been here nearly two weeks. Have Captain Spencer, Freeman, the Hudsons, together with Schlessinger and Ramsden, all helping me again. Have turned about four thousand dollars worth of wool into cash since I returned j shall probably make it up to seven thousand by the 16th. Sold Musgrave the James Wallace lot yesterday for fifty-eight cents all round. Hope to get pretty much through by the middle of April. Have paid your account for the 11 Cincinnati Weekly Herald and Philanthropist," together with two dollars for one year's subscription to " National Era," being in all three dollars. I should have directed to have the "National Era " sent you at Austinburg, but could not certainly know as you would be there to take it. You had better direct to have it sent to you there. I now intend to send Ruth on again soon after my return. Jason writes on the 3d that all are well at home. I feel better than when I left home, and send my health to all in and about Austinburg. Yours affectionately, JOHN BROWN