This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1851.

• January 1 – The Caucasian Georgian theatre company gives its first performance, under the direction of Giorgi Eristavi.
• June 5 – Harriet Beecher Stowe's novel Uncle Tom's Cabin begins serialization in the American abolitionist weekly The National Era.
• June – While waiting to cross the English Channel on his honeymoon, Matthew Arnold probably begins to compose the poem "Dover Beach".^[1]
• September 29 – Marian Evans, the future George Eliot, takes up an appointment as (assistant) editor of the Westminster Review, published by John Chapman. In this capacity she will meet G. H. Lewes.
• November 14 – Herman Melville's novel Moby-Dick; or, The Whale is published in full, in a single volume, for the first time, by Harper & Brothers in New York, having been previously issued on October 18 as The Whale in an abridged three-volume edition by Richard Bentley in London.
• December 2 – The French coup d'état of 1851 prompts Victor Hugo to be a leader of an unsuccessful insurrection against it. He is forced into exile, initially to Brussels.
• December 24 – A fire at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., destroys 35,000 books, about two–thirds of the collection.
• unknown dates
  • Akabi's Story (Akabi Hikayesi), by Vartan Pasha, is published - an early example of a novel in the Turkish language printed in the Armenian alphabet
  • Hovhannes Hisarian publishes Khosrov yev Makruhi (Khosrov and Makruhi), the first romantic novel in the Armenian language, written in the vernacular Ashkharhabar dialect.
  • Stephanos Th. Xenos publishes his "Istanbul novel" The Devil in Turkey; Or Scenes in Constantinople in English translated from his Greek manuscript, in London.^[2]
  • Philosopher Auguste Comte includes a list of 150 books which a well-educated person should have read in his Catéchisme positiviste .
  • Albertus Willem Sijthoff establishes a publishing business at Leiden.^[3]

• February 21 – Ernst von Hesse-Wartegg, Austrian writer and traveler (died 1918)
• April 13 – Helen M. Winslow, American editor, author and publisher (died 1938)
• May 27 – Henry Festing Jones, English biographer, editor and lawyer (died 1928)^[6]
• June – Jessie Fothergill, English novelist (died 1891)^[7]
• June 11 – Mary Augusta Ward (Mrs. Humphry Ward), Tasmanian-born English novelist (died 1920)
• June 29 – Jane Dieulafoy, French archeologist, novelist and journalist (died 1916)
• August 23 – Alois Jirásek, Czech novelist and playwright (died 1930)
• September 14 – H. E. Beunke, Dutch writer (died 1925)
• September 16 – Emilia Pardo Bazán, Galician Spanish novelist (died 1921)
• December 10 – Melvil Dewey, born Melville Dewey, American librarian (died 1931)

• February 1 – Mary Shelley, English novelist and essayist (born 1797)^[8]
• February 23 – Joanna Baillie, Scottish poet and dramatist (born 1762)^[9]
• February 24 – Sake Dean Mahomed, author of first book in English by an Indian (born 1759)^[10]
• May 23 – Richard Lalor Sheil, Irish dramatist and journalist (born 1791)
• July 17 – Esther Copley, English children's writer and tractarian (born 1786)
• August 1 – Harriet Lee, English novelist (born 1757)
• August 10 – Heinrich Paulus, German theologian (born 1761)
• September 14 – James Fenimore Cooper, American historical novelist (born 1789)^[11]
• September 22 – Sarah Elizabeth Utterson, English translator and short story writer (born 1781)
• December 19 – Henry Luttrell, English politician, wit and society poet (born c. 1765)
• unknown date – Vanchinbalyn Gularans, Mongolian poet (unknown year of birth)