January – Fyodor Dostoyevsky's novel Crime and Punishment («Преступлéние и наказáние», Prestupleniye i nakazaniye) is serialized through the year in the monthly literary magazine Russkiy Vestnik («Русскій Вѣстникъ», The Russian Messenger).[1][2] His novella The Gambler («Игрок», Igrok) is dictated to his future wife to meet a publisher deadline of November 1.[3]
July – Anthony Trollope's novel Nina Balatka: The Story of a Maiden of Prague is initially published anonymously (serialisation in Blackwood's Magazine July 1866–January 1867). Trollope is interested in discovering whether his books sell on their own merits or as a consequence of the author's name and reputation.
The Stockholm Reading Parlor (Stockholms läsesalong) is co-founded by Sophie Adlersparre in Sweden; it becomes a free library for women to improve their access to education.[12]
The first detective fiction by women authors is published: the dime novelThe Dead Letter, an American Romance by "Seeley Regester" (Metta Victoria Fuller Victor) in New York City as the first full-length American work of crime fiction,[13] having begun to appear serially in the January Beadle's Monthly; Mary Fortune's story "The Dead Witness, or the Bush waterhole" is published in the Australian Journal on January 20.[14]
^Gale, Cengage Learning (24 September 2015). A Study Guide for Fyodor Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment. Gale, Cengage Learning. p. 3. ISBN 978-1-4103-3566-1.
^"Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment – Study Notes". University of Minnesota. Retrieved 16 October 2014.
^Jones, Malcolm (1991). Introduction to Notes from the Underground and The Gambler. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-953638-2.
^The Law Times Reports: Containing All the Cases Argued and Determined in the House of Lords, ... ; Together with a Selection of Cases of Universal Application Decided in the Superior Courts in Ireland and in Scotland. Law Times Office. 1869. p. 230.
^American Literary Gazette and Publishers' Circular. 1866. pp. 286–.
^Suarez, Michael F.; Woudhuysen, H. R., eds. (2013). The Book: A Global History. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-967941-6.
^Prins, Yopie (1999). Victorian Sappho. Princeton University Press. p. 153. ISBN 0-691-05919-5.
^Kendrick, Walter M. (1996). The Secret Museum: Pornography in Modern Culture. Berkeley: University of California Press. p. 168. ISBN 0-520-20729-7.
^Leijonhufvud, Sigrid. "K Sophie Adlersparre (f. Leijonhuvud)". Svenskt biografiskt lexikon. Retrieved 16 June 2015.
^Orso, Miranda (2002). "Victor, Metta Victoria Fuller". Archived from the original on 15 May 2013. Retrieved 4 November 2013.
^Sussex, Lucy; Gibson, Elizabeth. "Mary Fortune". Victorian Secrets. Archived from the original on 19 September 2015. Retrieved 15 March 2014.
^Everett, Jason M., ed. (2006). "1866". The People's Chronology. Thomson Gale.
^Lease, Benjamin (1972). That Wild Fellow John Neal and the American Literary Revolution. Chicago, Illinois: University of Chicago Press. p. 206. ISBN 0-226-46969-7.
^Palmer, Alan; Palmer, Veronica (1992). The Chronology of British History. London: Century Ltd. pp. 287–288. ISBN 0-7126-5616-2.
^"Biography - Victoria and Albert Museum". www.vam.ac.uk. 13 January 2011. Retrieved 26 March 2019.