istoryworld
Events relating to england
Scottish anthropologist James Frazer publishes The Golden Bough, a massive compilation of contemporary knowledge about ritual and religious custom
9-year-old Daisy Ashford imagines an adult romance and high society in The Young Visiters
Britain cedes the tiny island of Heligoland to Germany in return for vast areas of Africa
Oscar Wilde publishes his novel The Picture of Dorian Gray in which the ever-youthful hero's portrait grows old and ugly
Thomas Hardy publishes his novel Tess of the Durbervilles, with a dramatic finale at Stonehenge
Oscar Wilde's comedy Lady Windermere's Fan is a great success with audiences in London's St. James Theatre
W.B. Yeats founds the National Literary Society in Dublin, with Douglas Hyde as its first president
Bernard Shaw's first play, Widowers' Houses, deals with the serious social problem of slum landlords
Keir Hardie wins the London seat of West Ham, becoming the first Labour member of the House of Commons
Gladstone, becoming prime minister for the fourth time, is described by the queen as 'an old, wild and incomprehensible man of eighty two and a half'
The Falkland Islands, by now occupied by some 2000 settlers, become a British colony
Mr Pooter is the suburban anti-hero of the The Diary of a Nobody, by George and Weedon Grossmith
An aluminium statue of Eros, by English sculptor Alfred Gilbert, is unveiled in Piccadilly Circus
The Independent Labour Party, later changing its name to the Labour Party, is founded in Britain by the trade unionist Keir Hardie
Gladstone finally gets a Home Rule bill through the Commons, only to have it rejected in the Lords
Frank Hornby patents in Liverpool his Meccano construction system for children
Gladstone retires as Britain's prime minister and his place is taken by his foreign secretary, Lord Rosebery
French-born artist and author George du Maurier publishes his novel Trilby
Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book surrounds the child Mowgli with a collection of vivid animal guardians
London's Tower Bridge raises its roadway for the first time to let a ship pass up the Thames
Oscar Wilde's most brilliant comedy, The Importance of Being Earnest is performed in London's St. James Theatre
Oscar Wilde loses a libel case that he has brought against the marquess of Queensberry for describing him as a sodomite
Lord Rosebery's Liberal government suffers a defeat in the House of Commons, and Lord Salisbury returns as Britain's prime minister
Oscar Wilde is sent to Reading Gaol to serve a two-year sentence with hard labour after being convicted of homosexuality
H.G. Wells publishes The Time Machine, a story about a Time Traveller whose first stop on his journey is the year 802701
