Edgar Allan Poe publishes The Raven and Other Poems

The three Brontë sisters jointly publish a volume of their poems and sell just two copies

Ralph Waldo Emerson publishes his first collection of poems, many of which have appeared first in The Dial

Alfred Tennyson's elegy for a friend, In Memoriam, captures perfectly the Victorian mood of heightened sensibility

Within six weeks of the Charge of the Light Brigade in the Crimea, Tennyson publishes a poem finding heroism in the disaster

The first edition of Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass is published anonymously, at his own expense, and contains just 12 poems

Longfellow publishes his American Indian epic, The Song of Hiawatha, in an irresistibly catchy metre

Tennyson publishes a long narrative poem, Maud, a section of which ('Come into the garden, Maud') becomes famous as a song

Charles Baudelaire publishes his first and extremely influential collection of poems, Les Fleurs du Mal

Longfellow uses a romantic story of early New England for his narrative poem The Courtship of Miles Standish

Tennyson publishes the first part of Idylls of the King, a series of linked poems about Britain's mythical king Arthur

Edward FitzGerald publishes The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám, romantic translations of the work of the Persian poet

Longfellow's narrative poem Paul Revere's Ride dramatizes a turning point at the start of the American Revolution

Julia Ward Howe publishes The Battle Hymn of the Republic, inspired by a visit to Union troops in the American Civil War

Walt Whitman laments the assassinated President Lincoln in his poem 'O Captain! My Captain!', published in Sequel to Drum-Taps

Algernon Swinburne scandalizes Victorian Britain with his first collection, Poems and Ballads

French author Paul Verlaine wins a reputation with his first published collection, Poémes saturniens ('Saturnine Poems')

The first collection of 'Negro Spirituals' is published in book form in the US as Slave Songs of the United States

16-year-old Arthur Rimbaud sends some of his poems to Paul Verlaine, already an established poet

Bret Harte's comic ballad Plain Language from Truthful James acquires a popular alternative title, The Heathen Chinee

In 21 years Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass has grown from 12 poems to the two volumes of the sixth edition, published in the USA's centenary year

English poet Gerard Manley Hopkins develops a new verse form that he calls 'sprung rhythm'

Lewis Carroll publishes The Hunting of the Snark, a poem about a voyage in search of an elusive mythical creature

Verlaine publishes Les Poètes maudits, short studies of various 'cursed poets' – including Rimbaud

23-year-old Irish author William Butler Yeats publishes his first volume of poems, The Wanderings of Oisin