This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1831.

• January 1 – William Lloyd Garrison begins publication of the Liberator, an abolitionist periodical in the United States.
• February 18 (old style) – Alexander Pushkin marries Natalya Goncharova at the Great Ascension Church on Bolshaya Nikitskaya Street in Moscow.
• March 16 – Victor Hugo's historical romantic Gothic novel Notre-Dame de Paris, known in English as The Hunchback of Notre-Dame (completed on January 15), is published by Gosselin in Paris.
• March 19 – The play La Cocarde Tricolore by the Cogniard brothers introduces the term "chauvinism".^[1]
• April 18 – The Sydney Morning Herald is first published.
• unknown dates
  • Convict Henry Savery's autobiographical fiction Quintus Servinton: a tale founded upon incidents of real occurrence is published anonymously in Tasmania, the first Australian novel.^[2]
  • Playwright Manuel Bretón de los Herreros publishes a translation of Tibullus, which secures him an appointment as sub-librarian at the Spanish national library (Biblioteca Pública de Palacio).^[3]
  • Daniel Appleton publishes three religious books in New York City, so originating of the firm of D. Appleton & Company.^[4]

• January 2 – Justin Winsor, American historian and librarian (died 1897)
• January 3 – George Manville Fenn, English novelist and educationalist (died 1909)
• January 14 – John Cordy Jeaffreson, English novelist and non-fiction writer (died 1901)
• February 25 – Jane G. Austin, American writer (died 1894)
• January 26 – Mary Mapes Dodge, American children's writer (died 1907)
• February 16 – Nikolai Leskov, Russian novelist and playwright (died 1895)
• March 29 – Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr, English novelist and teacher (died 1919)
• April 9 – Clara Harrison Stranahan, American author and college founder (died 1905)
• April 19 – Mary Louise Booth, American writer, editor, and translator (died 1889)
• May 6 – Mary C. Ames, American writer (died 1884)
• June 7 – Amelia Edwards, English fiction writer and Egyptologist (died 1892)
• June 25 – Harriet Mann Miller, American author, naturalist, and ornithologist (died 1918)
• July 3 – Edmund Yates, Scottish writer (died 1894)
• July 5 – Cordelia A. Greene, American physician, reformer, benefactor (died 1905)
• July 7 – Jane Elizabeth Conklin, American religious writer and poet (died 1914)
• August 1 – William Aldis Wright, English writer and literary editor (died 1914)
• September 5 – Victorien Sardou, French dramatist (died 1908)
• September 12 – Álvares de Azevedo, Brazilian Ultra-Romantic writer (died 1852)
• October 7 – Eleanor Kirk, American writer (died 1908)
• October 15 – Helen Hunt Jackson, American poet, writer and activist (died 1885)
• October 19 – Fanny Murdaugh Downing, American author and poet (died 1894)
• unknown date – Nora Perry, American writer (died 1896)^[6]

• January 2 – Barthold Georg Niebuhr, Danish-born German historian (born 1776)
• January 14 – Henry Mackenzie, Scottish novelist (born 1745)
• January 21 – Ludwig Achim von Arnim, German poet and novelist (heart attack, born 1781)
• February 25 – Friedrich Maximilian Klinger, German dramatist and novelist, originator of Sturm und Drang (born 1752)^[7]
• April 4 – Isaiah Thomas, American publisher (born 1749)
• June 30 – William Roscoe, English poet (born 1753)
• September 12 – Jippensha Ikku (十返舎 一九), Japanese novelist and humorist (born 1765)
• October 2 – José Agostinho de Macedo, Portuguese poet (born 1761)
• December 18 – Willem Bilderdijk, Dutch author (born 1756)
• December 26 – Henry Louis Vivian Derozio, Indian poet and teacher (born 1809)

• Chancellor's Gold Medal – George Stovin Venables