The history of literature in the Modern period in Europe begins with the Age of Enlightenment and the conclusion of the Baroque period in the 18th century, succeeding the Renaissance and Early Modern periods.

In the classical literary cultures outside of Europe, the Modern period begins later, in Ottoman Turkey with the Tanzimat reforms (1820s), in Qajar Persia under Nasser al-Din Shah (1830s), in India with the end of the Mughal era and the establishment of the British Raj (1850s), in Japan with the Meiji restoration (1860s), in China with the New Culture Movement (1910s).
The early 18th century sees the conclusion of the Baroque period and the incipient Age of Enlightenment with authors such as Immanuel Kant, Voltaire, Jean-Jacques Rousseau or Gotthold Ephraim Lessing. European cultural influence begins to spread to other continents, notably Edo period Japan, with notable authors of the period including Ueda Akinari and Santō Kyōden. Early American literature appears towards the end of the century, e.g. with The Power of Sympathy by William Hill Brown (1789). The late 18th century in Germany sees the beginning Romantic (Novalis) and Sturm und Drang (Goethe und Schiller) movements.
The 19th century was perhaps the most literary of all centuries, because not only were the forms of novel, short story and magazine serial all in existence side-by-side with theatre and opera, but since film, radio and television did not yet exist, the popularity of the written word and its direct enactment were at their height.
The romantic movement was well under way and along with it developed the splintering of fiction writing into genres and the rise of speculative fiction. There was a romantic tendency toward the exploration of folk traditions and old legends. In 1802 Sir Walter Scott published Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border. Amelia Opie, another romantic, was publishing poetry in the early 19th century and was an active anti-war campaigner. Anne Bannerman (1765-1829) reworked legends of King Arthur and Merlin. William Blake worked in words and pictures to share his visions and mysticism. In 1807 Thomas Moore published Irish Melodies. Lord Byron produced many influential poems during this period. In 1808 Goethe published part one of Faust. In 1810 Sir Walter Scott published Lady of the Lake. Percy Shelley published a gothic novel: Zastrozzi. The term "Gothic" had, by this time, come to mean a desire for a romantic return to the times before the renaissance. Percy Shelley also published a gothic novella: St. Irvyne in 1811.

North Americans who would later produce great literature were being born in the first third of the century. In 1803 the great American poet Ralph Waldo Emerson was born (May 25) in Boston and in 1804 Nathaniel Hawthorne. In 1807 Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and then Edgar Allan Poe in 1809. Phillipe-Ignace François Aubert du Gaspe, author of the first French Canadian novel was born in 1814 followed by Henry David Thoreau in 1817 and Herman Melville in 1819. Canadian poets Octave Crémazie and James McIntyre were both born in 1827. In 1830 was the birth of Emily Dickinson and, just over a third of the way through the century, in 1835 Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain) arrived in this world. Before all of them was Washington Irving, said to be the first American "Literary Lion" and mentor to several other American writers. Washington Irving wrote "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" (a short story contained in his collection The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon) while he was living in Birmingham, England and it was first published in 1819.

In 1807 Charles and Mary Lamb published Tales from Shakespeare, a simple retelling of some of Shakespeare's plays in the form of little stories accessible to a child readership. Along with all the other genres born in the 19th century came the genre of Children's literature.

In 1809 Schlegel published On Dramatic Art and Literature'. Alfred, Lord Tennyson was born (August 6).

In 1811 Jane Austen published (anonymously) Sense and Sensibility

In 1812 George Crabbe published Tales in Verse. Byron published Childe Harold's Pilgrimage Cantos I and II. Samuel Taylor Coleridge published Remorse. On February 7 Charles Dickens was born. On May 7 Robert Browning was born in London. On October 4, in London, Percy Shelley first met William Godwin (3 March 1756 - 7 April 1836), an English writer, husband of feminist writer Mary Wollstonecraft and father of Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin (who would eventually marry Shelley and become Mary Shelley).

In 1813 Jane Austen published (anonymously) Pride and Prejudice. Byron published The Giaour and The Bride of Abydos. January 23 Drury Lane reopened with Coleridge's Remorse. In May Percy Shelley published his poem Queen Mab. In September Sir Walter Scott declined the offer of being made Poet Laureate, Robert Southey accepted the post. Wilhelm Richard Wagner born 22 May.

In 1814 Sir Walter Scott published Waverley. Jane Austen's Mansfield Park was published anonymously. Robert Southey published Roderick, the Last of the Goths. An English translation of Dante's Divine Comedy appeared. On July 28 Percy Shelley and Mary Godwin (Mary Shelley) eloped.

In 1816 Thomas Love Peacock published Headlong Hall. Coleridge published Christabel and Kubla Khan. Jane Austen anonymously published Emma. E.T.A. Hoffmann published Undine. Mary Shelley and Percy Shelley went to Geneva and met Byron (with his physician John Polidori). At Byron's villa they told ghost stories and invented the basic ideas which led eventually to Mary Shelley's book Frankenstein and Polidori's novel The Vampyre. Their stay at Byron's villa was one of the most famous events in the Gothic/Romantic movement.

In 1817 John Keats published a volume of Poems. Sir Walter Scott published Harold the Dauntless. Byron published Manfred.

In 1818 Mary Shelley anonymously published Frankenstein which came to be known, eventually, as the first science fiction novel and the template for the mad scientist subgenre. Byron published Childe Harold Canto IV. John Keats published Endymion. Thomas Love Peacock published Rhododaphne and Nightmare Abbey. Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey and Persuasion were published posthumously. Sir Walter Scott published Rob Roy.

In 1819 John Polidori published The Vampyre.

In 1820 John Keats published Lamia, Isabella and Hyperion. Percy Shelley published Prometheus Unbound. Elizabeth Barrett published The Battle of Marathon. Sir Walter Scott published Ivanhoe, The Abbot and The Monastery. James Catnach: Street Ballads. A gothic novel, Melmoth the Wanderer was published by Charles Robert Maturin.

In 1821 February 23: John Keats died. Percy Shelley published Adonais: An Elegy on the Death of John Keats and Epipsychidion. Byron published The Prophecy of Dante. Sir Walter Scott published Kenilworth. Fyodor Dostoevsky was born.

In 1822 Thomas De Quincey published Confessions of an English Opium Eater. Percy Shelley published Hellas.

In 1823 Mary Shelley published Valperga. Byron published The Age of Bronze and The Island. Charles Lamb published Essays of Elia. Sir Walter Scott published Quentin Durward. An English translation of Jacob Grimm, Grimms' Fairy Tales appeared.

In 1824 Sir Walter Scott published Redgauntlet. Byron died in Greece.

In 1826 Mary Shelley published The Last Man, a novel set in the 21st century.

In 1827 Alfred and Charles Tennyson Turner published Poems by Two Brothers. August 12: William Blake died.

In 1828 Leo Nikolayevitch Tolstoy was born 9 September.

In 1828 1/2 Karl Wilhelm Friedrich von Schlegel died 11 January. Edgar Allan Poe published a poem: "Al Aaraaf".

In 1831 Sir Walter Scott published Castle Dangerous. Edgar Allan Poe published a poem: "The City in the Sea".

In 1832 Percy Shelley published his poem The Masque of Anarchy, a reaction to the Peterloo massacre. Johann Wolfgang Goethe published part II of Faust. On March 20 Goethe died. Jerrold Douglas published The Factory Girl, The Golden Calf and The Rent-Day.

In 1833 Caroline Bowles published Tales of the Factories. Charles Lamb published The Last Essays of Elia.

In 1834 Frederick Marryat published Peter Simple and Jacob Faithful. Balzac published Le Pere Goriot. William Morris was born. On July 25 Samuel Taylor Coleridge died.

The first modern Arabic compilation of The Book of One Thousand and One Nights was published in Cairo.