Until the mid-19th century, book publishing in Icelandic was minimal; between 10 and 15 works were printed annually, mainly religious texts, educational books and official reports. Periodicals constituted the main forum for writers and intellectuals. Some of them centred on news, others on a mixture of news, articles, short stories and poems intended for instruction and entertainment. For the most part, these were issued by individuals or small cultural societies in a print run of 400-600 copies and distributed to subscribers or through intermediaries. Until 1852, there was only one printing press in the country; the first bookshop opened in 1874.

At the start of the century, the hub of Icelandic book publishing was in Copenhagen, where a group of Icelandic university students and intellectuals lived. Among the publishing firms, the Copenhagen division of Hið íslenzka bókmenntafélag (The Icelandic Literary Society, founded in 1816) was the most powerful. Along with its news and educational journals, Íslensk sagnablöð (“Icelandic story sheets”, 1816-26) and its long-lived successor, Skírnir (1827-), the society published both popular educational books and medieval and modern literature. Among the popular works with a national interest were its publications of the collected poems of the national poets Bjarni Thorarensen (Kvæði, 1847) and Jónas Hallgrímsson (Ljóðmæli, 1847), both of which entered the school curriculum in 1847; Jón Thoroddsen’s national epic Maður og kona (“Man and woman”, 1876); Jón Espólín’s Íslands árbækur í sögu-formi (“Annals of Iceland in the form of historical narrative”, 1821-55) and Ólafur Davíðsson’s (1862-1903) Íslenzkar gátur, skemmtanir, vikivakar og þulur (“Icelandic riddles, entertainments, dancing songs and nursery rhymes”, 1887). The society also supported the publication of Jón Árnason’s Íslenzkar þjóðsögur og æfintýri (“Icelandic folk and fairy tales”, 1862-64), and distributed this basic text in Icelandic folklore free among its 780 members.

Another publishing society in Copenhagen to which Icelandic authors and intellectuals were linked was Det Kongelige Nordiske Oldskriftselskab (The Royal Society of Old Norse Studies, founded in 1825). Its first project in the investigation and edition of Nordic medieval literature was the publication of the Norwegian kings’ sagas (Fornmanna sögur, 1825-37). Many Icelanders were involved in this publication, which was well received by Icelandic readers: 770 people (75% of the society’s subscribers in all of Scandinavia) subscribed to the third volume of 1827. More than half of the Icelandic subscribers were farmers and workers, something which bears witness to the public’s literacy and interest in medieval literature.

In the second half of the century, book and journal publication within Iceland increased. In 1848, the first proper paper carrying news and political events, the weekly Þjóðólfur, was started in Reykjavík; it ran until 1912 and had a considerable distribution. Fiction, poetry and stories regularly appeared in this and other papers, and occasionally young poets became national celebrities overnight with poems that were published in the pages of the newspapers. It is also worth noting that most of the newspapers and journals from the second part of the century reviewed new books.

Unlike Icelandic journals of the previous century, many journals took their titles from Old Norse mythology: Skírnir (1827-), Fjölnir (1835-39; 1844-47), Baldur (1868), Gefn (1870-74), Andvari (1875-), Skuld (1877-83), Verðandi (1882) and Heimdallur (1884); this gives a clearly nationalist branding. Among the most important nationally minded journals in this period were Ármann á Alþingi (“Guardian at the Althing”, 1829-32), Fjölnir and Ný félagsrit (“New society papers”, 1841-73), all published in Copenhagen. The editor of Ármann á Alþingi, the law student Baldvin Einarsson (1801–1833), is frequently regarded as the first to assert Icelandic nationality as a guiding principle in public affairs. He especially expressed the importance of restoring the old Althing at Thingvellir as a separate assembly for Iceland in its role as a dependency of Denmark.

The editors of Fjölnir, Brynjólfur Pétursson (1810–1851), Jónas Hallgrímsson (1807–1845), Konráð Gíslason (1808–1891) and Tómas Sæmundsson (1807–1841), took up Baldvin Einarsson’s agitation for a national renaissance and the restoration of the Althing. At the same time, they drew special attention to the beauty of the Icelandic landscape and the glories of the ancient golden age, especially the Commonwealth period (930-1262). This periodical was also the main channel for Jónas Hallgrímsson’s nature and patriotic poems, translations, short stories and criticism. Fjölnir was the first Icelandic journal to be largely dedicated to literature, one of its main objectives being the aesthetic education of the nation, to “awaken the feeling for beauty, which some consider to be somewhat slow with us Icelanders”.

The liberal Ný félagsrit was the organ of the historian and philologist Jón Sigurðsson (1811–1879), the century’s main political leader and foremost advocate of Icelandic self-governance. The journal was mainly political in content, with its focus on the contemporary situation, but also carried cultural articles and poetry, and especially patriotic songs. Among its most prolific poets was Steingrímur Thorsteinsson (1831–1919), one of Iceland’s “national poets” of the late century.