1759 in literature

	… 1749 ; 1750 ; 1751 ; 1752 ; 1753 ; 1754 ; 1755 ; ; 1756 ; 1757 ; 1758 ; 1759 ; 1760 ; 1761 ; 1762 ; ; 1763 ; 1764 ; 1765 ; 1766 ; 1767 ; 1768 ; 1769 … ;
	In poetry 1756 1757 1758 1759 1760 1761 1762
	Art ; Archaeology ; Architecture ; Literature ; Music ; Philosophy ; Science ; +...

Last updated June 19, 2024

This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1759.

Events

By January 15 – Voltaire's satirical novella Candide, ou l'Optimisme is published simultaneously in five countries.
January 15 – The British Museum opens in London.
March 5 – Denis Diderot's Encyclopédie is proscribed by the Vatican and (on March 8) temporarily suppressed by the French government. The ban is lifted in September to allow publication of a revised version.^[1]
July 27 – The earliest known professional performance of Shakespeare's Hamlet in North America (in Garrick's version) is given by the American Company in Philadelphia, with Lewis Hallam Jr. as Hamlet.^[2]
August 12 – In the Seven Years' War Battle of Kunersdorf, the German poet Major Ewald Christian von Kleist is fatally injured.
December – Laurence Sterne has the first two volumes of his comic metafictional novel The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman printed in York, in a shop owned by Ann Ward.
December 22 – The writer and critic William Warburton is nominated Anglican Bishop of Gloucester.^[3]
unknown dates
- Rev. Hugh Blair begins to teach a course on the principles of literary composition at the University of Edinburgh, the first held in the field of English literature.^[4]
- Johann Ernst Immanuel Walch becomes a professor of rhetoric and poetry at the University of Jena.

New books

Fiction

Anonymous – The History of Some of the Penitents in the Magdalen-House (dated 1760)
Sarah Fielding – The History of the Countess of Dellwyn
Samuel Johnson – The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia (on Wikisource).
Gotthold Lessing – Fables
Madame Riccoboni – Lettres de Milady Juliette Catesby
William Rider – Candidus (translation of Candide)
Laurence Sterne – The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman , vols 1–2
Voltaire – Candide

Drama

William Hawkins – Cymbeline (adapted from William Shakespeare)
Arthur Murphy – The Orphan of China
James Townley – High Life Below Stairs

Poetry

Samuel Butler – The Genuine Remains (collected works)
Edward Capell – Prolusions
John Gilbert Cooper – Ver-Vert (transl.)
William Mason – Caractacus
Augustus Montague Toplady – Poems on Sacred Subjects

Non-fiction

Franz Aepinus – Tentamen Theoriae Electricitatis et Magnetismi (An Attempt at a Theory of Electricity and Magnetism)
Edmund Burke – The Annual Register
Angélique du Coudray – Abrégé de l'art des accouchements (The Art of Obstetrics)
Alexander Gerard – An Essay on Taste
Oliver Goldsmith
- The Bee (periodical solely by Goldsmith)
- An Enquiry into the Present State of Polite Learning in Europe
David Hume – The History of England, Under the House of Tudor
Richard Hurd – Moral and Political Dialogues
Edward Hyde, 1st Earl of Clarendon – The Life of Edward Earl of Clarendon Written by Himself
Rai Chatar Man Kayath – Chahar Gulshan
William Robertson – The History of Scotland during the Reigns of Queen Mary and of King James
Adam Smith – The Theory of Moral Sentiments
Arthur Young – Reflections on the Present State of Affairs at Home and Abroad
Edward Young – Conjectures on Original Composition

Births

January 25 – Robert Burns, Scottish poet writing in Braid Scots and English (died 1796)^[5]
March 5 – John Jamieson, Scottish lexicographer (died 1838)^[6]
March 29 – Alexander Chalmers, Scottish biographer and editor (died 1834)
April 27 – Mary Wollstonecraft, English political writer and advocate of women's rights (died 1797)^[7]
May 4 (baptism) – Isabella Kelly, Scottish novelist and poet (died 1857)^[8]
June 17 – Helen Maria Williams, English novelist, poet and translator from French (died 1827)
October 13 – Mary Hays, English writer and advocate of women's rights (died 1843)
November 10 – Friedrich Schiller, German poet and dramatist (died 1805)
December 25 – Richard Porson, English classicist (died 1808)
unknown date – Deen Mahomet, author of first book in English by an Indian (died 1851)^[9]

Deaths

June 12 – William Collins, English poet (born 1721)
June 26 – Arthur Young, English religious writer and cleric (born 1693)
July 27 – Pierre Louis Maupertuis, French philosopher (born 1698)
July 29 – Kata Bethlen, Hungarian memoirist and correspondent (born 1700)
August 16 – Eugene Aram, English philologist and murderer, hanged (born 1704)
August 24 – Ewald Christian von Kleist, German poet (born 1715)
September 5 – Lauritz de Thurah, Danish architectural historian (born 1706)
October 7 – Joseph Ames, English bibliographer and antiquary (born 1680)
unknown date – Francis Coventry, English clergyman and novelist (born 1725)^[10]
probable – Anton Wilhelm Amo, West African-born German philosopher (born 1703)

Related Research Articles

Laurence Sterne was an Anglo-Irish novelist and Anglican cleric who wrote the novels The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman and A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy, published sermons and memoirs, and indulged in local politics. He grew up in a military family, travelling mainly in Ireland but briefly in England. An uncle paid for Sterne to attend Hipperholme Grammar School in the West Riding of Yorkshire, as Sterne's father was ordered to Jamaica, where he died of malaria some years later. He attended Jesus College, Cambridge on a sizarship, gaining bachelor's and master's degrees. While Vicar of Sutton-on-the-Forest, Yorkshire, he married Elizabeth Lumley in 1741. His ecclesiastical satire A Political Romance infuriated the church and was burnt.

This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1790.

This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1775.

This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1797.

This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1747.

This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1750.

This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1761.

This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1762.

This article presents lists of the literary events and publications in 1765.

This article presents lists of the literary events and publications in 1767.

This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1768.

This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1781.

The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman, also known as Tristram Shandy, is a novel by Laurence Sterne, inspired by Don Quixote. It was published in nine volumes, the first two appearing in 1759, and seven others following over the next seven years. It purports to be a biography of the eponymous character. Its style is marked by digression, double entendre, and graphic devices. The first edition was printed by Ann Ward on Coney Street, York.

Richard Mead, FRS, FRCP, was an English physician. His work, A Short Discourse concerning Pestilential Contagion, and the Method to be used to prevent it (1720), was of historic importance in the understanding of transmissible diseases.

Journal to Eliza is a work by British author Laurence Sterne. It was published posthumously in 1904. It is written as a diary, but was supposedly intended as a love letter to Eliza Draper. Sterne predicted that it would be published long after the deaths of both himself and Draper.

Literature of the 18th century refers to world literature produced during the years 1700–1799.

Nationality words link to articles with information on the nation's poetry or literature.

Events from the year 1759 in Great Britain. This year was dubbed an "Annus Mirabilis" due to a succession of military victories in the Seven Years' War against French-led opponents.