1759 in literature

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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

Main article: 1759 in 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)

References

1. Margaret Bald (14 May 2014). Literature Suppressed on Religious Grounds. Infobase Publishing. p. 93. ISBN   978-0-8160-7148-7.
2. Stanley Wells; Sarah Stanton; Wells Stanley (30 May 2002). The Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare on Stage. Cambridge University Press. p. 231. ISBN   978-0-521-79711-5.
3. John Selby Watson (1863). The Life of William Warburton, Lord Bishop of Gloucester from 1760 to 1779: with Remarks on His Works. Longman. p. 495.
4. William Cowper (1968). The Correspondence of William Cowper. Ardent Media. p. 188.
5. "Pistols belonging to Robert Burns". National Museums Scotland. Archived from the original on 25 March 2019. Retrieved 25 March 2019.
6. "Biography of John Jamieson". www.universitystory.gla.ac.uk. Retrieved 20 March 2018.
7. "Mary Wollstonecraft | Biography, Works, & Facts". Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved 25 March 2019.
8. "Kelly [née Fordyce; other married name Hedgeland], Isabella (bap. 1759, d. 1857), poet and novelist" . Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. 2004. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/37626 . Retrieved 25 March 2019.(Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
9. Michael H. Fisher, "Mahomed, Deen (1759–1851)", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford, UK: OUP), 2004 Retrieved 13 May 2017.
10. The Monthly Magazine: Or, British Register ... 1808. p. 588.