1785 in literature

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Last updated June 19, 2024

This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1785.

Events

January 1
- The Daily Universal Register (later The Times ) is first published, in London.^[1]
- The Paris theatre company Théâtre des Variétés-Amusantes moves to a temporary new building in the gardens of the Palais-Royal.
February 2 – Sarah Siddons makes her London debut in her most famous rôle, Lady Macbeth, at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane.^[2]
February – The English heiress Mary Bowes escapes from her husband, Andrew Robinson Stoney, and begins divorce proceedings.
April 14 – After today's death of the English poet William Whitehead in London, Thomas Warton succeeds him as Poet Laureate of Great Britain, William Mason having refused the post.
May 22 – Robert Burns' first child, Elizabeth ("Dear-bought Bess"), is born to his mother's servant, Elizabeth Paton.^[3]
June 23 – The Litvak rabbi and writer Aryeh Leib ben Asher Gunzberg dies at Metz in France after a book-case topples on him, according to tradition.^[4]
November 28 – The Marquis de Sade finishes writing The 120 Days of Sodom (Les 120 Journées de Sodome) while imprisoned in the Bastille; it will not be published until 1904.
unknown date
- Giacomo Casanova is appointed librarian to Count Joseph Karl von Waldstein at the Duchcov Château in Bohemia.^[5]
- A new building for the Prussian Royal Library is completed in Berlin.

New books

Fiction

Anna Maria Bennett – Anna
Elizabeth Blower – Maria
Denis Diderot, part trans. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe – Jacques the Fatalist (Jacques der Fatalist und sein Herr)
Richard Graves – Eugenius
Karl Philipp Moritz – Anton Reiser (to 1790)

Children

Rudolf Erich Raspe, anonymously – Baron Munchausen's Narrative of his Marvellous Travels and Campaigns in Russia

Drama

George Colman the Younger – Two to One
Richard Cumberland – The Natural Son
Elizabeth Inchbald
- Appearance Is Against Them
- I'll Tell You What
Leonard MacNally – Fashionable Levities
Frederick Reynolds – Werter
Emanuel Schikaneder – Der Fremde

Poetry

János Bacsanyi – The Valour of the Magyars
Samuel Egerton Brydges – Sonnets and other Poems
Robert Burns – "To a Mouse"
William Combe – The Royal Dream
William Cowper – The Task
George Crabbe – The News-Paper
William Hayley – A Philosophical, Historical and Moral Essay on Old Maids
Samuel Johnson – The Poetical Works
Friedrich Schiller – Ode to Joy (An die Freude)
Charles Wilkins (translator) – Bhagvat-geeta, or Dialogues of Kreeshna and Arjoon
John Wolcot as "Peter Pindar"
- The Lousiad
- Lyric Odes, for the Year 1785
Ann Yearsley – Poems

Non-fiction

Ethan Allen – Reason: the Only Oracle of Man^[6]
James Boswell – The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson, LL.D.
Edmund Burke – Speech on the Nabob of Arcot's Debts
Francis Grose – A Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue
Samuel Johnson – Prayers and Meditations
Immanuel Kant – Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals (Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten)
William Paley – The Principles of Moral and Political Philosophy
Clara Reeve – The Progress of Romance
Thomas Reid – Essays on the Intellectual Powers of Man
John Scott – Critical Essays on Some of the Poems of Several English Poets

Births

January 4 – Jakob Grimm, German philologist, jurist and mythologist (died 1863)
January 31 – Magdalena Dobromila Rettigová, Czech cookery writer (died 1845)
March 3 – Frances Mary Richardson Currer, English heiress and bibliophile (died 1861)
March 7 – Alessandro Manzoni, Italian poet and novelist (died 1873)
March 18 – He Changling (賀長齡), Chinese scholar and writer on governance (died 1848)
March 21 – Henry Kirke White, English poet (died 1806)
April 4 – Bettina von Arnim, German novelist (died 1859)
April 7 – Lorenzo Hammarsköld, Swedish poet and author (died 1827)
May 3 – Vicente López y Planes, Argentine politician and writer (died 1856)
May 18 – John Wilson (Christopher North), Scottish writer (died 1854)
August 15 – Thomas De Quincey, English essayist (died 1859)
October 18 – Thomas Love Peacock, English novelist, poet and East India Company official (died 1866)
October 30 – Hermann, Fürst von Pückler-Muskau – German travel and gardening writer (died 1871)
unknown date – Neofit Bozveli, Bulgarian educator and clergyman, early figure in the Bulgarian National Revival (died 1848)

Deaths

January 19 – Jonathan Toup, English classicist, critic and cleric (born 1713)^[7]
April 14 – William Whitehead, English poet laureate (born 1715)
May 4 – János Sajnovics, Hungarian linguist (born 1733)
August 31 – Pietro Chiari, Italian playwright, novelist and librettist (born 1712)
September 17 – Antoine Léonard Thomas, French poet and critic (born 1732)
November 12 – Richard Burn, English legal writer (born 1709)
November 25 – Richard Glover, English poet and politician (born 1712)
December 6 – Kitty Clive, English actress and writer of farce (born 1711)
December 18 – Joseph Allegranza, Milanese historian (born 1715)
December 29 – Johan Herman Wessel, Norwegian-born Danish poet and satirist (born 1742)
unknown date – Ali Haider Multani, Punjabi Sufi poet (born 1690)^[8]

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This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1780.

This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1782.

This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1786.

This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1788.

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

References

↑ Steinberg, S. H. (2017). Five Hundred Years of Printing. Courier Dover Publications. p. 14. ISBN 9780486814452.
↑ Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Siddons, Sarah" . Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.
↑ "Paton, Elizabeth". The Burns Encyclopedia. Retrieved 2014-01-28.
↑ Eleff, Zev (Winter 2012). "The Wages of Criticism". Jewish Review of Books . 8. Retrieved 2013-03-06.
↑ Walter M. Weiss (1997). Looking for Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: A Travel Companion Through Salzburg, Prague & Vienna. Brandstätter. p. 90. ISBN 978-3-85447-729-7.
↑ Holbrook, Stewart H. (1940). Ethan Allen. New York: MacMillan. ISBN 0-395-24908-2. OCLC 975403.
↑ John Burke (1838). A Genealogical and Heraldic History of the Commoners of Great Britain and Ireland, Enjoying Territorial Possessions Or High Official Rank: But Univested with Heritable Honours. H. Colburn. p. 297.
↑ Bakhshish Singh Nijjar (1968). Panjāb Under the Great Mughals, 1526-1707. Thacker. p. 173.

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[1] Steinberg, S. H. (2017). Five Hundred Years of Printing. Courier Dover Publications. p. 14. ISBN 9780486814452.

[2] Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Siddons, Sarah" . Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.

[3] "Paton, Elizabeth". The Burns Encyclopedia. Retrieved 2014-01-28.

[4] Eleff, Zev (Winter 2012). "The Wages of Criticism". Jewish Review of Books . 8. Retrieved 2013-03-06.

[5] Walter M. Weiss (1997). Looking for Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: A Travel Companion Through Salzburg, Prague & Vienna. Brandstätter. p. 90. ISBN 978-3-85447-729-7.

[6] Holbrook, Stewart H. (1940). Ethan Allen. New York: MacMillan. ISBN 0-395-24908-2. OCLC 975403.

[7] John Burke (1838). A Genealogical and Heraldic History of the Commoners of Great Britain and Ireland, Enjoying Territorial Possessions Or High Official Rank: But Univested with Heritable Honours. H. Colburn. p. 297.

[8] Bakhshish Singh Nijjar (1968). Panjāb Under the Great Mughals, 1526-1707. Thacker. p. 173.

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