1791 in literature

This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1791.

Events

• May 16 – James Boswell's Life of Samuel Johnson is published ^[1] in 2 volumes in London on the 28th anniversary of their first meeting.
• September 10 – The Scottish poet and exciseman Robert Burns moves to Dumfries. ^[2]
• unknown dates
  • Chinese writer and publisher Gao E and his partner Cheng Weiyan claim to have discovered Cao Xueqin's lost novel Dream of the Red Chamber .
  • The English poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge begins his course at Jesus College, Cambridge. He marks his transfer from Christ's Hospital school by composing the poem "On Quitting School". ^[3]

New books

Fiction

• Cao Xueqin (曹雪芹) and others – Dream of the Red Chamber (紅樓夢, first printed edition)
• Jean-Baptiste Louvet de Couvrai – Émilie de Varmont
• Elizabeth Inchbald – A Simple Story
• Ann Radcliffe – The Romance of the Forest
• Susanna Rowson – Charlotte, a Tale of Truth
• Marquis de Sade – Justine ou Les Malheurs de la vertu
• Charlotte Turner Smith – Celestina

Drama

• Antoine-Vincent Arnault – Marius à Minturne
• George Colman the Younger – The Surrender of Calais
• Hannah Cowley – A Day in Turkey
• Thomas Holcroft – The School for Arrogance
• Elizabeth Inchbald
  • Lovers' Vows
  • Next Door Neighbours
• John O'Keeffe – Wild Oats
• Frederick Reynolds – Notoriety

Poetry

Main article: 1791 in poetry

• Robert Burns – "Tam o' Shanter"
• Erasmus Darwin – The Botanic Garden
• Christopher Smart – The Poems of the late Christopher Smart

Non-fiction

• James Boswell – Life of Samuel Johnson
• Olympe de Gouges – Declaration of the Rights of Woman and of the Female Citizen
• Isaac D'Israeli – Curiosities of Literature (Volume 1)
• Georg Forster – Views from the Lower Rhine (Volume 1) ^[4]
• William Gilpin – Remarks on Forest Scenery and Other Woodland Views (3 volumes)
• Thomas Paine – Rights of Man (Part 1)
• Petrarch's View of Life (Latin dialogues De remediis utriusque fortunae translated by Susannah Dobson)
• Helen Maria Williams – Letters on the French Revolution

Births

• January 15 – Franz Grillparzer, Austrian dramatist (died 1872)
• March 15 – Charles Knight, English publisher and author (died 1873)
• July 5 – Samuel Bailey, English philosopher and author (died 1870)
• August 17 – Richard Lalor Sheil, Irish politician, author and orator (died 1851)
• September 21 – István Széchenyi, Hungarian politician, writer and diarist (died 1860)
• October 26 – Charles Sprague, American poet and banker (died 1875)
• December 24 – Eugène Scribe, French dramatist (died 1861)

Deaths

• January 11 – William Williams Pantycelyn, Welsh religious writer and hymnist (born 1717)
• March 2 – John Wesley, English preacher and religious writer (born 1703)
• April 2 – Honoré Gabriel Riqueti, comte de Mirabeau, French revolutionary and writer (born 1749)
• April 19 – Richard Price, Welsh moral philosopher and preacher (born 1723)
• June 12 – Francis Grose, English antiquary and lexicographer (born c. 1730)
• June 30 – Jean-Baptiste Descamps, French writer and painter (born 1714)
• July 1 - Charles O'Conor, Irish historian and antiquarian (born 1710)
• July 2 – Søren Abildgaard, Danish naturalist and writer (born 1718)
• November 22 – Johann Silberschlag, German theologian (born 1721) ^[5]

References

1. Palmer, Alan; Palmer, Veronica (1992). The Chronology of British History. London: Century Ltd. pp. 232–233. ISBN   0-7126-5616-2.
2. Carol McGuirk (6 October 2015). Reading Robert Burns: Texts, Contexts, Transformations. Routledge. p. 18. ISBN   978-1-317-31735-7.
3. Published in his Poetical Works (1834).
4. Speake, Jennifer, ed. (2014). Literature of Travel and Exploration: An Encyclopedia. Routledge. p. 454. ISBN   9781135456634 . Retrieved 6 July 2019.
5. Heiner F. Klemme; Manfred Kuehn (30 June 2016). The Bloomsbury Dictionary of Eighteenth-Century German Philosophers. Bloomsbury Publishing. p. 723. ISBN   978-1-4742-5598-1.