1781 in literature

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

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Events

• March 27 – George Crabbe writes to Edmund Burke, enclosing examples of his work.[1] The outcome is the publication of Crabbe's poem The Library.[2]
• August 5 – Antonín Strnad completes an inventory of the contents of the Clementinum in Prague, which becomes a national library.[3]

Uncertain date

• Rudolf Erich Raspe (anonymously) publishes "M-h-s-nsche Geschichten" ("M-h-s-n Stories") in the Berlin humor magazine Vade mecum für lustige Leute ("Handbook for Fun-loving People"), the first appearance of Baron Munchausen in fiction.[4]

New books

Fiction

• Robert Bage – Mount Henneth
• Christoph Friedrich Bretzner – Belmont und Constanze
• William Combe – Letters of an Italian Nun and an English Gentleman
• Eugenio Espejo – La ciencia blancardina[5]
• Benjamin Franklin – A Letter To A Royal Academy
• Charles Johnstone – The History of John Juniper
• Henry Mackenzie – Julia de Roubignei
• Glocester Ridley – Melanpus
• Anna Seward – Monody on Major André

Children

• Mrs. Barbauld – Hymns in Prose for Children
• Joachim Heinrich Campe – Die Entdeckung von Amerika (Discovery of America)

Drama

• Miles Peter Andrews – Dissipation
• Frances Brooke – The Siege of Sinope
• Elizabeth Craven – The Miniature Picture
• John Delap – The Royal Supplicants[6]
• Johann Wolfgang von Goethe – Iphigenia in Tauris (revised version)
• Thomas Holcroft – Duplicity
• Elizabeth Inchbald – Polygamy
• Robert Jephson – The Count of Narbonne
• John O'Keeffe – The Agreeable Surprise
• Samuel Jackson Pratt – The Fair Circassian
• Friedrich Schiller – The Robbers (Die Räuber, published)
• Richard Brinsley Sheridan
  • The Critic (published)
  • A Trip to Scarborough

Poetry

Main article: 1781 in poetry

• William Cowper – Anti-Thelyphthora
• George Crabbe – The Library
• Maria De Fleury – Poems, Occasioned by the Confinement and Acquittal of the Right Honourable Lord George Gordon, President of the Protestant Association
• Santa Rita Durão – Caramuru
• Anne Francis – A Poetical Translation of the Song of Solomon
• Philip Freneau – The British Prison-Ship
• William Hayley – The Triumphs of Temper
• George Keate – Works
• Samuel Jackson Pratt – Sympathy

Non-fiction

• Maria De Fleury – Unrighteous Abuse Detected and Chastised
• Mary Deverell – Sermons on the Following Subjects...
• Edward Gibbon – Volumes II and III of The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
• Henry Home – Loose Hints Upon Education
• Samuel Johnson
  • The Beauties of Johnson
  • Lives of the Most Eminent English Poets
• Immanuel Kant – Critique of Pure Reason
• John Moore – A View of Society and Manners in Italy
• John Newton – Cardiphonia
• John Nichols – Biographical Anecdotes of William Hogarth
• Magister Pianco (Hans Heinrich von Ecker und Eckhoffen) – Der Rosenkreutzer in seiner Blösse
• Jean-Jacques Rousseau – Essai sur l'origine des langues

Births

• January 26 – Ludwig Achim von Arnim, German poet and novelist (died 1831)
• January 30 – Adelbert von Chamisso, German poet and botanist (died 1838)
• February 26 – Peter Andresen Oelrichs, Heligoland-born lexicographer (died 1869)
• March 17 – Ebenezer Elliott, English poet (died 1849)
• May 14 – Friedrich Ludwig Georg von Raumer, German historian (died 1873)
• June 12 (probable) – Christian Isobel Johnstone, Scottish journalist and novelist (died 1857)
• November 6 – Lucy Aikin (Mary Godolphin), English historical writer (died 1864)
• December 6 – Charlotte von Ahlefeld, German novelist (died 1849)
• December 11 – David Brewster, Scottish scientist and writer (died 1868)

Deaths

• February 15 – Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, German philosopher and dramatist (born 1729)
• February 24 – Edward Capell, English Shakespeare scholar (born 1713)
• March 1 – Jean-Baptiste de La Curne de Sainte-Palaye, French historian, classicist and lexicographer (born 1697)
• March 17 – Johannes Ewald, Danish dramatist and poet (born 1743)
• May 8 – Richard Jago, English poet and cleric (born 1715)
• June 24 – Anna Miller, English poet and salon hostess (born 1741)
• November 2 – José Francisco de Isla, Spanish satirist (born 1703)
• November 4 – Johann Nikolaus Götz, German poet (born 1721)
• December 7 – Judith Madan, English poet (born 1702)

References

1. Edmund Burke (1852). The Works and Correspondence Of...Edmund Burke. F. & J. Rivington. p. 472.
2. Ainger, Alfred (1903). Crabbe. New York: Macmillan, pp. 31-32. sfn error: no target: CITEREFAinger,_Alfred_(1903)._Crabbe._New_York:_Macmillan (help)
3. Zdislav Šíma (2001). Astronomie a Klementinum. Národní knihovna České republiky. p. 94. ISBN 978-80-7050-386-7.
4. Blamires, David (2009). "The Adventures of Baron Munchausen". Telling Tales: The Impact of Germany on English Children's Books 1780–1918. Cambridge: Open Book Publishers. pp. 8–21.
5. Philip L. Astuto (2003), Eugenio Espejo (1747–1795), Reformador ecuatoriano de la Ilustración. Casa de la Cultura Ecuatoriana. p. 82. ISBN 9978-92-241-5.
6. "Manuscripts and Rare Printed Works of Hannah More (1745–1833) and her circle from the Clark Library, Los Angeles". Women, Morality And Advice Literature. Retrieved 2013-02-03.