1787 in literature

This article presents lists of the literary events and publications in 1787.

List of years in literature (table)
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Events

• January 15 – Ann Ward marries William Radcliffe, gaining the surname by which she will be known as a writer of Gothic novels.[1]
• April 16 – Royall Tyler's The Contrast becomes the first comedy written by an American citizen to be professionally produced, at the John Street Theatre (Manhattan).
• April 17 – The Edinburgh edition of Robert Burns' Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect is published by William Creech. It includes a Burns portrait by Alexander Nasmyth. The poet has great social success in the city's literary circles; 16-year-old Walter Scott meets him at the house of Adam Ferguson.
• June 27 – Just before midnight, Edward Gibbon completes The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire in the small summerhouse in his garden in Lausanne, Switzerland.
• November 21 – François-Joseph Talma makes his professional stage debut at the Comédie-Française as Seide, in Voltaire's Mahomet.
• December 4 – Robert Burns meets Agnes Maclehose at a party given by Miss Erskine Nimmo.[2]
• King George III of Great Britain issues a Proclamation for the Discouragement of Vice, which can be used to prosecute obscene publications.
• Friedrich Schiller arrives in Weimar.

New books

Fiction

• Elizabeth Bonhôte – Olivia, or, The Deserted Bride
• Jean-Baptiste Louvet de Couvrai – Les Amours du chevalier de Faublas
• Johann Wolfgang von Goethe – The Sorrows of Young Werther (revised edition)
• Johann Jakob Wilhelm Heinse – Ardinghello and die glückseligen Inseln
• Elizabeth Helme – Louisa; or the Cottage on the Moor
• Elizabeth Sophia Tomlins – The Victim of Fancy
• Bernardin de Saint-Pierre – Paul et Virginie
• Betje Wolff and Aagje Deken – Abraham Blankaart

Children

• François Guillaume Ducray-Duminil – Fanfan et Lolotte, ou Histoire de deux enfants abandonnés dans une île déserte (Fanfan and Lolotte, Story of Two Children Abandoned on a Desert Island)

Drama

• Pierre Beaumarchais – Tarare (opera)
• George Colman the Younger – Inkle and Yarico (comic opera)
• Germaine de Staël – Jeanne Grey
• Friedrich Schiller – Don Karlos, Infant von Spanien
• Royall Tyler – The Contrast

Poetry

Main article: 1787 in poetry

Non-fiction

• Thomas Best – A Concise Treatise on the Art of Angling
• Mathurin Jacques Brisson – Pesanteur Spécifique des Corps
• Ottobah Cugoano – Thoughts and Sentiments on the Evil and Wicked Traffic of the Slavery and Commerce of the Human Species
• (Sir) John Fenn (ed.) – The Paston Letters (Original letters, written during the reigns of Henry VI, Edward IV, and Richard III)
• John Hawkins – Life of Samuel Johnson
• Scots Musical Museum, vol. 1
• Mary Wollstonecraft – Thoughts on the Education of Daughters[3]

Births

• April 26 – Ludwig Uhland, German poet (died 1862)
• September 13 – John Adamson, English antiquary and expert on Portuguese (died 1855)
• November 4 – Edmund Kean, English actor (died 1833)
• November 21 – Bryan Procter (Barry Cornwall), English poet (died 1874)
• December 16 – Mary Russell Mitford, English novelist (died 1855)

Deaths

• April 2 – Francisco Javier Clavijero, Mexican-born historian (born 1731)
• June 19 – John Brown, Scottish theologian (born 1722)
• October 28 – Johann Karl August Musäus, German satirist and children's writer (born 1735)
• October 30 – Ferdinando Galiani, Italian economist (born 1728)
• November 3 – Robert Lowth, English poet, grammarian and bishop (born 1710)
• December 19 – Soame Jenyns, English poet and essayist (born 1704)

References

1. "The Mysteries of Udolpho". eNotes.
2. Hecht, Hans (1936). Robert Burns: The Man and His Work. London: William Hodge. p. 106.
3. "Mary Wollstonecraft | Biography, Works, & Facts". Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved 10 August 2019.