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1781 in literature
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1781 literature poetry
This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1781.
January 2026
Events
thumb|upright|1740 portrait of the real Baron Munchausen
March 27 – George Crabbe writes to Edmund Burke, enclosing examples of his work.Edmund Burke The Works and Correspondence Of...Edmund Burke https://books.google.com/books?id=t-kpAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA472 1852 F. & J. Rivington 472 The outcome is the publication of Crabbe's poem The Library.Crabbe Ainger Alfred 1903 Macmillan New York https://archive.org/details/crabbe00aing 31–32
August 5 – The Czech meteorologist and geographer Antonín Strnad completes an inventory of the contents of the Clementinum in Prague, which becomes a national library.Zdislav Šíma Astronomie a Klementinum https://books.google.com/books?id=lcgfAQAAIAAJ 2001 Národní knihovna České republiky 978-80-7050-386-7 94
unknown 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.Blamires David The Adventures of Baron Munchausen Telling Tales: The Impact of Germany on English Children's Books 1780–1918 OBP collection 8–21 Cambridge Open Book Publishers 2009 9781906924119 http://books.openedition.org/obp/600
New books
Fiction
Robert Bage – Mount Henneth
Christoph Friedrich Bretzner – Belmont und ConstanzeThomas Bauman W. A. Mozart Cambridge University Press 1987 9780521310604 78
William Combe – Letters of an Italian Nun and an English Gentleman
Eugenio Espejo – La ciencia blancardinaPhilip L. Astuto (2003), Eugenio Espejo (1747–1795), Reformador ecuatoriano de la Ilustración. Casa de la Cultura Ecuatoriana. p. 82. 9978-92-241-5.
Benjamin Franklin – A Letter To A Royal AcademyFart Proudly: Writings of Benjamin Franklin You Never Read in School 2003 Frog Books 9781583940792 Carl Japikse Berkeley, CA https://archive.org/details/fartproudlywriti0000fran registration
Charles Johnstone – The History of John Juniper
Henry Mackenzie – Julia de Roubignei
Nicolas Restif de la Bretonne – La Découverte Australe par un Homme-Volant
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
Hannah Cowley – The World as it Goes
Elizabeth Craven – The Miniature Picture
John Delap – The Royal Suppliantshttp://www.ampltd.co.uk/digital_guides/women_morality_and_advice_literature_parts_1_to_3/contents-of-reels-part-1.aspx Women, Morality And Advice Literature Manuscripts and Rare Printed Works of Hannah More (1745–1833) and her circle from the Clark Library, Los Angeles 2013-02-03
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe – Iphigenia in Tauris (revised version)
Thomas Holcroft – Duplicity
Elizabeth Inchbald – Polygamy
Robert Jephson – The Count of NarbonneAllardyce Nicoll A History of English Drama 1660–1900: Volume III Cambridge University Press 2009 277
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
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)Arnim, Ludwig Joachim von 1905
January 30 – Adelbert von Chamisso, German poet and botanist (died 1838)Eva R. Trautmann Adelbert von Chamisso The Alaska diary of Adelbert von Chamisso, naturalist on the Kotzebue voyage, 1815-1818 Cook Inlet Historical Society 1986 1
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 3 – Sarah Elizabeth Utterson, English translator and short story writer (died 1851)http://id.loc.gov/authorities/names/no2018100516 Utterson, Sarah Elizabeth, 1781-1851 Library of Congress
November 6 – Lucy Aikin (Mary Godolphin), English historical writer (died 1864)Linda J. Turzynski, "Lucy Aikin." Dictionary of Literary Biography: British Children's Writers, 1800–1880. Detroit, MI: Gale Research Inc, 1996
November 29 – Andrés Bello, Venezuelan polymath (died 1865)Leonard Irving A. Andrés Bello (1781-1865), National Hero The Hispanic American Historical Review 1954 34 4 502–505 10.2307/2509082 0018-2168 2509082
December 6 – Charlotte von Ahlefeld, German novelist (died 1849) Karl Goedeke Ahlefeldt, Charlotte von Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie 1 1875 160 http://de.wikisource.org/wiki/ADB:Ahlefeldt,_Charlotte_von de
December 11 – David Brewster, Scottish scientist and writer (died 1868)
Deaths
February 15 – Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, German philosopher and dramatist (born 1729) Yasukata Toshimasa Lessing's philosophy of religion and the German enlightenment: Lessing on Christianity and reason Oxford University Press Oxford New York 2002 9780198033103 118
February 22 – Anna Magdalena Godiche, Danish book printer and publisher (born 1721) http://denstoredanske.dk/Dansk_Biografisk_Leksikon/Medier/Bogtrykker/A.H._Godiche A. H. Godiche Dansk Biografisk Leksikon, Gyldendal Lauritz Nielsen April 1, 2019
February 24 – Edward Capell, English Shakespeare scholar (born 1713)Capell, Edward 5 249
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) https://runeberg.org/dandig19/0087.html Johannes Ewald Illustreret dansk Literaturhistorie 1 August 2020
May 8 – Richard Jago, English poet and cleric (born 1715)Antiquities in Leicestershire Kraus Reprint Company 1968 464
June 24 – Anna Miller, English poet and salon hostess (born 1741)
September 11 – Johann August Ernesti, German theologian and philologist (born 1707) Klemme Heiner The Bloomsbury dictionary of eighteenth-century German philosophers Bloomsbury Publishing Plc New York 2016 9781474255981 189
November 2 – José Francisco de Isla, Spanish satirist (born 1703)
November 4 – Johann Nikolaus Götz, German poet (born 1721)Götz, Johann Nikolaus
December 7 – Judith Madan, English poet (born 1702)
References
30em
External links
1781 Books at Goodreads