1776 in literature
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This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1776.
Events
- January 8 â The English actor John Philip Kemble makes his stage début, as Theodosius in Nathaniel Lee's eponymous tragedy, at Wolverhampton, England, with the Crump and Chamberlain company.[1]
- August 7 â David Hume, weeks before his death, adds a codicil to his will, giving instructions for the publication of the Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, on which he has been working since 1750.[2]
- unknown dates â The Wenyuan Chamber is built in China as an imperial library in the Forbidden City of Beijing.
New books
Fiction
- Elizabeth Griffith â The Story of Lady Juliana Harley
- Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi â Edward Allwill's Briefsammlung
- Ignacy Krasicki â The Adventures of Mr. Nicholas Wisdom (MikoÅaja DoÅwiadczyÅskiego przypadki) (first novel in Polish)
- Samuel Jackson Pratt (as Courtney Melmoth) â The Pupil of Pleasure, or, The New System (Lord Chesterfield's) Illustrated
Drama
- George Edward Ayscough (adapted from Voltaire) â Semiramis
- Hannah Cowley â The Runaway
- Samuel Foote â The Bankrupt
- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe â Stella (first version)
- Friedrich Maximilian Klinger â Sturm und Drang
- Johann Anton Leisewitz â Julius of Taranto (first performed)
- Jakob Michael Reinhold Lenz â The Soldiers (Die Soldaten)
- Arthur Murphy â Three Weeks After Marriage
- Heinrich Leopold Wagner â Die Kindermörderin
- Lope de Vega (ed. Antonio de Sancha) â Obras sueltas
Poetry
- James Beattie â Poems
- Richard Graves â Euphrosyne
- Hannah More â Sir Eldred of the Bower, and The Bleeding Rock
- Jonathan Richardson â Morning Thoughts
- John Scott â Amwell
- Augustus Montague Toplady â Psalms and Hymns
- William Whitehead â Variety
- Gaspar Melchor de Jovellanos â Jovino a sus amigos de Salamanca
Non-fiction
- John Adams â Thoughts on Government
- James Beattie â Essays
- Jeremy Bentham â Fragment on Government
- Charles Burney â A General History of Music (completed 1789)
- George Campbell â The Philosophy of Rhetoric
- David Dalrymple â Annals of Scotland
- Edward Gibbon â The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, volume 1
- Oliver Goldsmith â A Survey of Experimental Philosophy
- Sir John Hawkins â A General History of the Science and Practice of Music
- David Herd â Ancient and Modern Scottish Songs
- Soame Jenyns â A View of the Internal Evidence of the Christian Religion
- Thomas Paine
- Common Sense
- The American Crisis
- Richard Price â Observations on the Nature of Civil Liberty
- Adam Smith â An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations
Births
- January â Frances Burney, English dramatist (died 1828)
- January 17 â Jane Porter, Scottish novelist and dramatist (died 1850)
- January 24 â E. T. A. Hoffmann, German fantasy and horror writer (died 1822)
- January 25 â Joseph Görres, German writer, philosopher and theologian (died 1848)
- February 12 â Richard Mant, English writer and cleric (died 1848)
- March 9 â Archibald Bell, Scottish lawyer and miscellanist (died 1854)
- April 13 â Wilhelm von Schütz, German author and playwright (died 1847)
- July 1 â Sophie Gay, French author (died 1852)
- September 21 â John Fitchett, English epic poet (died 1838)
- September 27 â Maria Versfelt, Dutch actress and memoirist (died 1845)
- November 16 â Mary Matilda Betham, English diarist, scholar and poet (died 1852)
- November 20 â William Blackwood, Scottish publisher (died 1834)
Deaths
- April 29 â Edward Wortley Montagu, English travel writer (born 1713)
- May 23 â Jeanne Julie Ãléonore de Lespinasse (Mademoiselle de Lespinasse), French salonnière (born 1732)
- May 30 â Albert Frick, German theologian (born 1732)[3]
- June 2 â Robert Foulis, Scottish art critic and publisher (born 1707)
- August 25 â David Hume, Scottish philosopher, historian and economist (born 1711)
- October 17 â Pierre François le Courayer, French theologian (born 1681)[4]