1784 in literature

This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1784.

Events

March â Gottlieb Jakob Planck becomes professor of theology at GÃ¶ttingen.^[1]
April 27 â First public performance of Pierre Beaumarchais's comedy The Marriage of Figaro as La Folle JournÃ©e, ou Le Mariage de Figaro at the ThÃ©Ã¢tre de l'OdÃ©on in Paris. It runs for 68 consecutive performances, earning higher box-office receipts than any other French play of the century.^[2] It is translated into English by Thomas Holcroft^[3] and, under the title The Follies of a Day, or The Marriage of Figaro, is produced at the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden in London by the end of the year.
June 26 â Friedrich Schiller delivers a paper, Die SchaubÃ¼hne als eine moralische Anstalt betrachtet (The Theatre considered as a Moral Institution), to the palatine "Deutschen Gesellschaft".^[4]

unknown date â The Didot typeface is devised and cut by Firmin Didot in Paris.

Ellenor Fenn (anonymous, "By a Lady") â The Female Guardian. Designed to correct some of the foibles incident to girls, and supply them with innocent amusement for their hours of leisure
Dorothy Kilner â Anecdotes of a Boarding School, or an Antidote to the Vices of Those Establishments

Hannah Adams â A View of Religions
Thomas Astle â The Origin and Progress of Writing
George Berkeley â Works
Edmund Burke â Speech on the East India Bill^[6]
Thomas Chatterton â Supplement to the Miscellanies
James Cook â A Voyage to the Pacific Ocean
George Bubb Dodington â Diary
William Godwin â Sketches of History
Samuel Horsley â Letters from the Archdeacon of St. Albans
Immanuel Kant â What is Enlightenment?
William Mitford â The History of Greece
Ebenezer Sibly â A New and Complete Illustration of the Celestial Science of Astrology (publication commences)
Emanuel Swedenborg â A Hieroglyphic Key to Natural and Spiritual Arcana by Way of Representation and Correspondences (published, written in 1741).
John Wesley â The Sunday Service of the Methodists
Arthur Young â Annals of Agriculture

January 17 â Yosa Buson, Japanese poet and painter (born 1716)
January 30 â John Holt, American publisher (born 1721)
April 24 â Franciszek Bohomolec, Polish dramatist, linguist, and theatrical reformer (born 1720)^[7]
July 31 â Denis Diderot, French philosopher, art critic, and writer (born 1713)
December 5 â Phillis Wheatley, first published African-American female poet (born 1753)
December 13 â Samuel Johnson, English poet, critic, biographer and lexicographer (born 1709)
unknown date â LÃª QuÃ½ ÄÃ´n, Vietnamese philosopher, poet and encyclopedist (born 1726)^[8]