1783 in literature

This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1783.

List of years in literature (table)
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Events

• April 14 – Gotthold Ephraim Lessing's drama Nathan der Weise receives its first professional performance, in Berlin.
• May 6 – William Cobbett arrives in London to work, and later in the year joins the 54th (West Norfolk) Regiment of Foot.
• September – Friedrich Schiller, having left Stuttgart for Weimar to avoid persecution, becomes resident dramatist at Mannheim.^[1]
• November 18 – August von Kotzebue leaves St Petersburg to take up a position with the high court of appeal in Reval, then subject to the Russian Empire.^[2]

New books

Fiction

• Rhijnvis Feith – Julia
• Thomas Holcroft – The Family Picture
• Sophia Lee – The Recess
• Johann Karl August Musäus – Volksmärchen der Deutschen (second volume)
• Clara Reeve – The Two Mentors

Children

• Thomas Day (anonymously) – The History of Sandford and Merton (first of three story books)^[3]
• Ellenor Fenn (as Mrs. Teachwell) – Cobwebs to Catch Flies
• Dorothy Kilner (as M. P.) – The Life and Perambulation of a Mouse
• Mary Ann Kilner
  • A Course of Lectures for Sunday Evenings. Containing religious advice to young persons
  • (as S. S.) The Adventures of a Pincushion

Drama

• Vittorio Alfieri – Agamennone
• Frances Brooke – Roxina
• Hannah Cowley – Which is the Man?
• Richard Cumberland – The Mysterious Husband
• John O'Keeffe – The Poor Soldier
• William Jackson – The Metamorphosis
• Samuel Jackson Pratt – The School for Vanity

Poetry

Main article: 1783 in poetry

• Lady Anne Barnard – Auld Robin Gray (ballad) (published anonymously)
• William Blake – Poetical Sketches
• Judith Cowper – The Progress of Poetry
• George Crabbe – The Village
• Joseph Ritson – A Select Collection of English Songs
• John Wolcot (as Peter Pindar) – More Lyric Odes, to the Royal Academicians

See also 1783 in poetry

Non-fiction

• James Beattie – Dissertations Moral and Critical
• William Beckford – Dreams, Waking Thoughts and Incidents
• Hugh Blair – Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres
• Edmund Burke – Letter on the Penal Laws Against Irish Catholics
• Adam Ferguson – History of the Progress and Termination of the Roman Republic
• William Godwin – Life of Lord Chatham
• Immanuel Kant – Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics That Will Be Able to Present Itself as a Science
• Vicesimus Knox – Elegant Extracts
• Mémoires secrets (anonymous)
• Moses Mendelssohn – Jerusalem
• Ezra Stiles – The United States elevated to Glory and Honor
• Horace-Bénédict de Saussure – Essai sur l'hygrométrie

Births

• January 23 – Stendhal (Marie-Henri Beyle), French novelist (died 1842)^[4][5]
• April 3 – Washington Irving, American short story writer, essayist and politician (died 1859)^[6]
• May 14 – Samuel Lee, English orientalist and linguist (died 1852)^[7]
• September 23 – Jane Taylor, English poet and novelist (died 1824)
• December 10 – María Bibiana Benítez, Puerto Rican poet and playwright (died c. 1873)^[8]

Deaths

• January 2 – Johann Jakob Bodmer, Swiss journalist and critic writing in German (born 1698)^[9]
• April 17 – Louise d'Epinay French writer and salon hostess (born 1726)
• September 6 – Anna Williams, Welsh-born poet (born 1706)
• October 10 – Henry Brooke, Irish novelist, playwright, and poet (born 1703)
• October 29 – Jean le Rond d'Alembert, French mathematician and philosopher (born 1717)
• November 3 – Charles Collé, French dramatist and songwriter (born 1709)
• November 23 – Ann Eliza Bleecker, American poet, novelist and letter writer (born 1752)^[10]