1790 in literature

This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1790.

Events

• February – Xavier de Maistre begins writing Voyage autour de ma chambre (Voyage Around my Room, published 1794) while under arrest in Turin in the Kingdom of Sardinia, as the result of a duel.
• May – Following the death of Thomas Warton, William Hayley refuses an offer to succeed him as Poet Laureate of Great Britain. Retired MP Henry James Pye is appointed in his place.
• May 31 – United States President George Washington approves the Copyright Act of 1790.
• June 1 – The Royal Literary Fund is founded in Britain by David Williams.
• June 9 – John Barrie's Philadelphia Spelling Book Arranged Upon a Plan Entirely New becomes the first American book copyrighted.
• unknown date – William Lane establishes the Minerva Press in London, specializing in Gothic fiction.

New books

Fiction

• Mary Pilkington – Delia
• Ann Radcliffe – A Sicilian Romance
• Helen Maria Williams – Julia

Drama

• Johann Wolfgang von Goethe – Torquato Tasso (completed)
• William Hayley – Eudora
• Thomas Holcroft – The German Hotel
• Edmond Malone (editor) – The Plays and Poems of William Shakespeare
• Leandro Fernández de Moratín – El viejo y la niña (The Old Man and the Young Girl, published)
• Mariana Starke – The Widow of Malabar
• August von Kotzebue
• Die Indianer in England (The Indians in England)
• Menschenhass und Reue (Misanthropy and Repentance)
• (as Knigge) – Doktor Bahrdt mit der eisernen Stirn (Doctor Bahrdt with the Iron Brow)

Poetry

• William Blake – The Marriage of Heaven and Hell
• Robert Burns – "Tam o' Shanter"

Non-fiction

• Samuel Ayscough – An Index to the Remarkable Passages and Words Made Use of by Shakespeare, first Shakespeare concordance published
• James Bruce – Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile
• Edmund Burke – Reflections on the Revolution in France
• Hannah More – An Estimate of the Religion of the Fashionable World
• Jean Paul – Leben des vergnügten Schulmeisterlein Maria Wutz (Life of the Devoted School Mistress MW)
• Alexander Radishchev – Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow
• Louis Claude de Saint-Martin – L'Homme de désir
• Mary Wollstonecraft – A Vindication of the Rights of Men

Births

• January 1 – James Wills, Irish poet (died 1868)
• January 10 – Anders Abraham Grafström, Swedish historian, priest and poet (died 1870)
• January 29 – George Métivier, Guernsey poet writing in Guernésiais (died 1881)
• March 3 – John Austin, English legal philosopher (died 1859)
• March 10 – Jacques Arago, French traveller and writer (died 1855)
• March 18 – Marquis de Custine, French aristocrat and travel writer (died 1857)
• June 9 – Abel-François Villemain, French politician and writer (died 1870)
• June 24 – Helena Ekblom, Swedish writer and preacher (died 1859)
• July 8 – Fitz-Greene Halleck, American poet (died 1867)
• August 8 – Ferenc Kölcsey, Hungarian poet and critic (died 1838)
• October 1 – Charlotte Elizabeth Tonna, English novelist (died 1846)
• October 21 – Alphonse de Lamartine, French poet (died 1869)
• December 8 – Richard Carlile, English advocate of suffrage and press freedom (died 1843)
• December 25 – Anna Eliza Bray, English novelist and travel writer (died 1883)
• Unknown date — Mary Diana Dods (also as David Lyndsay and Walter Sholto Douglas), Scottish writer (died 1830 in literature)

Deaths

• February 19 – Thomas de Mahy, marquis de Favras, man of letters (born 1744; executed)
• March 20 – Thomas Richards of Coychurch, cleric and lexicographer (born c.1710)
• April 3 – Ephraim Kuh, German poet, 58/9
• April 29 – Charles-Nicolas Cochin, French art critic (born 1715)
• May 2 – Martin Madan, English writer and cleric (born 1726)
• May 6 – Jacques Antoine Hippolyte, Comte de Guibert, French military writer (born 1743)
• May 21 – Thomas Warton, English poet and literary historian (born 1798)
• July 7 – François Hemsterhuis, Dutch philosopher (born 1721)
• July 17 – Adam Smith, Scottish philosopher and political economist (born 1723)
• July 25 – William Livingston, American political writer and politician (born 1723)
• unknown date – Maria Vittoria Ottoboni, Italian stage actress, writer and salonist (b. 1721)
• probable – Marc-Antoine Eidous, French encyclopedist (born c. 1724)

References