1790 in literature

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

List of years in literature (table)
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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.^[1]
• 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.^[2]
• May 31 – United States President George Washington approves the Copyright Act of 1790.^[3]
• June 1 – The Royal Literary Fund is founded in Britain by David Williams.^[4]
• June 9 – John Barrie's Philadelphia Spelling Book Arranged Upon a Plan Entirely New becomes the first American book copyrighted.^[5]
• 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^[6]
• Helen Maria Williams – Julia

Drama

• Johann Wolfgang von Goethe – Torquato Tasso (completed)^[7]
• 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^[8]
• 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

Main article: 1790 in 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)^[9]
• 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)^[10]
• March 18 – Marquis de Custine, French aristocrat and travel writer (died 1857)^[11]
• June 9 – Abel-François Villemain, French politician and writer (died 1870)^[12]
• June 24 – Helena Ekblom, Swedish writer and preacher (died 1859)
• July 8 – Fitz-Greene Halleck, American poet (died 1867)^[13]
• August 8 – Ferenc Kölcsey, Hungarian poet and critic (died 1838)^[14]
• October 1 – Charlotte Elizabeth Tonna, English novelist (died 1846)
• October 21 – Alphonse de Lamartine, French poet (died 1869)^[15]
• 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)^[16]
• April 3 – Ephraim Kuh, German poet, 58/9^[17]
• April 29 – Charles-Nicolas Cochin, French art critic (born 1715)^[18]
• 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)^[19]
• July 7 – François Hemsterhuis, Dutch philosopher (born 1721)^[20]
• July 17 – Adam Smith, Scottish philosopher and political economist (born 1723)^[21]
• July 25 – William Livingston, American political writer and politician (born 1723)^[22]
• probable – Marc-Antoine Eidous, French encyclopedist (born c. 1724)^[23]

References

1. Maike Oergel (19 December 2012). (Re-)Writing the Radical: Enlightenment, Revolution and Cultural Transfer in 1790s Germany, Britain and France. Walter de Gruyter. p. 239. ISBN 978-3-11-029011-0.
2. Evelyn Morchard Bishop; Oliver Stonor (1951). Blake's Hayley: The Life, Works, and Friendships of William Hayley. Gollancz. p. 120.
3. Patry, William F. "Copyright Law and Practice". Retrieved 2014-01-01.
4. Jon Mee (26 May 2016). Print, Publicity, and Popular Radicalism in the 1790s: The Laurel of Liberty. Cambridge University Press. p. 206. ISBN 978-1-107-13361-7.
5. Miller, Ernest (2005-06-09). . Corante. Archived from the original on 2014-01-02. Retrieved 2014-05-23.
6. Webber, Caroline (2007-08-24). "Ann Radcliffe: A Sicilian Romance". The Literary Encyclopedia.
7. Lamport, Francis John (1990). German Classical Drama: Theatre, Humanity and Nation, 1750-1870. Cambridge University Press. p. 90. ISBN 0-521-36270-9.
8. Baigent, Elizabeth (2004). "Starke, Mariana (1762–1838)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/26314. Retrieved 2014-05-23. (subscription or UK public library membership required)
9. Gösta Lundström. "Anders A Grafström" (in Swedish). Svenskt biografiskt lexikon. Retrieved January 1, 2019.
10. Pietsch, Theodore (1997). Collection building in ichthyology and herpetology. Lawrence, Kan: American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists. p. 56. ISBN 9780935868913.
11. France, Peter (2000). L'invitation au voyage : studies in honour of Peter France. Oxford: Voltaire Foundation. p. 251. ISBN 9780729407304.
12. John Clark Ridpath (1900). The Standard American Encyclopedia of Arts, Sciences, History, Biography, Geography, Statistics, and General Knowledge. Standard American Publishing Company. p. 2620.
13. Leary, Lewis (1980). American Literature To 1900. London: Macmillan Education, Limited. p. 145. ISBN 9781349164189.
14. "Ferenc Kolcsey". Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved 20 March 2018.
15. Claeys, Gregory (2005). Encyclopedia of nineteenth-century thought. London New York: Routledge. p. 266. ISBN 9780415244190.
16. "Richards, Thomas (1710?-1790)" . Dictionary of National Biography. London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1885–1900.
17. Franck (1883), "Kuh, Ephraim", Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB) (in German), vol. 17, Leipzig: Duncker & Humblot, pp. 317–318
18. The English cyclopædia: A new dictionary of universal knowledge. Bradbury & Evans. 1858. p. 299.
19. The Aldine Magazine of Biography, Bibliography, Criticism and the Arts. Simpkin, Marshall & Company. 1839. p. 265.
20. Heinz Moenkemeyer (1975). François Hemsterhuis. Twayne Publishers. p. 8. ISBN 978-0-8057-2419-6.
21. "Adam Smith (1723–1790)". BBC. Retrieved 20 March 2018.
22. Theodore Sedgwick (March 2009). A Memoir of the Life of William Livingston. Applewood Books. p. 416. ISBN 978-1-4290-1699-5.
23. Studies on Voltaire and the Eighteenth Century. Institut et musée Voltaire. 1984. p. 491.