1790 in literature explained

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.^[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

See 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
• April 29 – Charles-Nicolas Cochin, French art critic (born 1715)^[17]
• 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)^[18]
• July 7 – François Hemsterhuis, Dutch philosopher (born 1721)^[19]
• July 17 – Adam Smith, Scottish philosopher and political economist (born 1723)^[20]
• July 25 – William Livingston, American political writer and politician (born 1723)^[21]
• unknown date – Maria Vittoria Ottoboni, Italian stage actress, writer and salonist (b. 1721)^[22]
• probable – Marc-Antoine Eidous, French encyclopedist (born c. 1724)^[23]

Notes and References

1. Book: Maike Oergel. (Re-)Writing the Radical: Enlightenment, Revolution and Cultural Transfer in 1790s Germany, Britain and France. 19 December 2012. Walter de Gruyter. 978-3-11-029011-0. 239.
2. Book: Evelyn Morchard Bishop. Oliver Stonor. Blake's Hayley: The Life, Works, and Friendships of William Hayley. 1951. Gollancz. 120.
3. Web site: Copyright Law and Practice . William F. . Patry . 2014-01-01.
4. Book: Jon Mee. Print, Publicity, and Popular Radicalism in the 1790s: The Laurel of Liberty. 26 May 2016. Cambridge University Press. 978-1-107-13361-7. 206.
5. Web site: June 9, 1790 . Ernest . Miller . Corante . 2005-06-09 . 2014-05-23 . 2014-01-02 . https://web.archive.org/web/20140102191132/http://importance.corante.com/archives/2005/06/09/june_9_1790_first_book_copyrighted_in_us_the_philadelphia_spelling_book.php . dead .
6. Web site: Ann Radcliffe: A Sicilian Romance . Caroline . Webber . The Literary Encyclopedia . 2007-08-24.
7. Book: Lamport, Francis John . 1990 . German Classical Drama: Theatre, Humanity and Nation, 1750-1870 . registration . Cambridge University Press . 0-521-36270-9. 90.
8. Web site: Baigent . Elizabeth . Starke, Mariana (1762–1838) . . Oxford University Press . Online . 2004 . 10.1093/ref:odnb/26314 . 2014-05-23.
9. Web site: Anders A Grafström. Svenskt biografiskt lexikon. Gösta Lundström . January 1, 2019. sv.
10. Book: Pietsch, Theodore . Collection building in ichthyology and herpetology . American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists . Lawrence, Kan . 1997 . 9780935868913 . 56.
11. Book: France, Peter . L'invitation au voyage : studies in honour of Peter France . Voltaire Foundation . Oxford . 2000 . 9780729407304 . 251.
12. Book: John Clark Ridpath. The Standard American Encyclopedia of Arts, Sciences, History, Biography, Geography, Statistics, and General Knowledge. Standard American Publishing Company. 1900. 2620.
13. Book: Leary, Lewis . American Literature To 1900 . Macmillan Education, Limited . London . 1980 . 9781349164189 . 145.
14. Web site: Ferenc Kolcsey . Encyclopedia Britannica . 20 March 2018 . en.
15. Book: Claeys, Gregory . Encyclopedia of nineteenth-century thought . Routledge . London New York . 2005 . 9780415244190 . 266.
16. Richards, Thomas (1710?-1790).
17. Book: The English cyclopædia: A new dictionary of universal knowledge . 1858 . Bradbury & Evans . 299.
18. Book: The Aldine Magazine of Biography, Bibliography, Criticism and the Arts . 1839 . Simpkin, Marshall & Company . 265.
19. Book: Heinz Moenkemeyer . François Hemsterhuis . registration . 1975 . Twayne Publishers . 978-0-8057-2419-6 . 8.
20. Web site: Adam Smith (1723–1790) . BBC . 20 March 2018.
21. Book: Theodore Sedgwick . A Memoir of the Life of William Livingston . March 2009 . Applewood Books . 978-1-4290-1699-5 . 416.
22. E. Verga, Storia della vita milanese, Milano 1931
23. Book: Studies on Voltaire and the Eighteenth Century. 1984. Institut et musée Voltaire. 491.