1776 in literature



This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1776.

Events

 * January 8 – The English actor John Philip Kemble makes his stage début, as Theodosius in Nathaniel Lee's eponymous tragedy, at Wolverhampton, England, with the Crump and Chamberlain company.
 * August 7 – David Hume, weeks before his death, adds a codicil to his will, giving instructions for the publication of the Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, on which he has been working since 1750.
 * unknown dates – The Wenyuan Chamber is built in China as an imperial library in the Forbidden City of Beijing.

Fiction

 * Elizabeth Griffith – The Story of Lady Juliana Harley
 * Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi – Edward Allwill's Briefsammlung
 * Ignacy Krasicki – The Adventures of Mr. Nicholas Wisdom (Mikołaja Doświadczyńskiego przypadki) (first novel in Polish)
 * Samuel Jackson Pratt (as Courtney Melmoth) – The Pupil of Pleasure, or, The New System (Lord Chesterfield's) Illustrated

Drama

 * George Edward Ayscough (adapted from Voltaire) – Semiramis
 * Hannah Cowley – The Runaway
 * Samuel Foote – The Bankrupt
 * Johann Wolfgang von Goethe – Stella (first version)
 * Friedrich Maximilian Klinger – Sturm und Drang
 * Johann Anton Leisewitz – Julius of Taranto (first performed)
 * Jakob Michael Reinhold Lenz – The Soldiers (Die Soldaten)
 * Arthur Murphy – Three Weeks After Marriage
 * Heinrich Leopold Wagner – Die Kindermörderin
 * Lope de Vega (ed. Antonio de Sancha) – Obras sueltas

Poetry

 * James Beattie – Poems
 * Richard Graves – Euphrosyne
 * Hannah More – Sir Eldred of the Bower, and The Bleeding Rock
 * Jonathan Richardson – Morning Thoughts
 * John Scott – Amwell
 * Augustus Montague Toplady – Psalms and Hymns
 * William Whitehead – Variety
 * Gaspar Melchor de Jovellanos – Jovino a sus amigos de Salamanca

Non-fiction

 * John Adams – Thoughts on Government
 * James Beattie – Essays
 * Jeremy Bentham – Fragment on Government
 * Charles Burney – A General History of Music (completed 1789)
 * George Campbell – The Philosophy of Rhetoric
 * David Dalrymple – Annals of Scotland
 * Edward Gibbon – The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, volume 1
 * Oliver Goldsmith – A Survey of Experimental Philosophy
 * Sir John Hawkins – A General History of the Science and Practice of Music
 * David Herd – Ancient and Modern Scottish Songs
 * Soame Jenyns – A View of the Internal Evidence of the Christian Religion
 * Thomas Paine
 * Common Sense
 * The American Crisis
 * Richard Price – Observations on the Nature of Civil Liberty
 * Adam Smith – An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations

Births

 * January – Frances Burney, English dramatist (died 1828)
 * January 17 – Jane Porter, Scottish novelist and dramatist (died 1850)
 * January 24 – E. T. A. Hoffmann, German fantasy and horror writer (died 1822)
 * February 12 – Richard Mant, English writer and cleric (died 1848)
 * March 9 – Archibald Bell, Scottish lawyer and miscellanist (died 1854)
 * April 13 – Wilhelm von Schütz, German author and playwright (died 1847)
 * July 1 – Sophie Gay, French author (died 1852)
 * September 21 – John Fitchett, English epic poet (died 1838)
 * September 27 – Maria Versfelt, Dutch actress and memoirist (died 1845)
 * November 16 – Mary Matilda Betham, English diarist, scholar and poet (died 1852)
 * November 20 – William Blackwood, Scottish publisher (died 1834)

Deaths

 * April 29 – Edward Wortley Montagu, English travel writer (born 1713)
 * May 23 – Jeanne Julie Éléonore de Lespinasse (Mademoiselle de Lespinasse), French salonnière (born 1732)
 * May 30 – Albert Frick, German theologian (born 1732)
 * June 2 – Robert Foulis, Scottish art critic and publisher (born 1707)
 * August 25 – David Hume, Scottish philosopher, historian and economist (born 1711)
 * October 17 – Pierre François le Courayer, French theologian (born 1681)