1781 in literature

This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1781.

Events

 * March 27 – George Crabbe writes to Edmund Burke, enclosing examples of his work. The outcome is the publication of Crabbe's poem The Library.
 * August 5 – Antonín Strnad completes an inventory of the contents of the Clementinum in Prague, which becomes a national library.
 * unknown date – Rudolf Erich Raspe (anonymously) publishes "M-h-s-nsche Geschichten" ("M-h-s-n Stories") in the Berlin humor magazine Vade mecum für lustige Leute ("Handbook for Fun-loving People"), the first appearance of Baron Munchausen in fiction.

Fiction

 * Robert Bage – Mount Henneth
 * Christoph Friedrich Bretzner – Belmont und Constanze
 * William Combe – Letters of an Italian Nun and an English Gentleman
 * Eugenio Espejo – La ciencia blancardina
 * Benjamin Franklin – A Letter To A Royal Academy
 * Charles Johnstone – The History of John Juniper
 * Henry Mackenzie – Julia de Roubignei
 * Glocester Ridley – Melanpus
 * Anna Seward – Monody on Major André

Children

 * Mrs. Barbauld – Hymns in Prose for Children
 * Joachim Heinrich Campe – Die Entdeckung von Amerika (Discovery of America)

Drama

 * Miles Peter Andrews – Dissipation
 * Frances Brooke – The Siege of Sinope
 * Hannah Cowley – The World as it Goes
 * Elizabeth Craven – The Miniature Picture
 * John Delap – The Royal Suppliants
 * Johann Wolfgang von Goethe – Iphigenia in Tauris (revised version)
 * Thomas Holcroft – Duplicity
 * Elizabeth Inchbald – Polygamy
 * Robert Jephson – The Count of Narbonne
 * John O'Keeffe – The Agreeable Surprise
 * Samuel Jackson Pratt – The Fair Circassian
 * Friedrich Schiller – The Robbers (Die Räuber, published)
 * Richard Brinsley Sheridan
 * The Critic (published)
 * A Trip to Scarborough

Poetry

 * William Cowper – Anti-Thelyphthora
 * George Crabbe – The Library
 * Maria De Fleury – Poems, Occasioned by the Confinement and Acquittal of the Right Honourable Lord George Gordon, President of the Protestant Association
 * Santa Rita Durão – Caramuru
 * Anne Francis – A Poetical Translation of the Song of Solomon
 * Philip Freneau – The British Prison-Ship
 * William Hayley – The Triumphs of Temper
 * George Keate – Works
 * Samuel Jackson Pratt – Sympathy

Non-fiction

 * Maria De Fleury – Unrighteous Abuse Detected and Chastised
 * Mary Deverell – Sermons on the Following Subjects...
 * Edward Gibbon – Volumes II and III of The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
 * Henry Home – Loose Hints Upon Education
 * Samuel Johnson
 * The Beauties of Johnson
 * Lives of the Most Eminent English Poets
 * Immanuel Kant – Critique of Pure Reason
 * John Moore – A View of Society and Manners in Italy
 * John Newton – Cardiphonia
 * John Nichols – Biographical Anecdotes of William Hogarth
 * Magister Pianco (Hans Heinrich von Ecker und Eckhoffen) – Der Rosenkreutzer in seiner Blösse
 * Jean-Jacques Rousseau – Essai sur l'origine des langues

Births

 * January 26 – Ludwig Achim von Arnim, German poet and novelist (died 1831)
 * January 30 – Adelbert von Chamisso, German poet and botanist (died 1838)
 * February 26 – Peter Andresen Oelrichs, Heligoland-born lexicographer (died 1869)
 * March 17 – Ebenezer Elliott, English poet (died 1849)
 * May 14 – Friedrich Ludwig Georg von Raumer, German historian (died 1873)
 * June 12 (probable) – Christian Isobel Johnstone, Scottish journalist and novelist (died 1857)
 * November 3 – Sarah Elizabeth Utterson, English translator and short story writer (died 1851)
 * November 6 – Lucy Aikin (Mary Godolphin), English historical writer (died 1864)
 * November 29 – Andrés Bello, Venezuelan polymath (died 1865)
 * December 6 – Charlotte von Ahlefeld, German novelist (died 1849)
 * December 11 – David Brewster, Scottish scientist and writer (died 1868)

Deaths

 * February 15 – Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, German philosopher and dramatist (born 1729)
 * February 22 – Anna Magdalena Godiche, Danish book printer and publisher (born 1721)
 * February 24 – Edward Capell, English Shakespeare scholar (born 1713)
 * March 1 – Jean-Baptiste de La Curne de Sainte-Palaye, French historian, classicist and lexicographer (born 1697)
 * March 17 – Johannes Ewald, Danish dramatist and poet (born 1743)
 * May 8 – Richard Jago, English poet and cleric (born 1715)
 * June 24 – Anna Miller, English poet and salon hostess (born 1741)
 * September 11 – Johann August Ernesti, German theologian and philologist (born 1707)
 * November 2 – José Francisco de Isla, Spanish satirist (born 1703)
 * November 4 – Johann Nikolaus Götz, German poet (born 1721)
 * December 7 – Judith Madan, English poet (born 1702)