1783 in literature

This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1783.

Events

 * April 14 – Gotthold Ephraim Lessing's drama Nathan der Weise receives its first professional performance, in Berlin.
 * May 6 – William Cobbett arrives in London to work, and later in the year joins the 54th (West Norfolk) Regiment of Foot.
 * September – Friedrich Schiller, having left Stuttgart for Weimar to avoid persecution, becomes resident dramatist at Mannheim.
 * November 18 – August von Kotzebue leaves St Petersburg to take up a position with the high court of appeal in Reval, then subject to the Russian Empire.

Fiction

 * Rhijnvis Feith – Julia
 * Thomas Holcroft – The Family Picture
 * Sophia Lee – The Recess
 * Johann Karl August Musäus – Volksmärchen der Deutschen (second volume)
 * Clara Reeve – The Two Mentors

Children

 * Thomas Day (anonymously) – The History of Sandford and Merton (first of three story books)
 * Ellenor Fenn (as Mrs. Teachwell) – Cobwebs to Catch Flies
 * Dorothy Kilner (as M. P.) – The Life and Perambulation of a Mouse
 * Mary Ann Kilner
 * A Course of Lectures for Sunday Evenings. Containing religious advice to young persons
 * (as S. S.) The Adventures of a Pincushion

Drama

 * Vittorio Alfieri – Agamennone
 * Frances Brooke – Roxina
 * Hannah Cowley – Which is the Man?
 * Richard Cumberland – The Mysterious Husband
 * John O'Keeffe – The Poor Soldier
 * William Jackson – The Metamorphosis
 * Samuel Jackson Pratt – The School for Vanity

Poetry

 * Lady Anne Barnard – Auld Robin Gray (ballad) (published anonymously)
 * William Blake – Poetical Sketches
 * Judith Cowper – The Progress of Poetry
 * George Crabbe – The Village
 * Joseph Ritson – A Select Collection of English Songs
 * John Wolcot (as Peter Pindar) – More Lyric Odes, to the Royal Academicians
 * See also 1783 in poetry

Non-fiction

 * James Beattie – Dissertations Moral and Critical
 * William Beckford – Dreams, Waking Thoughts and Incidents
 * Hugh Blair – Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres
 * Edmund Burke – Letter on the Penal Laws Against Irish Catholics
 * Adam Ferguson – History of the Progress and Termination of the Roman Republic
 * William Godwin – Life of Lord Chatham
 * Immanuel Kant – Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics That Will Be Able to Present Itself as a Science
 * Vicesimus Knox – Elegant Extracts
 * Mémoires secrets (anonymous)
 * Moses Mendelssohn – Jerusalem
 * Ezra Stiles – The United States elevated to Glory and Honor
 * Horace-Bénédict de Saussure – Essai sur l'hygrométrie

Births

 * January 23 – Stendhal (Marie-Henri Beyle), French novelist (died 1842)
 * April 3 – Washington Irving, American short story writer, essayist and politician (died 1859)
 * May 14 – Samuel Lee, English orientalist and linguist (died 1852)
 * September 23 – Jane Taylor, English poet and novelist (died 1824)
 * December 10 – María Bibiana Benítez, Puerto Rican poet and playwright (died c. 1873)

Deaths

 * January 2 – Johann Jakob Bodmer, Swiss journalist and critic writing in German (born 1698)
 * April 17 – Louise d'Epinay French writer and salon hostess (born 1726)
 * September 6 – Anna Williams, Welsh-born poet (born 1706)
 * October 10 – Henry Brooke, Irish novelist, playwright, and poet (born 1703)
 * October 29 – Jean le Rond d'Alembert, French mathematician and philosopher (born 1717)
 * November 3 – Charles Collé, French dramatist and songwriter (born 1709)
 * November 23 – Ann Eliza Bleecker, American poet, novelist and letter writer (born 1752)