1788 in literature

This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1788.

Events

 * May – Joseph Johnson and Thomas Christie found the radical Analytical Review in London.
 * May 10 – Sweden's Royal Dramatic Theatre (Kungliga Dramatiska Teatern) is founded.

Fiction

 * Bernardin de St. Pierre – Paul et Virginie
 * Charlotte Turner Smith – Emmeline; or The Orphan of the Castle
 * Mary Wollstonecraft – Mary: A Fiction
 * Yuan Mei – What the Master Would Not Discuss

Children

 * Thomas Day – A History of Little Jack
 * François Guillaume Ducray-Duminil – Alexis, ou la Maisonnette dans les bois (Alexis or the Little House in the Woods)
 * Mary Wollstonecraft – Original Stories from Real Life, with Conversations Calculated to Regulate the Affections, and Form the Mind to Truth and Goodness

Drama

 * Frances Brooke – Marian
 * George Colman the Younger – Ways and Means
 * Hannah Cowley – The Fate of Sparta
 * Olympe de Gouges – Zamore et Mirza (published)
 * Bertie Greatheed – The Regent
 * Elizabeth Inchbald
 * Animal Magnetism
 * The Child of Nature
 * John O'Keeffe
 * Aladdin
 * The Prisoner at Large
 * Mariana Starke – The Sword of Peace
 * Eglantine Wallace – The Ton

Poetry

 * Maria and Harriet Falconar
 * Poems
 * Poems on Slavery
 * Samuel Jackson Pratt – Sympathy

Non-fiction

 * Anthony Benezet – Some Historical Account of Guinea
 * Ralph Broome – Letters of Simkin the Second to his dear brother in Wales, containing a humble description of the trial of Warren Hastings, Esq. (further instalments up to 1791)
 * Edward Gibbon – Volumes IV, V, and VI of The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
 * Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay – The Federalist Papers
 * George Hepplewhite (attr.) – Cabinet Maker and Upholsterers Guide
 * Immanuel Kant – Critique of Practical Reason (Kritik der praktischen Vernunft)
 * Hannah More – Thoughts on the Importance of the Manners of the Great to General Society
 * Richard Porson – Letters to Archdeacon Travis
 * Thomas Scott – Commentary on the Whole Bible (beginning 174 weekly numbers)

Births

 * January 22 – George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron, English poet (died 1824)
 * February 28 – Samuel Bamford, English writer, poet and radical (died 1872)
 * March 1 – Gheorghe Asachi, Moldavian polymath (died 1869)
 * March 20 – Thomas Medwin, English poet, biographer and translator (died 1869)
 * September 22 – Theodore Edward Hook, English man of letters and composer (died 1841)
 * c. October 14 – Robert Millhouse, English weaver poet (died 1839)
 * October 24 – Sarah Josepha Hale, American novelist and poet (died 1879)
 * December 6 – Richard Harris Barham (Thomas Ingoldsby), English novelist, poet and cleric (died 1845)

Deaths

 * March 31 – Frances Vane, Viscountess Vane (Lady Fanny), English memoirist (born 1715)
 * May 17 – Dorothea Biehl, Danish dramatist and translator (born 1731)
 * July 21 – Gaetano Filangieri, Italian philosopher (born 1752)
 * August 4 – Evan Evans (Ieuan Fardd or Ieuan Brydydd Hir), priest and poet, 57
 * August 16 – Francisco Javier Alegre, Mexican historian and translator (born 1729)
 * September 16 – Andrea Spagni, Italian theologian (born 1716)
 * October 13 – Robert Nugent, 1st Earl Nugent, Irish politician and poet (born 1709)