1799 in literature

This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1799.

Events

 * Premières of the second and third parts of Friedrich Schiller's dramatic trilogy Wallenstein are performed at the Weimarer Hoftheater under Johann Wolfgang von Goethe:
 * January 30 – Die Piccolomini.
 * April 20 – Wallensteins Tod (Wallenstein's Death) as Wallenstein.
 * April 13 – The father of Charles and Mary Lamb dies; Charles becomes his sister's guardian.
 * May 8 – The Religious Tract Society is established as an evangelical publisher in Paternoster Row, London; it continues as The Lutterworth Press into the 21st century.
 * December 20 – William Wordsworth and his sister Dorothy first take up residence at Dove Cottage, Grasmere. William completes the first version of The Prelude during the year.
 * unknown dates
 * A new edition of Edward Young's Night Thoughts is illustrated by Thomas Stothard.
 * The Monthly Magazine and American Review starts publication in the United States, edited by Charles Brockden Brown.

Fiction

 * Anonymous – Village Orphan
 * Charles Brockden Brown
 * Arthur Mervyn
 * Edgar Huntly
 * Ormond
 * Thomas Campbell – The Pleasures of Hope
 * Elizabeth Gunning – The Gipsey Countess
 * Mary Hays – The Victim of Prejudice
 * Friedrich Hölderlin – Hyperion, vol. 2
 * William Henry Ireland – The Abbess
 * Jane West – A Tale of the Times
 * Mary Julia Young – The East Indian

Children

 * François Guillaume Ducray-Duminil – Les Cinquante Francs de Jeannette (Jeanette's Fifty Francs)
 * Edward Augustus Kendall
 * The Crested Wren. A Tale
 * The Canary Bird. A moral fiction interspersed with poetry
 * Dorothy Kilner (as M. Pelham) – Rational Brutes, or Talking Animals

Drama

 * Thomas John Dibdin
 * The Birth Day
 * Five Thousand a Year
 * William Dunlap – The Italian Father
 * Joseph George Holman – The Votary of Wealth
 * Elizabeth Inchbald – The Wise Man of the East
 * Kamesuke – Picture Book of the Taiko (kabuki)
 * Matthew Lewis – The East Indian
 * Edward Morris – The Secret
 * Frederick Reynolds – Management
 * Friedrich von Schiller – Wallensteins Tod
 * Richard Brinsley Sheridan – Pizarro
 * Oscar Wegelin – The Natural Daughter
 * Thomas Sedgwick Whalley – The Castle of Montval

Non-fiction

 * Hannah Adams – A Summary History of New-England
 * Hannah More – Strictures on the Modern System of Female Education
 * Lady Charlotte Murray – The British Garden
 * Philip Yorke – The Royal Tribes of Wales

Births

 * January 31 – Rodolphe Töpffer, Swiss teacher, author, and artist (died 1846)
 * February 4
 * Almeida Garrett, Portuguese writer (died 1854)
 * Thomas Kibble Hervey, Scottish-born poet and critic (died 1859)
 * March – Dorothea Tieck, German translator (died 1841)
 * March 12 – Mary Howitt, English writer, poet and translator (died 1888)
 * March 13 – Maria Dorothea Dunckel, Swedish poet, translator and dramatist (died 1878)
 * March 20 – Karl August Nicander, Swedish poet (died 1839)
 * April 17 – Eliza Acton, English poet and cookery writer (died 1859)
 * May 13 – Catherine Gore, English author (died 1861)
 * May 20 – Honoré de Balzac, French novelist (died 1850)
 * May 23 – Thomas Hood, English poet (died 1845)
 * June 6 – Aleksandr Pushkin, Russian dramatist and poet (died 1837)
 * October 9 – Louisa Stuart Costello Irish writer on travel and history (died 1870)
 * November 29 – Amos Bronson Alcott, American writer, philosopher, and reformer (died 1888)
 * December 30 – John Moultrie, English poet and hymnist (died 1874)
 * unknown date – Rallou Karatza, Greek Wallachian translator and theatrical promoter (died 1870)

Deaths

 * February 19 – Jean-Charles de Borda, French engineer and memoirist (born 1733)
 * February 24 – Georg Christoph Lichtenberg, German satirist (born 1742)
 * April 24 – William Seward, English man of letters (born 1747)
 * May 18 – Pierre Beaumarchais, French dramatist (born 1732)
 * August 30 – Eleonora Fonseca Pimentel, Italian poet and revolutionary (executed, born 1751)
 * December 31 – Jean-François Marmontel, French historian, writer (born 1723)