1799 in literature explained

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.^[1]
• 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.^[2]
• 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.^[3]
  • The Monthly Magazine and American Review starts publication in the United States, edited by Charles Brockden Brown.^[4]

New books

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^[5]
• William Dunlap – The Italian Father^[6]
• Joseph George Holman – The Votary of Wealth
• Elizabeth Inchbald – The Wise Man of the East
• Kamesuke – Picture Book of the Taiko (kabuki)^[7]
• 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^[8]
• Thomas Sedgwick Whalley – The Castle of Montval

Poetry

See main article: article and 1799 in poetry.

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)^[9]
  • 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)^[10]
• May 13 – Catherine Gore, English author (died 1861)
• May 20 – Honoré de Balzac, French novelist (died 1850)^[11]
• May 23 – Thomas Hood, English poet (died 1845)^[12]
• 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)^[13]
• 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)^[14]
• April 24 – William Seward, English man of letters (born 1747)
• May 18 – Pierre Beaumarchais, French dramatist (born 1732)^[15]
• August 30 – Eleonora Fonseca Pimentel, Italian poet and revolutionary (executed, born 1751)^[16]
• December 31 – Jean-François Marmontel, French historian, writer (born 1723)^[17]

Notes and References

1. Book: Courtney, Winifred A. . Young Charles Lamb, 1775-1802 . 1982 . Macmillan . London. 0-333-31534-0 . 240 . July 8, 2012.
2. Book: Religious Tract Society (Great Britain). William Jones. The Jubilee Memorial of the Religious Tract Society: Containing a Record of its Origin, Proceedings, and Results, A.D. 1799 to A.D. 1849. 1850. The Society. 14.
3. Book: Antonio Feliciano De Castilho. Shelley M. Bennett. Thomas Stothard: The Mechanisms of Art Patronage in England Circa 1800. 1988. University of Missouri Press. 75.
4. Book: Burt, Daniel S. . The Chronology of American Literature: America's literary achievements from the colonial era to modern times . Houghton Mifflin Harcourt . 2004 . 978-0-618-16821-7.
5. Book: John C. Greene. Theatre in Dublin, 1745-1820: A Calendar of Performances. 2011. Lexington Books. 978-1-61146-118-3. 4506.
6. Book: Lewis Leary. American Literature to 1900. 1 November 1980. Macmillan International Higher Education. 978-1-349-16418-9. 4.
7. Book: James R. Brandon. Samuel L. Leiter. University of Hawaii Press. Kabuki Plays on Stage: Villainy and vengeance, 1773-1799. 2002. University of Hawai'i Press. 978-0-8248-2413-6. 2.
8. Book: Oscar Wegelin. Early American plays, 1714-1830. 1968. Ardent Media. 37.
9. Garrett, João Baptista da Silva Leitão de Almeida . 11 . Prestage . Edgar . Edgar Prestage . 474 - 475 . 1 .
10. Book: An encyclopedia of British women writers . 1998 . Rutgers University Press . New Brunswick, N.J. . 0813525438 . 1 . Rev. and expanded.
11. Book: Little, Iain . Honoré de Balzac, Le père Goriot . Longman . Harlow . 1984 . 9780582781863 . 5.
12. Web site: Thomas Hood British poet . Encyclopedia Britannica . 5 May 2020 . en.
13. Book: Matteson, John . Eden's Outcasts: The Story of Louisa May Alcott and Her Father. registration. John Matteson. 2007. W. W. Norton & Company. New York. 978-0-393-33359-6. 13.
14. Book: Lichtenberg, Georg . Georg Christoph Lichtenberg : philosophical writings, selected from the Waste books . State University of New York Press . Albany . 2012 . 9781438441986 . 2.
15. Book: Louis de Loménie. Beaumarchais and His Times: Sketches of French Society in the Eighteenth Century from Unpublished Documents. 1857. Harper. 452.
16. Book: Davis, John . Naples and Napoleon: southern Italy and the European revolutions (1780-1860 . Oxford University Press . Oxford New York . 2006 . 9780191564529 . 121.
17. Book: Mueller von Asow. Erich Hermann. Mueller von Asow. Collected Correspondence and Papers. Barrie and Rockliff. 1962. 67.