Puneet Varma (Editor)

1759 in literature

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This article presents lists of the literary events and publications in 1759.

Contents

Events

  • By January 15 – Voltaire's satirical novel Candide, ou l'Optimisme is published simultaneously in five countries.
  • January 15 – Opening of the British Museum in London.
  • August 12 – Battle of Kunersdorf (Seven Years' War): German poet Major Ewald Christian von Kleist is fatally injured.
  • December – Laurence Sterne has the first two volumes of his comic metafictional novel The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman printed at York in the shop owned by Ann Ward.
  • Denis Diderot's Encyclopédie is temporarily suppressed by the French government.
  • Rev. Hugh Blair begins to teach a course in the principles of literary composition at the University of Edinburgh, the first such university course in English literature.
  • Johann Ernst Immanuel Walch becomes professor of rhetoric and poetry at the University of Jena.
  • Earliest known professional performance of Shakespeare's Hamlet in North America (in Garrick's version), by the American Company in Philadelphia with Lewis Hallam Jr. in the title rôle.
  • William Warburton becomes Bishop of Gloucester in the Church of England.

    • Fiction

  • Sarah Fielding – The History of the Countess of Dellwyn
  • Samuel Johnson – The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia (on Wikisource).
  • Gotthold Lessing – Fables
  • Madame Riccoboni – Lettres de Milady Juliette Catesby
  • William Rider – Candidus (translation of Candide)
  • Laurence Sterne – The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman, vols 1–2
  • Voltaire – Candide
  • The Campaign

    • Drama

  • William Hawkins – Cymbeline (adapted from William Shakespeare)
  • Arthur Murphy – The Orphan of China
  • James Townley – High Life Below Stairs

    • Poetry

  • Samuel Butler – The Genuine Remains (collected works)
  • Edward Capell – Prolusions
  • John Gilbert Cooper – Ver-Vert (transl.)
  • William Mason – Caractacus
  • Augustus Montague Toplady – Poems on Sacred Subjects

    • Non-fiction

  • Franz Aepinus – Tentamen Theoriae Electricitatis et Magnetismi (An Attempt at a Theory of Electricity and Magnetism)
  • Edmund Burke – The Annual Register
  • Angelique du Coudray – Abrégé de l'art des accouchements (The Art of Obstetrics)
  • Alexander Gerard – An Essay on Taste
  • Oliver Goldsmith
  • The Bee (periodical solely by Goldsmith)
  • An Enquiry into the Present State of Polite Learning in Europe
  • David Hume – The History of England, Under the House of Tudor
  • Richard Hurd – Moral and Political Dialogues
  • Edward Hyde, 1st Earl of Clarendon – The Life of Edward Earl of Clarendon Written by Himself
  • William Robertson – The History of Scotland during the Reigns of Queen Mary and of King James
  • Adam Smith – The Theory of Moral Sentiments
  • Arthur Young – Reflections on the Present State of Affairs at Home and Abroad
  • Edward Young – Conjectures on Original Composition

    • Births

  • January 25 – Robert Burns, Scottish poet writing in Braid Scots and English (died 1796)
  • March 29 – Alexander Chalmers, Scottish biographer and editor (died 1834)
  • April 27 – Mary Wollstonecraft, English political writer and advocate of women's rights (died 1797)
  • May 4 (baptism) – Isabella Kelly, Scottish novelist and poet (died 1857)
  • November 10 – Friedrich Schiller, German poet and dramatist (died 1805)
  • December 25 – Richard Porson, English classicist (died 1808)

    • Deaths

  • June 12 – William Collins, English poet (born 1721)
  • June 26 – Arthur Young, English religious writer and cleric (born 1693)
  • July 27 – Pierre-Louis Maupertuis, French philosopher (born 1698)
  • July 29 – Kata Bethlen, Hungarian memoirist and correspondent (born 1700)
  • August 6 – Eugene Aram, English philologist and murderer (born 1704)
  • August 24 – Ewald Christian von Kleist, German poet (born 1715)
  • September 5 – Lauritz de Thurah, Danish architectural historian (born 1706)
  • October 7 – Joseph Ames, English bibliographer and antiquary (born 1680)
  • Probable year of death – Anton Wilhelm Amo, West African-born German philosopher (born 1703)

    • References

    1759 in literature Wikipedia
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