This article presents lists of the literary events and publications in 1776.
January 8 – English actor John Philip Kemble makes his stage début, as Theodosius in Nathaniel Lee's tragedy of that name at Wolverhampton with the Crump & Chamberlain company.
Shortly before his death, David Hume completes the Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, on which he has been working since 1750.
The Wenyuan Chamber, an imperial library in the Forbidden City of Beijing, is built.
Elizabeth Griffith – The Story of Lady Juliana Harley
Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi – Edward Allwill's Briefsammlung
Ignacy Krasicki – The Adventures of Mr. Nicholas Wisdom (Mikołaja Doświadczyńskiego przypadki) (first novel in Polish)
Samuel Jackson Pratt as "Courtney Melmoth" – The Pupil of Pleasure, or, The New System (Lord Chesterfield's) Illustrated
George Edward Ayscough (adapted from Voltaire) – Semiramis
Hannah Cowley – The Runaway
Samuel Foote – The Bankrupt
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe – Stella
Friedrich Maximilian Klinger – Sturm und Drang
Johann Anton Leisewitz – Julius von Tarent (first performed)
Heinrich Leopold Wagner – Die Kindermörderin
Lope de Vega (ed. Antonio de Sancha) – Obras sueltas
James Beattie – Poems
Richard Graves – Euphrosyne
William Mickle – The Lusiad
Hannah More – Sir Eldred of the Bower, and The Bleeding Rock
Jonathan Richardson – Morning Thoughts
John Scott – Amwell
Augustus Montague Toplady – Psalms and Hymns
William Whitehead – Variety
Gaspar Melchor de Jovellanos – Jovino a sus amigos de Salamanca
John Adams – Thoughts on Government
James Beattie – Essays
Jeremy Bentham – Fragment on Government
Charles Burney – A General History of Music (completed 1789)
George Campbell – The Philosophy of Rhetoric
David Dalrymple – Annals of Scotland
Edward Gibbon – The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, volume 1
Oliver Goldsmith – A Survey of Experimental Philosophy
Sir John Hawkins – A General History of the Science and Practice of Music
David Herd – Ancient and Modern Scottish Songs
Soame Jenyns – A View of the Internal Evidence of the Christian Religion
Thomas Paine
Common Sense
The American Crisis
Richard Price – Observations on the Nature of Civil Liberty
Adam Smith – An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations
Antonio de Campmany – Arte de traducer el idioma francés al castellano
January – Frances Burney, English dramatist (died 1828)
January 17 – Jane Porter, Scottish novelist and dramatist (died 1850)
January 24 – E. T. A. Hoffmann, German fantasy and horror writer (died 1822)
February 12 – Richard Mant, English writer and cleric (died 1848)
March 9 – Archibald Bell, Scottish lawyer and miscellanist (died 1854)
April 13 – Wilhelm von Schütz, German author and playwright (died 1847)
July 1 – Sophie Gay, French author (died 1852)
September 21 – John Fitchett, English epic poet (died 1838)
September 27 – Maria Versfelt, Dutch actress and memoirist (died 1845)
November 16 – Mary Matilda Betham, English diarist, scholar and poet (died 1852)
November 20 – William Blackwood, Scottish publisher (died 1834)
April 29 – Edward Wortley Montagu, English travel writer (born 1713)
May 23 – Jeanne Julie Éléonore de Lespinasse (Mademoiselle de Lespinasse) French salonnière (born 1732)
June 2 – Robert Foulis, Scottish art critic and publisher (born 1707)
August 25 – David Hume, Scottish philosopher, historian and economist (born 1711)
1776 in literature Wikipedia (Text) CC BY-SA