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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.

New books

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)

References