1796 in literature
Encyclopedia
Events
- Samuel Taylor ColeridgeSamuel Taylor ColeridgeSamuel Taylor Coleridge was an English poet, Romantic, literary critic and philosopher who, with his friend William Wordsworth, was a founder of the Romantic Movement in England and a member of the Lake Poets. He is probably best known for his poems The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and Kubla...
publishes his periodical The WatchmanThe WatchmanThe Watchman was a short-lived periodical established and edited by Samuel Taylor Coleridge in 1796.The first number was promised for 5 February 1796 but actually appeared on 1 March. It ceased publication with its tenth number... - Samuel IrelandSamuel IrelandSamuel Ireland , British author and engraver, is best remembered today as the chief victim of the Ireland Shakespeare forgeries created by his son, William Henry Ireland.-Early life:...
publishes a collection of Shakespearean forgeriesIreland Shakespeare ForgeriesThe Ireland Shakespeare forgeries were a cause célèbre in 1790s London, when author and engraver Samuel Ireland announced the discovery of a treasure-trove of Shakespearean manuscripts by his son William Henry Ireland. Among them were the manuscripts of four plays, two of them previously unknown...
in his Miscellaneous Papers and Legal Instruments Under the Hand and Seal of William Shakespeare. Amid a growing controversy, Edmond MaloneEdmond MaloneEdmond Malone was an Irish Shakespearean scholar and editor of the works of William Shakespeare.Assured of an income after the death of his father in 1774, Malone was able to give up his law practice for at first political and then more congenial literary pursuits. He went to London, where he...
exposes the forgeries in his Inquiry into the Authenticity of Certain Miscellaneous Papers and Legal Instruments. The forged Shakespearean play, Vortigern and RowenaVortigern and RowenaVortigern and Rowena, or Vortigern, an Historical Play is a play that was touted as a newly discovered work by William Shakespeare when it first appeared in 1796. It was eventually revealed to be a Shakespeare hoax, the product of prominent forger William Henry Ireland. Its first and only...
, is produced at Drury LaneTheatre Royal, Drury LaneThe Theatre Royal, Drury Lane is a West End theatre in Covent Garden, in the City of Westminster, a borough of London. The building faces Catherine Street and backs onto Drury Lane. The building standing today is the most recent in a line of four theatres at the same location dating back to 1663,...
and laughed off the stage. Samuel Ireland's son, William HenryWilliam Henry IrelandWilliam Henry Ireland was an English forger of would-be Shakespearean documents and plays. He is less well-known as a poet, writer of gothic novels and histories...
, confesses to the fraud in An Authentic Account of the Shakespearean Manuscripts.
New books
- Robert BageRobert Bage (novelist)Robert Bage was an English businessman and novelist.Born in Darley Abbey, near Derby, Bage was the son of a paper-maker and was himself a papier. For a time he lived in Elford, Staffordshire...
- Hermsprong or Man as he is notHermsprong or Man as he is notHermsprong: or, Man As He Is Not is a 1796 philosophical novel by Robert Bage. It is the main work for which Bage is remembered and was his last novel. He had previously published a novel entitled Man As He Is.... - Elizabeth BonhôteElizabeth BonhôteElizabeth Bonhôte, née Mapes was an English novelist and essayist .She was born Elizabeth Mapes in Bungay, Suffolk in 1744 and married one Daniel Bonhote, a member of the local gentry, by whom she bore two daughters. She wrote several elegies and poems in praise of the monarchy before writing her...
- Bungay CastleBungay Castle (novel)Bungay Castle is a gothic novel by Elizabeth Bonhôte. It was first published in 1796 and follows the fortunes of the De Morney family at Bungay Castle in Suffolk . Two young members of the family, Roseline and Edwin, search for the source of strange, unearthly cries and discover a terrifying... - Edmund BurkeEdmund BurkeEdmund Burke PC was an Irish statesman, author, orator, political theorist and philosopher who, after moving to England, served for many years in the House of Commons of Great Britain as a member of the Whig party....
- A Letter to a Noble Lord - Fanny BurneyFanny BurneyFrances Burney , also known as Fanny Burney and, after her marriage, as Madame d’Arblay, was an English novelist, diarist and playwright. She was born in Lynn Regis, now King’s Lynn, England, on 13 June 1752, to musical historian Dr Charles Burney and Mrs Esther Sleepe Burney...
- CamillaCamilla (Burney novel)Camilla, subtitled A Picture of Youth, is a novel by Frances Burney, first published in 1796. Camilla deals with the matrimonial concerns of a group of young people: Camilla Tyrold and her sisters, the sweet tempered Lavinia and the deformed, but extremely kind, Eugenia, and their cousin, the... - Denis DiderotDenis DiderotDenis Diderot was a French philosopher, art critic, and writer. He was a prominent person during the Enlightenment and is best known for serving as co-founder and chief editor of and contributor to the Encyclopédie....
- Jacques le fataliste et son maîtreJacques le fataliste et son maîtreJacques the Fatalist and his Master is a novel by Denis Diderot, written during the period 1765-1780. The first French edition was published posthumously in 1796... - Edward GibbonEdward GibbonEdward Gibbon was an English historian and Member of Parliament...
- Memoirs of My Life and Writings - Mary HaysMary HaysMary Hays was an English novelist and feminist.- Early years :Mary Hays was born in Southwark, London on Oct. 13, 1759. Almost nothing is known of her first 17 years. In 1779 she fell in love with John Eccles who lived on Gainsford Street, where she also lived. Their parents opposed the match but...
- Memoirs of Emma CourtneyMemoirs of Emma CourtneyMemoirs of Emma Courtney is an epistolary novel by Mary Hays, first published in 1796. The novel is partly autobiographical and based on the author's own unrequited love for William Frend . Mary Hay's relationship with William Godwin is reflected through her eponymous heroine's philosophical... - Matthew Lewis - The MonkThe MonkThe Monk: A Romance is a Gothic novel by Matthew Gregory Lewis, published in 1796. It was written before the author turned 20, in the space of 10 weeks.-Characters:...
- Jane Purbeck - Matilda and Elizabeth
- Regina Maria RocheRegina Maria RocheRegina Maria Roche is considered today to be a minor Gothic novelist who wrote very much in the shadow of Ann Radcliffe. She was, however, a best seller in her own time...
- The Children of the Abbey: a TaleThe Children of the AbbeyThe Children of the Abbey is a novel by the Irish romantic novelist Regina Maria Roche . It first appeared in 1796, in London in 4 volumes, and related the tale of Amanda and Oscar Fitzalan, two young people in love who are robbed of their rightful inheritance by a forged will... - Mary WollstonecraftMary WollstonecraftMary Wollstonecraft was an eighteenth-century British writer, philosopher, and advocate of women's rights. During her brief career, she wrote novels, treatises, a travel narrative, a history of the French Revolution, a conduct book, and a children's book...
- Letters Written in Sweden, Norway, and DenmarkLetters Written in Sweden, Norway, and DenmarkLetters Written During a Short Residence in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark is a personal travel narrative by the eighteenth-century British feminist writer Mary Wollstonecraft. The twenty-five letters cover a wide range of topics, from sociological reflections on Scandinavia and its peoples to... - Susannah Willard JohnsonSusannah Willard JohnsonSusannah Willard Johnson was an Anglo-American woman who was captured with her family during an Abenaki Indian raid on Charlestown, New Hampshire in August 1754, immediately prior to the breakout of the French and Indian War...
- A Narrative of the Captivity of Mrs. Johnson
New drama
- Johann Wolfgang von GoetheJohann Wolfgang von GoetheJohann Wolfgang von Goethe was a German writer, pictorial artist, biologist, theoretical physicist, and polymath. He is considered the supreme genius of modern German literature. His works span the fields of poetry, drama, prose, philosophy, and science. His Faust has been called the greatest long...
- EgmontEgmont (play)Egmont is a play by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, which he completed in 1788. Its dramaturgical structure, like that of his earlier 'Storm and Stress' play Götz von Berlichingen , is heavily influenced by Shakespearean tragedy; in contrast, however, to the earlier work, the portrait in Egmont of the... - Richard CumberlandRichard Cumberland (dramatist)Richard Cumberland was a British dramatist and civil servant. In 1771 his hit play The West Indian was first staged. During the American War of Independence he acted as a secret negotiator with Spain in an effort to secure a peace agreement between the two nations. He also edited a short-lived...
- Don PedroDon Pedro (play)Don Pedro is a tragic play by the British writer Richard Cumberland. It was first staged at the Haymarket Theatre in July 1796.-Bibliography:* Mudford, William. The Life of Richard Cumberland. Sherwood, Neely & Jones, 1812.... - Mary Darby Robinson - The Sicilian Lover
Births
- January 4 - Henry George BohnHenry George BohnHenry George Bohn was a British publisher. He is principally remembered for the Libraries which he inaugurated: these were begun in 1846 and comprised editions of standard works and translations, dealing with history, science, classics, theology and archaeology.-Biography:Bohn was born in London...
, publisher - September 19 - Hartley ColeridgeHartley ColeridgeDavid Hartley Coleridge was an English poet, biographer, essayist, and teacher. He was the eldest son of the poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge. His sister Sara Coleridge was a poet and translator, and his brother Derwent Coleridge was a distinguished scholar and author...
- July 15 - Thomas BulfinchThomas BulfinchThomas Bulfinch was an American writer, born in Newton, Massachusetts. Bulfinch belonged to a well educated Bostonian merchant family of modest means. His father was Charles Bulfinch, the architect of the Massachusetts State House in Boston and parts of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C....
, American author
Deaths
- February 17 - James MacphersonJames MacphersonJames Macpherson was a Scottish writer, poet, literary collector and politician, known as the "translator" of the Ossian cycle of poems.-Early life:...
, poet - May 6 - Adolf Freiherr KniggeAdolf Freiherr KniggeFreiherr Adolph Franz Friedrich Ludwig Knigge was a German writer and Freemason.Knigge was born in Bredenbeck in the Electorate of Hanover as a member of the lesser nobility. He studied law from 1769 to 1772 in Göttingen where he became a member of Corps Hannovera...
, writer on etiquette - July 21 - Robert BurnsRobert BurnsRobert Burns was a Scottish poet and a lyricist. He is widely regarded as the national poet of Scotland, and is celebrated worldwide...
- October 7 - Thomas ReidThomas ReidThe Reverend Thomas Reid FRSE , was a religiously trained Scottish philosopher, and a contemporary of David Hume, was the founder of the Scottish School of Common Sense, and played an integral role in the Scottish Enlightenment...
, philosopher