1785 in literature
This article presents lists of the literary events and publications in 1785.Events
- January 1
- *The Daily Universal Register is first published, in London.
- *The Paris theater company Théâtre des Variétés-Amusantes moves to a temporary new theater in the gardens of the Palais-Royal.
- February 2 – Sarah Siddons makes her London debut in her most famous rôle, Lady Macbeth, at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane.
- February – The English heiress Mary Bowes escapes from her husband, Andrew Robinson Stoney, and begins divorce proceedings.
- April 14 – After today's death of the English poet William Whitehead in London, Thomas Warton succeeds him as Poet Laureate of Great Britain, William Mason having refused the post.
- May 22 – Robert Burns' first child, Elizabeth, is born to his mother's servant, Elizabeth Paton.
- June 23 – The Litvak rabbi and writer Aryeh Leib ben Asher Gunzberg dies at Metz in France after a book-case topples on him, according to tradition.
- November 28 – The Marquis de Sade finishes writing The 120 Days of Sodom while imprisoned in the Bastille; it will not be published until 1904.
Uncertain date
Fiction
- Anna Maria Bennett – Anna
- Elizabeth Blower – Maria
- Denis Diderot, part trans. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe – Jacques the Fatalist
- Richard Graves – Eugenius
- Karl Philipp Moritz – Anton Reiser
Children
- Rudolf Erich Raspe, anonymously – Baron Munchausen's Narrative of his Marvellous Travels and Campaigns in Russia
Drama
- George Colman the Younger – Two to One
- Richard Cumberland – The Natural Son
- Elizabeth Inchbald – Appearance Is Against Them
- John O'Keefe – The Poor Soldier
- Emanuel Schikaneder – Der Fremde
Poetry
- János Bacsanyi – The Valour of the Magyars
- Samuel Egerton Brydges – Sonnets and other Poems
- Robert Burns – "To a Mouse"
- William Combe – The Royal Dream
- William Cowper – The Task
- George Crabbe – The News-Paper
- William Hayley – A Philosophical, Historical and Moral Essay on Old Maids
- Samuel Johnson – The Poetical Works
- Friedrich Schiller – Ode to Joy
- Charles Wilkins – Bhagvat-geeta, or Dialogues of Kreeshna and Arjoon
- John Wolcot as "Peter Pindar"
- *The Lousiad
- *Lyric Odes, for the Year 1785
- Ann Yearsley – Poems
Non-fiction
- James Boswell – The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson, LL.D.
- Edmund Burke – Speech on the Nabob of Arcot's Debts
- Francis Grose – A Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue
- Samuel Johnson – Prayers and Meditations
- Immanuel Kant – Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals
- William Paley – The Principles of Moral and Political Philosophy
- Clara Reeve – The Progress of Romance
- Thomas Reid – Essays on the Intellectual Powers of Man
- John Scott – Critical Essays on Some of the Poems of Several English Poets
Births
- January 4 – Jakob Grimm, German philologist, jurist and mythologist
- January 31 – Magdalena Dobromila Rettigová, Czech cookery writer
- March 3 – Frances Mary Richardson Currer, English heiress and bibliophile
- March 7 – Alessandro Manzoni, Italian poet and novelist
- March 18 – He Changling, Chinese scholar and writer on governance
- March 21 – Henry Kirke White, English poet
- April 4 – Bettina von Arnim, German novelist
- April 7 – Lorenzo Hammarsköld, Swedish poet and author
- May 3 – Vicente López y Planes, Argentine politician and writer
- May 18 – John Wilson, Scottish writer
- August 15 – Thomas De Quincey, English essayist
- October 18 – Thomas Love Peacock, English novelist, poet and East India Company official
- October 30 – Hermann, Fürst von Pückler-Muskau – German travel and gardening writer
Deaths
- January 19 – Jonathan Toup, English classicist, critic and cleric
- April 14 – William Whitehead, English poet laureate
- May 4 – János Sajnovics, Hungarian linguist
- August 31 – Pietro Chiari, Italian playwright, novelist and librettist
- September 17 – Antoine Léonard Thomas, French poet and critic
- November 12 – Richard Burn, English legal writer
- November 25 – Richard Glover, English poet and politician
- December 6 – Kitty Clive, English actress and writer of farce
- December 18 – Joseph Allegranza, Milanese historian
- December 29 – Johan Herman Wessel, Norwegian-born Danish poet and satirist
Uncertain date
- Ali Haider Multani, Punjabi Sufi poet
