1797 In Literature

This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1797.

Events

* June 5 – Poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge, living at Nether Stowey in the Quantock Hills, Somerset, renews his friendship with William Wordsworth and Wordsworth's sister, Dorothy, who take a house nearby.
*July 15 – George Colman's comedy ''The Heir at Law'' opens in London. It introduces the character of Dr. Pangloss to the stage and the phrase "Queen Anne's dead" to the language.
*August – The British Home Office sends an agent to Nether Stowey to investigate Coleridge and Wordsworth who are suspected of being French spies.
*October – Coleridge composes the poem ''Kubla Khan'' in an opium-induced dream, writing down only a fragment of it on waking.
*November 1 – Jane Austen's father writes to London bookseller Thomas Cadell to ask if he is interested in seeing the manuscript of Jane's recently completed novel ''First Impressions'' (later re-titled '' Pride and Prejudice''); Cadell declines.
*November – Wordsworth suggests to Coleridge the theme of ''The Rime of the Ancient Mariner'' on a walk in the Quantocks.
*December 24 – Walter Scott marries Charlotte Carpenter at St Mary's Church, Carlisle. The couple immediately move to a new home at 50 George Street, Edinburgh.
*Hatchards bookshop is founded in London's Piccadilly by John Hatchard; it continues to trade on the same site into the 21st century.

New books

Fiction

*"Mrs Carver" (perhaps Anthony Carlisle) – ''The Horrors of Oakendale Abbey''
*Hannah Webster Foster (anonymously) – '' The Coquette, or the History of Eliza Wharton''
*Friedrich Hölderlin – '' Hyperion'', volume 1
* Frances Margaretta Jacson (anonymously) – ''Disobedience''
*Jan Potocki – ''The Manuscript Found in Saragossa''
*Ann Radcliffe – '' The Italian, or the Confessional of the Black Penitents''
* Marquis de Sade – '' L'Histoire de Juliette''
* Royall Tyler – '' The Algerine Captive''

Children

* Charlotte Palmer – ''A Newly-Invented Copybook''

Drama

*Samuel Taylor Coleridge – '' Osorio''
* George Colman – ''The Heir at Law''
*Richard Cumberland
**''False Impressions''
**''The Last of the Family''
*Thomas John Dibdin – '' Sadak and Kalasrade''
*Elizabeth Inchbald – ''Wives as They Were, and Maids as They Are''
*Robert Jephson – ''Julia''
* Matthew Lewis – ''The Minister: A Tragedy, in five acts''
* Thomas Morton – '' A Cure for the Heart Ache''

Poetry

Non-fiction

*Thomas Bewick – ''History of British Birds'' vol. 1
*François-René de Chateaubriand – ''Essai sur les révolutions''
*'' The Columbian Orator''
* Johann Gottlieb Fichte – ''Foundations of Natural Right''
*Lorenzo Mascheroni – ''Geometria del Compasso''
*Thomas Paine – '' Agrarian Justice''
*Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling – ''Die Weltseele'' (Soul of the World)

Births

* January 10 - Maria da Felicidade do Couto Browne, early Portuguese woman poet (died 1861)
*January 28 – Félix Tanco, Colombian-born Cuban poet, and novelist (died 1871)
*March 3 – Emily Eden, English poet and novelist (died 1869)
*March 13 – Charles de Rémusat, French politician and writer (died 1875)
*March 27 – Alfred de Vigny, French poet (died 1863)
*April 12 – Ernst August Hagen, Prussian art writer and novelist (died 1880)
*June 14 – Jules Lefèvre-Deumier, French author and poet (died 1857)
*July 12 – Adele Schopenhauer, German novelist and paper-cut artist (died 1849)
*August 30 – Mary Shelley, English novelist (died 1851)
*September 2 – William Stephenson, English Geordie printer, publisher, auctioneer, poet and songwriter (died 1838)
*September 16 – Anthony Panizzi, Italian-born English scholar and librarian (died 1879)
* September 28 – Sophie von Knorring (Sophie Margareta Zelow), Swedish novelist (died 1848)
*October 31 – Jacob Bailey Moore, American journalist and historical writer (died 1853)
*November 17 – Saint-Amand, French playwright (died 1885)
*December 13 – Heinrich Heine, German poet (died 1856)
*December 31 – North Ludlow Beamish, Irish military writer and antiquary (died 1872)
*''Unknown date'' – Charlotte Barton, Australian children's author (died 1867)
*''Approximate date'' – Thomas Cautley Newby, English publisher (died 1882)

Deaths

*March 2 – Horace Walpole, novelist and antiquarian (born 1717)
*April 7 – William Mason, English poet and editor (born 1724)
* May 27 – François-Noël Babeuf, French journalist and political agitator (executed, born 1760)
* July 9 – Edmund Burke, Irish-born philosopher (born 1729)
*September 10 – Mary Wollstonecraft, English philosopher (born 1759)
*October 4 – Johann Christian Georg Bodenschatz, German Protestant theologian (born 1717)
*December – Mathurin-Léonard Duphot, French poet (shot dead, born 1769)
*''Unknown date'' – Yuan Mei (袁枚), Chinese poet, diarist and gastronome (born 1716)

References

{{Year in literature article categories

Years of the 18th century in literature