1778 in literature
This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1778.
Events
- October – On her father's death, novelist Sarah Scott receives a legacy that enables her to give up writing.
- c. November – Printing of Nathaniel Brassey Halhed's Grammar of the Bengali Language in Hooghly for the British East India Company is completed, the first such grammar in English and the first publication using a Bengali typeface, devised by Charles Wilkins.
- unknown dates
- *A new edition of The Plays of William Shakespeare is published, edited by Samuel Johnson and George Steevens. It includes Edmond Malone's essay "An Attempt to Ascertain the Order in Which the Plays Attributed to Shakspeare Were Written".
- *Fanny Burney's first novel, the epistolary Evelina, or The History of a Young Lady's Entrance into the World, is published anonymously in London.
New books
Fiction
- Anonymous – The Travels of Hildebrand Bowman, Esquire, into Carnovirria, Taupiniera, Olfactaria, and Auditante, in New-Zealand; in the Island of Bonhommica, and in the Powerful Kingdom of Luxo-Volupto, on the Great Southern Continent
- Fanny Burney – Evelina
- Georgiana Cavendish, Duchess of Devonshire – The Sylph
- Pierre-Louis Ginguené – Satire des Satires
- Ignacy Krasicki – Pan Podstoli, part 1
- Clara Reeve – The Old English Baron
- Lady Mary Walker – ''Munster Village''
Children
- Mrs. Barbauld
- *Lessons for Children of Two to Three
- *''Lessons for Children of Three''
Drama
- Henry Brooke – collected plays
- Elizabeth Craven – The Sleep Walker
- Richard Cumberland
- *The Battle of Hastings
- *The Princess of Parma
- Charles Dibdin – Poor Vulcan
- Samuel Foote
- *The Devil upon Two Sticks
- *The Nabob
- *The Taylors
- Jean-François de La Harpe – Les Barmecides
- John Home – Alfred
- Hannah More – Percy
- John O'Keeffe – Tony Lumpkin in Town
- Samuel Jackson Pratt – Joseph Andrews
- Richard Brinsley Sheridan – ''The Camp''
Poetry
- John Codrington Bampfylde – Sixteen Sonnets
- Thomas Chatterton – Miscellanies
- William Combe – The Auction
- Gaspar Melchor de Jovellanos – Jovino a sus amigos de Sevilla
- Vicente Garcia de la Huerta – Obras poéticas
- George Ellis as "Sir Gregory Gander" – Poetical Tales
- William Hayley – A Poetical Epistle to an Eminent Painter
- Pedro Montengón – Odas
- John Scott – Moral Eclogues
- John Wolcot as "Peter Pindar" – ''A Poetical, Supplicating, Modest and Affecting Epistle to those Literary Colossuses the Reviewers''
Non-fiction
- Edmund Burke – Two Letters on the Trade of Ireland
- Theodor Gottlieb von Hippel the Elder – Lebenslaufe nach aufsteigender Linie
- Lorenzo Hervás y Panduro – Idea dell'Universo
- Vicesimus Knox – Essays Moral and Literary
- Francisco Javier Llampillas – Saggio apologetic della letteratura spagnuola contro le pregiudicate opinion di alcuni moderni scritori italiani
- Ann Murry – Mentoria
- Thomas Pennant – A Tour in Wales
- Gilbert Stuart – A View of Society in Europe
- Thomas West – ''A Guide to the Lakes''
Births
- February 6 – Ugo Foscolo, Italian poet
- February 20 – Margaret Bayard Smith, American writer
- February 22 – Gottfried Wilhelm Becker, German physician, writer and translator
- March 24 – Robert Fleming Gourlay, Scottish-born Canadian agriculturist and writer
- April 10 – William Hazlitt, English essayist and literary critic
- April 19 – Elizabeth Wynne Fremantle, English diarist
- May – John Peter Pruden, pioneer of western Canada, fur trader, and writer
- June 1 – Margaret Holford the younger, English poet and novelist
- June 28
- * Mariano Velazquez de la Cadena, Mexican grammarian and writer
- * John David Macbride, English Arabist and academic
- July 15 – Henry Joseph Monck Mason, Irish writer and musician
- August 22 – James Kirke Paulding, American novelist and politician
- August 23 – William Burt, English solicitor and writer
- September 2 – Michał Józef Römer, Polish politician and writer
- September 9 – Clemens Brentano, German novelist and poet
- October 22 – Javier de Burgos, Spanish writer, politician and jurist
- November 1 – Mary Brunton, Scottish novelist
- November 28 – Christoph Ernst von Houwald, German dramatist
- November 29 – Hryhorii Kvitka-Osnovianenko, Ukrainian writer, journalist, and playwright
- December 8 – George Crabb, British writer
- December 15 – John Penrose, Church of England clergyman and theologian
- December 16 – Ludwig Robert, German dramatist
- December 18 – Joseph Grimaldi, English autobiographer and clown
- unknown date – Mary Robinson (Maid of Buttermere), English literary muse
Deaths
- January 10 – Eva König, German woman of letters
- February 10 – Mary Jones, English poet
- March 13 – Charles le Beau, French historian
- May 27 – Christian Tobias Damm, German philologist and theologian
- May 30 – Voltaire, French philosopher and satirist
- July 3 – Jean-Jacques Rousseau, French philosopher
- July 5
- *Antonio Collalto, Italian actor and dramatist
- *July 15 - James Townley, English dramatist
- October 6 – William Worthington, English theologian
- November 11 – Anne Steele, English poet and hymn-writer
- November 22 – Edward Rowe Mores, English antiquarian and scholar