1781 in literature
This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1781.
Events
- March 27 – George Crabbe writes to Edmund Burke, enclosing examples of his work. The outcome is the publication of Crabbe's poem The Library.
- August 5 – Antonín Strnad completes an inventory of the contents of the Clementinum in Prague, which becomes a national library.
- unknown date – Rudolf Erich Raspe publishes "M-h-s-nsche Geschichten" in the Berlin humor magazine Vade mecum für lustige Leute, the first appearance of Baron Munchausen in fiction.
New books
Fiction
- Robert Bage – Mount Henneth
- Christoph Friedrich Bretzner – Belmont und Constanze
- William Combe – Letters of an Italian Nun and an English Gentleman
- Eugenio Espejo – La ciencia blancardina
- Benjamin Franklin – A Letter To A Royal Academy
- Charles Johnstone – The History of John Juniper
- Henry Mackenzie – Julia de Roubignei
- Nicolas Restif de la Bretonne – La Découverte Australe par un Homme-Volant
- Glocester Ridley – Melanpus
- Anna Seward – ''Monody on Major André''
Children
- Mrs. Barbauld – Hymns in Prose for Children
- Joachim Heinrich Campe – ''Die Entdeckung von Amerika''
Drama
- Miles Peter Andrews – Dissipation
- Frances Brooke – The Siege of Sinope
- Hannah Cowley – The World as it Goes
- Elizabeth Craven – The Miniature Picture
- John Delap – The Royal Suppliants
- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe – Iphigenia in Tauris
- Thomas Holcroft – Duplicity
- Elizabeth Inchbald – Polygamy
- Robert Jephson – The Count of Narbonne
- John O'Keeffe – The Agreeable Surprise
- Samuel Jackson Pratt – The Fair Circassian
- Friedrich Schiller – The Robbers
- Richard Brinsley Sheridan
- *The Critic
- *''A Trip to Scarborough''
Poetry
- William Cowper – Anti-Thelyphthora
- George Crabbe – The Library
- Maria De Fleury – Poems, Occasioned by the Confinement and Acquittal of the Right Honourable Lord George Gordon, President of the Protestant Association
- Santa Rita Durão – Caramuru
- Anne Francis – A Poetical Translation of the Song of Solomon
- Philip Freneau – The British Prison-Ship
- William Hayley – The Triumphs of Temper
- George Keate – Works
- Samuel Jackson Pratt – ''Sympathy''
Non-fiction
- Maria De Fleury – Unrighteous Abuse Detected and Chastised
- Mary Deverell – Sermons on the Following Subjects...
- Edward Gibbon – Volumes II and III of The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
- Henry Home – Loose Hints Upon Education
- Samuel Johnson
- *The Beauties of Johnson
- *Lives of the Most Eminent English Poets
- Immanuel Kant – Critique of Pure Reason
- John Moore – A View of Society and Manners in Italy
- John Newton – Cardiphonia
- John Nichols – Biographical Anecdotes of William Hogarth
- Magister Pianco – Der Rosenkreutzer in seiner Blösse
- Jean-Jacques Rousseau – ''Essai sur l'origine des langues''
Births
- January 26 – Ludwig Achim von Arnim, German poet and novelist
- January 30 – Adelbert von Chamisso, German poet and botanist
- February 26 – Peter Andresen Oelrichs, Heligoland-born lexicographer
- March 17 – Ebenezer Elliott, English poet
- May 14 – Friedrich Ludwig Georg von Raumer, German historian
- June 12 – Christian Isobel Johnstone, Scottish journalist and novelist
- November 3 – Sarah Elizabeth Utterson, English translator and short story writer
- November 6 – Lucy Aikin, English historical writer
- November 29 – Andrés Bello, Venezuelan polymath
- December 6 – Charlotte von Ahlefeld, German novelist
- December 11 – David Brewster, Scottish scientist and writer
Deaths
- February 15 – Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, German philosopher and dramatist
- February 22 – Anna Magdalena Godiche, Danish book printer and publisher
- February 24 – Edward Capell, English Shakespeare scholar
- March 1 – Jean-Baptiste de La Curne de Sainte-Palaye, French historian, classicist and lexicographer
- March 17 – Johannes Ewald, Danish dramatist and poet
- May 8 – Richard Jago, English poet and cleric
- June 24 – Anna Miller, English poet and salon hostess
- September 11 - Johann August Ernesti, German theologian and philologist
- November 2 – José Francisco de Isla, Spanish satirist
- November 4 – Johann Nikolaus Götz, German poet
- December 7 – Judith Madan, English poet