1784 in literature

This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1784.

Events

March – Gottlieb Jakob Planck becomes professor of theology at Göttingen.
April 27 – First public performance of Pierre Beaumarchais's comedy The Marriage of Figaro as La Folle Journée, ou Le Mariage de Figaro at the Théâtre de l'Odéon in Paris. It runs for 68 consecutive performances, earning higher box-office receipts than any other French play of the century. It is translated into English by Thomas Holcroft and, under the title The Follies of a Day, or The Marriage of Figaro, is produced at the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden in London by the end of the year.
June 26 – Friedrich Schiller delivers a paper, Die Schaubühne als eine moralische Anstalt betrachtet, to the palatine "Deutschen Gesellschaft".
unknown date – The Didot typeface is devised and cut by Firmin Didot in Paris.

Ellenor Fenn – The Female Guardian. Designed to correct some of the foibles incident to girls, and supply them with innocent amusement for their hours of leisure
Dorothy Kilner – ''Anecdotes of a Boarding School, or an Antidote to the Vices of Those Establishments''

Hannah Adams – A View of Religions
Thomas Astle – The Origin and Progress of Writing
George Berkeley – Works
Edmund Burke – Speech on the East India Bill
Thomas Chatterton – Supplement to the Miscellanies
James Cook – A Voyage to the Pacific Ocean
George Bubb Dodington – Diary
Antoine Court de Gébelin – Le Monde primitif
William Godwin – Sketches of History
Samuel Horsley – Letters from the Archdeacon of St. Albans
Immanuel Kant – What is Enlightenment?
William Mitford – The History of Greece
Antoine de Rivarol – Sur l'Universalité de la langue française
Ebenezer Sibly – A New and Complete Illustration of the Celestial Science of Astrology
Emanuel Swedenborg – A Hieroglyphic Key to Natural and Spiritual Arcana by Way of Representation and Correspondences.
Michel Augustin Thouret – Recherches et doutessur le magnétisme animal
John Wesley – The Sunday Service of the Methodists
Arthur Young – ''Annals of Agriculture''

January 17 – Yosa Buson, Japanese poet and painter
January 30 – John Holt, American publisher
April 24 – Franciszek Bohomolec, Polish dramatist, linguist, and theatrical reformer
July 31 – Denis Diderot, French philosopher, art critic, and writer
December 5 – Phillis Wheatley, first published African-American female poet
December 13 – Samuel Johnson, English poet, critic, biographer and lexicographer
unknown date – Lê Quý Đôn, Vietnamese philosopher, poet and encyclopedist