1795 in literature

This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1795.

Events

January – Archibald Constable marries Mary Willison, daughter of a printer, and soon starts in business for himself as a dealer in rare books in Edinburgh. This is the origin of the British publishing business that enters the 21st century as Constable & Robinson.
February–June – Samuel Taylor Coleridge offers a series of lectures on politics and religion in Bristol, as does his friend Robert Southey.
March – William Henry Ireland first displays his Shakespearean forgeries to the public. They will inspire a major controversy when published on 24 December.
May 27 – Empress Catherine the Great establishes the Imperial Public Library in Saint Petersburg, predecessor of the National Library of Russia. The core of the collection consists of books looted the year before from the Załuski Library in Warsaw.
August 21–September 26 – William Wordsworth and his sister Dorothy stay at 7 Great George Street, Bristol, when they meet Coleridge, Southey and the latter poets' publisher, Joseph Cottle.
October 4 – Coleridge marries Sara Fricker at St Mary Redcliffe, Bristol. On November 14, Southey marries Sara's sister Edith in the same church.
December – Charles Lamb begins a six-week spell in a mental asylum at Hoxton.

unknown dates

*The first known Bengali language play is staged, the comedy Kalpanik sangbadal ba sajbadal, at the Bengali Theatre.
*The only known manuscript of The Tale of Igor's Campaign is discovered in Russia.

January 15 – Alexander Griboyedov, Russian diplomat and playwright
April 17 – Emily Taylor, English author, poet and hymnist
May 26 – Thomas Talfourd, English lawyer and legal writer
June 13 – Thomas Arnold, English educator and historian
August 30 – Amable Tastu, French women of letters and poet
September 7 – John William Polidori, English physician and fantasy writer
September 18 – Constantin Sion, Moldavian polemicist, genealogist and literary forger
September 29 – Kondraty Ryleyev, Russian poet and revolutionary
October 14 – Robert Vaughan, English historian and religious writer
October 31 – John Keats, English Romantic poet
December 4 – Thomas Carlyle, Scottish satirist, essayist and historian