1800 in literature

This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1800.

Events

January - Maria Edgeworth's first extended work of fiction, Castle Rackrent, is published anonymously in London, variously regarded as the first historical novel, the first regional novel in English, the first Anglo-Irish novel, the first Big House novel, the first saga novel and the first with an unreliable narrator.
January 10 - The Serampore Mission and Press is established in Serampore India by Baptist missionaries Joshua Marshman and William Ward. The press will grow into the largest in Asia, printing books in nearly every Indian language.
March - English "ploughboy poet" Robert Bloomfield's The Farmer's Boy is published with engravings by Thomas Bewick, selling over 25,000 copies in the next two years, with 15 editions by 1827 and a number of translations.
April 24 - The United States establishes the Library of Congress.
June 14 - Friedrich Schiller's historical drama Mary Stuart has its première in Weimar.
September - William Blake begins three years' residence in a cottage at Felpham in Sussex to illustrate the works of William Hayley; here he begins work on his poem Milton.
October 3 - William and Dorothy Wordsworth, walking near Grasmere in the English Lake District, encounter a leech gatherer who inspires his poem "Resolution and Independence", first written 18 months later.

Jacob Boehme – L'Aurore naissante
Alexander Geddes – Critical Remarks on the Hebrew Scriptures
Elizabeth Hamilton – Memoirs of Modern Philosophers
Arnold Hermann Ludwig Heeren – Geschichte des europäischen Staatensystems
Immanuel Kant – Logik
Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling – System of Transcendental Idealism
Parson Weems – ''A History of the Life and Death, Virtues and Exploits of General George Washington''

January 22 – George Steevens, English Shakespearean commentator
February 22 – Joseph Warton, English academic and literary critic
May - Evan Hughes, Welsh clergyman and author
March 14 – Daines Barrington, English lawyer, antiquary and naturalist
March 16 – David Doig, Scottish educator and writer
March 29 – Marc René, marquis de Montalembert, French military engineer and writer
April 25 – William Cowper, English poet
August 25 – Elizabeth Montagu, English literary critic
September 29 – Michael Denis, Austrian poet
December 26 – Mary Robinson, English poet, actress and royal mistress