1805 in literature
This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1805.
Events
- January 18–September 6 – Samuel Taylor Coleridge serves as Acting Public Secretary in Malta.
- Early – Jacob Grimm is invited to Paris as an assistant to Friedrich Carl von Savigny.
- October 12 – The new Theatre Royal, Bath, opens in England, replacing the Old Orchard Street Theatre.
- Unknown date – Henry Thomas Colebrooke makes the first translation into English of the Sanskrit Aitareya Upanishad.
New books
Fiction
- Eugenia de Acton – The Nuns of the Desert
- Sophie Ristaud Cottin – Mathilde
- Charlotte Dacre – Confessions of the Nun of St. Omer
- Robert Charles Dallas – The Morlands
- Maria Edgeworth – The Modern Griselda
- Jean-Baptiste Cousin de Grainville – Le Dernier Homme
- Elizabeth Helme:
- *The Chronicles of Christabelle de Mowbray
- *The Pilgrims of the Cross
- William Henry Ireland – Gondez the Monk
- Matthew Gregory Lewis – The Bravo of Venice
- Mary Meeke – The Wonder of the Village
- Anna Maria Porter
- *A Sailor's Friendship
- *A Soldier's Love
- Jan Potocki – The Manuscript Found in Saragossa
- Catherine Selden – ''Villa Nova''
Children
- Ann Taylor and Jane Taylor – Original Poems for Infant Minds by several young persons, vol. 2
- Achim von Arnim and Clemens Brentano – Des Knaben Wunderhorn, vol. 1
Drama
- Marianne Chambers – The School for Friends
- George Colman the Younger –Who Wants a Guinea?
- Alexandre-Vincent Pineux Duval – Le Menuisier de Livonie
- Robert William Elliston – The Venetian Outlaw
- Elizabeth Inchbald – To Marry or Not to Marry
- Matthew Lewis – Rugantino
- Thomas Morton – The School of Reform
- Adam Gottlob Oehlenschläger – Hakon Jarl
- Henry James Pye – A Prior Claim
- Frederick Reynolds – The Delinquent
- John Tobin – ''The Honey Moon''
Poetry
- Ivan Pnin – God
- Walter Scott – The Lay of the Last Minstrel
- Martin Archer Shee – Rhymes on Art
- Robert Southey – ''Madoc''
Non-fiction
- Hosea Ballou – A Treatise on Atonement
- James Belcher – "Treatice on Boxing by Mr. J. Belcher"
- Henry Thomas Colebrooke
- *Essay on the Vedas
- *A Grammar of the Sanskrit Language
- Denis Diderot – Rameau's Nephew
- William Henry Ireland – The Confessions of William Henry Ireland
- Robert Jenkinson, 2nd Earl of Liverpool – Treatise on the Coins of the Realm
- Ellis Cornelia Knight – Description of Latium or La Campagna di Roma
- Richard Payne Knight – An Analytical Inquiry into the Principles of Taste
- Jane Marcet – Conversations on Chemistry
- Mercy Otis Warren – ''History of the Rise, Progress, and Termination of the American Revolution''
Births
- February 4 – William Harrison Ainsworth, English historical novelist
- April 2 – Hans Christian Andersen, Danish writer
- July 29 – Alexis de Tocqueville, French writer
- August 29 – F. D. Maurice, English theologian and novelist
- September 19 – John Stevens Cabot Abbott, American historian
- December 23 – Joseph Smith, American founder and prophet of the Latter Day Saint movement
Deaths
- February 24 – Ralph Broome, English pamphleteer
- March 29 – Jean Elliot, Scottish poet
- May 9 – Friedrich Schiller, German playwright
- May 25 – William Paley, English philosopher
- * Anna Maria Rückerschöld, Swedish author
- June 18 – Arthur Murphy, Irish writer
- July 27 – Brian Merriman, Irish-language poet
- August 3 – Christopher Anstey, English poet
- Early September – Mary Deverell, English religious writer, essayist and poet
- September 3 – Johann Martin Abele, German publisher
- December 21 – Manuel Maria Barbosa du Bocage, Portuguese poet
- unknown dates
- *Ji Yun, Chinese poet and scholar
- *Anna Hammar-Rosén, Swedish publisher