# 1783 in literature

This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1783.

## Events

* April 14 – Gotthold Ephraim Lessing's drama Nathan der Weise receives its first professional performance, in Berlin.
* May 6 – William Cobbett arrives in London to work, and later in the year joins the 54th (West Norfolk) Regiment of Foot.
* September – Friedrich Schiller, having left Stuttgart for Weimar to avoid persecution, becomes resident dramatist at Mannheim.
* November 18 – August von Kotzebue leaves St Petersburg to take up a position with the high court of appeal in Reval, then subject to the Russian Empire.

## New books
### Fiction

* Rhijnvis Feith – Julia
* Thomas Holcroft – The Family Picture
* Sophia Lee – The Recess
* Johann Karl August Musäus – Volksmärchen der Deutschen (second volume)
* Clara Reeve – The Two Mentors

### Children

* Thomas Day (anonymously) – The History of Sandford and Merton (first of three story books)
* Ellenor Fenn (as Mrs. Teachwell) – Cobwebs to Catch Flies
* Dorothy Kilner (as M. P.) – The Life and Perambulation of a Mouse
* Mary Ann Kilner
** A Course of Lectures for Sunday Evenings. Containing religious advice to young persons
** (as S. S.) The Adventures of a Pincushion

### Drama

* Vittorio Alfieri – Agamennone
* Frances Brooke – Roxina
* Hannah Cowley – Which is the Man?
* Richard Cumberland – The Mysterious Husband
* John O'Keeffe – The Poor Soldier
* William Jackson – The Metamorphosis
* Samuel Jackson Pratt – The School for Vanity

### Poetry

* Lady Anne Barnard – Auld Robin Gray (ballad) (published anonymously)
* William Blake – Poetical Sketches
* Judith Cowper – The Progress of Poetry
* George Crabbe – The Village
* Joseph Ritson – A Select Collection of English Songs
* John Wolcot (as Peter Pindar) – More Lyric Odes, to the Royal Academicians
    See also 1783 in poetry

### Non-fiction

* James Beattie – Dissertations Moral and Critical
* William Beckford – Dreams, Waking Thoughts and Incidents
* Hugh Blair – Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres
* Edmund Burke – Letter on the Penal Laws Against Irish Catholics
* Adam Ferguson – History of the Progress and Termination of the Roman Republic
* William Godwin – Life of Lord Chatham
* Immanuel Kant – Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics That Will Be Able to Present Itself as a Science
* Vicesimus Knox – Elegant Extracts
* Mémoires secrets (anonymous)
* Moses Mendelssohn – Jerusalem
* Ezra Stiles – The United States elevated to Glory and Honor
* Horace-Bénédict de Saussure – Essai sur l'hygrométrie

## Births

* January 23 – Stendhal (Marie-Henri Beyle), French novelist (died 1842)
* April 3 – Washington Irving, American short story writer, essayist and politician (died 1859)
* May 14 – Samuel Lee, English orientalist and linguist (died 1852)
* September 23 – Jane Taylor, English poet and novelist (died 1824)
* December 10 – María Bibiana Benítez, Puerto Rican poet and playwright (died c. 1873)

## Deaths

* January 2 – Johann Jakob Bodmer, Swiss journalist and critic writing in German (born 1698)
* April 17 – Louise d'Epinay French writer and salon hostess (born 1726)
* September 6 – Anna Williams, Welsh-born poet (born 1706)
* October 10 – Henry Brooke, Irish novelist, playwright, and poet (born 1703)
* October 29 – Jean le Rond d'Alembert, French mathematician and philosopher (born 1717)
* November 3 – Charles Collé, French dramatist and songwriter (born 1709)
* November 23 – Ann Eliza Bleecker, American poet, novelist and letter writer (born 1752)