# 1788 in literature

This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1788.

## Events

* May – Joseph Johnson and Thomas Christie found the radical Analytical Review in London.
* May 10 – Sweden's Royal Dramatic Theatre (Kungliga Dramatiska Teatern) is founded.

## New books
### Fiction

* Bernardin de St. Pierre – Paul et Virginie
* Charlotte Turner Smith – Emmeline; or The Orphan of the Castle
* Mary Wollstonecraft – Mary: A Fiction
* Yuan Mei – What the Master Would Not Discuss

### Children

* Thomas Day – A History of Little Jack
* François Guillaume Ducray-Duminil – Alexis, ou la Maisonnette dans les bois (Alexis or the Little House in the Woods)
* Mary Wollstonecraft – Original Stories from Real Life, with Conversations Calculated to Regulate the Affections, and Form the Mind to Truth and Goodness

### Drama

* Frances Brooke – Marian
* George Colman the Younger – Ways and Means
* Hannah Cowley – The Fate of Sparta
* Olympe de Gouges – Zamore et Mirza (published)
* Bertie Greatheed – The Regent
* Elizabeth Inchbald
** Animal Magnetism
** The Child of Nature
* John O'Keeffe
** Aladdin
** The Prisoner at Large
* Mariana Starke – The Sword of Peace
* Eglantine Wallace – The Ton

### Poetry

* Maria and Harriet Falconar
** Poems
** Poems on Slavery
* Samuel Jackson Pratt – Sympathy

### Non-fiction

* Anthony Benezet – Some Historical Account of Guinea
* Ralph Broome – Letters of Simkin the Second to his dear brother in Wales, containing a humble description of the trial of Warren Hastings, Esq. (further instalments up to 1791)
* Edward Gibbon – Volumes IV, V, and VI of The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
* Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay – The Federalist Papers
* George Hepplewhite (attr.) – Cabinet Maker and Upholsterers Guide
* Immanuel Kant – Critique of Practical Reason (Kritik der praktischen Vernunft)
* Hannah More – Thoughts on the Importance of the Manners of the Great to General Society
* Richard Porson – Letters to Archdeacon Travis
* Thomas Scott – Commentary on the Whole Bible (beginning 174 weekly numbers)

## Births

* January 22 – George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron, English poet (died 1824)
* February 28 – Samuel Bamford, English writer, poet and radical (died 1872)
* March 1 – Gheorghe Asachi, Moldavian polymath (died 1869)
* March 20 – Thomas Medwin, English poet, biographer and translator (died 1869)
* September 22 – Theodore Edward Hook, English man of letters and composer (died 1841)
* c. October 14 – Robert Millhouse, English weaver poet (died 1839)
* October 24 – Sarah Josepha Hale, American novelist and poet (died 1879)
* December 6 – Richard Harris Barham (Thomas Ingoldsby), English novelist, poet and cleric (died 1845)

## Deaths

* March 31 – Frances Vane, Viscountess Vane (Lady Fanny), English memoirist (born 1715)
* May 17 – Dorothea Biehl, Danish dramatist and translator (born 1731)
* July 21 – Gaetano Filangieri, Italian philosopher (born 1752)
* August 4 – Evan Evans (Ieuan Fardd or Ieuan Brydydd Hir), priest and poet, 57
* August 16 – Francisco Javier Alegre, Mexican historian and translator (born 1729)
* September 16 – Andrea Spagni, Italian theologian (born 1716)
* October 13 – Robert Nugent, 1st Earl Nugent, Irish politician and poet (born 1709)