# 1776 in literature

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This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1776.

## Events

* January 8 – The English actor John Philip Kemble makes his stage début, as Theodosius in Nathaniel Lee's eponymous tragedy, at Wolverhampton, England, with the Crump and Chamberlain company.
* August 7 – David Hume, weeks before his death, adds a codicil to his will, giving instructions for the publication of the Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, on which he has been working since 1750.
* unknown dates – The Wenyuan Chamber is built in China as an imperial library in the Forbidden City of Beijing.

## New books
### Fiction

* Elizabeth Griffith – The Story of Lady Juliana Harley
* Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi – Edward Allwill's Briefsammlung
* Ignacy Krasicki – The Adventures of Mr. Nicholas Wisdom (Mikołaja Doświadczyńskiego przypadki) (first novel in Polish)
* Samuel Jackson Pratt (as Courtney Melmoth) – The Pupil of Pleasure, or, The New System (Lord Chesterfield's) Illustrated

### Drama

* George Edward Ayscough (adapted from Voltaire) – Semiramis
* Hannah Cowley – The Runaway
* Samuel Foote – The Bankrupt
* Johann Wolfgang von Goethe – Stella (first version)
* Friedrich Maximilian Klinger – Sturm und Drang
* Johann Anton Leisewitz – Julius of Taranto (first performed)
* Jakob Michael Reinhold Lenz – The Soldiers (Die Soldaten)
* Arthur Murphy – Three Weeks After Marriage
* Heinrich Leopold Wagner – Die Kindermörderin
* Lope de Vega (ed. Antonio de Sancha) – Obras sueltas

### Poetry

* James Beattie – Poems
* Richard Graves – Euphrosyne
* Hannah More – Sir Eldred of the Bower, and The Bleeding Rock
* Jonathan Richardson – Morning Thoughts
* John Scott – Amwell
* Augustus Montague Toplady – Psalms and Hymns
* William Whitehead – Variety
* Gaspar Melchor de Jovellanos – Jovino a sus amigos de Salamanca

### Non-fiction

* John Adams – Thoughts on Government
* James Beattie – Essays
* Jeremy Bentham – Fragment on Government
* Charles Burney – A General History of Music (completed 1789)
* George Campbell – The Philosophy of Rhetoric
* David Dalrymple – Annals of Scotland
* Edward Gibbon – The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, volume 1
* Oliver Goldsmith – A Survey of Experimental Philosophy
* Sir John Hawkins – A General History of the Science and Practice of Music
* David Herd – Ancient and Modern Scottish Songs
* Soame Jenyns – A View of the Internal Evidence of the Christian Religion
* Thomas Paine
** Common Sense
** The American Crisis
* Richard Price – Observations on the Nature of Civil Liberty
* Adam Smith – An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations

## Births

* January – Frances Burney, English dramatist (died 1828)
* January 17 – Jane Porter, Scottish novelist and dramatist (died 1850)
* January 24 – E. T. A. Hoffmann, German fantasy and horror writer (died 1822)
* February 12 – Richard Mant, English writer and cleric (died 1848)
* March 9 – Archibald Bell, Scottish lawyer and miscellanist (died 1854)
* April 13 – Wilhelm von Schütz, German author and playwright (died 1847)
* July 1 – Sophie Gay, French author (died 1852)
* September 21 – John Fitchett, English epic poet (died 1838)
* September 27 – Maria Versfelt, Dutch actress and memoirist (died 1845)
* November 16 – Mary Matilda Betham, English diarist, scholar and poet (died 1852)
* November 20 – William Blackwood, Scottish publisher (died 1834)

## Deaths

* April 29 – Edward Wortley Montagu, English travel writer (born 1713)
* May 23 – Jeanne Julie Éléonore de Lespinasse (Mademoiselle de Lespinasse), French salonnière (born 1732)
* May 30 – Albert Frick, German theologian (born 1732)
* June 2 – Robert Foulis, Scottish art critic and publisher (born 1707)
* August 25 – David Hume, Scottish philosopher, historian and economist (born 1711)
* October 17 – Pierre François le Courayer, French theologian (born 1681)