# 1790 in literature

This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1790.

## Events

* February – Xavier de Maistre begins writing Voyage autour de ma chambre (Voyage Around my Room, published 1794) while under arrest in Turin in the Kingdom of Sardinia, as the result of a duel.
* May – Following the death of Thomas Warton, William Hayley refuses an offer to succeed him as Poet Laureate of Great Britain. Retired MP Henry James Pye is appointed in his place.
* May 31 – United States President George Washington approves the Copyright Act of 1790.
* June 1 – The Royal Literary Fund is founded in Britain by David Williams.
* June 9 – John Barrie's Philadelphia Spelling Book Arranged Upon a Plan Entirely New becomes the first American book copyrighted.
* unknown date – William Lane establishes the Minerva Press in London, specializing in Gothic fiction.

## New books
### Fiction

* Mary Pilkington – Delia
* Ann Radcliffe – A Sicilian Romance
* Helen Maria Williams – Julia

### Drama

* Johann Wolfgang von Goethe – Torquato Tasso (completed)
* William Hayley – Eudora
* Thomas Holcroft – The German Hotel
* Edmond Malone (editor) – The Plays and Poems of William Shakespeare
* Leandro Fernández de Moratín – El viejo y la niña (The Old Man and the Young Girl, published)
* Mariana Starke – The Widow of Malabar
* August von Kotzebue
** Die Indianer in England (The Indians in England)
** Menschenhass und Reue (Misanthropy and Repentance)
** (as Knigge) – Doktor Bahrdt mit der eisernen Stirn (Doctor Bahrdt with the Iron Brow)

### Poetry

* William Blake – The Marriage of Heaven and Hell
* Robert Burns – "Tam o' Shanter"

### Non-fiction

* Samuel Ayscough – An Index to the Remarkable Passages and Words Made Use of by Shakespeare, first Shakespeare concordance published
* James Bruce – Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile
* Edmund Burke – Reflections on the Revolution in France
* Hannah More – An Estimate of the Religion of the Fashionable World
* Jean Paul – Leben des vergnügten Schulmeisterlein Maria Wutz (Life of the Devoted School Mistress MW)
* Alexander Radishchev – Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow
* Louis Claude de Saint-Martin – L'Homme de désir
* Mary Wollstonecraft – A Vindication of the Rights of Men

## Births

* January 1 – James Wills, Irish poet (died 1868)
* January 10 – Anders Abraham Grafström, Swedish historian, priest and poet (died 1870)
* January 29 – George Métivier, Guernsey poet writing in Guernésiais (died 1881)
* March 3 – John Austin, English legal philosopher (died 1859)
* March 10 – Jacques Arago, French traveller and writer (died 1855)
* March 18 – Marquis de Custine, French aristocrat and travel writer (died 1857)
* June 9 – Abel-François Villemain, French politician and writer (died 1870)
* June 24 – Helena Ekblom, Swedish writer and preacher (died 1859)
* July 8 – Fitz-Greene Halleck, American poet (died 1867)
* August 8 – Ferenc Kölcsey, Hungarian poet and critic (died 1838)
* October 1 – Charlotte Elizabeth Tonna, English novelist (died 1846)
* October 21 – Alphonse de Lamartine, French poet (died 1869)
* December 8 – Richard Carlile, English advocate of suffrage and press freedom (died 1843)
* December 25 – Anna Eliza Bray, English novelist and travel writer (died 1883)
* Unknown date — Mary Diana Dods (also as David Lyndsay and Walter Sholto Douglas), Scottish writer (died 1830 in literature)

## Deaths

* February 19 – Thomas de Mahy, marquis de Favras, man of letters (born 1744; executed)
* March 20 – Thomas Richards of Coychurch, cleric and lexicographer (born c.1710)
* April 3 – Ephraim Kuh, German poet, 58/9
* April 29 – Charles-Nicolas Cochin, French art critic (born 1715)
* May 2 – Martin Madan, English writer and cleric (born 1726)
* May 6 – Jacques Antoine Hippolyte, Comte de Guibert, French military writer (born 1743)
* May 21 – Thomas Warton, English poet and literary historian (born 1798)
* July 7 – François Hemsterhuis, Dutch philosopher (born 1721)
* July 17 – Adam Smith, Scottish philosopher and political economist (born 1723)
* July 25 – William Livingston, American political writer and politician (born 1723)
* unknown date – Maria Vittoria Ottoboni, Italian stage actress, writer and salonist (b. 1721)
* probable – Marc-Antoine Eidous, French encyclopedist (born c. 1724)