istoryworld
Events relating to english literature
Samuel Johnson publishes his magisterial Dictionary of the English Language
James Woodforde, an English country parson with a love of food and wine, begins a detailed diary of everyday life
Laurence Sterne publishes the first two volumes of Tristram Shandy, beginning with the scene at the hero's conception
Fingal, supposedly by the medieval Celtic poet Ossian, has a huge and fashionable success but is revealed to be a forgery by James Macpherson
James Boswell meets Samuel Johnson for the first time, in the London bookshop of Thomas Davies
English historian Edward Gibbon, sitting among ruins in Rome, conceives the idea of Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
English author Horace Walpole provides an early taste of Gothic thrills in his novel Castle of Otranto
A Society of Gentlemen in Scotland begins publication of the immensely successful Encyclopaedia Britannica
17-year-old Thomas Chatterton, later hailed as a significant poet, commits suicide in a London garret
Oliver Goldsmith's play She Stoops to Conquer is produced in London's Covent Garden theatre
Samuel Johnson and James Boswell undertake a journey together to the western islands of Scotland
Encouraged by Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Paine emigrates to America and settles in Philadelphia
English historian Edward Gibbon publishes the first volume of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
Scottish economist Adam Smith analyzes the nature and causes of the Wealth of Nations
Richard Brinsley Sheridan's second play, The School for Scandal, is an immediate success in London's Drury Lane theatre
William Blake publishes Songs of Innocence, a volume of his poems with every page etched and illustrated by himself
In his Principles Jeremy Bentham defines 'utility' as that which enhances pleasure and reduces pain
Anglo-Irish politician Edmund Burke publishes Reflections on the Revolution in France, a blistering attack on recent events across the Channel
Scottish poet Robert Burns publishes Tam o' Shanter, in which a drunken farmer has an alarming encounter with witches
Thomas Paine publishes the first part of The Rights of Man, his reply to Burke's Reflections on the Revolution in France
English author Mary Wollstonecraft publishes a passionately feminist work, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman
Thomas Paine moves hurriedly to France, to escape a charge of treason in England for opinions expressed in his Rights of Man
William Blake's volume Songs of Innocence and Experience includes his poem 'Tyger! Tyger! burning bright'
Thomas Paine publishes his completed Age of Reason, an attack on conventional Christianity
Samuel Taylor Coleridge says that while writing Kubla Khan he is interrupted by 'a person on business from Porlock'
