1777 in literature

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This article presents lists of the literary events and publications in 1777.

Events

February 8 – Thomas Chatterton's Poems, Supposed to Have Been Written at Bristol, by Thomas Rowley, and Others, in the Fifteenth Century are published anonymously and posthumously in London, edited by the scholar Thomas Tyrwhitt who at this time believes them to be the genuine work of a medieval monk transcribed by Chatterton.^[1]
March – Fanny Burney is introduced to Samuel Johnson by her father.^[2]
April 1 – Friedrich Maximilian Klinger's play Sturm und Drang is premiered by the Seyler theatrical company in Leipzig, giving its name to the whole Sturm und Drang movement in German literature.
April 12 – Poet and grammarian Robert Lowth is nominated Bishop of London.
May 8 – First performance of Richard Brinsley Sheridan's comedy of manners The School for Scandal at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane in London.^[3]
October – First appearance of James Boswell's essays as The Hypochondriak in The London Magazine.

Frances Brooke – The Excursion
Henry Mackenzie – Julia de Roubigne
Samuel Jackson Pratt
- Charles and Charlotte
- (as Courtney Melmoth) Travels for the Heart
Clara Reeve (anonymously) – The Champion of Virtue^[4]
Lady Mary Walker
- Letters from the Duchesse de Crui
- Memoirs of the Marchioness de Louvoi

Hugh Blair – Sermons
Jacques-François Blondel – Cours d'architecture ou traité de la décoration, distribution et constructions des bâtiments contenant les leçons données en 1750, et les années suivantes, vol. 9
Edmund Burke – Letter to the Sheriffs of Bristol
James Cook – A Voyage Toward the South Pole
Nicolás Fernández de Moratín – Carta histórica sobre el origen y progresos de las fiestas de toros en España
John Howard – The State of the Prisons in England and Wales
David Hume – The Life of David Hume
Hannah More – Essays
Maurice Morgann – An Essay on the Dramatic Character of Sir John Falstaff
Joseph Priestley
- Disquisitions Relating to Matter and Spirit
- The Doctrine of Philosophical Necessity Illustrated
Isaac Reed – The Repository
William Robertson – The History of America
Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield – Characters
Johannes Nikolaus Tetens – Philosophische Versuche über die menschliche Natur und ihre Entwickelung

February – James Johnson, Irish surgeon and medical writer (died 1845)
February 12 – Friedrich de la Motte Fouqué, German Romantic novelist (died 1843)
February 16 – Maria Hack, English children's writer (died 1844)
July 27 – Thomas Campbell, Scottish poet (died 1844)

February 3 – Hugh Kelly, Irish poet and dramatist (born 1739)
September 24 (bur.) – James Fortescue, English poet (born 1716)^[5]
October 12 (October 1 O.S.) – Alexander Sumarokov, Russian poet and dramatist (born 1717)
October 21 – Samuel Foote, English dramatist (born 1720)

^ Cox, Michael, ed. (2004). The Concise Oxford Chronology of English Literature. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-860634-6.
^ Only a Novel: The Life of Fanny Burney, 15 July 2011. Accessed 7 February 2013.
^ Williams, Hywel (2005). Cassell's Chronology of World History. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson. p. 331. ISBN 0-304-35730-8.
^ Leavis, Q. D. (1965). Fiction and the Reading Public (rev. ed.). London: Chatto & Windus.
^ This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Stephen, Leslie, ed. (1889). "Fortescue, James". Dictionary of National Biography. Vol. 20. London: Smith, Elder & Co.