1787 in literature

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This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1787.

Events

January 15 – Ann Ward marries William Radcliffe, gaining the surname by which she will be known as a writer of Gothic novels.^[1]
April 16 – Royall Tyler's The Contrast becomes the first comedy written by an American citizen to be professionally produced, at the John Street Theatre (Manhattan).
April 17 – The Edinburgh edition of Robert Burns' Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect is published by William Creech. It includes a Burns portrait by Alexander Nasmyth. The poet has great social success in the city's literary circles; 16-year-old Walter Scott meets him at the house of Adam Ferguson.
June 1 – King George III of Great Britain issues a Proclamation for the Discouragement of Vice, which can be used to prosecute obscene publications.^[2]
June 27 – Just before midnight, Edward Gibbon completes The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire in the small summerhouse in his garden in Lausanne, Switzerland.
July – Friedrich Schiller arrives in Weimar.^[3]
November 21 – François-Joseph Talma makes his professional stage debut at the Comédie-Française as Seide, in Voltaire's Mahomet.
December 4 – Robert Burns meets Agnes Maclehose at a party given by Miss Erskine Nimmo.^[4]

François Guillaume Ducray-Duminil – Fanfan et Lolotte, ou Histoire de deux enfants abandonnés dans une île déserte (Fanfan and Lolotte, Story of Two Children Abandoned on a Desert Island)

Thomas Best – A Concise Treatise on the Art of Angling
Mathurin Jacques Brisson – Pesanteur Spécifique des Corps
Ottobah Cugoano – Thoughts and Sentiments on the Evil and Wicked Traffic of the Slavery and Commerce of the Human Species
(Sir) John Fenn (ed.) – The Paston Letters (Original letters, written during the reigns of Henry VI, Edward IV, and Richard III)
John Hawkins – Life of Samuel Johnson
Scots Musical Museum, vol. 1
Mary Wollstonecraft – Thoughts on the Education of Daughters^[5]

April 26 – Ludwig Uhland, German poet (died 1862)
September 13 – John Adamson, English antiquary and expert on Portuguese (died 1855)
November 4 – Edmund Kean, English actor (died 1833)
November 21 – Bryan Procter (Barry Cornwall), English poet (died 1874)
December 16 – Mary Russell Mitford, English novelist (died 1855)

April 2 – Francisco Javier Clavijero, Mexican-born historian (born 1731)
June 19 – John Brown, Scottish theologian (born 1722)
October 28 – Johann Karl August Musäus, German satirist and children's writer (born 1735)^[6]
October 30 – Ferdinando Galiani, Italian economist (born 1728)
November 3 – Robert Lowth, English poet, grammarian and bishop (born 1710)
December 19 – Soame Jenyns, English poet and essayist (born 1704)

^ "The Mysteries of Udolpho". eNotes.
^ Anne Stott; Associate Lecturer Open University and Sessional Lecturer Anne Stott (2003). Hannah More: The First Victorian. Oxford University Press. p. 96. ISBN 978-0-19-924532-1.
^ Nicholas Martin (1996). Nietzsche and Schiller: Untimely Aesthetics. Clarendon Press. p. 117. ISBN 978-0-19-815913-1.
^ Hecht, Hans (1936). Robert Burns: The Man and His Work. London: William Hodge. p. 106.
^ "Mary Wollstonecraft | Biography, Works, & Facts". Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved 10 August 2019.
^ Franz J. L. Thimm; William Henry Farn (1844). The Literature of Germany, from Its Earliest Period to the Present Time, Historically Developed ... Edited by W. H. Farn. p. 59.