1773 in literature

This article presents lists of the literary events and publications in 1773.

Events

• March 15 – First performance of Oliver Goldsmith's comedy She Stoops to Conquer at the Covent Garden Theatre in London.^[1]
• April 13 – Richard Brinsley Sheridan marries singer and actress Elizabeth Ann Linley.^[2]
• May 1 – Richard Wroughton takes the role of Prince Henry in Henry II, King of England by John Bancroft at Covent Garden.
• May 4 – Eibhlín Dubh Ní Chonaill composes the keen Caoineadh Airt Uí Laoghaire over the body of her husband Art Ó Laoghaire.^[3]
• August 6 – Samuel Johnson sets out for Scotland^[4] where on August 14 he meets James Boswell in Edinburgh for their tour to the Hebrides.^[5]
• Cláudio Manuel da Costa writes his epic poem Vila Rica, relating the history of the homonymous Brazilian city, modern-day Ouro Preto; it is not published until 1839.
• Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock publishes the last five cantos of his epic poem Der Messias in Hamburg.
• Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral by Phillis Wheatley, "Negro Servant to Mr. John Wheatley, of Boston, in New England", is published in London, the first book published by an African American.
• Christoph Martin Wieland begins publishing the influential literary monthly Der Teutsche Merkur in Weimar.^[6]
• Compilation of the Siku Quanshu ("Complete Library of the Four Treasuries") begins in Qing Dynasty China. The Wenjin Chamber is built at the Chengde Mountain Resort to accommodate a copy.

New books

• Elizabeth Bonhote – The Fashionable Friend
• Calixto Bustamante Carlos ('Concolorcorvo') – Lazarillo de ciegos caminantes
• José Cadalso – Cartas marruecas
• Richard Graves – The Spiritual Quixote
• The History of Agathon (anonymous)
• Henry Mackenzie – The Man of the World
• Reason Triumphant Over Fancy (anonymous)
• Johann Karl Wezel – Lebensgeschichte Tobias Knauts, des Weisen, sonst der Stammler genannt: aus Familiennachrichten gesammelt ("The life story of Tobias Knaut the Wise, otherwise called the Stammerer"; publication begins)

New drama

• Charles Dibdin – The Deserter
• Johann Wolfgang von Goethe – Götz von Berlichingen
• Oliver Goldsmith – She Stoops to Conquer
• John Home – Alonzo
• William Kenrick – The Duellist
• Henry Mackenzie – The Prince of Tunis
• Arthur Murphy – Alzuma
• Mercy Otis Warren – The Adulateur
• Cándido María Trigueros – El mísero y el pedante
• George Stevens (ed.) – The Plays of William Shakespeare

Poetry

• Anna Laetitia Barbauld – Poems
• Thomas Day – The Dying Negro
• Robert Fergusson
  • Poems
  • Auld Reikie
• Richard Graves – The Love of Order
• Edward Jerningham – Faldoni and Teresa
• George Keate – The Monument in Arcadia
• James Macpherson – The Iliad
• Hannah More – A Search After Happiness
• Thomas Scott – Lyric Poems
• Phillis Wheatley – Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral
• John Wolcot – Persian Love Elegies
• José Cadalso – Ocios de mi juventud

Non-fiction

• Anna Laetitia Barbauld and John Aikin – Miscellaneous Pieces
• Patrick Brydone – A Tour Through Sicily and Malta
• James Burnett, Lord Monboddo – Of the Origin and Progress of Language
• Charles Burney – The Present State of Music in Germany, the Netherlands, and United Provinces
• Hester Chapone – Letters on the Improvement of the Mind
• David Dalrymple, Lord Hailes – Remarks on the History of Scotland
• Antoine Court de Gébelin – Le Monde primitif is started to be published
• John Hawkesworth – An Account of the Voyages for Making Discoveries in the Southern Hemisphere
• Thomas Leland – The History of Ireland, from the invasion of Henry II
• William Melmoth – Cato
• Louis-Sébastien Mercier – L'Essai sur l'art dramatique
• John Scott – Observations on the Present State of the Parochial and Vagrant Poor
• José Cadalso – Apuntaciones autobiográficas
• Tomás de Iriarte – Los literatos en Cuaresm`

Births

• April 9 – Étienne Aignan, French translator, librettist and dramatist (died 1824 in literature)
• May 19 – Jean Charles Léonard de Sismondi, Swiss scholar of literature, history and economics (died 1842)
• August 21 – Jens Christian Djurhuus, Faroese poet (died 1853)
• October 1 – Peter Kaiser, Liechtenstein statesman and historian (died 1864)
• October 23 – Francis Jeffrey, Scottish jurist and critic (died 1850)
• December 9 – Marianne Ehrenström, Swedish musician and writer (died 1867)

Deaths

• January 21 – Alexis Piron, French dramatist and epigrammatist (born 1689)
• April 20 – Hubert-François Gravelot, French book illustrator (born 1699)
• April 25 – Daniele Farlati, ecclesiastical historian (born 1690)
• May 15 – Alban Butler, hagiographer (born 1710)
• July 5 – Francisco José Freire, Portuguese historian and philologist (born 1719)
• August 3 – Stanisław Konarski, Polish political writer, poet and dramatist (born 1700)
• August 20 – Enrique Florez, Spanish historian (born 1729)
• September 18 – John Cunningham, Irish poet, dramatist and actor (born 1729)
• November 16 – John Hawkesworth, English poet and editor (born c. 1715)

References