1778 in literature

This article presents lists of the literary events and publications in 1778.

Events

• c. November - Printing of Nathaniel Brassey Halhed's A Grammar of the Bengali Language in Hooghly for the British East India Company is completed, the first such grammar in English and the first publication using a Bengali typeface, devised by Charles Wilkins.
• Novelist Sarah Scott gives up writing on receipt of her father's legacy.
• Publication of a new edition of The Plays of William Shakespeare edited by Samuel Johnson and George Steevens including Edmond Malone's essay "An Attempt to Ascertain the Order in Which the Plays Attributed to Shakspeare Were Written".

New books

• Anonymous - The Travels of Hildebrand Bowman, Esquire, into Carnovirria, Taupiniera, Olfactaria, and Auditante, in New-Zealand; in the Island of Bonhommica, and in the Powerful Kingdom of Luxo-Volupto, on the Great Southern Continent
• Fanny Burney (anonymously) - Evelina, or The History of a Young Lady's Entrance into the World
• Georgiana Cavendish, Duchess of Devonshire (anonymously) – The Sylph. Sometimes ascribed to Sophia Briscoe
• Pierre-Louis Ginguené - Satire des Satires
• Fernando Gutiérrez de Vegas - Los enredos de un lugar o Historia de los prodigios y hazañas del célebre abogado de Conchuela el Licenciado Tarugo
• Ignacy Krasicki - Pan Podstoli, part 1
• Clara Reeve - The Old English Baron
• Justo Vera de la Ventosa - El siglo ilustrado. Vida de D. Guindo de la Ojarasca
• Lady Mary Walker - Munster Village

New drama

• Henry Brooke - collected plays
• Elizabeth Craven - The Sleep Walker
• Richard Cumberland
  • The Battle of Hastings
  • The Princess of Parma
• Charles Dibdin - Poor Vulcan
• Samuel Foote
  • The Devil upon Two Sticks
  • The Nabob
  • The Taylors
• Jean-François de La Harpe - Les Barmecides
• John Home - Alfred
• Hannah More - Percy
• John O'Keeffe - Tony Lumpkin in Town
• Samuel Jackson Pratt - Joseph Andrews
• Richard Brinsley Sheridan - The Camp

New poetry

• John Codrington Bampfylde - Sixteen Sonnets
• Thomas Chatterton - Miscellanies
• William Combe - The Auction
• George Ellis as "Sir Gregory Gander" - Poetical Tales
• William Hayley - A Poetical Epistle to an Eminent Painter
• John Scott - Moral Eclogues
• John Wolcot as "Peter Pindar" - A Poetical, Supplicating, Modest and Affecting Epistle to those Literary Colossuses the Reviewers
• Gaspar Melchor de Jovellanos - Jovino a sus amigos de Sevilla
• José María Vaca de Guzman - Las naves de Cortés destruidas
• Vicente Garcia de la Huerta - Obras poéticas
• Pedro Montengón - Odas

Non-fiction

• Anna Barbauld - Lessons for Children
• Edmund Burke - Two Letters on the Trade of Ireland
• Theodor Gottlieb von Hippel the Elder - Lebenslaufe nach aufsteigender Linie (begins publication)
• Vicesimus Knox - Essays Moral and Literary
• Masons von Koeppen and von Hymnen - Crata Pepoa oder Einweihungen in der alten geheimen Gesellschaft der egyptischen Priester (second edition)
• Ann Murry - Mentoria
• Thomas Pennant - A Tour in Wales
• Gilbert Stuart - A View of Society in Europe
• Thomas West - A Guide to the Lakes
• Lorenzo Hervás y Panduro - Idea dell'Universo
• Francisco Javier Llampillas - Saggio apologetic della letteratura spagnuola contro le pregiudicate opinion di alcuni moderni scritori italiani

Births

• January 26 – Ugo Foscolo, Italian poet (died 1827)
• March 24 – Robert Fleming Gourlay, Scottish-born Canadian agriculturist and writer (died 1863)
• April 10 – William Hazlitt, English essayist and literary critic (died 1830)
• April 19 – Elizabeth Wynne Fremantle, English diarist (died 1857)
• June 1 – Margaret Holford the younger, English poet and novelist (died 1852)
• August 22 – James Kirke Paulding, American novelist and politician (died 1860)
• September 9 – Clemens Brentano, German novelist and poet (died 1842)
• November 1 – Mary Brunton, Scottish novelist (died 1818)
• November 28 – Christoph Ernst von Houwald, German dramatist (died 1845)
• December 16 – Ludwig Robert, German dramatist (died 1832)
• December 18 – Joseph Grimaldi, English autobiographer and clown (died 1837)

Deaths

• January 10 – Eva König, German woman of letters (born 1736)
• February 10 – Mary Jones, English poet (born 1707)
• March 13 – Charles le Beau, French historian (born 1701)
• May 27 – Christian Tobias Damm, German philologist and theologian (born 1699)
• May 30 – Voltaire, French philosopher and satirist (born 1694)
• July 3 – Jean-Jacques Rousseau, French philosopher (born 1712)
• July 5
  • Antonio Collalto, Italian actor and dramatist (born 1713)
  • James Townley, English dramatist (born 1714)
• October 6 – William Worthington, English theologian (born 1703)
• November 11 – Anne Steele, English poet and hymn-writer (born 1717)
• November 22 – Edward Rowe Mores, English antiquarian and scholar (born 1731)