1783 in literature

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This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1783.

Events

April 14 – Gotthold Ephraim Lessing's drama Nathan der Weise receives its first professional performance, in Berlin.
May 6 – William Cobbett arrives in London to work, and later in the year joins the 54th (West Norfolk) Regiment of Foot.
September – Friedrich Schiller, having left Stuttgart for Weimar to avoid persecution, becomes resident dramatist at Mannheim.^[1]
November 18 – August von Kotzebue leaves St Petersburg to take up a position with the high court of appeal in Reval, then subject to the Russian Empire.^[2]

Thomas Day (anonymously) – The History of Sandford and Merton (first of three story books)^[3]
Ellenor Fenn (as Mrs. Teachwell) – Cobwebs to Catch Flies
Dorothy Kilner (as M. P.) – The Life and Perambulation of a Mouse
Mary Ann Kilner
- A Course of Lectures for Sunday Evenings. Containing religious advice to young persons
- (as S. S.) The Adventures of a Pincushion

See also 1783 in poetry

James Beattie – Dissertations Moral and Critical
William Beckford – Dreams, Waking Thoughts and Incidents
Hugh Blair – Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres
Edmund Burke – Letter on the Penal Laws Against Irish Catholics
Adam Ferguson – History of the Progress and Termination of the Roman Republic
William Godwin – Life of Lord Chatham
Immanuel Kant – Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics That Will Be Able to Present Itself as a Science
Vicesimus Knox – Elegant Extracts
Mémoires secrets (anonymous)
Moses Mendelssohn – Jerusalem
Ezra Stiles – The United States elevated to Glory and Honor
Horace-Bénédict de Saussure – Essai sur l'hygrométrie

January 23 – Stendhal (Marie-Henri Beyle), French novelist (died 1842)^[4]^[5]
April 3 – Washington Irving, American short story writer, essayist and politician (died 1859)^[6]
May 14 – Samuel Lee, English orientalist and linguist (died 1852)^[7]
September 23 – Jane Taylor, English poet and novelist (died 1824)
December 10 – María Bibiana Benítez, Puerto Rican poet and playwright (died c. 1873)^[8]

January 2 – Johann Jakob Bodmer, Swiss journalist and critic writing in German (born 1698)^[9]
April 17 – Louise d'Epinay French writer and salon hostess (born 1726)
September 6 – Anna Williams, Welsh-born poet (born 1706)
October 10 – Henry Brooke, Irish novelist, playwright, and poet (born 1703)
October 29 – Jean le Rond d'Alembert, French mathematician and philosopher (born 1717)
November 3 – Charles Collé, French dramatist and songwriter (born 1709)
November 23 – Ann Eliza Bleecker, American poet, novelist and letter writer (born 1752)^[10]