1798 in literature

• February – Samuel Taylor Coleridge writes the conversation poem "Frost at Midnight", commonly seen as the best of the series.
• April – Coleridge writes the conversation poems "Fears in Solitude" ("Written ... During the Alarm of an Invasion", soon published in a pamphlet) and "The Nightingale".
• April 16 – Coleridge's "The Recantation: An Ode" appears in The Morning Post, describing his disillusionment with the French Revolution.
• April 30 – Richard Cumberland's comedy The Eccentric Lover is first performed at the Covent Garden Theatre in London.
• September 18 – Lyrical Ballads, with a Few Other Poems by William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge is first published anonymously in Bristol by Joseph Cottle (who also remains anonymous), marking the beginning of English literary Romanticism.^[1] Most of the poems are by Wordsworth, including Lines composed a few miles above Tintern Abbey on revisiting the banks of the Wye during a tour, 13 July 1798, but also opening with the first publication of Coleridge's The Rime of the Ancyent Marinere, whose first London publication is on October 4.
• October 11 – Elizabeth Inchbald's Lovers' Vows (adapted from Kotzebue's Das Kind der Liebe – the child of love) is first performed at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, London.
• October 12 – The rebuilt Weimarer Hoftheater are inaugurated with the first performance of the first part of Friedrich Schiller's dramatic trilogy Wallenstein: Das Lager (The Camp), directed by Goethe.
• unknown dates
  • Ivan Kotliarevsky's mock-heroic poem Eneyida (Енеїда) becomes the first printed work in the modern Ukrainian language.^[2]
  • The National Library of the Netherlands originates when the Batavian Republic opens the former library of the stadtholder to the public.^[3]
  • The Académie française publishes the 5th edition of its Dictionnaire.^[4]
  • Thomas Nelson's publishing company is established in Edinburgh as a second-hand religious bookshop.^[5]

Fiction

• Charles Brockden Brown
  • Alcuin: a Dialogue
  • Wieland: or, The Transformation; an American Tale
• Emily Clark – Ianthé, or the Flower of Caernarvon
• Francis Lathom – The Midnight Bell: a German story, founded on incidents in real life
• Regina Maria Roche – Clermont: a Tale^[6]
• Eleanor Sleath – The Orphan of the Rhine: a romance
• Caroline von Wolzogen (anonymously) – Agnes von Lilien (first complete book publication, in 2 vols)
• Mary Wollstonecraft – Posthumous Works (edited by William Godwin) including Maria: or, The Wrongs of Woman

Children

• François Guillaume Ducray-Duminil – Cœlina, ou l'Enfant du mystère (Celina, or the Mystery Child)^[7]
• Edward Augustus Kendall
  • Keeper's Travels in Search of His Master
  • The Sparrow. A Tale
• Richmal Mangnall (anonymously) – Historical and Miscellaneous Questions for the Use of Young People (often known as Mangnall's Questions)
• Samuel Jackson Pratt – Pity's Gift: a collection of interesting tales, to excite the compassion of youth for the animal creation (Selected by a Lady)

Drama

• James Boaden
  • Aurelio and Miranda
  • Cambro-Britons
• Elizabeth Craven – The Georgian Princess
• Richard Cumberland –
  • The Eccentric Lover
  • A Word for Nature
• Thomas John Dibdin – The Mouth of the Nile
• Thomas Holcroft –
  • He's Much to Blame
  • The Inquisitor
  • Knave or Not?
• Elizabeth Inchbald – Lovers' Vows
• Thomas Morton
  • Secrets Worth Knowing
  • Speed the Plough
• Frederick Reynolds – Laugh When You Can
• Friedrich von Schiller – Wallensteins Lager

Poetry

• Samuel Taylor Coleridge and William Wordsworth – Lyrical Ballads
• Richard Polwhele (anonymously) – The Unsex'd Females
• The Rime of the Ancient Mariner

Non-fiction

• Nathan Drake – Literary Hours
• Hannah Webster Foster – The Boarding School; or, Lessons of a Preceptress to Her Pupils
• William Godwin – Memoirs of the Author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman
• Edward Jenner – An Inquiry Into the Causes and Effects of the Variolæ Vaccinæ
• Thomas Malthus (anonymously) – An Essay on the Principle of Population
• Richmal Mangnall – Historical and Miscellaneous Questions for the Use of Young People^[1]

• January 5 – David Macbeth Moir, Scottish poet and humorist (died 1851)
• January 29 – Henry Neele, English poet and scholar (died 1828)
• February 12 – Catherine Gore, English novelist and dramatist (died 1861)
• February 17 – Auguste Comte, French philosopher (died 1857)
• March 30 – Luise Hensel, German religious author and poet (died 1876)
• June 29 – Count Giacomo Leopardi, Italian poet, essayist and philologist (died 1837)

• April 12 – Madeleine de Puisieux, French philosopher and feminist writer (born 1720)
• June 4 – Giacomo Casanova, Italian librarian and memoirist (born 1725)
• June 20 – Jeremy Belknap, American historian of New Hampshire (born 1744)
• December 16 – Thomas Pennant, Welsh naturalist and travel writer (born 1726)^[8]