1790 in literature

Events

• February 19 – The literary Thomas de Mahy, marquis de Favras is arrested by radicals of the French Revolution, charged with plotting to help King Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette escape from the country, convicted of treason, and executed. When handed his official death sentence by the court clerk, he reads it, shakes his head and says: "I see you have made three spelling mistakes."
• May 21 – Thomas Warton dies and is succeeded as Poet Laureate of Great Britain by writer and police magistrate Henry James Pye, who has retired as a Member of Parliament. William Hayley refuses the post.
• May 31 – United States President George Washington approves the Copyright Act of 1790.
• June 9 – John Barrie's Philadelphia Spelling Book Arranged Upon a Plan Entirely New becomes the first American book copyrighted.
• Xavier de Maistre writes Voyage autour de ma chambre while under arrest in Turin in the Kingdom of Sardinia, as the result of a duel.
• The Royal Literary Fund is founded in Britain by David Williams.

• William Lane establishes the Minerva Press in London, specializing in Gothic fiction.

  New books

Fiction

• Mary Pilkington – Delia
• Ann Radcliffe – A Sicilian Romance
• Helen Maria Williams – Julia

  Drama

• Johann Wolfgang von Goethe – Torquato Tasso
• Edmond Malone – The Plays and Poems of William Shakespeare
• Leandro Fernández de Moratín – El viejo y la niña
• Mariana Starke – The Widow of Malabar
• August von Kotzebue
• *Die Indianer in England
• *Menschenhass und Reue
• * – Doktor Bahrdt mit der eisernen Stirn

  Poetry

• William Blake – The Marriage of Heaven and Hell
• Robert Burns – "Tam o' Shanter"

  Non-fiction

• Samuel Ayscough – An Index to the Remarkable Passages and Words Made Use of by Shakespeare, first Shakespeare concordance published
• James Bruce – Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile
• Edmund Burke – Reflections on the Revolution in France
• Hannah More – An Estimate of the Religion of the Fashionable World
• Jean Paul – Leben des vergnügten Schulmeisterlein Maria Wutz
• Alexander Radishchev – Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow
• Louis Claude de Saint-Martin – L'Homme de désir
• Mary Wollstonecraft – A Vindication of the Rights of Men

  Births

• January 1 – James Wills, Irish poet
• January 10 – Anders Abraham Grafström, Swedish historian, priest and poet
• January 29 – George Métivier, Guernsey poet writing in Guernésiais
• March 3 – John Austin, English legal philosopher
• March 6 – Jacques Arago, French traveler and writer
• March 18 – Marquis de Custine, French aristocrat and travel writer
• June 9 – Abel-François Villemain, French politician and writer
• June 24 – Helena Ekblom, Swedish writer and preacher
• July 8 – Fitz-Greene Halleck, American poet
• August 8 – Ferenc Kölcsey, Hungarian poet and critic
• October 1 – Charlotte Elizabeth Tonna, English novelist
• October 21 – Alphonse de Lamartine, French poet
• December 8 – Richard Carlile, English advocate of suffrage and press freedom
• December 25 – Anna Eliza Bray, English novelist and travel writer
• Unknown date — Mary Diana Dods, Scottish writer

  Deaths

• March 20 – Thomas Richards of Coychurch, cleric and lexicographer
• April 3 – Ephraim Kuh, German poet, 58/9
• April 29 – Charles-Nicolas Cochin, French art critic
• May 2 – Martin Madan, English writer and cleric
• May 6 – Jacques Antoine Hippolyte, Comte de Guibert, French military writer
• May 21 – Thomas Warton, English poet and literary historian
• July 7 – François Hemsterhuis, Dutch philosopher
• July 17 – Adam Smith, Scottish philosopher and political economist
• July 25 – William Livingston, American political writer and politician
• Probable year of death – Marc-Antoine Eidous, French encyclopedist

  In literature

• Julia Golding's novel The Diamond of Drury Lane is set during this year.