1806 in literature

Events

• Noah Webster publishes his first English dictionary, A Compendious Dictionary of the English Language, recording distinct American spellings.
• Johann Wolfgang von Goethe completes a preliminary version of his Faust.
• Sir Roger Newdigate founds the Newdigate Prize for English Poetry at the University of Oxford. The first winner is John Wilson.
• Nólsoyar Páll completes his anti-Danish Fuglakvæði, one of the first significant works in the Faroese language.
• December 29 – Thomas Dibdin's pantomime Harlequin and Mother Goose; or, The Golden Egg opens at the Covent Garden Theatre in London starring Joseph Grimaldi. It runs for 111 performances.

  New books

Fiction

• Harriet Butler – Vensenshon
• Sophie Ristaud Cottin – Elisabeth, ou les Exilés de Sibérie
• Catherine Cuthbertson – Santo Sebastiano
• Charlotte Dacre – Zofloya
• Maria Edgeworth – Leonora
• Rachel Hunter – Lady Maclairn, the Victim of Villany
• Francis Lathom – The Mysterious Freebooter
• Matthew Gregory Lewis – Feudal Tyrants
• Sydney Owenson – The Wild Irish Girl
• Louisa Stanhope – Montbrasil Abbey

  Children and young people

• Elizabeth Dawbarn – Young Person's Assistant in Reading the Old Testament
• Ann Taylor and Jane Taylor – Rhymes for the Nursery

  Drama

• Richard Cumberland – Hint to Husbands
• Heinrich von Kleist – The Broken Jug
• Leandro Fernández de Moratín – The Maidens' Consent

  Non-fiction

• J. C. Adelung – Mithridates, a History of Language and Dialects
• Johann Gottlieb Fichte – Bericht über die Wissenschaftslehre
• James Madison – An Examination of the British Doctrine which Subjects to Capture a Neutral Trade not Open in Time of Peace
• Maria Rundell – A New System of Domestic Cookery
• Jane West – Letters to a Young Lady

  Births

• January 17 – William Saunders, Welsh poet and printer
• February 1 – Jane Williams, Welsh poet, folklorist and historian
• March 6 – Elizabeth Barrett Browning, English poet
• March 26 – James Hogg, Scottish editor and publisher
• April 17 – William Gilmore Simms, American author
• May 20 – John Stuart Mill, English political economist and philosopher
• July 20 – John Sterling, Scottish essayist and poet
• July 22 – Johann Kaspar Zeuss, German historian and philologist
• August 31 – Charles Lever, Irish novelist
• November 11 – Georgiana Chatterton, English novelist and travel writer

  Deaths

• February 12 – Gabriel-Henri Gaillard, French historian
• February 19 – Elizabeth Carter, English poet, writer and translator
• February 24 – Collin d'Harleville, French dramatist
• March 3 – Heinrich Christian Boie, German poet and editor
• April 4 – Carlo Gozzi, Venetian dramatist
• May 6 – Ann Yearsley, English poet, writer and library proprietor
• October 19 – Henry Kirke White, English poet
• October 28 – Charlotte Turner Smith, English poet and novelist
• November 23 – Sir Roger Newdigate, English antiquary, politician and literary patron