1798 in literature

Events

• 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" and "".
• April 16 – Coleridge's "" 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, marking the beginning of English literary Romanticism. 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 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, directed by Goethe.

• Ivan Kotliarevsky's mock-heroic poem Eneyida is published as the first printed work in the modern Ukrainian language.
• The National Library of the Netherlands originates when the Batavian Republic opens the former library of the stadtholder to the public.
• The Académie française publishes the 5th edition of its Dictionnaire.
• Thomas Nelson originates in Edinburgh as a second-hand religious bookshop.

  New books

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
• Eleanor Sleath – The Orphan of the Rhine: a romance
• Caroline von Wolzogen – Agnes von Lilien
• Mary Wollstonecraft – Posthumous Works including

  Children

• François Guillaume Ducray-Duminil – Cœlina, ou l'Enfant du mystère
• Edward Augustus Kendall
• *Keeper's Travels in Search of His Master
• *The Sparrow. A Tale
• Richmal Mangnall – Historical and Miscellaneous Questions for the Use of Young People
• Samuel Jackson Pratt – Pity's Gift: a collection of interesting tales, to excite the compassion of youth for the animal creation

  Drama

• Elizabeth Craven – The Georgian Princess
• Richard Cumberland – The Eccentric Lover
• Elizabeth Inchbald – Lovers' Vows
• Friedrich von Schiller – Wallensteins Lager

  Poetry

• Samuel Taylor Coleridge and William Wordsworth – Lyrical Ballads
• Richard Polwhele – The Unsex'd Females

  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 – An Essay on the Principle of Population
• Richmal Mangnall – Historical and Miscellaneous Questions for the Use of Young People

  Births

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

  Deaths

• April 12 – Madeleine de Puisieux, French philosopher and feminist writer
• June 4 – Giacomo Casanova, Italian librarian and memoirist
• June 20 – Jeremy Belknap, American historian of New Hampshire
• December 16 – Thomas Pennant, Welsh naturalist and travel writer