1759 in literature

This article presents lists of the literary events and publications in 1759.

Events

By January 15 – Voltaire's satirical novel Candide, ou l'Optimisme is published simultaneously in five countries.
January 15 – Opening of the British Museum in London.
August 12 – Battle of Kunersdorf (Seven Years' War): German poet Major Ewald Christian von Kleist is fatally injured.
December – Laurence Sterne has the first two volumes of his comic metafictional novel The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman printed at York in the shop owned by Ann Ward.
Denis Diderot's Encyclopédie is temporarily suppressed by the French government.
Rev. Hugh Blair begins to teach a course in the principles of literary composition at the University of Edinburgh, the first such university course in English literature.
Johann Ernst Immanuel Walch becomes professor of rhetoric and poetry at the University of Jena.
Earliest known professional performance of Shakespeare's Hamlet in North America (in Garrick's version), by the American Company in Philadelphia with Lewis Hallam Jr. in the title rôle.
William Warburton becomes Bishop of Gloucester in the Church of England.

Sarah Fielding – The History of the Countess of Dellwyn
Samuel Johnson – The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia (on Wikisource).
Gotthold Lessing – Fables
Madame Riccoboni – Lettres de Milady Juliette Catesby
William Rider – Candidus (translation of Candide)
Laurence Sterne – The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman, vols 1–2
Voltaire – Candide
The Campaign

Franz Aepinus – Tentamen Theoriae Electricitatis et Magnetismi (An Attempt at a Theory of Electricity and Magnetism)
Edmund Burke – The Annual Register
Angelique du Coudray – Abrégé de l'art des accouchements (The Art of Obstetrics)
Alexander Gerard – An Essay on Taste
Oliver Goldsmith
- The Bee (periodical solely by Goldsmith)
- An Enquiry into the Present State of Polite Learning in Europe
David Hume – The History of England, Under the House of Tudor
Richard Hurd – Moral and Political Dialogues
Edward Hyde, 1st Earl of Clarendon – The Life of Edward Earl of Clarendon Written by Himself
William Robertson – The History of Scotland during the Reigns of Queen Mary and of King James
Adam Smith – The Theory of Moral Sentiments
Arthur Young – Reflections on the Present State of Affairs at Home and Abroad
Edward Young – Conjectures on Original Composition

January 25 – Robert Burns, Scottish poet writing in Braid Scots and English (died 1796)
March 29 – Alexander Chalmers, Scottish biographer and editor (died 1834)
April 27 – Mary Wollstonecraft, English political writer and advocate of women's rights (died 1797)
May 4 (baptism) – Isabella Kelly, Scottish novelist and poet (died 1857)
November 10 – Friedrich Schiller, German poet and dramatist (died 1805)
December 25 – Richard Porson, English classicist (died 1808)

June 12 – William Collins, English poet (born 1721)
June 26 – Arthur Young, English religious writer and cleric (born 1693)
July 27 – Pierre-Louis Maupertuis, French philosopher (born 1698)
July 29 – Kata Bethlen, Hungarian memoirist and correspondent (born 1700)
August 6 – Eugene Aram, English philologist and murderer (born 1704)
August 24 – Ewald Christian von Kleist, German poet (born 1715)
September 5 – Lauritz de Thurah, Danish architectural historian (born 1706)
October 7 – Joseph Ames, English bibliographer and antiquary (born 1680)
Probable year of death – Anton Wilhelm Amo, West African-born German philosopher (born 1703)

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