1759 in literature

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

Events

• 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.
• 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.
• Johann Ernst Immanuel Walch becomes professor of rhetoric and poetry at the University of Jena.
• William Warburton becomes Bishop of Gloucester in the Church of England.

New fiction

• 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 (a translation of Candide)
• Laurence Sterne – The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman vols 1–2
• Voltaire – Candide
• The Campaign

New drama

• William Hawkins – Cymbeline (adapted from William Shakespeare)
• Arthur Murphy – The Orphan of China
• James Townley – High Life Below Stairs

Poetry

• Samuel Butler – The Genuine Remains (collected works)
• Edward Capell – Prolusions
• John Gilbert Cooper – Ver-Vert (transl.)
• William Mason – Caractacus
• Augustus Montague Toplady – Poems on Sacred Subjects

Non-fiction

• 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

Births

• 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)

Deaths

• 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)