1789 in literature

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This article presents a list of the historical events and publications of literature during 1789.

• January 21 - William Hill Brown's anonymous sentimental epistolary novel The Power of Sympathy: or, The Triumph of Nature, usually considered the first American novel, is published in Boston.
• February 7 - Première of John Philip Kemble's production of Shakespeare's Coriolanus with himself in the title rôle and his sister Sarah Siddons as Volumnia, at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane in London.^[1]
• December - Première of Olympe de Gouges's abolitionist play Zamore et Mirza (written 1784; published 1788) as L'Esclavage des nègres ("Slavery of the negroes"); shut down after three performances.
• December 28 - Première of Anton Tomaž Linhart's comedy Županova Micka ("Micka, the Mayor's Daughter", an adaptation of Joseph Richter's Die Feldmühle), the first theatrical work in the Slovene language.^[2]
• Publication in Calcutta of Sir William Jones's Śacontalā, or the fatal ring: an Indian drama, a translation of Kālidāsa's 4th/5th century play Abhijñānaśākuntalam, the first translation of a classical Indian drama into a Western language.
• Robert Burns is appointed an exciseman in Scotland.
• Tomás António Gonzaga is arrested for complicity in the Inconfidência Mineira in Brazil.
• Friedrich Schiller is appointed professor of history and philosophy at Jena.
• The Children's Magazine, the first American periodical for children, is published in Hartford, Connecticut. It lasts only three months.

• Elizabeth Bonhôte - Darnley Vale, or, Emelia Fitzroy
• William Hill Brown - The Power of Sympathy.
• Richard Cumberland - Arundel
• Ann Radcliffe - The Castles of Athlin and Dunbayne
• Friedrich Schiller - The Ghost-Seer (Der Geisterseher), publication concluded
• James White - Earl Strongbow

• Elizabeth Inchbald - The Married Man
• Ann Yearsley - Earl Goodwin

• William Blake - Songs of Innocence
• William Lisle Bowles - Sonnets
• Erasmus Darwin - The Loves of the Plants

• Olaudah Equiano - The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano
• Emmanuel Joseph Sieyès - What Is the Third Estate? (Qu'est-ce que le tiers-état?)

• January 11 – John Payne Collier, English Shakespearean critic and forger (died 1883)
• September 1 – Marguerite Gardiner, Countess of Blessington, Irish novelist and literary hostess (died 1849)
• November 15 – James Scholefield, English classical scholar (died 1853)
• September 15 – James Fenimore Cooper, American novelist (died 1851)
• December 28 – Catharine Sedgwick, American novelist (died 1867)

• January 21 – Baron d'Holbach, German-born French author, philosopher and encyclopedist (born 1723)
• January 23 – John Cleland, English novelist, biographer and translator (born 1709)
• June 28 – John Walters, Welsh poet (born 1760)