1779 in literature

• April 6 – The premiėre of Iphigenie auf Tauris by Johann Wolfgang Goethe is held at the private Ducal Palace in Weimar.{{cite book|author=Volker Schachenmayr|title=Points of Connection Among Classical Statuary, the Grand Tour, and Stage Performance in the Age of Goethe|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=bdsgAQAAIAAJ|year=1996|publisher=Stanford University|page=210}}
• October 8 – William Blake enrols as a student with the Royal Academy of Arts at Somerset House in London.{{cite book|title=Blake|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=OyKaAAAAIAAJ|year=2006|publisher=University of New Mexico, Department of English|page=101}}

• Richard Graves – Columella
• Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi – Woldemar
• Ignacy Krasicki – Fables and Parables (Bajki i przypowieści)
• Nocturnal Revels
• Samuel Jackson Pratt as "Courtney Melmoth"
• Shenstone-Green
• The Tutor of Truth
• The Sorrows of Werther (anonymous translation of a Johann Wolfgang von Goethe work)

• Joachim Heinrich Campe – Robinson der Jüngere (based on Defoe)

• Fanny Burney – The Witlings (unpublished)
• Hannah Cowley
• Albina, Countess Raimond
• Who's the Dupe?
• Richard Cumberland – Calypso
• Hugh Downman – Lucius Junius Brutus
• Jean-Pierre Claris de Florian – Les Deux Billets
• William Hodson – Zoraida
• Robert Jephson – The Law of Lombardy
• Gotthold Ephraim Lessing – Nathan der Weise (published)
• Hannah More – The Fatal Falsehood
• Elizabeth Richardson – The Double Deception
• Richard Brinsley Sheridan – The Critic

{{main|1779 in poetry}}

• William Cowper and John Newton – Olney Hymns
• Robert Fergusson – Poems
• William Hayley – Epistle to Admiral Keppel
• Ann Murry – Poems
• Gaspar Melchor de Jovellanos – Epístola de Jovino a Anfriso, escrita desde el Paular
• Leandro Fernandez de Moratín – La toma de Granada por los Reyes Católicos don Fernando y doña Isabel
• Tomás de Iriarte – La música

• John Abercrombie – The British Fruit Gardener and Art of Pruning
• Anna Barbauld – Lessons for Children
• James Burnett – Antient Metaphysics
• Edward Capell – Notes and Various Readings to Shakespeare
• George Chalmers – [https://archive.org/details/politicalannalso00chaluoft Political Annals of the Present United Colonies]
• Edward Gibbon – A Vindication of Some Passages in the History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
• David Hume (died 1776; anonymously) – Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion
• Samuel Johnson – Prefaces, Biographical and Critical, to the Works of the English Poets
• Vicessimus Knox – Essays
• Franz Mesmer – Mémoire sur la découverte du magnétisme animal
• John Moore – A View of Society and Manners in France, Switzerland, and Germany
• Thomas Scott – The Force of Truth
• Horace Walpole – A Letter to the Editor of the Miscellanies of Thomas Chatterton

• January 18 – Peter Mark Roget, English lexicographer (died 1869)
• March 1 – Gottfried Weber, German writer on music (died 1839)
• March 3 – Matthäus Casimir von Collin, Austrian poet and dramatist (died 1824)
• March 10 – Frances Trollope (born Frances Milton), English novelist and writer (died 1863)
• March 30 – Antoine Ó Raifteiri, Irish Gaelic poet (died 1835)
• May 2 – John Galt, Scottish novelist and entrepreneur (died 1839){{cite book |title=The English Cyclopædia: A New Dictionary of Universal Knowledge |date=1856 |publisher=Bradbury and Evans |page=22 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_7dCAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA22|language=en}}
• May 28 – Thomas Moore, Irish poet and songwriter (died 1852)
• August 1 – Francis Scott Key, American poet (died 1843)
• September 10 – Alexander Voeykov, Russian poet (died 1839)
• November 14 – Adam Oehlenschläger, Danish Romantic poet and dramatist (died 1850)
• December 22 – Thomas Gaisford, English classicist (died 1855)
• December 31 – Horace (Horatio) Smith, English poet and novelist (died 1849){{cite web |title=Horace Smith {{!}} English writer |url=https://www.britannica.com/biography/Horace-Smith |website=Encyclopedia Britannica |accessdate=8 April 2019 |language=en}}

• January 20 – David Garrick, English dramatist, actor and impresario (born 1717){{citation |editor-last=Greenway |editor-first=Diana E. |year=1999 |chapter=List 30: Prebendaries, Husthwaite |title=Fasti Ecclesiae Anglicanae 1066–1300: Volume 6, York |location=London |publisher=Institute of Historical Research |pages=[http://www.british-history.ac.uk/fasti-ecclesiae/1066–1300/vol6/pp81-82 81–82]}}
• March 4 – Heinrich Leopold Wagner, German dramatist (born 1747)
• June 7 – William Warburton, English writer, critic and cleric (born 1698)
• June 10 – William Kenrick, English novelist, playwright and satirist (born c. 1725)
• July 10 – Jane Gomeldon, English essayist and writer of maxims (born c. 1720){{cite book|author=Joseph Smith|title=A Descriptive Catalogue of Friends' Books: Or Books Written by Members of the Society of Friends, Commonly Called Quakers, from Their First Rise to the Present Time, Interspersed with Critical Remarks, and Occasional Biographical Notices ...|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=8EItAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA848|year=1863|publisher=Joseph Smith|pages=848}}
• July 21 – Caleb Fleming, English minister and pamphleteer (born 1698){{cite book|title=The Monthly Repository of Theology and General Literature|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=TH8QAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA412|year=1818|publisher=Sherwood, Gilbert, and Piper|pages=412}}
• November 16 – Pehr Kalm, Swedish/Finnish botanist, naturalist and travel writer (born 1716)
• December 22 – István Küzmics (Števan Küzmič), Hungarian writer in Prekmurje Slovene (Wendish) (born c. 1723)

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