1781 in literature

• March 27 – George Crabbe writes to Edmund Burke, enclosing examples of his work.{{cite book|author=Edmund Burke|title=The Works and Correspondence Of...Edmund Burke|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=t-kpAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA472|year=1852|publisher=F. & J. Rivington|pages=472}} The outcome is the publication of Crabbe's poem The Library.{{cite book |title=Crabbe |last=Ainger |first=Alfred |year=1903 |publisher=Macmillan |location=New York |url=https://archive.org/details/crabbe00aing |pages=31–32}}
• August 5 – Antonín Strnad completes an inventory of the contents of the Clementinum in Prague, which becomes a national library.{{cite book|author=Zdislav Šíma|title=Astronomie a Klementinum|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=lcgfAQAAIAAJ|year=2001|publisher=Národní knihovna České republiky|isbn=978-80-7050-386-7|page=94}}
• unknown date – Rudolf Erich Raspe (anonymously) publishes "M-h-s-nsche Geschichten" ("M-h-s-n Stories") in the Berlin humor magazine Vade mecum für lustige Leute ("Handbook for Fun-loving People"), the first appearance of Baron Munchausen in fiction.{{Cite book |last=Blamires |first=David |chapter=The Adventures of Baron Munchausen |title=Telling Tales: The Impact of Germany on English Children's Books 1780–1918 |series=OBP collection |pages=8–21 |location=Cambridge |publisher=Open Book Publishers |year=2009 |isbn=9781906924119 |url=http://books.openedition.org/obp/600}}

• Robert Bage – Mount Henneth
• Christoph Friedrich Bretzner – Belmont und Constanze
• William Combe – Letters of an Italian Nun and an English Gentleman
• Eugenio Espejo – La ciencia blancardinaPhilip L. Astuto (2003), Eugenio Espejo (1747–1795), Reformador ecuatoriano de la Ilustración. Casa de la Cultura Ecuatoriana. p. 82. {{ISBN|9978-92-241-5}}.
• Benjamin Franklin – A Letter To A Royal Academy
• Charles Johnstone – The History of John Juniper
• Henry Mackenzie – Julia de Roubignei
• Glocester Ridley – Melanpus
• Anna Seward – Monody on Major André

• Mrs. Barbauld – Hymns in Prose for Children
• Joachim Heinrich Campe – Die Entdeckung von Amerika (Discovery of America)

• Miles Peter Andrews – Dissipation
• Frances Brooke – The Siege of Sinope
• Hannah Cowley – The World as it Goes
• Elizabeth Craven – The Miniature Picture
• John Delap – The Royal Suppliants{{Cite web |url=http://www.ampltd.co.uk/digital_guides/women_morality_and_advice_literature_parts_1_to_3/contents-of-reels-part-1.aspx |work=Women, Morality And Advice Literature |title=Manuscripts and Rare Printed Works of Hannah More (1745–1833) and her circle from the Clark Library, Los Angeles |accessdate=2013-02-03}}
• Johann Wolfgang von Goethe – Iphigenia in Tauris (revised version)
• Thomas Holcroft – Duplicity
• Elizabeth Inchbald – Polygamy
• Robert Jephson – The Count of Narbonne
• John O'Keeffe – The Agreeable Surprise
• Samuel Jackson Pratt – The Fair Circassian
• Friedrich Schiller – The Robbers (Die Räuber, published)
• Richard Brinsley Sheridan
• The Critic (published)
• A Trip to Scarborough

{{main|1781 in poetry}}

• William Cowper – Anti-Thelyphthora
• George Crabbe – The Library
• Maria De Fleury – Poems, Occasioned by the Confinement and Acquittal of the Right Honourable Lord George Gordon, President of the Protestant Association
• Santa Rita Durão – Caramuru
• Anne Francis – A Poetical Translation of the Song of Solomon
• Philip Freneau – The British Prison-Ship
• William Hayley – The Triumphs of Temper
• George Keate – Works
• Samuel Jackson Pratt – Sympathy

• Maria De Fleury – Unrighteous Abuse Detected and Chastised
• Mary Deverell – Sermons on the Following Subjects...
• Edward Gibbon – Volumes II and III of The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
• Henry Home – Loose Hints Upon Education
• Samuel Johnson
• The Beauties of Johnson
• Lives of the Most Eminent English Poets
• Immanuel Kant – Critique of Pure Reason
• John Moore – A View of Society and Manners in Italy
• John Newton – Cardiphonia
• John Nichols – Biographical Anecdotes of William Hogarth
• Magister Pianco (Hans Heinrich von Ecker und Eckhoffen) – Der Rosenkreutzer in seiner Blösse
• Jean-Jacques Rousseau – Essai sur l'origine des langues

• January 26 – Ludwig Achim von Arnim, German poet and novelist (died 1831){{Cite NIE|wstitle=Arnim, Ludwig Joachim von|year=1905}}
• January 30 – Adelbert von Chamisso, German poet and botanist (died 1838){{cite book|author1=Eva R. Trautmann|author2=Adelbert von Chamisso|title=The Alaska diary of Adelbert von Chamisso, naturalist on the Kotzebue voyage, 1815-1818|publisher=Cook Inlet Historical Society|year=1986|page=1}}
• February 26 – Peter Andresen Oelrichs, Heligoland-born lexicographer (died 1869)
• March 17 – Ebenezer Elliott, English poet (died 1849)
• May 14 – Friedrich Ludwig Georg von Raumer, German historian (died 1873)
• June 12 (probable) – Christian Isobel Johnstone, Scottish journalist and novelist (died 1857)
• November 3 – Sarah Elizabeth Utterson, English translator and short story writer (died 1851){{Cite web|url=http://id.loc.gov/authorities/names/no2018100516|title=Utterson, Sarah Elizabeth, 1781-1851|publisher=Library of Congress}}
• November 6 – Lucy Aikin (Mary Godolphin), English historical writer (died 1864)Linda J. Turzynski, "Lucy Aikin." Dictionary of Literary Biography: British Children's Writers, 1800–1880. Detroit, MI: Gale Research Inc, 1996
• November 29 – Andrés Bello, Venezuelan polymath (died 1865){{cite journal |last1=Leonard |first1=Irving A. |title=Andrés Bello (1781-1865), National Hero |journal=The Hispanic American Historical Review |date=1954 |volume=34 |issue=4 |pages=502–505 |doi=10.2307/2509082 |issn=0018-2168|jstor=2509082 }}
• December 6 – Charlotte von Ahlefeld, German novelist (died 1849){{cite encyclopedia | author = Karl Goedeke | title = Ahlefeldt, Charlotte von | encyclopedia = Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie | volume = 1 | year = 1875 | pages = 160 | url = http://de.wikisource.org/wiki/ADB:Ahlefeldt,_Charlotte_von|language=de}}
• December 11 – David Brewster, Scottish scientist and writer (died 1868)

• February 15 – Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, German philosopher and dramatist (born 1729){{cite book | last = Yasukata | first = Toshimasa | title = Lessing's philosophy of religion and the German enlightenment: Lessing on Christianity and reason | publisher = Oxford University Press | location = Oxford New York | year = 2002 | isbn = 9780198033103 | page=118}}
• February 22 – Anna Magdalena Godiche, Danish book printer and publisher (born 1721){{cite web|url= http://denstoredanske.dk/Dansk_Biografisk_Leksikon/Medier/Bogtrykker/A.H._Godiche |title= A. H. Godiche|publisher= Dansk Biografisk Leksikon, Gyldendal |author= Lauritz Nielsen |accessdate=April 1, 2019}}
• February 24 – Edward Capell, English Shakespeare scholar (born 1713){{EB1911|wstitle=Capell, Edward|volume=5|page=249}}
• March 1 – Jean-Baptiste de La Curne de Sainte-Palaye, French historian, classicist and lexicographer (born 1697)
• March 17 – Johannes Ewald, Danish dramatist and poet (born 1743){{cite web|url= https://runeberg.org/dandig19/0087.html|title=Johannes Ewald|website= Illustreret dansk Literaturhistorie |access-date=1 August 2020}}
• May 8 – Richard Jago, English poet and cleric (born 1715){{cite book|title=Antiquities in Leicestershire|publisher=Kraus Reprint Company|year=1968|page=464}}
• June 24 – Anna Miller, English poet and salon hostess (born 1741)
• September 11 – Johann August Ernesti, German theologian and philologist (born 1707){{cite book | last = Klemme | first = Heiner | title = The Bloomsbury dictionary of eighteenth-century German philosophers | publisher = Bloomsbury Publishing Plc | location = New York | year = 2016 | isbn = 9781474255981 | page=189}}
• November 2 – José Francisco de Isla, Spanish satirist (born 1703)
• November 4 – Johann Nikolaus Götz, German poet (born 1721){{EB1911|wstitle=Götz, Johann Nikolaus}}
• December 7 – Judith Madan, English poet (born 1702)

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