1796 in literature

• Samuel Ireland publishes a collection of Shakespearean forgeries in his Miscellaneous Papers and Legal Instruments Under the Hand and Seal of William Shakespeare (dated this year but actually produced on 24 December 1795). Edmond Malone exposes them in his An Inquiry into the Authenticity of Certain Miscellaneous Papers and Legal Instruments on 31 March, and the forged 'Shakespearean' play, Vortigern and Rowena, is able to sustain just a single performance at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, London, on 2 April. Ireland's son, William Henry, confesses to the fraud in An Authentic Account of the Shakespearean Manuscripts.
• January – Charles Lamb ends a six-week spell in a mental asylum at Hoxton (London).
• February 29 – The Biblioteca Nacional de Portugal is established as the Royal Public Library of the Court in Lisbon.
• March 1 – Samuel Taylor Coleridge launches his periodical The Watchman; it lasts for only ten issues. In April his first verse collection, Poems on Various Subjects, is published in London.
• July 21 – The Scottish national poet, Robert Burns, dies in Dumfries at the age of 37. His funeral (with honours as a military volunteer) takes place on July 25, while his wife, Jean, is in labour with their ninth child together, Maxwell. Burns is at first buried in the far corner of St Michael's Churchyard in Dumfries. The volume of The Scots Musical Museum published this year includes his versions of "Auld Lang Syne" and "Charlie Is My Darling".{{Cite web |title=Robert Burns |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/arts/robertburns/ |publisher=BBC |accessdate=2012-01-26}}
• July 30 – A performance of a historical drama, Jane Shore, is given in Sydney, Australia; the playbill, printed by George Hughes, is the earliest known surviving item printed in that country.{{Cite web |title=For the benefit of J. Butler and W. Bryant |work=Digital Collection – Books and Serials |location=Canberra |publisher=National Library of Australia |url= http://nla.gov.au/nla.aus-vn4200235 |accessdate=2014-08-07}}
• September 22 – Mary Lamb commits matricide.{{Cite book |title=Mad Mary Lamb |last=Hitchcock |first=Susan Tyler |year=2005 |publisher=W. W. Norton & Co |location=New York; London |isbn=0-393-05741-0 |url=https://archive.org/details/madmarylamblunac00hitc |url-access=registration |quote=mad mary lamb |pages=[https://archive.org/details/madmarylamblunac00hitc/page/15 15]–17}}
• October
• Jane Austen begins writing First Impressions, the first version of Pride and Prejudice (published 1813).
• Caroline von Wolzogen's novel Agnes von Lilien begins anonymous serialization in the monthly Die Horen, edited by her brother-in-law Friedrich Schiller.{{cite book|author1=Simon Richter|author2=James Hardin|title=The Literature of Weimar Classicism|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Neot6eura80C&pg=PA242|year=2005|publisher=Boydell & Brewer|isbn=978-1-57113-249-9|pages=242–}}

• Robert Bage – Hermsprong: or, Man As He Is Not
• Elizabeth Bonhôte – Bungay Castle
• Fanny Burney – Camilla{{cite book|author=Fanny Burney|title=Camilla: Picture of Youth|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=DfVxJ7PEX-MC&pg=PT7|date=15 July 1999|publisher=OUP Oxford|isbn=978-0-19-160608-3|pages=7|language=en}}
• Denis Diderot (died 1784) – Jacques the Fatalist (the first complete edition of the original French, Jacques le fataliste et son maître)
• Marquis Carl von Grosse (translated by Peter Will) – Horrid Mysteries (translation of Der Genius)
• Elizabeth Hamilton – Translation of the Letters of a Hindoo Rajah
• Mary Hays – Memoirs of Emma Courtney
• Elizabeth Inchbald – Nature and Art
• Matthew Lewis – The Monk
• Eliza Parsons – The Mysterious Warning, a German Tale
• Regina Maria Roche – The Children of the Abbey: a Tale
• Jane West (as Prudentia Homespun) – A Gossip's Story, and a Legendary Tale

• François Guillaume Ducray-Duminil – Victor, ou l’Enfant de la forêt (Victor, or The Child of the Forest){{cite book|author1=Timothy Unwin|author2=Unwin Timothy|title=The Cambridge Companion to the French Novel: From 1800 to the Present|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=mIq99LRgKw8C&pg=PA76|date=28 October 1997|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-0-521-49914-9|pages=76–}}
• Maria Edgeworth – The Parent's Assistant (stories, second volume later in the year)
• Jane West – A Gossip's Story, and a Legendary Tale (as Prudentia Homespun)

• George Colman the Younger – The Iron Chest
• Richard Cumberland
• Don Pedro{{cite book|author=Richard Cumberland|title=The Plays of Richard Cumberland|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=lhZaAAAAMAAJ|year=1982|publisher=Garland Pub.|isbn=978-0-8240-3587-7|page=294}}
• The Days of Yore
• Johann Wolfgang von Goethe – Egmont{{cite book|author=David G. John|title=Images of Goethe through Schiller's Egmont|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=9aMVaSKBpssC&pg=PA176|date=8 July 1998|publisher=McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP|isbn=978-0-7735-6697-2|pages=176}}
• Thomas Holcroft
• The Force of Ridicule{{cite book|author1=George Watson|author2=Ian R. Willison|author3=J. D. Pickles|title=The New Cambridge Bibliography of English Literature: Volume 2, 1660-1800|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=5-s8AAAAIAAJ&pg=PA839|date=2 July 1971|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-0-521-07934-1|pages=839}}
• The Man of Ten Thousand
• William Henry Ireland – Vortigern and Rowena
• Robert Jephson – The Conspiracy
• Sophia Lee – Almeyda, Queen of Granada
• Thomas Morton – The Way to Get Married{{cite book|author=Michael R. Booth|title=Prefaces to English Nineteenth-century Theatre|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=YBC8AAAAIAAJ&pg=PA67|year=1980|publisher=Manchester University Press|isbn=978-0-7190-0823-8|pages=67}}
• John O'Keeffe – The Doldrum
• John Penn – The Battle of Eddington
• Frederick Reynolds – Fortune's Fool
• Mary Darby Robinson – The Sicilian Lover{{cite book|author=Mary Robinson|title=The Sicilian Lover: A Tragedy. In Five Acts|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=lNVZAAAAcAAJ|year=1796|publisher=author}}
• The Iron Chest (adaptation of William Godwin's novel Caleb Williams)

{{main article|1796 in poetry}}

• Ralph Broome
• Observations on Mr. Paine's Pamphlet Entitled the Decline and Fall of the English System of Finance...
• Strictures on Mr. Burke's Two Letters, Addressed to a Member of the Present Parliament
• Edmund Burke – A Letter from The Right Honourable Edmund Burke to a Noble Lord, on the Attacks made upon him and his pension
• Edward Gibbon – Memoirs of My Life and Writings
• Susannah Willard Johnson – A Narrative of the Captivity of Mrs. Johnson (edited by John Curtis Chamberlain)
• John Gabriel Stedman – The Narrative of a Five Years Expedition against the Revolted Negroes of Surinam
• Mary Wollstonecraft – Letters Written in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark

• January 4 – Henry George Bohn, English bibliographer and publisher (died 1884)
• February 17 – Charlotte Anley, English didactic novelist and religious writer (died 1893)
• May 1 – Junius Brutus Booth, English-born actor (died 1852)
• May 4 – William H. Prescott, American historian (died 1859)
• August 19 – Agnes Strickland, English historical writer and poet (died 1874)
• September 19 – Hartley Coleridge, English poet, biographer and essayist (died 1849)
• July 15 – Thomas Bulfinch, American writer on mythology (died 1867)
• November 2 – Frederick Chamier, English novelist and Royal Navy captain (died 1870){{cite book|author=Frederick Chamier|title=Life of a Sailor|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-aa9AwAAQBAJ&pg=PT7|date=23 May 2011|publisher=Pen and Sword|isbn=978-1-78346-873-7|pages=7}}
• December 19 – Manuel Bretón de los Herreros, Spanish playwright (died 1873)

• January 13 – John Anderson, Scottish natural philosopher and scientist (born 1726)
• February 17 – James Macpherson, Scottish poet (born 1736){{cite book|author1=Lewis Namier|author2=John Brooke|title=The House of Commons, 1754-1790|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Taw7DVGrbRcC&pg=PA96|year=1985|publisher=Boydell & Brewer|isbn=978-0-436-30420-0|pages=96}}
• March 6 – Guillaume Thomas François Raynal, French philosophical writer (born 1713){{cite book|author=Charles Sumner|title=His Complete Works: With Introduction by Hon. George Frisbie Hoar|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=2T62Ug_G_y4C|year=1900|publisher=Lee & Shepard|page=326}}
• May 6 – Adolf Freiherr Knigge, German writer on etiquette (born 1752){{cite book|author1=Ernest Ludwig Stahl|author2=William Edward Yuill|author3=Hannah Priebsch Closs|author4=M. Q. Smith|title=German Literature of the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=zabWAAAAMAAJ|year=1970|publisher=Barnes & Noble|page=380}}
• June 7 – Elisabetta Caminèr Turra, Venetian writer and translator (born 1751)
• June 8 – Jean-Marie Collot d'Herbois, French dramatist (born 1749){{cite book|title=Encyclopedia Britannica|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=zuJFAAAAYAAJ|year=1973|publisher=Encyclopedia Britannica, Incorporated, William Benton Publisher|isbn=978-0-85229-173-3|page=69}}
• July 21 – Robert Burns, Scottish poet (born 1759){{Cite web |title=Pistols belonging to Robert Burns |url=https://www.nms.ac.uk/explore-our-collections/stories/scottish-history-and-archaeology/robert-burns-pistols/ |website=National Museums Scotland |accessdate=25 March 2019 |language=en |archive-date=25 March 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190325225433/https://www.nms.ac.uk/explore-our-collections/stories/scottish-history-and-archaeology/robert-burns-pistols/ |url-status=dead }}
• October 7 – Thomas Reid, Scottish philosopher (born 1710)
• October 16 – Antoine-Joseph Pernety, French writer and mystic (born 1716)
• December 24 – John Maclaurin, Lord Dreghorn, judge and poet (born 1734){{cite book|author=John Stark|title=Biographia Scotica: Or Scottish Biographical Dictionary|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=JtIBAAAAMAAJ&pg=PP300|year=1805|publisher=A. Constable & Company|pages=300}}

{{reflist|30em}}

{{Authority control}}

{{Year in literature article categories}}