1796 in literature

See also: 1795 in literature, other events of 1796, 1797 in literature, list of years in literature.

Events

New books

• The Watchman (periodical) – Samuel Taylor Coleridge
• A Letter to a Noble Lord – Edmund Burke
• Camilla – Fanny Burney
• Hermsprong or Man as He is Not – Robert Bage
• Memoirs of My Life and Writings – Edward Gibbon

New drama

• Egmont – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Births

• January 4 – Henry George Bohn, publisher
• September 19 – Hartley Coleridge
• July 15 – Thomas Bulfinch, American author

Deaths

• February 17 – James Macpherson, poet
• May 6 – Adolph von Knigge, writer on etiquette
• July 21 – Robert Burns
• October 7 – Thomas Reid, philosopher

Awards