1771 in literature

This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1771. Events April 9 – Pedro Correia Garção is arrested and committed to prison by Sebastião de Melo, Marquis of Pombal. unknown dates Henry Mackenzie's The Man of Feeling inaugurates the fashion for sentimentalism in novels. Sophie von La Roche's Geschichte des Fräuleins von Sternheim: Von einer Freundin derselben aus Original-Papieren und andern zuverläßigen Quellen gezogen ("History of Lady von Sternheim"), completed at Bönnigheim and published this year in Leipzig edited by the author's cousin Christoph Wieland in 2 volumes, is, within the tradition of German literature, the first significant novel by a woman, the first epistolary novel and the first "sentimental" novel. Matthias Claudius begins editing and publishing the newspaper Der Wandsbecker Bothe. Slovene literature: The Nouvi Zákon, a translation of the New Testament into the Prekmurje Slovene language by István Küzmics, the Hungarian Slovene writer and evangelical pastor, is published (in Halle). Archbishop Richard Robinson founds the Armagh Public Library in the north of Ireland. New books Fiction Sophia Briscoe – Miss Melmoth; or the New Clarissa Claude Joseph Dorat – Les Sacrifices de l'amour Elizabeth Griffith – The History of Lady Barton John Langhorne – Letters to Eleonara Henry Mackenzie – The Man of Feeling Louis-Sébastien Mercier – L'An 2440, rêve s'il en fut jamais Tobias Smollett – The Expedition of Humphry Clinker Sophie von La Roche – Geschichte des Fräuleins von Sternheim