1786 in literature

This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1786. Events January 19 – Franziska Stading plays the female lead in Gustav Vasa (with libretto personally overseen by King Gustav III of Sweden) at the Royal Swedish Opera. July 31 – Scottish poet Robert Burns' Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect is published by John Wilson in Kilmarnock in 612 copies (the text having been submitted to him on July 13). The volume proves so popular that Burns abandons his plans to emigrate to Jamaica on September 1 for a post as a bookkeeper on a slave plantation and on November 27–28 journeys on a borrowed pony from Mossgiel Farm for his first visit to Edinburgh. Two weeks later he extemporises his "Address to a Haggis", which is first published on December 20 in the Caledonian Mercury. October 5 – Death of French official Jean-Baptiste Marie de Piquet, Marquess of Méjanes; his book collection is bequeathed to form the basis of the Bibliothèque Méjanes at Aix-en-Provence. September 3–December – Goethe undertakes his Italian Journey (published 1817). November – The Boydell Shakespeare Gallery is inaugurated in London. New books Fiction William Thomas Beckford – Vathek James Boswell – Dorado, a Spanish Tale (published anonymously) Harriet Lee – The Errors of Innocence Isabelle de Montolieu (as "le traducteur de Werther") – Caroline de Lichtfield, ou Mémoires extraits des papiers d'une famille prussienne Johann Karl August Musäus – Volksmärchen der Deutschen (fourth volume) André-Robert Andréa de Nerciat – Le Diable au Corps Friedrich Schiller – The Ghost-Seer (Der Geisterseher, publication commences)