1795 in literature

Events

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Perspective

January – Archibald Constable marries Mary Willison, daughter of a printer, and soon starts in business for himself as a dealer in rare books in Edinburgh. This is the origin of the British publishing business that enters the 21st century as Constable & Robinson.^[1]
February–June – Samuel Taylor Coleridge offers a series of lectures on politics and religion in Bristol^[2] (England), as does his friend Robert Southey.
March – William Henry Ireland first displays his Shakespearean forgeries to the public. They will inspire a major controversy when published on 24 December (dated 1796).^[3]
May 27 (May 16 O.S.) – Empress Catherine the Great establishes the Imperial Public Library in Saint Petersburg, predecessor of the National Library of Russia. The core of the collection consists of books looted the year before from the Załuski Library in Warsaw.^[4]
August 21–September 26 – William Wordsworth and his sister Dorothy stay at 7 Great George Street, Bristol, when they meet Coleridge, Southey and the latter poets' publisher, Joseph Cottle.^[2]
October 4 – Coleridge marries Sara Fricker at St Mary Redcliffe, Bristol. On November 14, Southey marries Sara's sister Edith in the same church.^[2]
December – Charles Lamb begins a six-week spell in a mental asylum at Hoxton (London).

unknown dates

- The first known Bengali language play is staged, the comedy Kalpanik sangbadal ba sajbadal (adapted from the English "The Disguise"), at the Bengali Theatre.^[5]
- The only known manuscript of The Tale of Igor's Campaign is discovered in Russia.

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Births

January 15 – Alexander Griboyedov, Russian diplomat and playwright (massacred 1829)
April 17 – Emily Taylor, English author, poet and hymnist (died 1872)
May 26 – Thomas Talfourd, English lawyer and legal writer (died 1854)
June 13 – Thomas Arnold, English educator and historian (died 1842)
August 30 – Amable Tastu (Sabine Casimire Amable Voïart), French women of letters and poet (died 1885)
September 7 – John William Polidori, English physician and fantasy writer (died 1821)
September 18 (September 7 O.S.) – Constantin Sion, Moldavian polemicist, genealogist and literary forger (died 1862)
September 29 (September 18 O.S.) – Kondraty Ryleyev, Russian poet and revolutionary (hanged 1826)
October 14 – Robert Vaughan, English historian and religious writer (died 1868)
October 31 – John Keats, English Romantic poet (died 1821)^[7]
December 4 – Thomas Carlyle, Scottish satirist, essayist and historian (died 1881)

Events