Events Timeline

Orlando includes short event entries, freestanding and embedded in author profiles, about moments and processes relevant to literary history and organized into four categories: Women writers, Writing Climate, Political Climate, and Social Climate. Explore the timelines by searching for date(s) and/or words or phrases associated with them.

7276 - 7300 of 43197

Search by

-
Event origin
Event type

Hannah Brand: 7 April 1791

Women writers item
Author event in Hannah Brand

7 April 1791

HB 's tragedy Huniades; or, The Siege of Belgrade was performed at Norwich's Theatre Royal .
Mann, David D. et al. Women Playwrights in England, Ireland and Scotland, 1660-1823. Indiana University Press, 1996.
381
Chandler, David. “’The Athens of England’: Norwich as a Literary Center in the Late Eighteenth Century”. Eighteenth-Century Studies, Vol.
43
, No. 2, 1 Dec. 2010–28 Feb. 2011, pp. 171-92.
183

Lady Eleanor Butler: By 12 April 1791

Women writers item
Author event in Lady Eleanor Butler

By 12 April 1791

Eleanor Butler became Lady Eleanor when the Ormonde (or Ormond) title was restored to her family; Sarah Ponsonby had the church bells rung to celebrate this official entry into the nobility.
Mavor, Elizabeth. The Ladies of Llangollen. Michael Joseph, 1971.
106

18 April 1791: Horace Walpole reported that sedan chairs...

Building item

18 April 1791

Horace Walpole reported that sedan chairs were dying out as a form of transport: London was now too big.
Walpole, Horace. The Letters of Horace Walpole. Editor Toynbee, Mrs Paget, Clarendon, 1903–1925, 16 vols.
14: 416

19 April 1791: Wilberforce's motion to abolish the slave-trade...

National or international item

19 April 1791

Wilberforce 's motion to abolish the slave-trade (put on 18 April) was defeated in the House of Commons .
Stephen, Sir Leslie, and Sidney Lee, editors. The Dictionary of National Biography. Smith, Elder, 1908–2026, 22 vols. plus supplements.

19 April 1791: In Paris the radical new Commune des Arts...

Building item

19 April 1791

In Paris the radical new Commune des Arts decreed that studying art was inimical to women's true vocation, the respectable and holy functions of wife, mother and mistress of the house.
Mirzoeff, Nicholas. “Revolution, Representation, Equality: Gender, Genre, and Emulation in the Académie Royale de Peinture et Sculpture, 1785-93”. Eighteenth-Century Studies, Vol.
31
, No. 2, Dec. 1997, pp. 153-74.
165
Mirzoeff, Nicholas. “Revolution, Representation, Equality: Gender, Genre, and Emulation in the Académie Royale de Peinture et Sculpture, 1785-93”. Eighteenth-Century Studies, Vol.
31
, No. 2, Dec. 1997, pp. 153-74.
165

25 April 1791: Robert Dighton depicted, in a print entitled...

Building item

25 April 1791

Robert Dighton depicted, in a print entitled Men of War, Bound for the Port of Pleasure, sailors making merry with prostitutes.
McCreery, Cindy. “True Blue and Black, Brown and Fair: prints of British sailors and their women during the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars”. Journal for Eighteenth-Century Studies, Vol.
23
, No. 2, 1 Sept.–30 Nov. 2000, pp. 135-52.
142-3

Helen Craik: Before 27 April 1791

Women writers item
Author event in Helen Craik

Before 27 April 1791

HC wrote a ten-line poem in praise of Burns , which is copied at the head of his Glenriddell Manuscript (below the title, before his dated preface).
Burns, Robert. The Glenriddell Manuscripts of Robert Burns. Editor Donaldson, Desmond, E. P. Publishing, 1973.
prelims

Ann Yearsley: 30 April 1791

Women writers item
Author event in Ann Yearsley

30 April 1791

AY 's Earl Goodwin: An Historical Play reached print.
Waldron, Mary. Lactilla, Milkwoman of Clifton: The Life and Writings of Ann Yearsley, 1753-1806. University of Georgia Press, 1996.
185

Ellis Cornelia Knight : 30 April 1791

Women writers item
Author event in Ellis Cornelia Knight

30 April 1791

Having left Genoa for Rome on this day, ECK lived there with her mother through turbulent times until early 1798. They were there when in 1792 she published her second book, Marcus Flaminius, set...

6 May 1791: The Canada Act mediated between English and...

National or international item

6 May 1791

The Canada Act mediated between English and French Canadians and gave the country's present name its first general currency.
Haydn, Joseph. Haydn’s Dictionary of Dates and Universal Information. Editor Vincent, Benjamin, 23rd ed., Ward, Lock, 1904.
213
Grun, Bernard. The Timetables of History. 3rd revised, Simon and Schuster, 1991.
368
Palmer, Alan, and Veronica Palmer. The Chronology of British History. Century, 1992.
232

16 May 1791: James Boswell published The Life of Samuel...

Writing climate item

16 May 1791

James Boswell published The Life of Samuel Johnson, on the twenty-eighth anniversary of the day that he and Johnson first met.
Brady, Frank. James Boswell, the Later Years, 1769-1795. Heinemann, 1984.
422

Charlotte Lennox: By June 1791

Women writers item
Author event in Charlotte Lennox

By June 1791

An anonymous work in four volumes from the Minerva Press, Hermione; or, The Orphan Sisters, A Novel, has been known as CL 's last book, but scholars are now sceptical about its attribution.
McLeod, Deborah. The Minerva Press. University of Alberta, 1997.
Perry, Ruth et al. “Introduction”. Henrietta, edited by Ruth Perry et al., University Press of Kentucky, 2008.
xix, xxxiii

June 1791: Joseph Priestley founded a Constitutional...

National or international item

June 1791

Joseph Priestley founded a Constitutional Society in Birmingham.
Tomalin, Claire. The Life and Death of Mary Wollstonecraft. Revised, Penguin, 1992.
128

Elizabeth Montagu: 6 June 1791

Women writers item
Author event in Elizabeth Montagu

6 June 1791

EM gave a breakfast reception for several hundred people, including royalty, to celebrate the completion of her feather room. She had spent ten years collecting feathers; the project had been described in print in April...

Anna Letitia Barbauld: 17 June 1791

Women writers item
Author event in Anna Letitia Barbauld

17 June 1791

ALB , Epistle to William Wilberforce , Esq., on the Rejection of the Bill for Abolishing the Slave Trade, was entered with the Stationers' Company by Joseph Johnson . It was her first new...

Clara Reeve: About 18 June 1791

Women writers item
Author event in Clara Reeve

About 18 June 1791

CR published a didactic epistolary novel, The School for Widows.
Garside, Peter et al., editors. The English Novel 1770-1829. Oxford University Press, 2000, 2 vols.
1: 544
Critical Review. W. Simpkin and R. Marshall, 5 series.
2nd series 2 (1791): 476
Trainer, James, and Clara Reeve. “Introduction”. The Old English Baron, Oxford University Press, 1977.
xxi

20-25 June 1791: Louis XVI fled with Marie-Antoinette and...

National or international item

20-25 June 1791

Louis XVI fled with Marie-Antoinette and their family, intending to leave France and raise a counter-revolution; they were captured at Varennes near Vichy, and brought back to Paris.
Soboul, Albert. The French Revolution 1787-1799. Translators Forrest, Alan and Colin Jones, Vintage, 1975.
222-3

Catharine Macaulay: 22 June 1791

Women writers item
Author event in Catharine Macaulay

22 June 1791

CM died at Binfield in Berkshire, after being seriously (and painfully) ill since April.
Hill, Bridget. The Republican Virago: The Life and Times of Catharine Macaulay, Historian. Clarendon Press, 1992.
129
Hill, Bridget. “Daughter and Mother: Some new light on Catharine Macaulay and her family”. Journal for Eighteenth-Century Studies, Vol.
22
, No. 1, 1 Mar.–31 May 1999, pp. 35-49.
46, 48
Donnelly, Lucy Martin. “The Celebrated Mrs Macaulay”. William and Mary Quarterly, Vol.
3rd series: vi
, 1949, pp. 173-07.
199

Elizabeth Ogilvy Benger: By 23 June 1791

Women writers item
Author event in Elizabeth Ogilvy Benger

By 23 June 1791

The teenage EOB wrote The Female Geniad, a poem in celebration of women, published the same year with her name and age.
Benger, Elizabeth Ogilvy. The Female Geniad. T. Hookham, J. Carpenter, and G. Kearsley, 1791.
title-page

Helen Maria Williams: July 1791

Women writers item
Author event in Helen Maria Williams

July 1791

HMW returned to France (again following closely on her sister and mother), and this time settled in Paris in September, after a visit to Rouen and Orléans.
Woodward, Lionel D. Hélène-Maria Williams et ses amis. Slatkine Reprints, 1977.
41-2
Kelly, Gary. Women, Writing, and Revolution 1790-1827. Clarendon, 1993.
43
Kennedy, Deborah. Helen Maria Williams and the Age of Revolution. Bucknell University Press, 2002.
80

Mary Robinson: By July 1791

Women writers item
Author event in Mary Robinson

By July 1791

MR published the first volume of a new collection of Poems: the subscribers' list was headed by the Prince of Wales .
Critical Review. W. Simpkin and R. Marshall, 5 series.
2nd ser. 2 (1791): 309
Robinson, Mary. “Introduction”. Mary Robinson: Selected Poems, edited by Judith Pascoe, Broadview, 2000, pp. 19-64.
37

Adelaide O'Keeffe: Summer 1791

Women writers item
Author event in Adelaide O'Keeffe

Summer 1791

AOK set out on a six-week seaside holiday with her father and her surviving brother at West Lulworth in Dorset.
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.
under John O'Keeffe

July 1791: Etta Palm d'Aelders, a radical Dutch noblewoman,...

National or international item

July 1791

Etta Palm d'Aelders , a radical Dutch noblewoman, published at Paris her Appel aux françaises, arguing for change in society and a voice for women in that change.
Tomalin, Claire. The Life and Death of Mary Wollstonecraft. Revised, Penguin, 1992.
194

Frances Burney: 7 July 1791

Women writers item
Author event in Frances Burney

7 July 1791

With feelings of immense relief, FB finally left her Keeper of the Robes position at Court, which she had held since 1786.
Doody, Margaret Anne. Frances Burney: The Life in the Works. Cambridge University Press, 1988.
197

Elizabeth Inchbald: 9 July 1791

Women writers item
Author event in Elizabeth Inchbald

9 July 1791

EI 's most recent comedy, Next Door Neighbours, adapted from two French sources, was first produced.
The London Stage 1660-1800. Southern Illinois University Press, 1960–1968, 5 vols.
5: 1369