1799 in poetry
Nationality words link to articles with information on the nation's poetry or literature (for instance, Irish or France).
Events
August 1 – British Rear-Admiral Horatio Nelson's defeat of the French fleet in the Battle of the Nile is the subject of separate poems this year by English poets William Lisle Bowles and William Sotheby.
December 20 – William Wordsworth and his sister Dorothy first take up residence at Dove Cottage, Grasmere.
William Wordsworth completes the first version of The Prelude, begun in 1798. This version, in two parts, describes the growth of his understanding up to age 17, when he leaves home for the University of Cambridge. He will revise the poem more than once during his lifetime but not publish it. Months after his death in 1850 it will be published for the first time in its final version.
The Monthly Magazine and American Review starts publication in the United States; edited by Charles Brockden Brown, featuring articles on current events and science, poems, short stories, essays and book reviews; converted into American Review and Literary Journal in 1801, when it becomes a quarterly.
