This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1785.

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• January 1
  • The Daily Universal Register (later The Times) is first published, in London.^[1]
  • The Paris theatre company Théâtre des Variétés-Amusantes moves to a temporary new building in the gardens of the Palais-Royal.
• February 2 – Sarah Siddons makes her London debut in her most famous rôle, Lady Macbeth, at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane.^[2]
• February – The English heiress Mary Bowes escapes from her husband, Andrew Robinson Stoney, and begins divorce proceedings.
• April 14 – After today's death of the English poet William Whitehead in London, Thomas Warton succeeds him as Poet Laureate of Great Britain, William Mason having refused the post.
• May 22 – Robert Burns' first child, Elizabeth ("Dear-bought Bess"), is born to his mother's servant, Elizabeth Paton.^[3]
• June 23 – The Litvak rabbi and writer Aryeh Leib ben Asher Gunzberg dies at Metz in France after a book-case topples on him, according to tradition.^[4]
• November 28 – The Marquis de Sade finishes writing The 120 Days of Sodom (Les 120 Journées de Sodome) while imprisoned in the Bastille; it will not be published until 1904.
• unknown date
  • Giacomo Casanova is appointed librarian to Count Joseph Karl von Waldstein at the Duchcov Château in Bohemia.^[5]
  • A new building for the Prussian Royal Library is completed in Berlin.

• January 4 – Jakob Grimm, German philologist, jurist and mythologist (died 1863)
• January 31 – Magdalena Dobromila Rettigová, Czech cookery writer (died 1845)
• March 3 – Frances Mary Richardson Currer, English heiress and bibliophile (died 1861)
• March 7 – Alessandro Manzoni, Italian poet and novelist (died 1873)
• March 18 – He Changling (賀長齡), Chinese scholar and writer on governance (died 1848)
• March 21 – Henry Kirke White, English poet (died 1806)
• April 4 – Bettina von Arnim, German novelist (died 1859)
• April 7 – Lorenzo Hammarsköld, Swedish poet and author (died 1827)
• May 3 – Vicente López y Planes, Argentine politician and writer (died 1856)
• May 18 – John Wilson (Christopher North), Scottish writer (died 1854)
• August 15 – Thomas De Quincey, English essayist (died 1859)
• October 18 – Thomas Love Peacock, English novelist, poet and East India Company official (died 1866)
• October 30 – Hermann, Fürst von Pückler-Muskau – German travel and gardening writer (died 1871)
• unknown date – Neofit Bozveli, Bulgarian educator and clergyman, early figure in the Bulgarian National Revival (died 1848)

• January 19 – Jonathan Toup, English classicist, critic and cleric (born 1713)^[7]
• April 14 – William Whitehead, English poet laureate (born 1715)
• May 4 – János Sajnovics, Hungarian linguist (born 1733)
• August 31 – Pietro Chiari, Italian playwright, novelist and librettist (born 1712)
• September 17 – Antoine Léonard Thomas, French poet and critic (born 1732)
• November 12 – Richard Burn, English legal writer (born 1709)
• November 25 – Richard Glover, English poet and politician (born 1712)
• December 6 – Kitty Clive, English actress and writer of farce (born 1711)
• December 18 – Joseph Allegranza, Milanese historian (born 1715)
• December 29 – Johan Herman Wessel, Norwegian-born Danish poet and satirist (born 1742)
• unknown date – Ali Haider Multani, Punjabi Sufi poet (born 1690)^[8]