1757 In Literature

This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1757.

Events

*February 16 – Jonathan Edwards becomes President of the institution that will become Princeton University.
* May 3 – The Irish-born actress Peg Woffington, playing Rosalind in ''As You Like It'', suffers a stroke on stage at the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden in London and never acts again.
* May 6 – Asylum confinement of Christopher Smart: The poet Christopher Smart is confined to St Luke's Hospital for Lunatics in London.
*May – The Baskerville typeface, designed by John Baskerville of Birmingham, England, is first used in a wove paper quarto edition of Virgil (''Publii Virgilii Maronis Bucolica, Georgica, et Æneis'').
*September – Pierre-Augustin Caron begins using the name Beaumarchais.
* September 9 – The Parlement of Toulouse orders a public burning of Jesuit author Hermann Busenbaum's ''Medulla Theologiae Morales'' because of its treatment of the subject of regicide.
* December 11 – On the death of Colley Cibber as Poet Laureate of Great Britain, the post is declined by Thomas Gray and passes to William Whitehead.
*''unknown dates''
** Angelo Maria Bandini is appointed librarian of the Laurentian Library in Florence.
** Robert Raikes becomes proprietor of the ''Gloucester Journal''.
**Horace Walpole begins the Strawberry Hill Press.
** Thomas Warton is appointed Professor of Poetry at the University of Oxford.

New books

Prose

*John Brown – ''An Estimate of the Manners and Principles of the Times''
*Edmund Burke – '' A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful''
* John Dalrymple – ''An Essay Towards a General History of Feudal Property in Great Britain''
*Samuel Derrick (probable compiler) – ''Harris's List of Covent Garden Ladies'' (1st edn)
*Adam Ferguson – ''The Morality of Stage-Plays Seriously Considered''
*Sarah Fielding – ''The Lives of Cleopatra and Octavia''
*Edward and Elizabeth Griffith – ''A Series of Genuine Letters between Henry and Frances'' vols. i – ii.
*David Hume – ''The Natural History of Religion''
*Soame Jenyns – ''A Free Inquiry into the Nature and Origin of Evil''
* Richard Price – ''Review of the Principal Questions in Morals''
*Madame Riccoboni – ''Lettres de Mistriss Fanny Butlerd''.
*Tobias Smollett – ''A Complete History of England''
*Horace Walpole – ''A Letter from Xo Ho, a Chinese Philosopher at London, to his Friend Lien Chi at Peking''
*William Warburton – ''Remarks upon Mr. David Hume's Essay on the Natural History of Religion''
*Joseph Warton – ''Essay on Pope''
*John Wesley – ''The Doctrine of Original Sin''

Drama

*Anonymous – ''The Taxes''
*Phanuel Bacon – ''Humorous Ethics, or an Attempt to Cure the Vices and Follies of the Age by a Method Entirely New'' (5 plays)
*Denis Diderot – '' Le Fils naturel''
*Samuel Foote – ''The Author''
*David Garrick – ''Lilliput''
*John Home – ''Douglas''
*Tobias Smollett – ''The Reprisal''

Poetry

* Robert Andrews – ''Eidyllia''
*Cornelius Arnold – ''Poems''
*Samuel Boyce – ''Poems''
*John Gilbert Cooper as "Aristippus" – ''Epistles to the Great''
* John Duncombe – ''The Feminead'' (answer to 1754's ''Feminiad'')
* William Duncombe – ''The Works of Horace in English Verse'' (various translators).
*John Dyer – ''The Fleece''
*Carlo Gozzi – ''La tartana degli influssi per l'anno 1756''
*Thomas Gray – ''Odes''
* William Thompson – ''Poems''
* William Wilkie – ''Epigoniad''
*Edward Young – ''The Works of the Author of Night Thoughts''

Births

*February 1 – John Philip Kemble, English actor (died 1823)
*February 6 – Julian Ursyn Niemcewicz, Polish poet and dramatist (died 1841)
*April 9 – Wojciech Bogusławski, Polish actor, director and dramatist (died 1829)
*July 21 – Basilius von Ramdohr, German journalist and critic (died 1822)
*November 9 – William Sotheby, English poet and translator (died 1833)
* November 13 – Archibald Alison, Scottish essayist and cleric (died 1839)
* November 18 – William Blake, English poet and artist (died 1827)
*November 27 ''(possible year)'' – Mary Robinson (née Darby), English poet, actress and royal mistress (died 1800)
*December 4 – Charles Burney, English classicist and book thief (died 1817)
*''Unknown date'' – Giovanni Antonio Galignani, Italian publisher (died 1821)

Deaths

*January 9 – Bernard Le Bovier de Fontenelle, French dramatist and author (born 1657)
*January 19 – Thomas Ruddiman, Scottish classical scholar, editor, printer and librarian (born 1674)
*March 1 – Edward Moore, English dramatist (born 1712)
* March 8 – Thomas Blackwell, Scottish classical scholar (born 1701)
*August 28 – David Hartley, English philosopher and psychologist (born 1705)
* December 11
** Colley Cibber, English dramatist, actor-manager and Poet Laureate of Great Britain (born 1671)
** Edmund Curll, English bookseller and publisher (born 1675)
*December 15 (''burial)'' – John Dyer, a Welsh poet, painter and Anglican cleric (born 1699)

In literature

*John Dickson Carr – ''The Demoniacs'' (1962)
*James Fenimore Cooper – '' The Last of the Mohicans: A Narrative of 1757'' (1826)

References

{{Year in literature article categories

Years of the 18th century in literature