1742 in literature

List of years in literature (table)
… 1732 ^. 1733 ^. 1734 ^. 1735 ^. 1736 ^. 1737 ^. 1738 … 1739 1740 1741 -1742- 1743 1744 1745 … 1746 ^. 1747 ^. 1748 ^. 1749 ^. 1750 ^. 1751 ^. 1752 … In poetry: 1739 1740 1741 -1742- 1743 1744 1745
Related time period or subjects
… 1739 ^. 1740 ^. 1741 - 1742 - 1743 ^. 1744 ^. 1745 … … 1710s ^. 1720s ^. 1730s -1740s- 1750s ^. 1760s ^. 1770s … … 17th century ^. 18th century ^. 19th century …
Art ^. Archaeology ^. Architecture ^. Literature ^. Music ^. Science +...

The year 1742 in literature involved some significant events and new books.

[edit] Events

February 12 - Robert Walpole, the most divisive "prime minister" for a century or more to come, resigned but was elevated to the peerage and moved into the English House of Lords
April 8 - Handel's Messiah was performed for the first time in Dublin, Ireland.
December 2 - The Pennsylvania Journal first appears in print in the United States.
Pierre de Marivaux is elected to the Académie française.

Colley Cibber - A Letter from Mr. Cibber to Mr. Pope (in re Pope's satirizing of Cibber)
William Collins - Persian Eclogues
Thomas Cooke - Original Poems
Philip Doddridge - Evidences of Christianity
Henry Fielding - Joseph Andrews
James Hammond - Love Elegies
Eliza Haywood - The Virtuous Villager (prose fiction)
David Hume - Essays Moral and Political vol. ii
Colin Maclaurin - Treatise on Fluxions
James Merrick - The Destruction of Troy
John Oldmixon - Memoirs of the Press, Historical and Political
William Shenstone - The School-Mistress
William Somervile - Field Sports
Horace Walpole and Sir Charles Hanbury Williams - The Lessons for the Day (satire on William Pulteney, Bolingbroke, and the "Patriot Whigs").
William Warburton - A Critical and Philosophical Commentary on Mr. Pope's Essay on Man
John Wesley - The Character of a Methodist
- - The Principles of a Methodist
George Whitefield - Nine Sermons
Charles Hanbury Williams - The Country Girl: An ode
Edward Young - Night Thoughts