1731 in literature
The year 1731 in literature involved some significant events and new books.
Events
New books
- Anonymous - The Life of Mr. Cleveland, Natural Son of Oliver Cromwell
- Corporate authorship - The Gentleman's Magazine
- Nicholas Amhurst as "Caleb D'Anvers" - A Collection of Poems
- Thomas Bayes - Divine Benevolence
- Samuel Boyse - Translations and Poems Written on Several Subjects
- Ralph Cudworth - A Treatise Concerning Eternal and Immutable Morality (posth.)
- Robert Dodsley - An Epistle from a Footman in London to the Celebrated Stephen Duck
- - A Sketch of the Miseries of Poverty
- Henry Fielding - The Tragedy of Tragedies; or, The Life and Death of Tom Thumb
- Aaron Hill - Advice to the Poets
- William King - An Essay on the Origin of Evil (transl. from Latin)
- William Law - The Case of Reason
- William Oldys - A Dissertation Upon Pamphlets
- Alexander Pope - An Epistle to the Right Honourable Richard Earl of Burlington ("Epistle to Burlington," and known to contemporaries as "Of False Taste")
- Abbé Prévost - Manon Lescaut
- Elizabeth Rowe - Letters Moral and Entertaining
- Jean Terrasson - Sethos, Taken from Private Memoirs of the Ancient Egyptians
- Joseph Trapp - The Works of Virgil
New drama
Births
Deaths