1726 in literature

The year 1726 in literature involved some significant events and new books.

Events

• February - Lavinia Fenton makes her stage debut as Monimia in Thomas Otway's The Orphan at the Haymarket Theatre in London.
• April 5 - Publication in London of Lewis Theobald's Shakespeare Restored, or A Specimen of the Many Errors As Well Committed as Unamended by Mr Pope in his Late Edition of this Poet; Designed Not only to correct the said Edition, but to restore the True Reading of Shakespeare in all the Editions ever yet published.
• May 1 - Voltaire arrives for a 3 year stay in England.
• October 26 - Publication in London (anonymously in two volumes) of Jonathan Swift's satirical novel Gulliver's Travels as Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World. In Four Parts. By Lemuel Gulliver, First a Surgeon, and then a Captain of Several Ships; it sells out within a week.
• Teatro Valle opens in Rome.
• Françoise-Louise de Warens converts to Catholicism to receive a church pension and annuls her marriage.
• The Gujin Tushu Jicheng, an immense Chinese encyclopedia, is printed using copper-based movable type printing.

New books

• Anonymous - Gulliver Decyphered
• Corporate authorship - The Craftsman (periodical associated with Henry St. John)
• Penelope Aubin - The Life and Adventures of the Lady Lucy (novel)
• Jane Barker - The Lining of the Patch-Work Screen (sequel to 1723's A Patch-Work Screen)
• William Rufus Chetwood - The Voyages and Adventures of Captain Robert Boyle (fiction, sometimes attrib. Daniel Defoe)
• Eliza Haywood
  • The City Jilt
  • The Mercenary Lover
• Jonathan Swift
  • Gulliver's Travels
  • Cadenus and Vanessa
• Lewis Theobald - Shakespeare Restored

New drama

• Aaron Hill - The Fatal Extravagance
• Thomas Southerne - Money the Mistress
• Leonard Welsted - The Dissembling Wanton

Poetry

• Alexander Pope - The Odyssey of Homer
• Richard Savage - Miscellaneous Poems
• William Somervile - Occasional Poems
• Jonathan Swift (anonymously) - Cadenus and Vanessa (written 1713)
• James Thomson - Winter (part of The Four Seasons)

Non-fiction

• John Balguy - A letter to a Deist concerning the Beauty and Excellency of Moral Virtue, and the Support and Improvement which it receives from the Christian Religion
• Joseph Butler - Fifteen Sermons
• Anthony Collins - The Scheme of Literal Prophecy
• Daniel Defoe
  • The Political History of the Devil
  • A System of Magick
• John Dennis - The Stage Defended (reply to Law, below)
• William Law
  • The Absolute Unlawfulness of the Stage
  • A Practical Treatise upon Christian Perfection
• William Penn
  • Fruits of a Father's Love
  • A Collection of the Works of William Penn
  • (with William Pulteney) - The Discovery
• Joseph Spence - An Essay on Pope's Odyssey (concerning a translation of Homer's Odyssey by Alexander Pope)

Births

• April 7 - Charles Burney, music historian and father of Fanny Burney
• June 14 - Thomas Pennant, Welsh naturalist and writer (died 1798)
• September 25 - Angelo Maria Bandini, author and librarian (died 1800)
• date unknown
  • John H. D. Anderson, natural philosopher (died 1796)
  • John Howard, philanthropist and writer (died 1790)

Deaths

• March 26 - Sir John Vanbrugh, dramatist and architect (born 1664)
• April 5 - Ludwig Babenstuber, theologian and philosopher (born 1660)
• April 26 - Jeremy Collier, theologian and critic
• May 20 - Nicholas Brady, poet (born 1659)
• July 5 - Domenico Viva, theologian (born 1648)
• December 2 - Samuel Penhallow, historian (born 1665)
• December 11 - Jacques Bouillart, Benedictine historian (born 1669)
• date unknown
  • Charles Shadwell, dramatist
  • Humfrey Wanley, librarian and palaeographer (born 1672)
  • Daniel Whitby, theologian