1715 in literature

The year 1715 in literature involved some significant literary events and new works.

Events

• ?August - Nicholas Rowe becomes Poet Laureate of Great Britain.
• First record of the actress and writer Eliza Haywood, performing in Thomas Shadwell's Shakespeare adaptation, Timon of Athens; or, The Man-Hater at the Smock Alley Theatre, Dublin.^[1]

New books

• Joseph Addison - The Free-Holder (periodical)
• Jane Barker - Exilius; or, The Banished Roman
• Richard Bentley - A Sermon upon Popery
• Charles Cotton - The Genuine Works of Charles Cotton
• Samuel Croxall - The Vision
• Daniel Defoe
  • An Appeal to Honour and Justice
  • The Family Instructor
  • A Hymn to the Mob
• Elizabeth Elstob - The Rudiments of Grammar for the English-Saxon Tongue, first given in English; with an apology for the study of northern antiquities, the first grammar of Old English
• Alain-René Lesage (anonymous) - L'Histoire de Gil Blas de Santillane (Books 1–6)
• Charles Montagu - The Works and Life of the Late Earl of Halifax
• Alexander Pope
  • The Temple of Fame (based on Chaucer)
  • The Iliad of Homer vol. i.
• Jonathan Richardson - An Essay on the Theory of Painting
• "Captain" Alexander Smith - The Secret History of the Lives of the Most Celebrated Beauties, Ladies of Quality, and Jilts
• Richard Steele
  • The Englishman: Second Series (periodical)
  • Town-Talk (periodical)
• William Symson (pseudonymous) - A New Voyage to the East Indies
• Thomas Tickell - The First Book of Homer's Iliad
• Isaac Watts
  • Divine Songs
  • A Guide to Prayer

New drama

• Christopher Bullock
  • The Slip
  • A Woman's Revenge (adapted from Aphra Behn)
• Henry Carey - The Contrivances
• Susanna Centlivre - The Gotham Election (unacted because of political content)
• Chikamatsu Monzaemon - The Battles of Coxinga (国姓爺合戦, Kokusen'ya Kassen)
• Charles Rivière Dufresny - La Coquette de village
• John Gay, Alexander Pope, and John Arbuthnot - What d'ye call it?
• Benjamin Griffin
  • Injured Virtue; or, The Virgin Martyr
  • Love in a Sack
• Charles Molloy - The Perplex'd Couple
• Nicholas Rowe -The Tragedy of Lady Jane Grey
• Lewis Theobald - The Perfidious Brother (plagiarized)
• John Vanbrugh - The Country House

Births

• January 14 (baptised) – Frances Vane, Viscountess Vane (Lady Fanny), English memoirist (died 1788)
• January 26 or February 26 – Claude Adrien Helvétius, French philosophical writer (died 1771)
• September 30 – Étienne Bonnot de Condillac, French philosophical writer (died 1780)
• October 1 – Richard Jago, English poet (died 1781)
• Probable year of birth – John Hawkesworth, English writer and editor (died 1773)^[2]

Deaths

• February 25 – Pu Songling, Qing Dynasty Chinese writer (born 1640)
• March 8 – William Dampier, English explorer and writer (born 1651)
• March 17 – Gilbert Burnet, Scottish theologian and historian (born 1643)
• July 30 – Nahum Tate, Irish poet and hymnist (born (born 1652)
• Unknown date – Mary Monck, Irish poet (date of birth unknown)

References