1724 in literature

The year 1724 in literature involved some significant literary events and new works.

Events

• January - Andrew Michael Ramsay goes to Rome to tutor the two sons of James Francis Edward Stuart, pretender to the British throne.^[1]
• August - Thomas Longman establishes the Longman publishing house in London.

New books

• Anonymous - A Narrative of All the Robberies, Escapes, &c. of John Sheppard (attrib. Daniel Defoe)
• Gilbert Burnet - Bishop Burnet's History of His Own Time vol i
• Samuel Clarke - Sermons of Samuel Clarke
• Anthony Collins - Discourse of the Grounds and Reasons of the Christian Religion, with An Apology for Free Debate and Liberty of Writing
• Mary Davys - The Reform'd Coquet (fiction)
• Daniel Defoe
  • Roxana: The Fortunate Mistress
  • A New Voyage Round the World
  • A Tour Thro' the Whole Island of Great Britain
• John Dennis - Vice and Luxury Publick Mischiefs (on Mandeville)
• Richard Fiddes - A General Treatise of Morality (on Mandeville)
  • - The Life of Cardinal Wolsey
• Eliza Haywood
  • La Belle Assemblé
  • The Fatal Secret (fiction)
  • Lasselia
  • The Masqueraders
• Thomas Hearne - Robert of Gloucester's Chronicle
• Edward Hyde, 1st Earl of Clarendon - An Appendix to the History of the Grand Rebellion
• Captain Charles Johnson - A General History of the Pyrates
• William Law - Remarks Upon a Late Book (against Mandeville)
• John Oldmixon - The Critical History of England, Ecclesiastical and Civil
• Paul de Rapin - L'Histoire d'Angleterre
• Richard Stukeley - Itinerarium Curiosum
• Jonathan Swift
  • A Letter to the Shop-keepers... of Ireland (as "M.B. Drapier")
  • A Letter to Mr. Harding the Printer (as Drapier)
  • Some Observations Upon a Paper Relating to Wood's Half-pence (as Drapier)
  • A Letter to the Whole People of Ireland (Drapier)
  • A Letter to the Right Honourable the Lord Viscount Molesworth (last of the Drapier letters)
  • Seasonable Advice
• Voltaire - La Henriade

New drama

• Colley Cibber - Caesar in Aegypt
• John Gay - The Captives
• Eliza Haywood - A Wife to be Lett
• Ludvig Holberg - Henrich og Pernille ("Henrik and Pernille")
• William Philips - Belisarius
• John Rich (producer) - The Necromancer; or, History of Dr. Faustus
• Richard Savage - The Tragedy of Sir Thomas Overbury

Poetry

• Matthew Concanen - Miscellaneous Poems
• Eliza Haywood - Poems on Several Occasions
• Allan Ramsay
  • The Ever Green: Being a collection of Scots Poems
  • Health
• See also 1724 in poetry
• Elizabeth Tollet - Poems on Several Occasions
• Leonard Welsted - Epistles, Odes, &c.

Births

• January 12 – Frances Brooke, English novelist and dramatist (died 1789)
• April 22 – Immanuel Kant German philosopher (died 1804)
• June 4 – William Gilpin, English writer, painter and originator of "picturesque" (died 1804)
• July 2 – Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock, German poet (died 1803)
• October 31 – Christopher Anstey, English writer and poet (died 1805)
• December 13 – Franz Aepinus, German natural philosopher (died 1802)
• Unknown date – Frances Sheridan, Irish novelist and dramatist (died 1766)

Deaths

• January 1 – Charles Gildon, English critic and dramatist (born c. 1665)
• February 5 – Mary Cowper, English diarist (born 1685)
• February 12 – Elkanah Settle, English poet and dramatist (born 1648)
• July 11 – Delarivier Manley, writer, playwright and pamphleteer (born c. 1663)
• October 6 – Charles Rivière Dufresny, French dramatist (born 1648)
• October 29 – William Wollaston, English philosophical writer (born 1659)
• November 29 – Laurence Braddon, English writer and politician (year of birth not known)

References