1774 in literature

List of years in literature (table)
... 1764 ^. 1765 ^. 1766 ^. 1767 ^. 1768 ^. 1769 ^. 1770 ... 1771 1772 1773 -1774- 1775 1776 1777 ... 1778 ^. 1779 ^. 1780 ^. 1781 ^. 1782 ^. 1783 ^. 1784 ... In poetry: 1771 1772 1773 -1774- 1775 1776 1777

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The year 1774 in literature involved some significant literary events and new works.

Events

February 22 - The English legal case of Donaldson v Beckett is decided in the House of Lords, denying the continued existence of a perpetual common law copyright and holding that copyright is a creation of statute and can be limited in its duration.^[1] This permits authors to claim copyright in their own works.
September 29 - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's semi-autobiographical epistolary novel The Sorrows of Young Werther (Die Leiden des jungen Werthers) (written January–March) is published anonymously in Leipzig, Germany; it is influential in the Sturm und Drang movement and Romanticism.
Following destruction of the Schloss Weimar by fire, Karl August, Grand Duke of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach, forms a commission for its reconstruction directed by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.^[2]
James Lackington begins in the London bookselling business.
Johann Gottlob Theaenus Schneider becomes secretary to Richard François Philippe Brunck.

Jeremy Bentham - The White Bull
Henry Brooke - Juliet Grenville
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe - The Sorrows of Young Werther
Charles Johnstone - The History of Arsaces
The Newgate Calendar
Christoph Martin Wieland - Die Abderiten, eine sehr wahrscheinliche Geschichte ("The Abderites: A very probable history")

James Beattie - The Minstrel, volume 2
William Dunkin - Poetical Works
Oliver Goldsmith - Retaliation
Richard Graves - The Progress of Gallantry
William Mason - An Heroic Postscript to the Public
Hannah More - The Inflexible Captive
Samuel Jackson Pratt (as "Courtney Melmoth") - The Tears of A Genius, occasioned by the Death of Dr Goldsmith
Henry James Pye - Farringdon Hill
Mary Scott - The Female Advocate
William Whitehead - Plays and Poems, by William Whitehead, Esq. Poet Laureat
Cándido María Trigueros - El poeta filósofo o Poesías filosóficas en verso pentámetro

Giacomo Casanova – Istoria delle turbolenze della Polonia
Joseph Cradock - Village Memoirs
Martin Gerbert – De cantu et musica sacra
Oliver Goldsmith
- The Grecian History
- An History of the Earth and Animated Nature
Henry Home - Sketches of the History of Man
Thomas Jefferson - A Summary View of the Rights of British America
Samuel Johnson - The Patriot
Antoine-Simon Le Page du Pratz - The History of Louisiana, or of the Western Parts of Virginia and Carolina; an English translation, in one volume, of Histoire de la Louisiane, published in 1758
Joseph Priestley - Experiments and Observations on Different Kinds of Air
William Richardson - A Philosophical Analysis and Illustration of Some of Shakespeare's Remarkable Characters
Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield - Letters to his Son
Sugita Genpaku - Kaitai Shinsho ("New Text on Anatomy")
Horace Walpole - A Description of Strawberry-Hill
Thomas Warton - The History of English Poetry
John Wesley - Thoughts upon Slavery
Pedro Rodríguez, Conde de Campomanes - Discurso sobre el fomento de la industria popular

January 1 – Pietro Giordani, Italian translator, scholar and writer (died 1848)
February 24 – Archibald Constable, Scottish publisher (died 1827)
July 14 – Francis Lathom, Dutch-born English Gothic novelist and dramatist (died 1832)
August 12 – Robert Southey, English poet and Poet Laureate (died 1843)

↑ 2 Brown's Parl. Cases 129, 1 Eng. Rep. 837; 4 Burr. 2408, 98 Eng. Rep. 257; 17 Cobbett's Parl. Hist. 953 (1813).
↑ "Das Stadtschloss Weimar / The Palace at Weimar" (PDF). Klassik Stiftung Weimar. 2010. Retrieved 2014-06-09.
↑ BBC Two: Writing Scotland