1723 in literature

This article presents lists of the literary events and publications in 1723.

Events

• Voltaire contracts smallpox.
• The book collection of Samuel Pepys (died 1703), including his Diary, is transferred to the Pepys Library at his alma mater, Magdalene College, Cambridge, in accordance with his will.

New books

• Penelope Aubin - The Life of Charlotta Du Pont, an English lady; taken from her own memoirs
• Jane Barker - A Patch-Work Screen for the Ladies (fiction)
• Arthur Blackamore - Luck at Last; or, The happy unfortunate
• Eliza Haywood - Idalia
• Anton Josef Kirchweger - Aurea Catena Homeri
• Margrethe Lasson - Den beklædte Sandhed (first novel in Danish)
• John Sheffield, Duke of Buckingham (died 1721) - The Works of John Sheffield, Earl of Mulgrave, Marquis of Normanby, and Duke of Buckingham

New drama

• Susanna Centlivre - The Artifice
• Elijah Fenton - Marianne
• Eliza Haywood - A Wife to be Let
• Ludvig Holberg - Erasmus Montanus
• Charles Johnson - Love in a Forest (adapted from As You Like It)
• Pierre de Marivaux - La Double Inconstance
• Ambrose Philips - Humfrey, Duke of Gloucester: a tragedy
• Richard Steele - The Conscious Lovers

Poetry

• Elegy on the deplorable Death of Elizabeth Murray Sister to Sir William Murray of Newtoun barb'rously murdered by her Husband Thomas Kincaid younger of Gogar-Mains, March 29th 1723 (anonymous broadsheet)
• Sir Richard Blackmore - Alfred: an epick poem
• David Mallet - William and Margaret
• William Meston - Knight of the Kirk
• Ambrose Philips - Ode on the Death of William, Earl of Cowper
• Matthew Prior
  • Down-Hall
  • The Turtle and the Sparrow
• Allan Ramsay - The Tea-Table Miscellany, i
• Ned Ward - Nuptial Dialogues and Debates, 3rd ed.

Non-fiction

• James Anderson - The Constitutions of the Free-Masons
• Henry Baker - An Invocation of Health: a poem
• Bernard de Mandeville - A Search into the Nature of Society
• Thomas Dempster (posthumous) - De Etruria regali libri VII (printed in sans-serif)
• Thomas Gordon and John Trenchard - Cato's Letters (essays)

Births

• January 21 (or June 21) – Baron d'Holbach, German-born French philosopher and encyclopedist (died 1789)
• February 23 – Richard Price, Welsh-born philosopher (died 1791)
• February 24 – John Burgoyne, English soldier and dramatist (died 1792)
• June 20 – Adam Ferguson, Scottish philosopher and historian (died 1816)
• July 11 – Jean-François Marmontel, French novelist and dramatist (died 1799)
• July 17 – Adam Smith - Scottish economist (died 1790)
• September 30 – William Hutton, English local historian and poet (died 1815)
• November 8 – John Byron, English vice-admiral and memoirist (died 1786)
• November 30 – William Livingston, American political writer and politician (died 1790)
• December 26 – Friedrich Melchior, Baron von Grimm, German-born French philosopher and encyclopedist (died 1807)

Deaths

Memorial to Thomas d'Urfey at St James's Church, Piccadilly

• February 26 – Thomas d'Urfey, English dramatist (born 1653)
• March 13 – René Auguste Constantin de Renneville, French Protestant poet and historian (born 1650)
• March 15 – Johann Christian Günther, German poet (born 1695)
• May 11 – Jean Galbert de Campistron, French dramatist (born 1656)
• June 8 – Isaac Chayyim Cantarini, Italian poet, physician and preacher (born 1644)
• July 28 – Mariana Alcoforado, Portuguese nun (born 1640)
• August 21 – Dimitrie Cantemir, Romanian author (born 1673)
• September 23 – Jacques Basnage, French Protestant poet, linguist and preacher (born 1653)
• December 1 – Susanna Centlivre (Susanna Carroll), English dramatist (born c. 1667–70)
• December 17 – John Trenchard, English politician and writer (born 1662)