1754 in literature
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This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1754.
Events
- January 28 â Horace Walpole, in a letter to Horace Mann, coins the word serendipity (from the Persian fairy tale The Three Princes of Serendip).
- March 2 â Riot at Smock Alley Theatre in Dublin. Thomas Sheridan, the manager, resigns, and leaves Ireland on September 15 for London[1] where his wife Frances Sheridan meets Samuel Richardson.
- Ãlie Catherine Fréron's journal Lettres sur quelques écrits de ce temps is replaced by his Année littéraire.
New books
Fiction
- Jane Collier and Sarah Fielding â The Cry: A New Dramatic Fable
- Mary Davys â The Reformed Coquet; or Memoirs of Amoranda
- Henry Fielding â The Life of Mr. Jonathan Wild the Great (enlarged and expanded from the Miscellanies of 1743)
- Solomon Gessner â Daphnis
- Sarah Scott:
- Agreeable Ugliness
- A Journey Through Every Stage of Life
- John Shebbeare â The Marriage Act
Poetry
- Thomas Cooke â An Ode on Poetry, Painting, and Sculpture
- John Duncombe â The Feminiad
- Henry Jones â The Relief
- William Whitehead â Poems
Non-fiction
- Anonymous â Critical Remarks on Sir Charles Grandison, Clarissa and Pamela
- Thomas Birch â Memoirs of the Reign of Queen Elizabeth
- Charles Bonnet â Essai de psychologie
- John Gilbert Cooper â Letters Concerning Taste
- John Douglas â Letter on the Criterion of Miracles
- John Gillies â Historical Collections Relating to Remarkable Period of the Success of the Gospel
- Zachary Grey â Critical, Historical, and Explanatory Notes on Shakespeare
- Benjamin Hoadly â Sixteen Sermons
- David Hume â The History of England (volume 1)
- William Law â The Second Part of the Spirit of Love
- Isaac Newton (died 1727) â An Historical Account of Two Notable Corruptions of Scripture (written 1690)
- Jean-Jacques Rousseau â Discourse on Inequality
- Henry St. John â Philosophical Works
- Jonathan Swift
- Brotherly Love
- The Works of Jonathan Swift (the Hawkesworth edition)
- William Warburton â A View of Lord Bolingbroke's Philosophy
- Thomas Warton â Observations on the Faerie Queene of Spenser
Drama
- Samuel Crisp â Virginia
- David Garrick â Catharine and Petruchio (adapted from The Taming of the Shrew)
- John Gay â The Rehearsal at Goatham
- Macnamara Morgan:
- Philoclea (from Sir Philip Sidney's Arcadia)
- The Sheep-Shearing, or Florizel and Perdita (a farce adapted from The Winter's Tale)
- Prosper Jolyot de Crébillon â Le Triumvirat
- William Whitehead â Creusa, Queen of Athens
Births
- March 24 â Joel Barlow, American poet and diplomat (died 1812)
- May 23 â William Drennan, Irish physician, poet, radical and educationalist (died 1820)
- July 11 â Thomas Bowdler, English editor (died 1825)
- August 2 â Lady Charlotte Murray, English writer and botanist (died 1808)
- October 13 â Frances Jacson, English novelist (died 1842)
- December 24 â George Crabbe, English poet (died 1832)[2]
- unknown date â John Caradja, Greek Prince of Wallachia, translator and theatrical promoter (died 1844)
Deaths
- January 11 â Wu Jingzi, Chinese scholar and novelist (born 1701)
- January 28 â Ludvig Holberg, Norwegian philosopher, historian and playwright (born 1684)[3]
- April 2 â Thomas Carte, English historian (born 1686)
- April 9 â Christian Wolff, German philosopher (born 1679)
- October 8 â Henry Fielding English novelist (born 1707)[4]
- November 12 â Robert Morris, English architect and writer on architecture (born 1703)