1734 in literature

This article is a summary of the major literary events and publications of 1734.

Events

• November – George Faulkner begins publication of an edition of Jonathan Swift's Works in Dublin^[1] with a corrected text.
• Manoel da Assumpcam begins writing his grammar of the Bengali language.
• Copies of Voltaire's Lettres philosophiques sur les Anglais are burned, and a warrant is issued for the author's arrest.^[2]
• January – Le Cabinet du Philosophe, a new periodical by Pierre de Marivaux, is unsuccessfully launched; it is discontinued in April.^[3]
• Göttingen State and University Library established.

New books

Prose

• Robert Tatersal – The Bricklayer's Miscellany

Drama

• Henry Carey, as "Benjamin Bounce"
  • Chrononhotonthologos (satire on bombastic tragedy)
  • The Dragon of Wantley (burlesque)
• Henry Fielding
  • Don Quixote in England
  • The Intriguing Chambermaid
• Carlo Goldoni – Belisario
• James Miller – The Mother-in-Law (adapted from Molière's Le Malade imaginaire and Monsieur de Pourceaugnac)
• James Ralph – The Cornish Squire
• António José da Silva – Esopaida
• James Thomson – The Tragedy of Sophonisba

Poetry

• Jean Adam – Miscellany Poems
• Mary Barber – Poems
• Stephen Duck – Truth and Falsehood
• William Dunkin
  • The Lover's Web
  • The Poet's Prayer
  • Alexander Pope (anonymous) – An Essay on Man (complete with 4th epistle)
• See also 1734 in poetry
• Jonathan Swift – A Beautiful Young Nymph Going to Bed

Non-fiction

• Anonymous – A Rap at the Rhapsody (on Swift's 1733 On Poetry)
• Joseph Addison – A Discourse on Antient and Modern Learning (posthumous)
• John Arbuthnot – Gnothi Seauton: Know Yourself
• Francis Atterbury – Sermons
• George Berkeley – The Analyst
• Henry Brooke – Design and Beauty: an Epistle
• Isaac Hawkins Browne – On Design and Beauty
• Dimitrie Cantemir – History of the Growth and Decay of the Ottoman Empire (1734 is the date of the first publishing, as the book had been circulating in manuscript)
• Robert Dodsley – An Epistle to Mr. Pope
• John Jortin – Remarks on Spenser's Poems
• Lady Mary Wortley Montagu – The Dean's Provocation for Writing the Lady's Dressing-Room (on Swift's "The Lady's Dressing Room")
• Alexander Pope
  • Essay on Man
  • An Epistle to Lord Cobham ("Moral Epistle I")
  • The First Satire of the Second Book of Horace
  • Sober Advice from Horace
• Karl Ludwig von Pöllnitz – Mémoires
• Jonathan Richardson – Explanatory Notes on Milton's Paradise Lost
• George Sale – The Koran
• Emanuel Swedenborg
  • First Principles of Natural Things
  • Opera philosophica et mineralia
  • The Infinite and the Final Cause of Creation
• Joseph Trapp – Thoughts Upon the Four Last Things ("Death, Judgment, Heaven, Hell")
• Voltaire – Lettres anglaises

Births

• January 10 – Fleury Mesplet, French-born Canadian writer and newspaper publisher (died 1794
• July 25 – Ueda Akinari, Japanese poet and novelist (died 1809)
• October 23 – Nicolas-Edme Rétif, French novelist (died 1806)
• December 31 – Claude Joseph Dorat (Le Chevalier Dorat), French writer (died 1780)
• Unknown dates
  • Catharina Ahlgren, Swedish writer (died 1800)
  • Robert Aitken, Scottish-born American printer and publisher (died 1802)

Deaths

• January 6 – John Dennis, English dramatist and critic (born 1658)
• February 24 – Marie-Jeanne L'Héritier, French writer of fairy tales and salonnière (born 1664)
• March 1 – Roger North, English biographer and lawyer (born 1653)
• April 25 – Johann Conrad Dippel, German theologian (born 1673)
• May – Richard Cantillon, Irish-born French economist (born 1680)
• September 17 – Thomas Fuller, English man of letters and proverb collector (born 1654)
• October – Thomas Lloyd, Welsh lexicographer (born c. 1673)
• October 18 – James Moore Smythe, English dramatist and fop (born 1702)

References