1738 in literature

This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1738.

List of years in literature (table)
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Events

• April 11 – Robert Blair marries Isabella Law.
• July 10 – Richard Dawes is appointed Master of the Royal Grammar School, Newcastle.^[1]
• August – Laurence Sterne is ordained a priest, and in the autumn becomes vicar of Sutton-on-the-Forest, Yorkshire.
• August 8 – Jonathan Swift writes to Alexander Pope describing the deterioration in his mental condition; Swift will eventually be given into the care of a legal guardian.^[2]
• September 18 – Samuel Johnson composes his first solemn prayer (published 1785).

New books

Prose

• James Anderson – The Constitutions of the Free-Masons, 2nd ed.
• Jean-Baptiste de Boyer, Marquis d'Argens – Jewish Letters (published anonymously)^[3]
• John Banks – Miscellaneous Works in Verse and Prose
• Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten – De ordine in audiendis philosophicis per triennium academicum quaedam praefatus acroases proximae aestati destinatas indicit Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten
• Louis de Beaufort – Dissertation sur l'incertitude des cinq prèmiers siècles de l'histoire romaine
• Robert Dodsley – The Art of Preaching
• Marie Huber – Lettres sur la religion essentielle à l'homme (Letters Concerning the Religion Essential to Man)
• David Hume (anonymously) – A Treatise of Human Nature (dated 1739)
• Pierre Louis Maupertuis – Sur la figure de la terre
• Margareta Momma – Samtal emellan Argi Skugga och en obekant Fruentimbers Skugga (Conversation between the Shadow of Argus and the Unfamiliar Shadow of a Female)^[4]
• Francis Moore – Travels into the Inland Parts of Africa
• Abbé Prévost – Memoirs of a Man of Quality (anonymous English translation)
• Thomas Shaw – Travels in Barbary and the Levant
• Jonathan Swift
  • The Beasts Confession to the Priest
  • A Complete Collection of Genteel and Ingenious Conversation
• William Warburton
  • The Divine Legation of Moses Demonstrated
  • A Vindication of the author of the Divine Legation of Moses
• George Whitefield – A Journal of a Voyage from London to Savannah in Georgia
• Diego de Torres Villarroel
  • Anatomía de todo lo visible e invisible
  • Vida ejemplar de la venerable madre Gregoria Francisca de Santa Teresa

Drama

• Robert Dodsley – Sir John Cockle at Court
• Carlo Goldoni
  • Momolo Cortesan
  • L'uomo di mondo
• Sir Hildebrand Jacob
  • The Happy Constancy
  • The Prodigal Reformed
  • The Trial of Conjugal Love
• George Lillo – Marina (adapted from Shakespeare's Pericles, Prince of Tyre)
• Charles Marsh – Amasis, King of Egypt
• James Miller –
  • Art and Nature
  • The Coffee House
• Alexis Piron – La Metromanie
• António José da Silva – Precipicio de Faetonte
• James Thomson – Agamemnon

Poetry

Main article: 1738 in poetry

• Mark Akenside (anonymously) – A British Philippic
• Elizabeth Carter (anonymously) – Poems Upon Particular Occasions
• John Gay – Fables: Volume the Second
• Eugenio Gerardo Lobo – Obras poéticas líricas
• Samuel Johnson – London, A Poem, on the Third Satire of Juvenal
• Alexander Pope
  • The Sixth Epistle of the First Book of Horace Imitated
  • The First Epistle of the First Book of Horace Imitated
  • (with Jonathan Swift) An Imitation of the Sixth Satire of the Second Book of Horace
  • One Thousand Seven Hundred and Thirty Eight
  • The Universal Prayer
  • One Thousand Seven Hundred and Thirty Eight: Dialogue II
• James Thomson – The Works of Mr Thomson
• Diego de Torres Villarroel – Juguetes de Talia, entretenimiento del numen
• John Wesley – A Collection of Psalms and Hymns (first English edition)

Births

• February 9 (baptized) – Mary Whateley, English poet and playwright (died 1825)
• May 9 – John Wolcot, English satirist and poet (died 1819)
• May 12 – Jonathan Boucher, English philologist (died 1804)
• May 27 – Moritz August von Thümmel, German humorist and satirical author (died 1817)
• June 21 – Gottlieb Christoph Harless, German bibliographer (died 1815)
• July 24 – Betje Wolff, Dutch novelist (died 1804)
• November 15 – Joseph Johnson, English publisher (died 1809)
• December 4 – Karl Friedrich Kretschmann, German poet, playwright and storyteller (died 1809)^[5]
• unknown date – Manuel Lassala, Spanish dramatist and philosopher (died 1806)

Deaths

• January 6 – Jean-Baptiste Labat, French polymath (born 1663)^[6]
• March – Margrethe Lasson, Danish novelist (born 1659)
• April 25 – Giacomo Laderchi, Italian ecclesiastical historian (born c. 1678)
• June 5 – Isaac de Beausobre, French Protestant theologian (born 1659)
• July 8 – Jean-Pierre Nicéron, French lexicographer (born 1685)
• September 3 or 4 – George Lillo, English playwright (born 1691)^[7]
• September 23 – Herman Boerhaave, Dutch humanist writer (born 1668)
• November 10 – John Asgill, English pamphleteer (born 1659)

References

1. Eneas Mackenzie (1827). A Descriptive and Historical Account of the Town and County of Newcastle Upon Tyne: Including the Borough of Gateshead. Mackenzie and Dent. p. 419.
2. Jonathan Swift (1824). The Works of Jonathan Swift ... Archibald Constable and Company. p. 163.
3. Michael Sims (3 October 2011). Dracula's Guest: A Connoisseur's Collection of Victorian Vampire Stories. A&C Black. p. 19. ISBN 978-1-4088-2853-3.
4. Bernhard Wilhelm Lundstedt (1902). Sveriges periodiska litteratur: Bibliografi, enligt publicistklubbens uppdrag utarbetad af Bernhard Lundstedt ... (in Swedish). Iduns tryckeri. p. 626.
5. Deutsche Dichter und Prosaisten (in German). 1858. p. 197.
6. The British Cyclopaedia of the Arts, Sciences, History, Geography, Literature, Natural History, and Biography ... Wm. S. Orr and Company. 1838. p. 117.
7. George Lillo (1823). George Barnwell, a Tragedy. With Prefatory Remarks... Oxberry. p. 13.