1718 in literature

This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1718.

Events

• November 1 – Lady Mary Wortley Montagu writes the last of her Turkish Letters, addressed to Alexander Pope.
• November 18 – Voltaire's first play, Oedipus, premières at the Comédie-Française in Paris. This is his first use of the pseudonym. He has been released from the Bastille this year, while Marguerite De Launay, Baronne Staal, begins a two-year sentence.
• The Free-Thinker, a Whig newspaper, is founded by poet Ambrose Philips and Rev. Hugh Boulter in London.^[1]
• Laurence Eusden becomes Poet Laureate of England.^[2]
• Ludvig Holberg becomes a professor at the University of Copenhagen.^[3]

New books

Prose

• Nicholas Amhurst – Protestant Popery; or, The Convocation (part of the Bangorian Controversy)
• Daniel Defoe (attr.) – A Vindication of the Press
• Charles Gildon – The Complete Art of Poetry
• Mary Hearne – The Lover's Week
• Simon Ockley – The History of the Saracens, volume 2
• Ambrose Philips – The Free-Thinker (periodical)
• Allan Ramsay -Christ's Kirk on the Green (revised version)
• John Ray – Philosophical Letters
• John Strype – The Life and Acts of John Witgift
• John Toland – Nazarenus, or Jewish, Gentile and Mahometan Christianity
• John Wilmot, 2nd Earl of Rochester – Remains of the Earl of Rochester

Drama

• Charles Beckingham – Scipio Africanus
• John Durant Breval – The Play is the Plot
• Christopher Bullock – The Traitor
• Susanna Centlivre – A Bold Stroke for a Wife
• Charles Molloy – The Coquet
• Richard Savage – Love in a Veil
• Elkanah Settle and Lewis Theobald – The Lady's Triumph
• Voltaire – Œdipe

Poetry

• Joseph Addison
  • Poems on Several Occasions
  • The Resurrection
• Richardson Pack – Miscellanies in Verse and Prose
• Alexander Pope – The Iliad of Homer iv

Births

• February 18
  • Søren Abildgaard, Danish naturalist, author and artist (died 1791)
  • Robert Henry, Scottish historian (died 1790)
• April 7 – Hugh Blair, Scottish rhetorician (died 1800)
• May 16 – Maria Gaetana Agnesi, Italian philosopher (died 1799)
• July 18 – Saverio Bettinelli, Italian Jesuit writer (died 1808)^[4]

Deaths

• April 27 – Jacques Bernard, French theologian (born 1658)
• May 16 – Jonas Danilssønn Ramus, Norwegian historian (born 1649)
• May 22 – Gaspard Abeille, French lyric and tragic poet (born 1648)
• July 28 – Étienne Baluze, French scholar (born 1630)^[5]
• October 9 – Richard Cumberland, English philosopher and bishop (born 1631)
• December 6 – Nicholas Rowe, English dramatist (born 1674)^[6]
• December 9 – Vincenzo Coronelli Italian encyclopedist (born 1674)^[7]

See also

• Bangorian Controversy
• 1718 in poetry