1743 in literature

This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1743.

Events

• March – Robert Dodsley advertises in the London Evening Post his plans to publish rare 16th and 17th-century plays so as to avoid them being lost.^[1]
• July 5 – A benefit performance for the elderly acting couple Henry and Elizabeth Wetherilt is held at Smock Alley Theatre in Dublin.^[2]
• August – Shortly after the death of Richard Savage, Samuel Johnson announces his intention to publish a biography of Savage.^[3]
• unknown dates
  • Johann Elias Schlegel becomes secretary to an ambassador at the Danish court.^[4]
  • A legal deposit law requires a copy of every book printed in the Grand Duchy of Tuscany to be deposited in the Magliabechiana library in Florence.^[5]

New books

Fiction

• Comte de Caylus – les Contes orientaux
• William Rufus Chetwood – The Twins (prose fiction)
• Henry Fielding – The Life of Jonathan Wild the Great in Miscellanies, with A Journey from This World to the Next
• Eliza Haywood – Memoirs of an Unfortunate Young Nobleman^[6]
• Aaron Hill – The Fanciad
• Marguerite de Lubert – La Princesse Camion (Princess Camion)
• Benjamin Martin – A Course of Lectures in Natural and Experimental Philosophy, Geography, and Astronomy^[7]
• Diego de Torres Villarroel – Vida

Drama

• Thomas Cooke – Love the Cause and Cure of Grief
• Charles Simon Favart – Le Coq du village^[8]
• Henry Fielding – The Wedding-Day
• John Gay – The Distress'd Wife
• Voltaire – Mérope^[9]
• William Shakespeare (ed. Thomas Hanmer) – The Works of Shakespear

Poetry

Main article: 1743 in poetry

• Robert Blair – The Grave^[10]
• Samuel Boyse – Albion's Triumph
• James Bramston (attributed) – The Crooked Six-pence
• William Collins – Verses Humbly Address'd to Sir Thomas Hanmer (related to Hanmer's edition of The Works of Shakespear)
• Philip Francis – The Odes, Epodes, and Carmen Seculare of Horace
• David Mallet – Poems on Several Occasions
• Alexander Pope – The New Dunciad (revised version)

Non-fiction

• Henry Baker – The Microscope Made Easy
• Henry St. John, 1st Viscount Bolingbroke – Remarks on the History of England (from The Craftsman)
• John Brown – Honour
• Colley Cibber
  • The Egotist; or, Colley Upon Cibber (many deprecations on Alexander Pope)
  • A Second Letter from Mr. Cibber to Mr. Pope
• Thomas Cooke – An Epistle to the Countess of Shaftesbury
• Manuel da Assumpção – Vocabolario em idioma Bengalla, e Portuguez (Vocabulary of the Bengali Language and Portuguese)
• Philip Doddridge – The Principles of the Christian Religion
• Enrique Flórez – Clave historial con que se abre la puerta a la historia eclesiástica y política (Clavis Historiae)
• Eliza Haywood – A Present for a Servant-Maid (conduct book for female servants, in the light of Richardson's Pamela)
• Richard Pococke – A Description of the East & Some Other Countries^[11]
• William Stukeley – Abury: A temple of the British Druids
• Diego de Torres Villarroel – Vida, ascendencia, nacimiento, crianza y aventuras del Doctor Don Diego de Torres Villarroel^[12]
• William Whitehead – An Essay on Ridicule^[13]

Births

• January 25 – Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi, German philosopher (died 1819)
• February 14 – Jane Bowdler, English poet and essayist (died 1784)
• March 4 – Johann David Wyss, Swiss novelist writing in German (died 1818)
• March 14 – Hannah Cowley, English dramatist and poet (died 1809)
• April 13 – Thomas Jefferson, American revolutionary and president (died 1826
• June 20 – Anna Laetitia Barbauld, English poet (died 1825)
• July 14 – Gavrila Romanovich Derzhavin, Russian lyric poet (died 1816)
• July 30 – Philip Yorke, Welsh antiquary and genealogist (died 1804)
• August 17 – Julien Louis Geoffroy, French critic (died 1814)^[14]

Deaths

• April 4
  • Robert Ainsworth, English lexicographer (born 1660)
  • Daniel Neal, English historian (born 1678)^[15]
• April 29 – Charles-Irénée Castel de Saint-Pierre, French writer and thinker (born 1658)
• May 6 – Andrew Michael Ramsay, Scottish biographer (born 1686)^[16]
• August 1 – Richard Savage, English poet (born c. 1697)^[3]
• October 5 – Henry Carey, English poet, songwriter and dramatist, suicide (born 1687)
• October 15 – John Ozell, English translator (year of birth not known)^[17]
• December 22 – James Bramston, English satirical poet (born c. 1694)