1750 in literature
Encyclopedia
The year 1750 in literature involved some significant events and new books.
Events
- Tobias SmollettTobias SmollettTobias George Smollett was a Scottish poet and author. He was best known for his picaresque novels, such as The Adventures of Roderick Random and The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle , which influenced later novelists such as Charles Dickens.-Life:Smollett was born at Dalquhurn, now part of Renton,...
travels in France, collecting material for The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle. - Weekly meetings for contributors to the EncyclopédieEncyclopédieEncyclopédie, ou dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers was a general encyclopedia published in France between 1751 and 1772, with later supplements, revised editions, and translations. It was edited by Denis Diderot and Jean le Rond d'Alembert...
begin, at the salon of Baron d'HolbachBaron d'HolbachPaul-Henri Thiry, Baron d'Holbach was a French-German author, philosopher, encyclopedist and a prominent figure in the French Enlightenment. He was born Paul Heinrich Dietrich in Edesheim, near Landau in the Rhenish Palatinate, but lived and worked mainly in Paris, where he kept a salon...
. - The Rambler is founded by Edward CaveEdward CaveEdward Cave was an English printer, editor and publisher. In The Gentleman's Magazine he created the first general-interest "magazine" in the modern sense....
; it lasts for 208 issues, and is mostly written by Samuel JohnsonSamuel JohnsonSamuel Johnson , often referred to as Dr. Johnson, was an English author who made lasting contributions to English literature as a poet, essayist, moralist, literary critic, biographer, editor and lexicographer...
. - Jean-Jacques RousseauJean-Jacques RousseauJean-Jacques Rousseau was a Genevan philosopher, writer, and composer of 18th-century Romanticism. His political philosophy influenced the French Revolution as well as the overall development of modern political, sociological and educational thought.His novel Émile: or, On Education is a treatise...
wins the prize of the Academy of Dijon for his Discourse on the Arts and SciencesDiscourse on the Arts and SciencesA Discourse on the Moral Effects of the Arts and Sciences , more commonly known as Discourse on the Sciences and Arts , is an essay by Genevan philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau which argued that the arts and sciences corrupt human morality...
. - Both the Jockey ClubJockey ClubThe Jockey Club is the largest commercial organisation in British horseracing. Although no longer responsible for the governance and regulation of the sport, it owns 14 of Britain's famous racecourses, including Aintree, Cheltenham and Newmarket, amongst other concerns such as the National Stud and...
and the Hambledon Cricket Club are founded. - The London theatres wage "the Romeo and JulietRomeo and JulietRomeo and Juliet is a tragedy written early in the career of playwright William Shakespeare about two young star-crossed lovers whose deaths ultimately unite their feuding families. It was among Shakespeare's most popular archetypal stories of young, teenage lovers.Romeo and Juliet belongs to a...
war" — competing productions with David GarrickDavid GarrickDavid Garrick was an English actor, playwright, theatre manager and producer who influenced nearly all aspects of theatrical practice throughout the 18th century and was a pupil and friend of Dr Samuel Johnson...
and Anne BellamyGeorge Anne BellamyGeorge Anne Bellamy was an English actress. She was born, by her own account, at Fingal, Ireland. "George Anne" was a name given by mistake for Georgiana, who was the illegitimate daughter of Lord Tyrawley and was educated by him. Choosing, however, to live with her mother, she made the...
at the Theatre Royal, Drury LaneTheatre Royal, Drury LaneThe Theatre Royal, Drury Lane is a West End theatre in Covent Garden, in the City of Westminster, a borough of London. The building faces Catherine Street and backs onto Drury Lane. The building standing today is the most recent in a line of four theatres at the same location dating back to 1663,...
versus Spranger BarrySpranger BarrySpranger Barry was an Irish actor.-Life:He was born in Skinner's Row, Dublin, the son of a silversmith, to whose business he was brought up...
and Susannah CibberSusannah Maria ArneSusannah Maria Cibber , also known as Susannah Maria Arne, was a celebrated English singer and actress and the sister of the composer Thomas Arne. Although she began her career as a soprano, her voice lowered in the early part of her career to that of a true contralto...
at the Royal Opera HouseRoyal Opera HouseThe Royal Opera House is an opera house and major performing arts venue in Covent Garden, central London. The large building is often referred to as simply "Covent Garden", after a previous use of the site of the opera house's original construction in 1732. It is the home of The Royal Opera, The...
in Covent GardenCovent GardenCovent Garden is a district in London on the eastern fringes of the West End, between St. Martin's Lane and Drury Lane. It is associated with the former fruit and vegetable market in the central square, now a popular shopping and tourist site, and the Royal Opera House, which is also known as...
.
New books
- Henry Brooke - A New Collection of Fairy Tales
- John ClelandJohn ClelandJohn Cleland was an English novelist most famous and infamous as the author of Fanny Hill: or, the Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure....
- Fanny HillFanny HillMemoirs of a Woman of Pleasure is an erotic novel by John Cleland first published in England in 1748...
(official and expurgated) - Sarah FieldingSarah FieldingSarah Fielding was a British author and sister of the novelist Henry Fielding. She was the author of The Governess, or The Little Female Academy , which was the first novel in English written especially for children , and had earlier achieved success with her novel The Adventures of David Simple...
(attr.) - The History of Charlotte Summers - Edward Kimber - The Life and Adventures of Joe Thompson
- Charlotte LennoxCharlotte LennoxCharlotte Lennox was an English author and poet. She is most famous now as the author of The Female Quixote and for her association with Samuel Johnson, Joshua Reynolds, and Samuel Richardson, but she had a long career and wrote poetry, prose, and drama.-Life:Charlotte Lennox was born in Gibraltar...
- The Life of Harriot Stuart - Robert PaltockRobert PaltockRobert Paltock was an English novelist and attorney. His most famous work is The Life and Adventures of Peter Wilkins, a Cornish Man .Paltock was admired by Walter Scott, Coleridge, and Charles Lamb....
- The Life and Adventures of Peter Wilkins - Sarah ScottSarah ScottSarah Scott was an English novelist, translator, and social reformer. Her father, Matthew Robinson, and her mother, Elizabeth Robinson, were both from distinguished families, and Sarah was one of nine children who survived to adulthood...
- The History of Cornelia
New drama
- Carlo GoldoniCarlo GoldoniCarlo Osvaldo Goldoni was an Italian playwright and librettist from the Republic of Venice. His works include some of Italy's most famous and best-loved plays. Audiences have admired the plays of Goldoni for their ingenious mix of wit and honesty...
- La Bottega di Caffe - William ShirleyWilliam ShirleyWilliam Shirley was a British colonial administrator who served twice as Governor of the Province of Massachusetts Bay and as Governor of the Bahamas in the 1760s...
- Edward the Black Prince - VoltaireVoltaireFrançois-Marie Arouet , better known by the pen name Voltaire , was a French Enlightenment writer, historian and philosopher famous for his wit and for his advocacy of civil liberties, including freedom of religion, free trade and separation of church and state...
- Oreste - William WhiteheadWilliam Whitehead__FORCETOC__William Whitehead was an English poet and playwright. He became Poet Laureate in 1757 after Thomas Gray declined the position.-Life:...
- The Roman Father
Poetry
- William CollinsWilliam Collins (poet)William Collins was an English poet. Second in influence only to Thomas Gray, he was an important poet of the middle decades of the 18th century...
- The Passions - Thomas CookeThomas Cooke (author)Thomas Cooke , often called "Hesiod" Cooke, was a very active English translator and author who ran afoul of Alexander Pope and was mentioned as one of the "dunces" in Pope's Dunciad. His father was an inn keeper, and Cooke arrived in London in 1722 and began working as a writer for the Whig causes...
- An Ode on Martial Virtue - Robert DodsleyRobert DodsleyRobert Dodsley was an English bookseller and miscellaneous writer.-Life:He was born near Mansfield, Nottinghamshire, where his father was master of the free school....
- The Oeconomy of Human Life - Mary JonesMary Jones (poet)Mary Jones was an English poet.She was born in Oxford, where her father, Oliver, was a cooper. Her elder brother, named Oliver like his father, became precentor and senior chaplain of Christ Church, Oxford....
- Miscellanies - Thomas WartonThomas WartonThomas Warton was an English literary historian, critic, and poet. From 1785 to 1790 he was the Poet Laureate of England...
- The Triumph of Isis - Edward YoungEdward YoungEdward Young was an English poet, best remembered for Night Thoughts.-Early life:He was the son of Edward Young, later Dean of Salisbury, and was born at his father's rectory at Upham, near Winchester, where he was baptized on 3 July 1683. He was educated at Winchester College, and matriculated...
- The Complaint (aka Night Thoughts)
Non-fiction
- William BlackstoneWilliam BlackstoneSir William Blackstone KC SL was an English jurist, judge and Tory politician of the eighteenth century. He is most noted for writing the Commentaries on the Laws of England. Born into a middle class family in London, Blackstone was educated at Charterhouse School before matriculating at Pembroke...
- An Essay on Collateral Consanguinity - John CampbellJohn Campbell (author)John Campbell was a Scottish author. He contributed to George Sale's Universal History, and wrote a Political Survey of Britain...
- The Present State of Europe - Zachary Grey - A Free and Familiar Letter to William Warburton
- Eliza HaywoodEliza HaywoodEliza Haywood , born Elizabeth Fowler, was an English writer, actress and publisher. Since the 1980s, Eliza Haywood’s literary works have been gaining in recognition and interest...
- A Present for Women Addicted to Drinking (on the Gin crisis) - Francis HutchesonFrancis Hutcheson (philosopher)Francis Hutcheson was a philosopher born in Ireland to a family of Scottish Presbyterians who became one of the founding fathers of the Scottish Enlightenment....
- Reflections Upon Laughter (philosophy of humor) - Laurence SterneLaurence SterneLaurence Sterne was an Irish novelist and an Anglican clergyman. He is best known for his novels The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman, and A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy; but he also published many sermons, wrote memoirs, and was involved in local politics...
- The Abuses of Conscience
Births
- January 7 - Robert AndersonRobert Anderson (author)Robert Anderson was a Scottish author and critic.He was born at Carnwath, Lanarkshire. He studied first divinity and then medicine at the University of Edinburgh, and subsequently, after some experience as a surgeon, took his M.D. at the University of St Andrews in 1778...
(died 1803) - September 5 - Robert FergussonRobert FergussonRobert Fergusson was a Scottish poet. After formal education at the University of St Andrews, Fergusson followed an essentially bohemian life course in Edinburgh, the city of his birth, then at the height of intellectual and cultural ferment as part of the Scottish enlightenment...
(died 1774)
Deaths
- February 8 - Aaron Hill, dramatist (born 1685)
- June 15 - Marguerite De Launay, Baronne StaalMarguerite De Launay, Baronne StaalMarguerite Jeanne Cordier de Launay, baronne de Staal was a French author.-Life:De Launay was born in Paris. Her father was a painter named Cordier. He seems to have deserted her mother, who then resumed her maiden name, de Launay, which was also adopted by her daughter...
, French writer (born 1684) - November 11 - Apostolo ZenoApostolo ZenoApostolo Zeno was a Venetian poet, librettist, journalist, and man of letters.-Early life:Apostolo Zeno was born of Cretan Greek descent in Venice in 1669...
, poet and journalist (born 1668) - November 18 - Susanna HighmoreSusanna HighmoreSusanna Highmore was a British poet with a relatively small literary output. She was wife to Joseph Highmore, whom she married on 28 May 1716. Joseph Highmore was a portrait painter in high demand, and the couple lived in London and associated with Isaac Watts, William Duncombe, and Samuel...
, poet (born 1690)