1731 in literature

This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1731.

Events

• January 1 – The Gentleman's Magazine: or, Trader's monthly intelligencer is launched by Edward Cave in London.
• July – Alexander Pope completes the original writing of his poem An Essay on Man with the first two "Epistles: Of the Nature and State of Man, with Respect to" (1) "The Universe" and (2) "Himself as an Individual". The third and fourth will ensue in 1733 and 1734.^[1]
• July 1 – Benjamin Franklin and fellow subscribers start the Library Company of Philadelphia.
• August 20 – The Hollandsche Spectator is launched by Justus van Effen in Amsterdam.
• Chronicon Æthelweardi is badly damaged; but the unique manuscript of Beowulf is damaged but saved.^[2][3]
• December 11 – Bishop Thomas Tanner's valuable collection of books, on its way from Norwich to his new home at Oxford by barge, is damaged when the barge sinks at Wallingford.^[4]
• unknown dates
  • The life and
    Jesuits.^[5]
  • The Jesuit father Joseph Henri Marie de Prémare translates a 13th-century Chinese work, The Orphan of Zhao, into French as L'Orphelin de la Maison de Tchao. This makes it the first Chinese play to be translated into any European language.^[6]

New books

Prose

• Thomas Bayes – Divine Benevolence
• Samuel Boyse – Translations and Poems Written on Several Subjects
• Ralph Cudworth (died 1688) – A Treatise Concerning Eternal and Immutable Morality
• Robert Dodsley
  • An Epistle from a Footman in London to the Celebrated Stephen Duck
  • A Sketch of the Miseries of Poverty
• Aaron Hill – Advice to the Poets
• Marie Huber – Le Monde fou préféré au monde sage, en vingt-quatre promenades de trois amis, Criton philosophe, Philon avocat, Eraste négociant (The world unmask'd: or, The philosopher the greatest cheat; in twenty-four dialogues between Crito a philosopher, Philo a lawyer, and Erastus, a merchant)
• Madame de La Fayette – Memoires de la Cour de France
• William Law – The Case of Reason
• Pierre de Marivaux – La Vie de Marianne (The Life of Marianne), part one
• William Oldys – A Dissertation Upon Pamphlets
• Arabella Plantin – Love Led Astray (Or, the Mutual Inconstancy)
• Alexander Pope – An Epistle to the Right Honourable Richard Earl of Burlington (also Epistle to Burlington, and to contemporaries as Of False Taste)
• Abbé Prévost
  • Manon Lescaut
  • Le Philosophe anglais, ou Histoire de Monsieur Cleveland, fils naturel de Cromwell (The Life and Entertaining Adventures of Mr. Cleveland, Natural Son of Oliver Cromwell)
• Elizabeth Singer Rowe – Letters Moral and Entertaining
• Jean Terrasson – Life of Sethos
• Jethro Tull – The New Horse-Houghing Husbandry, or, An essay on the principles of tillage and vegetation wherein is shewn, a method of introducing a sort of vineyard-culture into the corn-fields, to increase their product, and diminish the common expence, by the use of instruments lately invented by Jethro Tull
• Diego de Torres Villarroel – Barca de Aqueronte

Drama

• Matthew Concanen, Edward Roome, & Sir William Yonge – The Jovial Crew (opera, adapted from Richard Brome's A Jovial Crew)
• Theophilus Cibber – The Lover
• Charles Coffey & John Mottley – The Devil to Pay (musical adaptation of the play by Thomas Jevon)
• Thomas Cooke – The Triumphs of Love and Honour
• Henry Fielding
  • The Tragedy of Tragedies; or, The Life and Death of Tom Thumb
  • The Letter-Writers
• Philip Frowde – Philotas
• Athelwold
• George Jeffreys – Merope
• George Lillo – The London Merchant
• David Mallet – Eurydice
• James Ralph – The Fall of the Earl of Essex
• Lewis Theobald – Orestes
• John Tracy – Periander

Poetry

• Nicholas Amhurst (as Caleb D'Anvers) – A Collection of Poems
• Jeremy Jingle (pseudonym) – Spiritual Fornication. A burlesque poem. Wherein the case of Miss Cadiere and Father Girard are merrily display'd
• Joseph Trapp – The Works of Virgil

Births

• February 4 – Mary Deverell, English religious writer, essayist and poet (died 1805)
• March 28 – Ramón de la Cruz, Spanish dramatist (died 1794)
• November 25 – Gustaf Fredrik Gyllenborg, Swedish writer (died 1808)
• November 26 – William Cowper, English poet and cleric (died 1800)
• December 12 – Erasmus Darwin, English naturalist, natural philosopher and poet (died 1802)^[7]

Deaths

• Frances Norton, Lady Norton, English poet and religious writer (born c. 1644)^[8]
• c. April 24 – Daniel Defoe, English novelist and travel writer (born c. 1660)
• May 11 – Mary Astell, English protofeminist writer (born 1666)
• June 20 – Ned Ward (Edward Ward), English satirist and publican (born 1667)
• December 26 – Antoine Houdar de la Motte, French dramatist (born 1672)
• unknown date – Mohammed ibn Zakri al-Fasi, Moroccan poet, mystic and theologian (year of birth unknown)

References