1699 in literature explained

This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1699.

Events

• January 27 – Jonathan Swift is out of work after his employer, Sir William Temple, dies, leaving Swift £100.^[1]
• May 4 – The beginning of the fictional Gulliver's Travels (1726).
• June 1 – Joseph Addison receives a grant or pension from the Crown, enabling him to travel abroad.^[2]

New books

Prose

• Richard Bentley – A Dissertation upon the Epistles of Phalaris (prev. pub. in William Wotton's Reflections upon Ancient and Modern Learning)
• Samuel Clarke
  • Some Reflections on that part of a book called Amyntor, or a Defence of Milton's Life, which relates to the Writings of the Primitive Fathers, and the Canon of the New Testament
  • Three Practical Essays on Baptism, Confirmation and Repentance
• Jeremy Collier – A Defence of the Short View of the Profaneness and Immorality of the English Stage (see 1698 in literature)
• Anne Dacier (Anne Lefèvre) – Homer's Iliad (prose, first translation into French)
• William Dampier – Voyages and Descriptions (vol. ii)
• John Dunton – The Dublin Scuffle
• George Farquhar – The Adventures of Covent-Garden
• François Fénelon (anonymously) – Les Aventures de Télémaque ("The Adventures of Telemachus")
• Samuel Garth – The Dispensary (satire by one of Pope's mentors)
• John Hughes – The Court of Neptune
• George Keith – The Deism of William Penn, and his Brethren
• William King
  • Dialogues of the Dead (in support of Charles Boyle)
  • The Furmetary
  • A Journey to London
• Gerard Langbaine – The Lives and Characters of the English Dramatick Poets (cont. by Charles Gildon)
• Roger L'Estrange – Fables and Storyes Moralized
• John Locke – Mr Locke's Reply to the Right Revered the Lord Bishop of Worcester's Answer to his Second Letter (see 1697 in literature)
• Cornelius Nary – The Chief Points in Controversy between the Catholics and the Protestants
• Frances Norton – Reliquae Gethinianae
• John Oldmixon – Reflections on the Stage, and Mr Collier's Defence of the Short View
• Nicolas Steno (Niels Stenson) – De solido intra solidum naturaliter contento dissertationis prodromus (Preliminary Discourse to a Dissertation on a Solid Body Naturally Contained within a Solid)
• William Temple – Letters Written by Sir William Temple During his Being Ambassador at The Hague (edited initially by Jonathan Swift)
• John Toland
  • The Life of John Milton
  • Amyntor; or, A Defence of Milton's Life
• Thomas Traherne – A Serious and Pathetical Contemplation of the Mercies of God
• William Wake – The Principles of the Christian Religion Explained
• Ned Ward – A Trip to New-England
• James Wright – Historia Histrionica

Poetry

• Thomas Brown – A Collection of Miscellany Poems, Letters, etc.
• Thomas D'Urfey – A Choice Collection of New Songs and Ballads
• John Pomfret – The Choice
• Nahum Tate – Elegies

Drama

• Abel Boyer – Achilles, or Iphegenia in Aulis
• Colley Cibber – Xerxes
• John Dennis – Rinaldo and Armida
• George Farquhar – The Constant Couple
• Charles Gildon – Measure for Measure, or Beauty the Best Advocate (a re-adaptation of Davenant's 1662 adaptation The Law Against Lovers)
• Joseph Harris – Love's a Lottery, and a Woman the Prize
• Charles Hopkins – Friendship Improved
• Peter Anthony Motteux – The Island Princess; or, The Generous Portuguese (opera, adapted from John Fletcher)
• Mary Pix – The False Friend^[3]

Births

• April 17 – Robert Blair, Scottish poet (died 1746)
• April 28 – Joseph Spence, English literary historian (died 1768)
• June 26 – Madame Geoffrin, French salonnière (died 1777)
• August 13 (bapt.) – John Dyer, Welsh poet (died 1757)
• December 29 – Friedrich Ludwig Abresch, German-born Dutch philologist (died 1782)

Deaths

• January 21 – Obadiah Walker, English religious writer and controversialist (born 1616)
• January 27 – Sir William Temple, English statesman and essayist (born 1628)
• March 24 – John Evelyn the Younger, English translator (born 1655)
• March 27 – Edward Stillingfleet, English theologian (born 1635)
• April 21 – Jean Racine, French dramatist (born 1639)^[4]
• April 22
  • Hans Erasmus Aßmann, Freiherr von Abschatz, German statesman and poet (born 1646)
  • Lady Anne Halkett, English memoirist (born 1623)
• November 23 – Joseph Beaumont, English clergyman, academic and poet (born 1616)
• December 16 – Erhard Weigel, German philosopher and mathematician (born 1625)

Notes and References

1. Book: David Oakleaf. A Political Biography of Jonathan Swift. 6 October 2015. Routledge. 978-1-317-31552-0. 33.
2. Book: Joseph Addison. The Works of the Right Honourable Joseph Addison: Letters. Second appendix, containing miscellanies and gleanings.. 1873. H.G. Bohn. 636–.
3. Book: Rosalind Ballaster

   . Ballaster . R. . Rosalind Ballaster. The History of British Women's Writing, 1690–1750: Volume Four . 2010 . Springer . 9780230298354 . 16 . en.

4. Book: John Sayer. Jean Racine: Life and Legend. 2006. Peter Lang. 978-3-03910-925-8. 358.