1757 in literature explained

This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1757.

Events

• February 16 – Jonathan Edwards becomes President of the institution that will become Princeton University.^[1]
• May 3 – The Irish-born actress Peg Woffington, playing Rosalind in As You Like It, suffers a stroke on stage at the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden in London and never acts again.^[2]
• May 6 – Asylum confinement of Christopher Smart: The poet Christopher Smart is confined to St Luke's Hospital for Lunatics in London.^[3]
• May – The Baskerville typeface, designed by John Baskerville of Birmingham, England, is first used in a wove paper quarto edition of Virgil (Publii Virgilii Maronis Bucolica, Georgica, et Æneis).
• September – Pierre-Augustin Caron begins using the name Beaumarchais.^[4]
• September 9 – The Parlement of Toulouse orders a public burning of Jesuit author Hermann Busenbaum's Medulla Theologiae Morales because of its treatment of the subject of regicide.^[5]
• December 11 – On the death of Colley Cibber as Poet Laureate of Great Britain, the post is declined by Thomas Gray and passes to William Whitehead.
• unknown dates
  • Angelo Maria Bandini is appointed librarian of the Laurentian Library in Florence.^[6]
  • Robert Raikes becomes proprietor of the Gloucester Journal.
  • Horace Walpole begins the Strawberry Hill Press.
  • Thomas Warton is appointed Professor of Poetry at the University of Oxford.

New books

Prose

• John Brown – An Estimate of the Manners and Principles of the Times
• Edmund Burke – A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful
• John Dalrymple – An Essay Towards a General History of Feudal Property in Great Britain
• Samuel Derrick (probable compiler) – Harris's List of Covent Garden Ladies (1st edn)
• Adam Ferguson – The Morality of Stage-Plays Seriously Considered
• Sarah Fielding – The Lives of Cleopatra and Octavia
• Edward and Elizabeth Griffith – A Series of Genuine Letters between Henry and Frances vols. i – ii.
• David Hume – The Natural History of Religion
• Soame Jenyns – A Free Inquiry into the Nature and Origin of Evil
• Richard Price – Review of the Principal Questions in Morals
• Madame Riccoboni – Lettres de Mistriss Fanny Butlerd.
• Tobias Smollett – A Complete History of England
• Horace Walpole – A Letter from Xo Ho, a Chinese Philosopher at London, to his Friend Lien Chi at Peking
• William Warburton – Remarks upon Mr. David Hume's Essay on the Natural History of Religion
• Joseph Warton – Essay on Pope
• John Wesley – The Doctrine of Original Sin

Drama

• Anonymous – The Taxes
• Phanuel Bacon – Humorous Ethics, or an Attempt to Cure the Vices and Follies of the Age by a Method Entirely New (5 plays)
• Denis Diderot – Le Fils naturel
• Samuel Foote – The Author
• David Garrick – Lilliput
• John Home – Douglas
• Tobias Smollett – The Reprisal

Poetry

See main article: article and 1757 in poetry.

• Robert Andrews – Eidyllia
• Cornelius Arnold – Poems
• Samuel Boyce – Poems
• John Gilbert Cooper as "Aristippus" – Epistles to the Great
• John Duncombe – The Feminead (answer to 1754's Feminiad)
• William Duncombe – The Works of Horace in English Verse (various translators).
• John Dyer – The Fleece
• Carlo Gozzi – La tartana degli influssi per l'anno 1756
• Thomas Gray – Odes
• William Thompson – Poems
• William Wilkie – Epigoniad
• Edward Young – The Works of the Author of Night Thoughts

Births

• February 1 – John Philip Kemble, English actor (died 1823)
• February 6 – Julian Ursyn Niemcewicz, Polish poet and dramatist (died 1841)
• April 9 – Wojciech Bogusławski, Polish actor, director and dramatist (died 1829)
• July 21 – Basilius von Ramdohr, German journalist and critic (died 1822)
• November 9 – William Sotheby, English poet and translator (died 1833)
• November 13 – Archibald Alison, Scottish essayist and cleric (died 1839)
• November 18 – William Blake, English poet and artist (died 1827)
• November 27 (possible year) – Mary Robinson (née Darby), English poet, actress and royal mistress (died 1800)
• December 4 – Charles Burney, English classicist and book thief (died 1817)
• Unknown date – Giovanni Antonio Galignani, Italian publisher (died 1821)

Deaths

• January 9 – Bernard Le Bovier de Fontenelle, French dramatist and author (born 1657)
• January 19 – Thomas Ruddiman, Scottish classical scholar, editor, printer and librarian (born 1674)
• March 1 – Edward Moore, English dramatist (born 1712)^[7]
• March 8 – Thomas Blackwell, Scottish classical scholar (born 1701)
• August 28 – David Hartley, English philosopher and psychologist (born 1705)
• December 11
  • Colley Cibber, English dramatist, actor-manager and Poet Laureate of Great Britain (born 1671)
  • Edmund Curll, English bookseller and publisher (born 1675)
• December 15 (burial) – John Dyer, a Welsh poet, painter and Anglican cleric (born 1699)

In literature

• John Dickson Carr – The Demoniacs (1962)
• James Fenimore Cooper – The Last of the Mohicans: A Narrative of 1757 (1826)

Notes and References

1. Book: Jonathan Edwards. The Works of Jonathan Edwards, A.M.. 1840. Ball, Arnold and Company. 274.
2. Book: Sandra Mayer. Julia Novak. Life Writing and Celebrity: Exploring Intersections. 21 May 2020. Taylor & Francis. 978-1-00-068236-6. 82.
3. Book: Sherbo, Arthur . Christopher Smart: Scholar of the University . registration . Michigan State University Press . 1967 . 112. He may have been confined in a private madhouse before this time.
4. Book: Hugh Thomas. Beaumarchais in Seville: An Intermezzo. 2006. Yale University Press. 0-300-13464-9. 23.
5. Book: Voltaire. John Renwick. Traité sur la tolérance. 2000. Voltaire Foundation. 308. 9780729407441.
6. Book: William J. Connell. Society and Individual in Renaissance Florence. 10 September 2002. University of California Press. 978-0-520-23254-9. 282.
7. Book: Restoration and 18th-Century Drama . November 1980 . Macmillan International Higher Education . 978-1-349-16422-6 . 109 . en.