1716 in literature

The year 1716 in literature involved some significant events.

Events

• Anne Lefèvre, Madame Dacier, meets Antoine Houdar de la Motte in person.
• Voltaire is exiled to Tulle.
• Poet John Byrom returns to England to teach his own system of shorthand.
• Edmund Curll renews his controversy with Matthew Prior, by threatening to publish the poet's works without permission.
• Dramatist Philippe Néricault Destouches comes to London as an attaché to the French embassy.

New books

• Anonymous - The History of Gil Blas of Santillane
  • - Kangxi Dictionary
• Richard Blackmore - Essays upon Several Subjects vol. i
• Jane Brereton - The Fifth Ode of the Fourth Book of Horace Imitated
• Thomas Browne - Christian Morals
• "Mr Gay" (Francis Chute) - The Petticoat (part of Edmund Curll's "phantom Gay" hoax)
• Anthony Ashley Cooper, 3rd Earl of Shaftesbury - Several Letters. . . to a Young Man at the University
• John Dennis - A True Character of Mr Pope, and his Writings (in response to The Essay on Criticism)
• Theophilus Evans - Drych y Prif Oesoedd
• John Oldmixon - Memoirs of Ireland from the Restoration to the Present Times
• Alexander Pope - The Iliad of Homer vol. ii
• Humphrey Prideaux - The Old and New Testament Connected in the History of the Jews and Neighbouring Nations
• Thomas Purney - Pastorals
• George Sewell - A Vindication of the English Stage
• Lewis Theobald - The Odyssey of Homer
• Johann Georg Walch - Historia critica Latinae linguae

New drama

• Joseph Addison - The Drummer
• Barton Booth - The Death of Dido
• Christopher Bullock (playwright)
  • The Adventures of Half an Hour
  • The Cobbler of Preston
  • Woman is a Riddle
• Mary Davys - The Northern Heiress
• Benjamin Griffin - The Humours of Purgatory
• Aaron Hill - The Fatal Vision
• John Hughes - Apollo and Daphne
• Charles Johnson - The Cobler of Preston (political satire based on The Taming of the Shrew)
• Voltaire - Oedipe

Poetry

• John Gay - Trivia
• Lady Mary Wortley Montagu - Court Poems
• See also 1716 in poetry

Births

• January 13 - Charlotte Charke, actress, novelist and dramatist (died 1760)
• January 20 - Jean Jacques Barthelemy, French writer and numismatist (died 1795)
• December 25 - Johann Jacob Reiske, German scholar and physician (died 1774)
• December 26
  • Thomas Gray (died 1771)
  • Jean François de Saint-Lambert, French poet (died 1803)

Deaths

• January 1 - William Wycherley, dramatist (born c. 1640)
• January 5 - Jean Chardin, travel writer (born 1643)
• January 11
  • Pierre Jurieu, Protestant writer (born 1637)
  • René Massuet, editor (born 1666)
• February 19 - Dorothe Engelbretsdotter, Norwegian poet (born 1634)
• September - Andrew Fletcher, politician and writer (born 1653)
• October 21 - Jakob Gronovius, scholar (born 1645)
• November 14 - Gottfried Leibniz, philosopher (born 1646)
• date unknown
  • Samuel Cobb, poet (born 1675)
  • Pierre Helyot, historian
• probable - Patrick Abercromby, antiquarian writer and translator