1724 in literature

The year 1724 in literature involved some significant events and new books.

Events

• The performance of Johann Sebastian Bach's St. John Passion

New books

• Anonymous - A Narrative of All the Robberies, Escapes, &c. of John Sheppard (attrib. Daniel Defoe)
• Gilbert Burnet - Bishop Burnet's History of His Own Time vol i
• Samuel Clarke - Sermons of Samuel Clarke
• Anthony Collins - Discourse of the Grounds and Reasons of the Christian Religion, with An Apology for Free Debate and Liberty of Writing
• Matthew Concanen - Miscellaneous Poems
• Mary Davys - The Reform'd Captive (fiction)
• Daniel Defoe - Roxana: The Fortunate Mistress
  • - A New Voyage Round the World
  • - A Tour Thro' the Whole Island of Great Britain
• John Dennis - Vice and Luxury Publick Mischiefs (on Mandeville)
• Richard Fiddes - A General Treatise of Morality (on Mandeville)
  • - The Life of Cardinal Wolsey
• Eliza Haywood - La Belle Assemblé
  • - The Fatal Secret (fiction)
  • - Lasselia
  • - The Masqueraders
  • - Poems on Several Occasions
• Thomas Hearne - Robert of Gloucester's Chronicle
• Edward Hyde, 1st Earl of Clarendon - An Appendix to the History of the Grand Rebellion
• Captain Charles Johnson - A General History of the Pyrates
• William Law - Remarks Upon a Late Book (against Mandeville)
• John Oldmixon - The Critical History of England, Ecclesiastical and Civil
• Allan Ramsay - The Ever Green: Being a collection of Scots Poems
  • - Health
• Paul de Rapin - L'Histoire d'Angleterre
• Richard Stukeley - Itinerarium Curiosum
• Jonathan Swift - A Letter to the Shop-keepers... of Ireland (as "M.B. Drapier")
  • - A Letter to Mr. Harding the Printer (as Drapier)
  • - Some Observations Upon a Paper Relating to Wood's Half-pence (as Drapier)
  • - A Letter to the Whole People of Ireland (Drapier)
  • - A Letter to the Right Honourable the Lord Viscount Molesworth (last of the Drapier letters)
  • - Seasonable Advice
• Elizabeth Tollet - Poems on Several Occasions
• Voltaire - La Henriade
• Leonard Welsted - Epistles, Odes, &c.

New drama

• Colley Cibber - Caesar in Aegypt
• John Gay - The Captives
• Eliza Haywood - A Wife to be Lett
• Ludvig Holberg - Henrik and Pernille
• William Philips - Belisarius
• Richard Savage - The Tragedy of Sir Thomas Overbury

Births

• January 24 - Frances Brooke, novelist and dramatist (died 1789)
• April 22 - Immanuel Kant philosopher (died 1804)
• July 2 - Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock, poet (died 1803) )
• October 31 - Christopher Anstey, poet (died 1805)
• December 13 - Franz Aepinus, philosopher (died 1802)
• date unknown - Frances Sheridan, novelist, dramatist and mother of Richard Brinsley Sheridan (died 1766)
• William Gilpin

Deaths

• January 6 - Chikamatsu Monzaemon, Japanese author (born c.1654)
• February 12 - Elkanah Settle, dramatist (born 1648)
• October 29 - William Wollaston, English philosophical writer (born 1659)
• date unknown
  • Charles Gildon, critic and dramatist (born c.1665)
  • Pierre Hellies - Provençal poet