1728 in literature

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The year 1728 in literature involved some significant events and new books.

Events

• The Universal Spectator and Weekly Journal is founded by Daniel Defoe and Henry Baker
• Jonathan Swift and Thomas Sheridan launch The Intelligencer (periodical).
• John Rich, manager of the theatre at Lincoln's Inn Fields, mounts the first production of The Beggar's Opera by John Gay. Its great success makes "Rich gay and Gay rich."

New books

• Anonymous - Memoirs of an English Officer "by Captain George Carleton"
• Joseph Addison - The Christian Poet (posth.)
• Penelope Aubin - The Life and Adventures of the Young Count Albertus (sequel)
• Peter Browne - The Procedure, Extent, and Limits of Human Understanding
• Ephraim Chambers - Cyclopaedia, or, A Universal Dictionary of Arts and Sciences
• Thomas Cooke - The Works of Hesiod (first translation of Hesiod into English)
• John Dennis - Remarks on Mr. Pope's Rape of the Lock
• Henry Fielding - The Masquerade ("by Lemuel Gulliver")
• James Gibbs - A Book of Architecture
• Eliza Haywood - The Agreeable Caledonian
• Francis Hutcheson - An Essay on the Nature and Conduct of the Passions and Affections
• David Mallet - The Excursion
• John Oldmixon
  • The Arts of Logick and Rhetorick
  • An Essay on Criticism
• Robert Lindsay of Pitscottie - The Historie and Chronicles of Scotland, 1436–1565 (written about 1575, in the Scots language)
• Christopher Pitt - An Essay on Virgil's Aeneid
• Alexander Pope - The Dunciad
• James Ralph
  • Night
  • Sawney (answer to Dunciad)
  • Zeuma

• Elizabeth Rowe - Friendship in Death
• Richard Savage - The Bastard
  • - Nature in Perfection
• George Sewell - Posthumous Works of Dr. George Sewell
• Thomas Sheridan - The Satyrs of Persius
• Jonathan Swift - A Short View of the State of Ireland
• James Thomson - Spring (part of The Four Seasons)
• Ned Ward - Durgen (satire of "a Pompous Satyrist")
• William Wycherley - The Posthumous Works of William Wycherley, edited by Lewis Theobald (part of Theobald's and Curll's battle with Pope and other "Tory" wits)
• Edward Young
  • Ocean
  • A Vindication of Providence

New drama

• Colley Cibber & Sir John Vanbrugh - A Journey to London
• Henry Fielding - Love in Several Masques
• John Gay - The Beggar's Opera (opera)
• Pierre de Marivaux - Le Trionphe de Plutus
• John Mottley - The Craftsman
• Alexis Piron - Les Fils ingrats
• Lewis Theobald - Double Falsehood, or the Distress'd Lovers (reportedly adapted from Cardenio, by Fletcher and Shakespeare)
• Sir John Vanbrugh - The Provok'd Husband

Poetry

• Allan Ramsay - Poems

Births

• January 9 - Thomas Warton (died 1790)
• March 11 - Robert Bage, novelist (died 1801)
• September 14 - Mercy Otis Warren (died 1814)
• November 10 - Oliver Goldsmith (died 1774)

Deaths

• January 28 - Esther Johnson known as "Stella", inspiration of Jonathan Swift (born 1681)
• February 12 - Cotton Mather, New England Puritan minister (born 1663)
• June 23 - Gabriel Daniel, Jesuit historian (born 1649)
• September 23 - Christian Thomasius, publisher and general author (born 1655)
• date unknown - White Kennett, English bishop (born 1660)