1730 in literature

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The year 1730 in literature involved some significant events and new books.

Events

• Voltaire's Brutus is finally staged.
• Colley Cibber becomes Poet Laureate of Great Britain.
• Metastasio settles in Vienna.
• The Grub-Street Journal is launched; it will last for 418 issues.

New books

• Joseph Addison - The Evidence of the Christian Religion (posth.)
• John Banks - The Weaver's Miscellany
• Thomas Cooke as "Scriblerus Tertius" - The Candidates for the Bays
• Philip Doddridge - Free Thoughts on the Most Probable Means of Reviving the Dissenting Interest
• Johann Christoph Gottsched - Versuch einer kritischen Dichtkunst für die Deutschen
• John Hervey, 2nd Baron Hervey - Observations on the Writings of the Craftsman
• George Lyttelton, 1st Baron Lyttelton - An Epistle to Mr. Pope
• Jonathan Swift - A Libel on D--- D------, and a Certain Great Lord
• Matthew Tindal - Christianity as Old as Creation
• William Whiston - Life of Samuel Clarke
• William Wotton - A Discourse Concerning the Confusion of Languages at Babel (posth.)
• Edward Young - Two Epistles to Mr. Pope

New drama

• Theophilus Cibber - Patie and Peggy (opera)
• Henry Fielding
  • The Author's Farce
  • Rape upon Rape
  • The Temple Beau
  • Tom Thumb
• George Lillo - Silvia
• Pierre de Marivaux - Le Jeu de l'Amour et du Hasard
• James Miller - The Humours of Oxford
• John Mottley - The Widow Bewitch'd
• Gabriel Odingsells - Bay's Opera
• James Ralph - The Fashionable Lady
• James Thomson - The Tragedy of Sophonisba

Poetry

• Stephen Duck - Poems on Several Subjects
• Matthew Pilkington - Poems on Several Occasions
• Elizabeth Thomas - The Metamorphosis of the Town
• James Thomson - The Seasons
• See also 1730 in poetry

Births

• March 27 - Thomas Tyrwhitt, critic (died 1786)
• April 1 - Solomon Gessner (died 1788)
• August 20 - Paul Henri Mallet (died 1807)
• November 10 (probable) - Oliver Goldsmith (died 1774)
• July 12 - Josiah Wedgwood (died 1795)

Deaths

• January 7 - Árni Magnússon, Icelandic scholar (born 1663)
• February 9 - Johann Georg von Eckhart, historian (born 1664)
• September 27 - Laurence Eusden, Poet Laureate (born 1688)
• October 23 - Anne Oldfield, actress (born 1683)
• date unknown
  • Laurence Echard, historian (born c. 1670)
  • Elijah Fenton, poet (born 1683)
  • Nedîm, Ottoman poet (born c. 1680)