1737 in literature

The year 1737 in literature involved some significant events and new books.

Events

• June 21 - The Theatrical Licensing Act is passed, introducing censorship to the London stage. Plays now require approval before production. The "legitimate drama" is limited to the theatres at Drury Lane, Covent Garden, and the Haymarket.
• November 20 - Death of Queen Caroline, a significant patron of the arts.
• The News Letter begins publication.
• Richard Jago becomes curate of Snitterfield.

New books

• Anonymous - A Letter from Mrs. Jane Jones, alias Jenny Diver, in Drury Lane (on the life of a kept woman)
• Philip Doddridge - Submission to Divine Providence in the Death of Children
• Stephen Duck - The Vision
• Jonathan Edwards - A Faithful Narrative of the Surprising Works of God
• Étienne Fourmont - Meditationes Sinicae
• Richard Glover - Leonidas
• Matthew Green - The Spleen
• William Law - A Demonstration of the Gross and Fundamental Errors of a Late Book (an answer to Benjamin Hoadly from 1735)
• William Oldys - The British Librarian
• Alexander Pope - Horace His Ode to Venus
  • - The Second Epistle of the Second Book of Horace, Imitated
  • - Letters of Mr. Alexander Pope, and Several of his Friends (authorized)
  • - The First Epistle of the Second Book of Horace, Imitated
  • - The Works of Alexander Pope vols. v-vi
• Elizabeth Rowe - Devout Exercises of the Heart
• William Shenstone - Poems
• Jonathan Swift - A Proposal for Giving Badges to the Beggars in all the Parishes of Dublin

New drama

• Henry Carey - The Dragon of Wantley (opera)
• Robert Dodsley - The King and the Miller of Mansfield
• Henry Fielding - The Historical Register for the Year 1736
• Robert Gould - Innocence Distress'd (published 29 years posth.)
• George Lillo - Fatal Curiosity
• Pierre de Marivaux - Les Fausses confidences
• James Miller - The Universal Passion (adapted from Much Ado About Nothing)

Births

• January 29 - Thomas Paine, free thinker and revolutionary (died 1809)
• April 27 - Edward Gibbon (died 1794)
• unknown date - Frances Abington, actress, a leading exponent of Shakespeare and Sheridan (died 1815)

Deaths

• May 4 - Eustace Budgell, satirist
• June 21 - Matthieu Marais, memoirist
• date unknown
  • Claude Buffier, philosopher and historian
  • Abel Evans, poet
  • Matthew Green, poet
  • John Hutchinson, theologian
  • Elizabeth Rowe, dramatist and poet
  • Jean Alphonse Turretin, theologian