1740 in literature

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The year 1740 in literature involved some significant events and new books.

Events

• John Cleland returns to Britain from government service in India.
• Accession of Frederick the Great in Prussia.
• Beginning of the War of the Austrian Succession.

New books

• Johann Jakob Bodmer - Von dem Wunderbaren in der Poesie
• Colley Cibber - An Apology for the Life of Mr Colley Cibber, Comedian (begins a storm of protest)
• John Dyer - The Ruins of Rome
• Richard Glover - Admiral Hosier's Ghost
• David Hume - An Abstract of . . . A Treatise of Human Nature
• William Law - An Earnest and Serious Answer to Dr. Trapp's Discourse
  • - An Appeal to all that Doubt, or Disbelieve the Truths of the Gospel
• William Oldys - The Life of Sir Walter Raleigh
• Christopher Pitt - The Aeneid of Virgil
• William Pulteney - An Epistle from L--- to Lord C-------d (supposedly from Thomas Coke to Lord Chesterfield)
• Samuel Richardson - Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded
• Henry St. John, 1st Viscount Bolingbroke - The Idea of a Patriot King (published after the intervention or interference of Alexander Pope)
• William Stukeley - Stonehenge: A temple restor'd to the British Druids
• Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villeneuve -La jeune américaine, et les contes marins
• William Warburton - A Vindication of Mr. Pope's Essay on Man
• George Whitefield - A Short Account of God's Dealings with the Reverend George Whitefield

Newly published drama

• George Lillo - Britannia and Batavia
  • - Elmerick
• James Thomson and David Mallet - Alfred

Poetry

• Sarah Dixon - Poems on Several Occasions

Births

• June 2 - Marquis de Sade (died 1814)
• June 6 - Louis-Sébastien Mercier, dramatist (died 1814)
• September 2 - Johann Georg Jacobi, poet (died 1814)
• September 12 - Johann Heinrich Jung (Heinrich Stilling), novelist (died 1817)
• October 29 - James Boswell (died 1795)
• November 4 - Augustus Montague Toplady, poet, theologian and hymn-writer (died 1778)
• date unknown
  • Giovanni Cristofano Amaduzzi, philologist (died 1782)
  • Juan Andrés, historian (died 1817)
  • Jean Louis Delolme, constitutional writer (died 1806)
  • Charlotte Brooke
  • Charlotte Baden, Danish writer

Deaths

• January - John Adams, poet (born 1704)
• April 23 - Thomas Tickell, poet (born 1685)
• May 15 - Ephraim Chambers, encyclopaedist (born about 1680)
• June 1 - Samuel Werenfels, theologian (born 1657)
• October 5 - Johann Philipp Baratier, scholar (born 1721)
• date unknown
  • Johann Georg Abicht, theologian (born 1672)
  • Daniel Waterland, theologian (born 1683)
  • Jane Bereton, poet