1741 in literature

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The year 1741 in literature involved some significant events and new books.

Events

• David Garrick packs theatres with his performance as Shakespeare's Richard III.
• The American Magazine begins publication by Andrew Bedford.

New books

• Anonymous
  • The Life of Pamela (parody of Richardson's Pamela)
  • Pamela Censured
• Geoffrey Chaucer - The Canterbury Tales of Chaucer (new edition revives interest in Chaucer's tales)
• Stephen Duck - Every Man in his Own Way
• Henry Fielding (as "Mr. Conny Keyber") - An Apology for the Life of Mrs. Shamela Andrews
• Eliza Haywood - The Anti-Pamela; or Feign’d Innocence Detected
• Ludvig Holberg - Niels Klim's Underground Travels
• John Kelly - Pamela's Conduct in High Life (continuation of Pamela)
• Robert Craggs Nugent - An Ode to Mankind
• Alexander Pope with John Gay and John Arbuthnot - Memoirs of the Extraordinary Life, Works, and Discoveries of Martinus Scriblerus
• Charles Povey - The Virgin in Eden (prose fiction)
• Samuel Richardson
  • Letters Written to and for Particular Friends (aka "Familiar Letters")
  • Pamela; or, Virtue Rewarded vols. iii - iv
• John and Charles Wesley - A Collection of Psalms and Hymns
• Hristofor Zhefarovich - Stemmatographia

New drama

• Anonymous - Pamela; or, Virtue Triumphant
• Robert Dodsley - The Blind Beggar of Bethnal Green (adapted from the anonymous Elizabethan play)
• David Garrick - The Lying Valet
• John Kelly - The Levee
• Voltaire - Mahomet (first performed)

Poetry

• William Shenstone - The Judgment of Hercules
• Edward Young - Poetical Works of the Reverend Edward Young

Non-fiction

• Thomas Betterton - The History of the English Stage, from the Restoration to the Present
• Thomas Francklin - Of the Nature of the Gods
• David Hume - Essays Moral and Political
• Jonathan Swift
  • Dean Swift's Literary Correspondence (pirate publication by Edmund Curll, for which he was sued by Pope)
  • Some Free Thoughts on the Present State of Affairs
• Isaac Watts - The Improvement of the Mind
• Leonard Welsted - The Summum Bonum
• George Whitefield - A Letter to the Reverend John Wesley

Births

• January 16 - Hester Thrale, friend and correspondent of Samuel Johnson (died 1821)
• August 25 - Karl Friedrich Bahrdt, theologian (died 1792)
• October 4 - Edmond Malone, Shakespearean editor (died 1812)
• October 18 - Pierre Choderlos de Laclos, French novelist (died 1803)
• October 24 - Johann August von Starck, controversial theologian and political writer (died 1816)

Deaths

• February 21 - Jethro Tull, inventor and agricultural writer (born 1674)
• March 17 - Jean-Baptiste Rousseau, poet (born 1671)
• April 10 - Celia Fiennes, travel writer (born 1662)
• December 14 - Charles Rollin, historian (born 1661)
• December 21 - Bernard de Montfaucon, antiquary
• date unknown - Thomas Emlyn, preacher and writer