1750 in literature

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The year 1750 in literature involved some significant events and new books.

Events

• Tobias Smollett travels in France, collecting material for The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle.
• Weekly meetings for contributors to the Encyclopédie begin, at the salon of Baron d'Holbach.
• The Rambler is founded by Edward Cave; it lasts for 208 issues, and is mostly written by Samuel Johnson.
• Jean-Jacques Rousseau wins the prize of the Academy of Dijon for his Discourse on the Arts and Sciences.
• Both the Jockey Club and the Hambledon Cricket Club are founded.
• The London theatres wage "the Romeo and Juliet war" — competing productions with David Garrick and Anne Bellamy at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane versus Spranger Barry and Susannah Cibber at the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden.

New books

• Henry Brooke - A New Collection of Fairy Tales
• John Cleland - Fanny Hill (official and expurgated)
• Sarah Fielding (attr.) - The History of Charlotte Summers
• Edward Kimber - The Life and Adventures of Joe Thompson
• Charlotte Lennox - The Life of Harriot Stuart
• Robert Paltock - The Life and Adventures of Peter Wilkins
• Sarah Scott - The History of Cornelia

New drama

• Kitty Clive - The Rehearsal, or, Bays in Petticoats
• Carlo Goldoni - La Bottega di Caffe
• William Shirley - Edward the Black Prince
• Voltaire - Oreste
• William Whitehead - The Roman Father

Poetry

• William Collins - The Passions
• Thomas Cooke - An Ode on Martial Virtue
• Robert Dodsley - The Oeconomy of Human Life
• Mary Jones - Miscellanies
• Thomas Warton - The Triumph of Isis
• Edward Young - The Complaint (aka Night Thoughts)

Non-fiction

• William Blackstone - An Essay on Collateral Consanguinity
• John Campbell - The Present State of Europe
• Zachary Grey - A Free and Familiar Letter to William Warburton
• Eliza Haywood - A Present for Women Addicted to Drinking (on the Gin crisis)
• Francis Hutcheson - Reflections Upon Laughter (philosophy of humor)
• Laurence Sterne - The Abuses of Conscience
• Madeleine de Puisieux - La Femme n’est pas inférieure à l'homme (Woman is not inferior to man)

Births

• January 7 - Robert Anderson (died 1803)
• September 5 - Robert Fergusson (died 1774)

Deaths

• February 8 - Aaron Hill, dramatist (born 1685)
• June 15 - Marguerite De Launay, Baronne Staal, French writer (born 1684)
• November 11 - Apostolo Zeno, poet and journalist (born 1668)
• November 18 - Susanna Highmore, poet (born 1690)