1772 in literature

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See also: 1771 in literature, other events of 1772, 1773 in literature, list of years in literature.

Events

• May 7 - The Stadsschouwburg theatre in Amsterdam is destroyed by fire.
• June - At Marseilles, the Marquis de Sade embarks on an orgy, as a result of which he is convicted in absentia of sodomy and poisoning and receives a death sentence; he escapes.
• Thomas Paine produces his first published work, a political article entitled Case of the Officers of Excise.
• Gottfried August Bürger obtains a magistracy and is reconciled with his family.
• Charles Burney tours Europe, researching for his History of Music.
• Hannah More arrives in London.

New books

• Elizabeth Bonhôte - The Rambles of Mr Frankly, Published by his Sister
• Sophia Briscoe - The Fine Lady
• Robert Fergusson - The Daft Days
• Sarah Scott - The Test of Filial Duty

New drama

• Richard Cumberland - The Fashionable Lover
• Samuel Foote - The Nabob
• David Garrick - The Irish Widow
• Gotthold Lessing - Emilia Galotti
• Arthur Murphy - The Grecian Daughter

Poetry

• Mark Akenside - Poems
• Thomas Chatterton - The Execution of Sir Charles Bawdin
• Charles Jenner - Town Eclogues
• William Jones - Poems, Consisting Chiefly of Translations from the Asiatick Languages
• William Kenrick - Love in the Suds
• William Mason - The English Garden
• Christopher Smart - Hymns, for the Amusement of Children
• George Alexander Stevens - Songs

Non-fiction

• Alphabetum grandonico-malabaricum sive samscrudonicum (with a preface by Giovanni Cristofano Amaduzzi)
• The Encyclopédie in 28 volumes by Diderot, d'Alembert, and many others
• Moses Browne - The Excellency of the Knowledge of Jesus Christ
• William Chambers - A Dissertation on Oriental Gardening
• Junius (poss. Philip Francis - Junius: Stat Nominis Umbra
• Francis Grose - The Antiquities of England and Wales
• Richard Hurd - An Introduction to the Study of Prophecies...
• Carsten Niebuhr - Beschreibung von Arabien
• Joseph Priestley - The History and Present State of Discoveries Relating to Vision, Light, and Colours
• Catherine Talbot - Essays on Various Subjects

Births

• April 11 - Manuel José Quintana, poet
• May 2 - Novalis, poet and philosopher
• October 21 - Samuel Taylor Coleridge, poet
• November 17 - Marc-Antoine Madeleine Désaugiers, dramatist
• November 28 - Johann Gottfried Jakob Hermann, classical commentator and philologist
• December 6 - Henry Cary, author, editor and translator
• date unknown - James Ballantyne, editor and publisher

Deaths

• March 26 - Charles Pinot Duclos, novelist and historian
• March 29 - Emanuel Swedenborg, philosopher
• April 22 - Marie Favart, influential actress and wife of Charles Simon Favart (born 1727)
• May 22 - Durastante Natalucci, historian
• June - Thomas Whately, politician and writer
• June 18 - Johann Ulrich von Cramer, philosopher
• October 7 - John Woolman, abolitionist author
• November 10 - Pedro Correia Garção, poet
• date unknown - William Wilkie, poet
• date unknown - Margareta Momma, editor and writer

Awards