1734 in literature explained

This article is a summary of the major literary events and publications of 1734.

Events

January – Le Cabinet du Philosophe, a new periodical by Pierre de Marivaux, is unsuccessfully launched; it is discontinued in April.^[1]
June 10 – Copies of Voltaire's Lettres philosophiques sur les Anglais (Letters on the English) are burned, and a warrant is issued for the author's arrest.^[2]
November – George Faulkner begins publication of an edition of Jonathan Swift's Works in Dublin^[3] with a corrected text.
Manoel da Assumpcam begins writing his grammar of the Bengali language.
Göttingen State and University Library is established.

Henry Carey, as "Benjamin Bounce" – Chrononhotonthologos (satire on bombastic tragedy)
William Duncombe – Junius Brutus
Henry Fielding
- Don Quixote in England
- The Intriguing Chambermaid
Carlo Goldoni – Belisario
John Hewitt – Fatal Falsehood
James Miller – The Mother-in-Law (adapted from Molières Le Malade imaginaire and Monsieur de Pourceaugnac)
William Popple – The Lady's Revenge
James Ralph – The Cornish Squire
António José da Silva – Esopaida
James Thomson – The Tragedy of Sophonisba

See main article: article and 1734 in poetry.

Jean Adam – Miscellany Poems
Mary Barber – Poems
Stephen Duck – Truth and Falsehood
William Dunkin
- The Lover's Web
- The Poet's Prayer
Alexander Pope
- Essay on Man
- An Epistle to Lord Cobham ("Moral Epistle I")
- The First Satire of the Second Book of Horace
- Sober Advice from Horace
Jonathan Swift – A Beautiful Young Nymph Going to Bed

Anonymous – A Rap at the Rhapsody (on Swift's 1733 On Poetry)
Joseph Addison (died 1719) – A Discourse on Antient and Modern Learning
John Arbuthnot – Gnothi Seauton: Know Yourself
Francis Atterbury – Sermons
George Berkeley – The Analyst
Henry Brooke – Design and Beauty: an Epistle
Isaac Hawkins Browne – On Design and Beauty
Dimitrie Cantemir – History of the Growth and Decay of the Ottoman Empire (first publication)
Robert Dodsley – An Epistle to Mr. Pope
John Jortin – Remarks on Spenser's Poems
Lady Mary Wortley Montagu – The Dean's Provocation for Writing the Lady's Dressing-Room (on Swift's "The Lady's Dressing Room")
Karl Ludwig von Pöllnitz – Mémoires
Jonathan Richardson – Explanatory Notes on Milton's Paradise Lost
George Sale – The Koran
Emanuel Swedenborg
- First Principles of Natural Things
- Opera philosophica et mineralia
- The Infinite and the Final Cause of Creation
Joseph Trapp – Thoughts Upon the Four Last Things ("Death, Judgment, Heaven, Hell")
Voltaire – Lettres anglaises

January 10 – Fleury Mesplet, French-born Canadian writer and newspaper publisher (died 1794
July 25 – Ueda Akinari, Japanese poet and novelist (died 1809)
October 23 – Nicolas-Edme Rétif, French novelist (died 1806)
December 31 – Claude Joseph Dorat (Le Chevalier Dorat), French writer (died 1780)
Unknown dates
- Catharina Ahlgren, Swedish writer (died 1800)
- Robert Aitken, Scottish-born American printer and publisher (died 1802)

January 6 – John Dennis, English dramatist and critic (born 1658)
February 24 – Marie-Jeanne L'Héritier, French writer of fairy tales and salonnière (born 1664)^[4]
March 1 – Roger North, English biographer and lawyer (born 1653)
April 25 – Johann Konrad Dippel, German theologian (born 1673)
May – Richard Cantillon, Irish-born French economist (born 1680)
September 17 – Thomas Fuller, English man of letters and proverb collector (born 1654)
October – Thomas Lloyd, Welsh lexicographer (born c. 1673)
October 18 – James Moore Smythe, English dramatist and fop (born 1702)^[5]

Web site: Dictionnaire des journaux 1600–1789. 2015-10-08.
Book: Peter Gay. Voltaire's Politics. 1965. 67.
Book: Moody, T. W.. A New History of Ireland. 8: A Chronology of Irish History. Oxford University Press. 1989. 978-0-19-821744-2. etal.
Book: Thompson Cooper. A New Biographical Dictionary: Containing Concise Notices of Eminent Persons of All Ages and Countries. 1873. Bell. 673.
Book: W.J. Songhurst. Ars Quatuor Coronatorum. Рипол Классик. 978-5-87301-721-8. 118.