1738 in literature

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This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1738.

Events

April 11 – Robert Blair marries Isabella Law.
July 10 – Richard Dawes is appointed Master of the Royal Grammar School, Newcastle.^[1]
August – Laurence Sterne is ordained a priest, and in the autumn becomes vicar of Sutton-on-the-Forest, Yorkshire.
August 8 – Jonathan Swift writes to Alexander Pope describing the deterioration in his mental condition; Swift will eventually be given into the care of a legal guardian.^[2]
September 18 – Samuel Johnson composes his first solemn prayer (published 1785).

New books

Prose

James Anderson – The Constitutions of the Free-Masons, 2nd ed.
Jean-Baptiste de Boyer, Marquis d'Argens – Jewish Letters (published anonymously)^[3]
John Banks – Miscellaneous Works in Verse and Prose
Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten – De ordine in audiendis philosophicis per triennium academicum quaedam praefatus acroases proximae aestati destinatas indicit Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten
Louis de Beaufort – Dissertation sur l'incertitude des cinq prèmiers siècles de l'histoire romaine
Robert Dodsley – The Art of Preaching
Marie Huber – Lettres sur la religion essentielle à l'homme (Letters Concerning the Religion Essential to Man)
David Hume (anonymously) – A Treatise of Human Nature (dated 1739)
Pierre Louis Maupertuis – Sur la figure de la terre
Margareta Momma – Samtal emellan Argi Skugga och en obekant Fruentimbers Skugga (Conversation between the Shadow of Argus and the Unfamiliar Shadow of a Female)^[4]
Francis Moore – Travels into the Inland Parts of Africa
Abbé Prévost – Memoirs of a Man of Quality (anonymous English translation)
Thomas Shaw – Travels in Barbary and the Levant
Jonathan Swift
- The Beasts Confession to the Priest
- A Complete Collection of Genteel and Ingenious Conversation
William Warburton
- The Divine Legation of Moses Demonstrated
- A Vindication of the author of the Divine Legation of Moses
George Whitefield – A Journal of a Voyage from London to Savannah in Georgia
Diego de Torres Villarroel
- Anatomía de todo lo visible e invisible
- Vida ejemplar de la venerable madre Gregoria Francisca de Santa Teresa

Drama

Robert Dodsley – Sir John Cockle at Court
Carlo Goldoni
- Momolo Cortesan
- L'uomo di mondo
Sir Hildebrand Jacob
- The Happy Constancy
- The Prodigal Reformed
- The Trial of Conjugal Love
George Lillo – Marina (adapted from Shakespeare's Pericles, Prince of Tyre)
Charles Marsh – Amasis, King of Egypt
James Miller –
- Art and Nature
- The Coffee House
Alexis Piron – La Metromanie
António José da Silva – Precipicio de Faetonte
James Thomson – Agamemnon

Poetry

Mark Akenside (anonymously) – A British Philippic
Elizabeth Carter (anonymously) – Poems Upon Particular Occasions
John Gay – Fables: Volume the Second
Eugenio Gerardo Lobo – Obras poéticas líricas
Samuel Johnson – London, A Poem, on the Third Satire of Juvenal
Alexander Pope
- The Sixth Epistle of the First Book of Horace Imitated
- The First Epistle of the First Book of Horace Imitated
- (with Jonathan Swift) An Imitation of the Sixth Satire of the Second Book of Horace
- One Thousand Seven Hundred and Thirty Eight
- The Universal Prayer
- One Thousand Seven Hundred and Thirty Eight: Dialogue II
James Thomson – The Works of Mr Thomson
Diego de Torres Villarroel – Juguetes de Talia, entretenimiento del numen
John Wesley – A Collection of Psalms and Hymns (first English edition)

Births

February 9 (baptized) – Mary Whateley, English poet and playwright (died 1825)
May 9 – John Wolcot, English satirist and poet (died 1819)
May 12 – Jonathan Boucher, English philologist (died 1804)
May 27 – Moritz August von Thümmel, German humorist and satirical author (died 1817)
June 21 – Gottlieb Christoph Harless, German bibliographer (died 1815)
July 24 – Betje Wolff, Dutch novelist (died 1804)
November 15 – Joseph Johnson, English publisher (died 1809)
December 4 – Karl Friedrich Kretschmann, German poet, playwright and storyteller (died 1809)^[5]
unknown date – Manuel Lassala, Spanish dramatist and philosopher (died 1806)

Deaths

January 6 – Jean-Baptiste Labat, French polymath (born 1663)^[6]
March – Margrethe Lasson, Danish novelist (born 1659)
April 25 – Giacomo Laderchi, Italian ecclesiastical historian (born c. 1678)
June 5 – Isaac de Beausobre, French Protestant theologian (born 1659)
July 8 – Jean-Pierre Nicéron, French lexicographer (born 1685)
September 3 or 4 – George Lillo, English playwright (born 1691)^[7]
September 23 – Herman Boerhaave, Dutch humanist writer (born 1668)
November 10 – John Asgill, English pamphleteer (born 1659)

References

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