1741 in literature

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This article presents lists of the literary events and publications in 1741.

Events

• January 29 – A memorial to William Shakespeare (d. 1616), designed by William Kent and sculpted by Peter Scheemakers, is erected in Poets' Corner of Westminster Abbey.^[1]
• February 13 – Andrew Bradford launches the American colonies' first periodical in Philadelphia, the American Magazine.^[2]
• March 14 – K.K. Theater an der Burg (Imperial Court Theatre) in Vienna opened.
• October 19 – David Garrick makes his London stage debut, as Shakespeare's Richard III. His performance quickly packs theatres.^[3] His professional debut was earlier in the year at Ipswich in Southerne's adaptation of Oroonoko.
• Irish-born actor Charles Macklin makes his London stage debut in the part of Shakespeare's Shylock at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, reversing the tradition of portraying the character as a comic villain.^[4]
• First translation of a Shakespeare play into the German language, Julius Caesar turned into alexandrines by C. W. von Borck.^[5]
• Printer Robert Foulis sets up as a publisher in Edinburgh.

New books

• Anonymous
  • The Life of Pamela (parody of Richardson's Pamela)
  • Pamela Censured
• Charles Balguy (anonymous translator) – The Decameron
• 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
• Real Academia Española – Ortografía
• Martín Sarmiento – Memorias para la historia de la poesía y poetas españoles

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
• William Hatchett – The Chinese Orphan: An Historical Tragedy (adapted from the 13th century Chinese play The Orphan of Zhao; unperformed)
• John Kelly – The Levee
• Voltaire – Mahomet (first performed)

Poetry

• William Shenstone – The Judgment of Hercules
• Edward Young – Poetical Works of the Reverend Edward Young
• Alonso Verdugo, third Earl of Torrepalma – Adonis

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
• Emanuel Swedenborg – A Hieroglyphic Key to Natural and Spiritual Arcana by Way of Representation and Correspondences (written, published in 1784).
• 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 (Mrs Piozzi), English diarist and arts patron (died 1821)
• August 25 – Karl Friedrich Bahrdt, German theologian and adventurer (died 1792)
• October 4 – Edmond Malone, Irish Shakespearean editor (died 1812)
• October 18 – Pierre Choderlos de Laclos, French novelist (died 1803)
• October 28 – Johann August von Starck, German theologian and political writer (died 1816)

Deaths

• February 21 – Jethro Tull, English agricultural innovator and writer (born 1674)
• March 17 – Jean-Baptiste Rousseau, French dramatist and poet (born 1671)
• April 10 – Celia Fiennes, English travel writer (born 1662)
• July 30 – Thomas Emlyn, English Unitarian writer (born 1663)
• December 14 – Charles Rollin, French historian (born 1661)
• December 21 – Bernard de Montfaucon, French scholar and palaeographer (born 1655)

References

1. "History". Westminster Abbey. Retrieved 2013-11-29.
2. "First Magazine Published in America". West Hempstead Public Library. Retrieved 2012-07-22.
3. Horace Walpole remarked, "there was a dozen dukes a night at Goodman's Fields." Freedley, George; Reeves, John A. (1968). A History of the Theatre. New York, Crown. p. 290.
4. Simpson, Louis (1993-04-04). "There, They Could Say, Is the Jew". The New York Times. Retrieved 2013-09-04.
5. The Oxford Companion to Shakespeare (2nd ed.). Oxford University Press. 2015. ISBN 978-0-19-870873-5.