1713 in literature

This article presents lists of the literary events and publications in 1713.

Events

• March 12 – Richard Steele and Joseph Addison found The Guardian; in the same year, Steele founds another short-lived periodical, The Englishman.
• April 14 – First performance, in London, of Addison's libertarian play Cato, a Tragedy, which will be influential on both sides of the Atlantic.^[1]
• First printing of Vitsentzos Kornaros's early 17th century Cretan romantic epic poem Erotokritos (Ἐρωτόκριτος), in Venice.
• Alexander Pope announces that he is to begin a definitive translation of the works of Homer.

New books

Prose

• John Arbuthnot – Proposals for printing a very curious discourse... a treatise of the art of political lying, with an abstract of the first volume ("The Art of Political Lying")
• Jane Barker – The Amours of Bosvil and Galesia
• Richard Bentley as "Phileleutherus Lipsiensis" – Remarks upon a Late Discourse of Free-thinking (vs. Collins)
• George Berkeley – Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous
• Henry Carey – Poems on Several Occasions (with "Sally in Our Alley" and Namby Pamby)
• Anthony Collins – A Discourse of Free-thinking
• Daniel Defoe
  • And What if the Pretender Should Come?
  • A General History of Trade
  • Reasons Against the Succession of the House of Hanover
• John Dennis – Remarks upon Cato
• Abel Evans – Vertumnus
• John Gay
  • Rural Sports
  • The Fan
• Edmund Gibson – Codex Juris Ecclesiastici Anglicani
• Antoine Hamilton – Mémoires du comte de Gramont (published anonymously)
• John Hughes – Letters of Abelard and Heloise (widely published transl.)^[2]
• Thomas Parnell – An Essay on the Different Stiles of Poetry
• Charles-Irénée Castel de Saint-Pierre – Projet pour rendre la paix perpétuelle en Europe
• Jonathan Swift – Mr. C--n's Discourse of Free-thinking, Put into Plain English (see above, Collins)
  • – Part of the Seventh Epistle of the First Book of Horace Imitated
• John Toland – Reasons for Naturalizing the Jews in Great Britain and Ireland
• Ned Ward – The History of the Grand Rebellion

Drama

• Joseph Addison – Cato, a Tragedy
• José de Cañizares – Don Juan de Espina en Milán
• John Gay – The Wife of Bath
• William Taverner – The Female Advocates

Poetry

• Anne Finch – Miscellany Poems on Several Occasions
• Alexander Pope
  • Windsor Forest
  • Ode for Musick
• Edward Young
  • An Epistle to Lord Lansdowne
  • A Poem on the Last Day

See also 1713 in poetry

Births

• January 13 – Charlotte Charke (Charlotte Cibber), English novelist, dramatist and actress (died 1760)
• February 20 – Anna Maria Elvia, Swedish poet (died 1784)
• April 12 – Guillaume Thomas François Raynal, French writer (died 1796)
• June 11 – Edward Capell, English Shakespeare scholar (died 1781)
• July 9 – John Newbery, English publisher and writer for children (died 1767)
• October 5 – Denis Diderot, French encyclopedist (died 1784)
• November 24 – Laurence Sterne, Irish-born novelist and cleric (died 1768)
• December – Jonathan Toup, English classicist and critic (died 1785)

Deaths

• January 5 – Jean Chardin, French travel writer (born 1643)
• January 11 – Pierre Jurieu, French Protestant leader and religious writer (born 1637)
• May 20 – Thomas Sprat, English writer, poet and bishop (born 1635)
• September 18 – Samuel Cobb, English poet and critic (born 1675)
• October 30 – John Barret, English religious writer and Presbyterian minister (born 1631)
• December 14 – Thomas Rymer, English Historiographer Royal (born 1641)

Notes