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This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1702.

Events

  • March 8 (O.S.) – Accession of Anne, Queen of Great Britain, upon the death of her brother-in-law William III.
  • March 11 (O.S.) – The first regular English national newspaper, The Daily Courant, begins publication, in Fleet Street in the City of London. It covers only foreign news.
  • October – Jonathan Swift returns to Ireland in the company of Esther Johnson.
  • unknown dates
  • Ballet master John Weaver presents the burlesque Tavern Bilkers at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane in London, the first English pantomime. It is not a success.
  • The first book set in the Romain du Roi Roman type, devised for use by the Imprimerie nationale in France: Médailles sur les principaux événements du règne de Louis le Grand, is printed.
  • Castle Howard in Yorkshire, England, is completed to the design of playwright John Vanbrugh and architect Nicholas Hawksmoor.

New books

Prose

  • Louise de Bossigny, comtesse d'Auneuil – La Tiranie des fées détruite (The Tyranny of the Fairies Destroyed)
  • Thomas Brown, et al. – Letters From the Dead to the Living
  • Edmund Calamy – An Abridgement of Mr Baxter's History of His Life and Times
  • Daniel Defoe
  • An Enquiry into Occasional Conformity
  • The Mock-Mourners (on the death of William III)
  • A New Test of the Church of England's Loyalty
  • Reformation of Manners
  • The Shortest Way with the Dissenters (anonymous; December)
  • The Spanish Descent
  • John Dennis – The Monument
  • Laurence Echard – A General Ecclesiastical History
  • George Farquhar – Love and Business
  • Edmund Gibson – Synodus Anglicana (on the convocation)
  • Charles Gildon (?) – A Comparison Between the Two Stages (on the "War of the Theatres")
  • Examen Miscellaneum
  • Edward Hyde, 1st Earl of Clarendon – The History of the Rebellion and Civil Wars in England (1702–1704, written in the 1640s and late 1660s. Also known as Clarendon's History)
  • George Keith – The Standard of the Quakers Examined
  • John Kersey – A New English Dictionary; or, a complete collection of the most proper and significant words, commonly used in the language
  • Cotton Mather – Magnalia Christi Americana
  • Matthew Prior – To a Young Gentleman in Love
  • John Toland – Paradoxes of State
  • Catherine Trotter Cockburn – A Defence of the Essay of Human Understanding (re John Locke)

Drama

  • William Burnaby – The Modish Husband
  • Susanna Centlivre –
  • The Beau's Duel
  • The Stolen Heiress
  • Colley Cibber – She Would and She Would Not
  • John Dennis – The Comical Gallant
  • George Farquhar
  • The Inconstant
  • The Twin Rivals
  • Charles Gildon – The Patriot
  • Bevil Higgons – The Generous Conqueror (printed, performed in 1701)
  • Francis Manning – All for the Better
  • John Oldmixon – The Governour of Cyprus
  • Nicholas Rowe
  • The Fair Penitent (adaptation of Massinger and Field's The Fair Penitent, performed, printed in 1703)
  • Tamerlane (printed, performed in 1701)
  • Sir Charles Sedley – The Tyrant King of Crete
  • John Vanbrugh – The False Friend

Poetry

  • Matsuo Bashō (posthumously) – Oku no Hosomichi (Narrow Road to the Deep North)

Births

  • June 26 – Philip Doddridge, English religious and writer and hymnist (died 1751)
  • Unknown date – Margareta Momma, Swedish journalist and publisher (died 1772)

Deaths

  • January 1 – Samuel Green, American printer (born c. 1614)
  • January 17 – Roger Morrice, English journalist and diarist (born 1628)
  • February 17 – Peder Syv, Danish philologist, folklorist and priest (born 1631)
  • April 22 – François Charpentier, French archeologist and writer (born 1620)
  • May 17 (bur.) – Richard Sault, English mathematician, editor and translator (unknown year of birth)
  • May 27 – Dominique Bouhours, French literary critic (born 1628)
  • November – John Pomfret, English poet (born 1667)

References