1718 in literature

This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1718.

Events

November 1 – Lady Mary Wortley Montagu writes the last of her Turkish Letters, addressed to Alexander Pope.
November 18 – Voltaire's first play, Oedipus, premières at the Comédie-Française in Paris. This is his first use of the pseudonym. He has been released from the Bastille this year, while Marguerite De Launay, Baronne Staal, begins a two-year sentence.
The Free-Thinker, a Whig newspaper, is founded by poet Ambrose Philips and Rev. Hugh Boulter in London.
Laurence Eusden becomes Poet Laureate of England.
Ludvig Holberg becomes a professor at the University of Copenhagen.

Nicholas Amhurst – Protestant Popery; or, The Convocation (part of the Bangorian Controversy)
Daniel Defoe (attr.) – A Vindication of the Press
Charles Gildon – The Complete Art of Poetry
Mary Hearne – The Lover's Week
Simon Ockley – The History of the Saracens, volume 2
Ambrose Philips – The Free-Thinker (periodical)
Allan Ramsay -Christ's Kirk on the Green (revised version)
John Ray – Philosophical Letters
John Strype – The Life and Acts of John Witgift
John Toland – Nazarenus, or Jewish, Gentile and Mahometan Christianity
John Wilmot, 2nd Earl of Rochester – Remains of the Earl of Rochester