<!-- "none" is preferred when the title is sufficiently descriptive; see WP:SDNONE -->

This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1730.

Events

  • January 7 – The death of the Icelandic scholar Árni Magnússon activates the bequest to the University of Copenhagen in Denmark of the Arnamagnæan Manuscript Collection, which he has assembled.
  • January 8 – The Grub Street Journal is launched in London, with Richard Russel and John Martyn as editors. It lasts for 418 issues.
  • April 17 – Pietro Metastasio arrives in Vienna, where he settles permanently.
  • December 3 – Colley Cibber becomes Poet Laureate of the Kingdom of Great Britain, in succession to Laurence Eusden.
  • December 11 – Voltaire's Brutus is finally staged.
  • unknown date – Romeo and Juliet becomes the first of Shakespeare's plays to be performed in America, when it is staged in New York City.

New books

<!-- (Title of published book translation), ("Title of published poem/story translation"), (Literal translation of title) -->

Prose

  • Joseph Addison – The Evidences of the Christian Religion (posthumous)
  • John Bancks – The Weaver's Miscellany
  • Pierre François Xavier de Charlevoix – Histoire de l'Isle Espagnole ou de S. Domingue
  • Thomas Cooke as "Scriblerus Tertius" – The Candidates for the Bays
  • Yaakov Culi – Me'am Lo'ez
  • Philip Doddridge – Free Thoughts on the Most Probable Means of Reviving the Dissenting Interest
  • Johann Christoph Gottsched – Versuch einer kritischen Dichtkunst für die Deutschen
  • John Hervey, 2nd Baron Hervey – Observations on the Writings of the Craftsman
  • George Lyttelton, 1st Baron Lyttelton – An Epistle to Mr. Pope
  • Pierre des Maizeaux – Vie de Bayle
  • Isaac Rand – Index plantarum officinalium, quas ad materiae medicae scientiam promovendam, in horto Chelseiano (catalogue of plants in Chelsea Physic Garden)
  • Philip Johan von Strahlenberg – Das Nord- und Ostliche Theil von Europa und Asia (North and Eastern Parts of Europe and Asia)
  • Jonathan Swift – A Libel on D—— D——, and a Certain Great Lord
  • Matthew Tindal – Christianity as Old as Creation
  • William Whiston – Life of Samuel Clarke
  • William Wotton (posthumous) – A Discourse Concerning the Confusion of Languages at Babel
  • Edward Young – Two Epistles to Mr. Pope

Drama

  • Theophilus Cibber – Patie and Peggy (opera)
  • Henry Fielding
  • The Author's Farce
  • Rape upon Rape
  • The Temple Beau
  • Tom Thumb
  • Charles Johnson – The Tragedy of Medea
  • George Lillo – Sylvia
  • Pierre de Marivaux – The Game of Love and Chance
  • Benjamin Martyn – Timoleon
  • James Miller – The Humours of Oxford
  • John Mottley – The Widow Bewitched
  • Gabriel Odingsells – Bayes's Opera
  • James Ralph – The Fashionable Lady
  • James Thomson – Sophonisba
  • Edward Ward – The Prisoner's Opera

Poetry

  • Stephen Duck – Poems on Several Subjects (including "The Thresher's Labour")
  • Matthew Pilkington – Poems on Several Occasions
  • Elizabeth Thomas – The Metamorphosis of the Town
  • See also 1730 in poetry

Births

  • March 27 – Thomas Tyrwhitt, English critic (died 1786)
  • April 1 – Salomon Gessner, Swiss painter and poet (died 1788)
  • August 20 – Paul Henri Mallet, Swiss historian (died 1807)
  • December 6 – Sophie von La Roche (Maria Sophie Gutermann von Gutershofen), German novelist (died 1807)
  • unknown dates
  • Thomas Marryat, English medical writer and physician (died 1792)
  • Joakim Stulić, Croatian lexicographer (died 1817)
  • Tarikonda Venkamamba, Telugu poet (died 1817)
  • probable year – Charlotte Lennox, Gibraltar-born Scottish novelist and poet (died 1804)

Deaths

  • January 7 – Árni Magnússon, Icelandic scholar (born 1663)
  • July 16 – Elijah Fenton, English poet (born 1683)
  • August 16 – Laurence Echard, English historian (born c. 1670)
  • September 14 – Sophia Elisabet Brenner, Swedish poet and writer (born 1659)
  • September 27 – Laurence Eusden, English Poet Laureate (born 1688)
  • October 23 – Anne Oldfield, English actress (born 1683)
  • November – Nedîm, Ottoman poet (born c. 1680; killed in the Patrona Halil uprising
  • December 31 &ndash; Carlo Gimach, Maltese architect, engineer and poet (born 1651)

References