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

This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1754.

Events

  • January 28 – Horace Walpole, in a letter to Horace Mann, coins the word serendipity (from the Persian fairy tale The Three Princes of Serendip).
  • March 2 – Riot at Smock Alley Theatre in Dublin. Thomas Sheridan, the manager, resigns, and leaves Ireland on September 15 for London where his wife Frances Sheridan meets Samuel Richardson.
  • Élie Catherine Fréron's journal Lettres sur quelques écrits de ce temps is replaced by his Année littéraire.

New books

Fiction

  • Jane Collier and Sarah Fielding – The Cry: A New Dramatic Fable
  • Mary Davys – The Reformed Coquet; or Memoirs of Amoranda
  • Henry Fielding – The Life of Mr. Jonathan Wild the Great (enlarged and expanded from the Miscellanies of 1743)
  • Solomon Gessner – Daphnis
  • Sarah Scott:
  • Agreeable Ugliness
  • A Journey Through Every Stage of Life
  • John Shebbeare – The Marriage Act

Poetry

  • Thomas Cooke – An Ode on Poetry, Painting, and Sculpture
  • John Duncombe – The Feminiad
  • Henry Jones – The Relief
  • William Whitehead – Poems

Non-fiction

  • Anonymous – Critical Remarks on Sir Charles Grandison, Clarissa and Pamela
  • Thomas Birch – Memoirs of the Reign of Queen Elizabeth
  • Charles Bonnet – Essai de psychologie
  • John Gilbert Cooper – Letters Concerning Taste
  • John Douglas – Letter on the Criterion of Miracles
  • John Gillies – Historical Collections Relating to Remarkable Period of the Success of the Gospel
  • Zachary Grey – Critical, Historical, and Explanatory Notes on Shakespeare
  • Benjamin Hoadly – Sixteen Sermons
  • David Hume – The History of England (volume 1)
  • William Law – The Second Part of the Spirit of Love
  • Isaac Newton (died 1727) – An Historical Account of Two Notable Corruptions of Scripture (written 1690)
  • Jean-Jacques Rousseau – Discourse on Inequality
  • Henry St. John – Philosophical Works
  • Jonathan Swift
  • Brotherly Love
  • The Works of Jonathan Swift (the Hawkesworth edition)
  • William Warburton – A View of Lord Bolingbroke's Philosophy
  • Thomas Warton – Observations on the Faerie Queene of Spenser

Drama

  • Samuel Crisp – Virginia
  • David Garrick – Catharine and Petruchio (adapted from The Taming of the Shrew)
  • John Gay – The Rehearsal at Goatham
  • Macnamara Morgan:
  • Philoclea (from Sir Philip Sidney's Arcadia)
  • The Sheep-Shearing, or Florizel and Perdita (a farce adapted from The Winter's Tale)
  • Prosper Jolyot de Crébillon – Le Triumvirat
  • William Whitehead – Creusa, Queen of Athens

Births

  • March 24 – Joel Barlow, American poet and diplomat (died 1812)
  • May 23 – William Drennan, Irish physician, poet, radical and educationalist (died 1820)
  • July 11 – Thomas Bowdler, English editor (died 1825)
  • August 2 – Lady Charlotte Murray, English writer and botanist (died 1808)
  • October 13 – Frances Jacson, English novelist (died 1842)
  • December 24 – George Crabbe, English poet (died 1832)
  • unknown date – John Caradja, Greek Prince of Wallachia, translator and theatrical promoter (died 1844)

Deaths

  • January 11 – Wu Jingzi, Chinese scholar and novelist (born 1701)
  • January 28 – Ludvig Holberg, Norwegian philosopher, historian and playwright (born 1684)
  • April 2 – Thomas Carte, English historian (born 1686)
  • April 9 – Christian Wolff, German philosopher (born 1679)
  • October 8 – Henry Fielding English novelist (born 1707)
  • November 12 – Robert Morris, English architect and writer on architecture (born 1703)

References