1772 in literature

This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1772.

Events

March – Gottfried August Bürger obtains a magistracy and is reconciled with his family.
May 7 – The Stadsschouwburg theatre in Amsterdam is destroyed by fire.
June
At Marseilles, the Marquis de Sade embarks on an orgy, as a result of which he is convicted in absentia of sodomy and poisoning and receives a death sentence; he escapes.
Charles Burney tours Europe, researching for his History of Music.
September 12 – The Göttinger Hainbund of German poets is formed at a midnight ritual in an oaken grove.
November 10 – The wife of poet Pedro Correia Garção obtains an order for his release from prison, the very day of his death.
November 28 – Publication of the Bible in the Manx language is completed.
unknown dates
Thomas Paine produces his first published work, a political article entitled Case of the Officers of Excise.
Hannah More arrives in London.
An Armenian language press is set up in Chennai, India.

Mark Akenside – Poems
Thomas Chatterton – The Execution of Sir Charles Bawdin
William Jones – Poems, Consisting Chiefly of Translations from the Asiatick Languages
William Kenrick – Love in the Suds
William Mason – The English Garden
Christopher Smart – Hymns, for the Amusement of Children
George Alexander Stevens – Songs

Alphabetum grandonico-malabaricum sive samscrudonicum (with a preface by Giovanni Cristofano Amaduzzi)
The Encyclopédie in 28 volumes by Diderot, d'Alembert, and many others
Moses Browne – The Excellency of the Knowledge of Jesus Christ
José Cadalso – Los eruditos a la violeta
William Chambers – A Dissertation on Oriental Gardening
Junius (possibly Philip Francis) – Junius: Stat Nominis Umbra
Francis Grose – The Antiquities of England and Wales
Johann Gottfried Herder – Abhandlung über den Ursprung der Sprache (Treatise on the Origin of Language)
Richard Hurd – An Introduction to the Study of Prophecies...
Carsten Niebuhr – Beschreibung von Arabien
Joseph Priestley – The History and Present State of Discoveries Relating to Vision, Light, and Colours
Francis Stoughton Sullivan (died 1766) – An Historical Treatise on the Feudal Law, and the Constitution and Laws of England
Catherine Talbot – Essays on Various Subjects
Wilhelm Abraham Teller – Wörterbuch des Neuen Testamentes zur Erklärung der christlichen Lehre (Dictionary of the New Testament for the Explanation of Christian Doctrine)

January 15 – James Ballantyne, Scottish editor and publisher (died 1833)
March 10 – Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel, German poet, literary critic, philosopher and philologist (died 1829)
April 11 – Manuel José Quintana, Spanish poet (died 1857)
May 2 – Novalis (Georg Philipp Friedrich Freiherr von Hardenberg), German poet and philosopher (died 1801)
August 29 – Sarah Burney, English novelist (died 1844)
September 27 – Sándor Kisfaludy, Hungarian poet (died 1844)
October 21 – Samuel Taylor Coleridge, English poet (died 1834)
November 17 – Marc-Antoine Madeleine Désaugiers, French dramatist (died 1827)
November 28 – Johann Gottfried Jakob Hermann, German classical commentator and philologist (died 1848)
December 6
John Carr, English travel writer and lawyer (died 1832)
Henry Cary, Gibraltar-born Irish author, editor and translator (died 1844)
unknown date – Maria Riddell, West Indies-born poet, naturalist and travel writer resident in Scotland (died 1808)
probable – Charlotte Dacre, English Gothic novelist (died 1825)