1705 in literature
This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1705.
Events
- April/May – Richard Steele, having left the army, marries a wealthy widow, Margaret Stretch.
- July 29 – Richard Challoner enters the English College, Douai.
- October 7 – William Somervile inherits his father's estate, where field sports will inspire much of his poetry.
- October 30 – John Vanbrugh's play The Confederacy, adapted from the French, is first performed at his new London playhouse, The Queen's Theatre in the Haymarket.
- December 27 – John Vanbrugh's play The Mistake is likewise adapted from the French and first performed at The Queen's Theatre.
- unknown dates
- *George Hickes' Linguarum veterum septentrionalium thesaurus grammatico-criticus et archæologicus vol. 2 includes the first published reference to Beowulf and the single surviving transcript of the Finnesburg Fragment.
- *Chikamatsu Monzaemon almost abandons writing kabuki plays and becomes a staff writer to the bunraku theatre in Osaka.
- *Claude Pierre Goujet, religious historian and Jansenist, enters holy orders.
- *William Walsh begins a correspondence with Alexander Pope.
- *Work begins on Blenheim Palace in Oxfordshire, England, designed by the playwright John Vanbrugh for the Duke of Marlborough.
New books
Prose
- Joseph Addison – Remarks on Several Parts of Italy
- Mary Astell – The Christian Religion as Profess'd by a Daughter of the Church
- Dimitrie Cantemir – Historia Hieroglyphica
- George Cheyne – Philosophical Principles of Natural Religion
- Samuel Clarke – A Demonstration of the Being and Attributes of God
- Mary Davys – The Fugitive
- Daniel Defoe
- *The Consolidator; or, Memoirs of Sundry Transactions from the World in the Moon
- *A Second Volume of the Writings of the Author of the True-Born Englishman
- John Dunton – The Life and Errors of John Dunton Late Citizen of London
- Edmund Gibson – Family-Devotion
- Charles Gildon – The Deist's Manual
- Marie-Jeanne L'Héritier – La Tour ténébreuse, et les jours lumineux: contes anglois
- Bernard de Mandeville – The Grumbling Hive
- Delarivière Manley – The Secret History, of Queen Zarah, and the Zarazians
- John Philips
- *Blenheim
- *The Splendid Shilling
- Katherine Philips – Letters of Orinda to Poliarchus
- John Toland – ''Primitive Constitution of the Christian Church''
Drama
- Thomas Baker – Hampstead Heath
- Susannah Centlivre
- *The Gamester
- *The Basset-Table
- Colley Cibber – The Careless Husband
- Prosper Jolyot de Crébillon – Idoménée
- John Dennis – Gibraltar, or the Spanish Adventure
- George Granville – The British Enchanters
- William Grimston, 1st Viscount Grimston – The Lawyer’s Fortune or Love in a Hollow Tree
- Peter Anthony Motteux
- *The Amorous Miser, or the Younger the Wiser
- *Arsinoe, Queen of Cyprus
- William Mountfort – Zelmane
- Mary Pix – The Conquest of Spain
- Nicholas Rowe – Ulysses
- Richard Steele – The Tender Husband
- John Vanbrugh –
- * The Confederacy
- * ''The Mistake''
Poetry
- Richard Blackmore – Eliza
- Daniel Defoe
- *The Double Welcome
- *The Dyet of Poland
- Complete Tang Poems
- Charles Johnson – The Queen; a Pindaric Ode
- Matthew Prior – An English Padlock
- Ned Ward – Hudibras Redidivus
- Isaac Watts – Horae Lyricae
Births
- January 21 – Isaac Hawkins Browne, English poet
- February 13 – Franciszka Urszula Radziwillowa, Polish dramatist
- May – Ambrosius Stub, Danish poet
- June 21 – David Hartley, English philosopher
- September 2 – Abraham Tucker, English philosopher
- October 29 – Gerhardt Friedrich Müller, German historian
- November 23 – Thomas Birch, English historian
- probable – Stephen Duck, English poet
Deaths
- January 4 – Madame d'Aulnoy, French author of fairy tales
- January 10 – Étienne Pavillon, French lawyer and poet
- February 5 – Philipp Jakob Spener, German theologian
- April 2 – John Howe, English theologian
- May 5 – Johann Ernst Glück, German writer and translator
- June 10 – Michael Wigglesworth, English poet
- October 17 – Ninon de l'Enclos, French courtesan and salonnière
- November 10 – Justine Siegemund, German writer on midwifery