1712 in literature

This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1712.

Events

July 7 – Henry St. John is raised to the peerage of Great Britain as Viscount Bolingbroke for services in Robert Harley's Tory ministry.
August 14 – Alexander Pope outlines his project for a satirical periodical, The Works of the Unlearned, from which develops the Scriblerus Club, whose members include Pope, Jonathan Swift, John Gay, Thomas Parnell, Robert Harley, Henry St John, 1st Viscount Bolingbroke, and Dr John Arbuthnot at whose house they meet.
August 23 – Lady Mary Pierrepont marries Edward Wortley Montagu, after an elopement.
October 31 – King Philip V of Spain establishes the Biblioteca Nacional de España as the Palace Public Library in Madrid.
November 4 – Jonathan Swift foils a murder attempt on Robert Harley, 1st Earl of Oxford and Earl Mortimer, in what becomes known as the Bandbox Plot.
November 7 – Charles Johnson's dramatisation of episodes from the life of Henry Every, The Successful Pyrate, receives its première at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane. Although it is primarily satirical, John Dennis subsequently complains to Charles Killigrew, Master of the Revels, that the play glamorizes pirates. The controversy contributes to its theatrical success.
unknown date – Shota Rustaveli's 12th-century poem The Knight in the Panther's Skin is first printed, in Tbilisi.

John Arbuthnot – Law Is a Bottomless Pit
George Berkeley – Passive Obedience
Jean-Paul Bignon – Les Avantures d'Abdalla, fils d'Hanif
Richard Blackmore – Creation
James Brome – Travels through Portugal, Spain, and Italy
Sir Thomas Browne – Posthumous Works of the Learned Sir Thomas Browne
Samuel Clarke – The Scripture-Doctrine of the Trinity
Daniel Defoe – A Further Search into the Conduct of the Allies
John Dennis – An Essay upon the Genius and Writings of Shakespear
William Diaper
*Dryaides
*Nereides
Thomas Ellwood – Davideis: the Life of David, King of Israel
John Gay – The Mohocks
Bernard de Mandeville – Typhon
John Oldmixon
*The Dutch Barrier Ours
*Reflections on Dr Swift's Letter to the Earl of Oxford, about the English Tongue
*The Secret History of Europe
Thomas Otway – The Works of Mr. Thomas Otway
Woodes Rogers – A Cruising Voyage round the World: first to the South-Sea, thence to the East-Indies, and homewards by the Cape of Good Hope
Nicholas Rowe – Callipaedia
George Sewell – The Patriot
Richard Steele – The Englishman's Thanks to the Duke of Marlborough
Jonathan Swift
*A Proposal for Correcting, Improving and Ascertaining the English Tongue
*Some Advice Humbly Offer'd to the Members of the October Club
Leonard Welsted – ''The Works of Dionysius Longinus, on the Sublime''