1713 in literature
This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1713.
Events
- March 12 – Richard Steele and Joseph Addison found the short-lived The Guardian; in the same year, Steele founds another periodical, ostensibly as a sequel to it, the likewise short-lived The Englishman.
- April 14 – The first performance is given in London of Addison's libertarian play Cato, a Tragedy, which will be influential on both sides of the Atlantic.
- October – Alexander Pope announces that he is to begin a definitive translation of the works of Homer.
- unknown date – Vitsentzos Kornaros's early 17th-century Cretan romantic epic poem Erotokritos, is printed, for the first time, in Venice.
New books
Prose
- John Arbuthnot – Proposals for printing a very curious discourse... a treatise of the art of political lying, with an abstract of the first volume
- Jane Barker – The Amours of Bosvil and Galesia
- Richard Bentley – Remarks upon a Late Discourse of Free-thinking
- George Berkeley – Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous
- Nicolas Boileau-Despréaux – Dialogue sur les héros de roman
- Robert Challe – Les Illustres Françaises
- Anthony Collins – A Discourse of Free-thinking
- Daniel Defoe
- *And What if the Pretender Should Come?
- *A General History of Trade
- *Reasons Against the Succession of the House of Hanover
- John Dennis – Remarks upon Cato
- Abel Evans – Vertumnus
- John Gay
- *Rural Sports
- *The Fan
- Edmund Gibson – Codex Juris Ecclesiastici Anglicani
- Antoine Hamilton – Mémoires du comte de Gramont
- John Hughes – Letters of Abelard and Heloise
- Henri Joutel – Journal historique du dernier voyage que feu M. de La Sale fit dans le golfe de Mexique
- Thomas Parnell – An Essay on the Different Stiles of Poetry
- Charles-Irénée Castel de Saint-Pierre – Projet pour rendre la paix perpétuelle en Europe
- Jonathan Swift
- *Mr. C--n's Discourse of Free-thinking, Put into Plain English
- *Part of the Seventh Epistle of the First Book of Horace Imitated
- John Toland – Reasons for Naturalizing the Jews in Great Britain and Ireland
- Ned Ward – ''The History of the Grand Rebellion''
Drama
- Anonymous – The Apparition
- Joseph Addison – Cato, a Tragedy
- José de Cañizares – Don Juan de Espina en Milán
- John Gay – The Wife of Bath
- Charles Shadwell – The Merry Wives of Broad Street
- William Taverner – ''The Female Advocates''
Poetry
- Henry Carey – Poems on Several Occasions
- Anne Finch – Miscellany Poems on Several Occasions
- Alexander Pope
- *Windsor Forest
- *Ode for Musick
- Edward Young
- *An Epistle to Lord Lansdowne
- *A Poem on the Last Day
Births
- January 13 – Charlotte Charke, English novelist, dramatist and actress
- February 20 – Anna Maria Elvia, Swedish poet
- April 12 – Guillaume Thomas François Raynal, French writer
- June 11 – Edward Capell, English Shakespeare scholar
- July 9 – John Newbery, English publisher and writer for children
- October 5 – Denis Diderot, French encyclopedist
- October 25 – Marie Jeanne Riccoboni, French novelist and actress
- November 24 – Laurence Sterne, Irish-born novelist and cleric
- December 19 – Jonathan Toup, English classicist and critic
Deaths
- January 5 – Jean Chardin, French travel writer
- January 11 – Pierre Jurieu, French Protestant leader and religious writer
- May 20 – Thomas Sprat, English writer, poet and bishop
- September 11 – Johannes Voet, Dutch jurist and legal writer
- September 18 – Samuel Cobb, English poet and critic
- October 20 – Archibald Pitcairne, Scottish physician and writer
- October 30 – John Barret, English religious writer and Presbyterian minister
- December 14 – Thomas Rymer, English Historiographer Royal