1715 in literature
This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1715.
Events
- c. August – Nicholas Rowe becomes the Poet Laureate of Great Britain.
- The first record of the actress and writer Eliza Haywood tells of her performing in Thomas Shadwell's Shakespeare adaptation, Timon of Athens; or, The Man-Hater at the Smock Alley Theatre, Dublin.
New books
Prose
- Joseph Addison – The Free-Holder
- Jane Barker – Exilius; or, The Banished Roman
- Richard Bentley – A Sermon upon Popery
- Samuel Croxall – The Vision
- Daniel Defoe
- *An Appeal to Honour and Justice
- *The Family Instructor
- *A Hymn to the Mob
- Elizabeth Elstob – The Rudiments of Grammar for the English-Saxon Tongue, first given in English; with an apology for the study of northern antiquities, the first grammar of Old English
- Thomas-Simon Gueullette – Les Mille et un quarts-d’heure, contes tartares
- Alain-René Lesage – L'Histoire de Gil Blas de Santillane
- Charles Montagu – The Works and Life of the Late Earl of Halifax
- Jonathan Richardson – An Essay on the Theory of Painting
- "Captain" Alexander Smith – The Secret History of the Lives of the Most Celebrated Beauties, Ladies of Quality, and Jilts
- Richard Steele
- *The Englishman: Second Series
- *''Town-Talk''
Children
Drama
- Christopher Bullock – A Woman's Revenge
- Henry Carey – The Contrivances
- Susanna Centlivre – The Gotham Election
- Chikamatsu Monzaemon – The Battles of Coxinga
- Charles Rivière Dufresny – La Coquette de village
- John Gay – The What D'Ye Call It
- Benjamin Griffin
- *Injured Virtue; or, The Virgin Martyr
- *Love in a Sack
- Newburgh Hamilton – The Doating Lovers
- Charles Johnson – The Country Lasses
- Charles Knipe – A City Ramble
- Charles Molloy – The Perplexed Couple
- Nicholas Rowe -The Tragedy of Lady Jane Grey
- Lewis Theobald – The Perfidious Brother
- John Vanbrugh – The Country House''
Poetry
- Charles Cotton – The Genuine Works of Charles Cotton
- Alexander Pope
- *The Temple of Fame
- *The Iliad of Homer vol. i.
- Thomas Tickell – The First Book of Homer's Iliad
- Isaac Watts
- *Divine Songs
- *''A Guide to Prayer''
Births
- January 14 – Frances Vane, Viscountess Vane, English memoirist
- January 26 or February 26 – Claude Adrien Helvétius, French philosophical writer
- June 4 – Cao Xueqin, Chinese writer
- September 30 – Étienne Bonnot de Condillac, French philosophical writer
- October 1 – Richard Jago, English poet
- Probable year of birth
- *John Hawkesworth, English writer and editor
- *Alexander Russell, Scottish physician and naturalist
Deaths
- January 7 – François Fénelon, French archbishop, theologian, poet and writer
- February 25 – Pu Songling, Qing Dynasty Chinese writer
- March 8 – William Dampier, English explorer and writer
- March 17 – Gilbert Burnet, Scottish theologian and historian
- July 30 – Nahum Tate, Irish poet and hymnist
- October 13 – Nicolas Malebranche, French priest and rationalist philosopher
- Unknown date – Mary Monck, Irish poet