1718 in literature
This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1718.
Events
- November 1 – Lady Mary Wortley Montagu writes the last of her Turkish Letters, addressed to Alexander Pope.
- November 18 – Voltaire's first play, Oedipus, premières at the Comédie-Française in Paris. This is his first use of the pseudonym. He has been released from the Bastille this year, while Marguerite De Launay, Baronne Staal, begins a two-year sentence.
- The Free-Thinker, a Whig newspaper, is founded by poet Ambrose Philips and Rev. Hugh Boulter in London.
- Laurence Eusden becomes Poet Laureate of England.
- Ludvig Holberg becomes a professor at the University of Copenhagen.
New books
Prose
- Nicholas Amhurst – Protestant Popery; or, The Convocation
- Daniel Defoe – A Vindication of the Press
- Charles Gildon – The Complete Art of Poetry
- Mary Hearne – The Lover's Week
- Simon Ockley – The History of the Saracens, volume 2
- Ambrose Philips – The Free-Thinker
- Allan Ramsay -Christ's Kirk on the Green
- John Ray – Philosophical Letters
- John Strype – The Life and Acts of John Witgift
- John Toland – Nazarenus, or Jewish, Gentile and Mahometan Christianity
- John Wilmot, 2nd Earl of Rochester – ''Remains of the Earl of Rochester''
Drama
- Charles Beckingham – Scipio Africanus
- John Durant Breval – The Play is the Plot
- Christopher Bullock – The Traitor
- Susanna Centlivre – A Bold Stroke for a Wife
- Charles Molloy – The Coquet
- Richard Savage – Love in a Veil
- Elkanah Settle and Lewis Theobald – The Lady's Triumph
- Voltaire – ''Œdipe''
Poetry
- Joseph Addison
- *Poems on Several Occasions
- *The Resurrection
- Richardson Pack – Miscellanies in Verse and Prose
- Alexander Pope – The Iliad of Homer iv
Births
- February 18
- *Søren Abildgaard, Danish naturalist, author and artist
- *Robert Henry, Scottish historian
- April 7 – Hugh Blair, Scottish rhetorician
- May 16 – Maria Gaetana Agnesi, Italian philosopher
- July 18 – Saverio Bettinelli, Italian Jesuit writer
Deaths
- April 27 – Jacques Bernard, French theologian
- May 16 – Jonas Danilssønn Ramus, Norwegian historian
- May 22 – Gaspard Abeille, French lyric and tragic poet
- July 28 – Étienne Baluze, French scholar
- October 9 – Richard Cumberland, English philosopher and bishop
- December 6 – Nicholas Rowe, English dramatist
- December 9 – Vincenzo Coronelli Italian encyclopedist