1742 in literature

This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1742.

Events

February – Henry Fielding's picaresque novel Joseph Andrews appears in London as The History of the Adventures of Joseph Andrews and of his Friend Mr. Abraham Adams, written in imitation of the manner of Cervantes, author of Don Quixote. Described by Fielding as a "comic epic poem in prose", it is his first full-length novel and among the earliest in the English language. A second edition appears on June 10.
December 2 – The Pennsylvania Journal first appears in the United States.
December – The novelist and dramatist Pierre de Marivaux is elected to the Académie française.
unknown dates
*The Irish portraitist Charles Jervas' English translation of Don Quixote is published three years after his death. Through a printer's error, the translator's name is printed as "Charles Jarvis", leading to the book being known forever as the "Jarvis" translation. It is acclaimed as the most faithful English rendering of the novel up to this time.
*The Stockholm Gazette, founded by Peter Momma, begins publication.
*The publisher Robert Foulis acquires his own printing press in Glasgow.
*The French typefounder Pierre Simon Fournier's Modèles des Caractères presents his system of point sizes for typography.

Colley Cibber – A Letter from Mr. Cibber to Mr. Pope
Ignacio de Luzán – Carta en defensa de España
Philip Doddridge – Evidences of Christianity
Pierre Simon Fournier – Modèles des Caractères
Nathaniel Hooke – An Account of the Conduct of the Dowager Duchess of Marlborough from her first coming to Court to the year 1710
Edmond Hoyle – A Short Treatise on the Game of Whist
David Hume – Essays Moral and Political vol. ii
Benito Jerónimo Feijoo – Cartas eruditas y curiosas
Colin Maclaurin – Treatise on Fluxions
John Oldmixon – Memoirs of the Press, Historical and Political
Horace Walpole and Sir Charles Hanbury Williams – The Lessons for the Day.
William Warburton – A Critical and Philosophical Commentary on Mr. Pope's Essay on Man
John Wesley
*The Character of a Methodist
*The Principles of a Methodist
George Whitefield – ''Nine Sermons''