1745 in literature
This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1745.
Events
- February – London theatres stage competing productions of Shakespeare's King John in response to the Jacobite rising begun this summer by Bonnie Prince Charlie. David Garrick's production of the original text at Drury Lane contrasts with Colley Cibber's adaptation Papal Tyranny in the Reign of King John at Covent Garden. The rivalry anticipates "the Romeo and Juliet war" of five years later.
- September 21 – Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock delivers a speech on epic poetry – Abschiedsrede über die epische Poesie, kultur- und literargeschichtlich erläutert – to mark his leaving school.
- October 19 – Jonathan Swift, Irish satirist and Dean of St Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin, dies aged 78. His body is laid out in public for the people of Dublin to pay their last respects, and he is buried, in accordance with his wishes, in his cathedral by Esther Johnson's side, with his own epitaph: Ubi sæva Indignatio/Ulterius/Cor lacerare nequit.
- November 17 – In Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, Bishop August Gottlieb Spangenberg of the Moravian Church asks innkeeper Samuel Powell to begin importing and distributing books, the origins of a bookstore still in existence in 2007.
New books
Prose
- Mark Akenside – Odes
- Elizabeth Boyd – The Snail: Or the Lady's Lucubrations
- John Brown – An Essay on Satire, occasion'd by the death of Mr. Pope
- Comte de Caylus – Cinq contes de fées
- John Gilbert Cooper – The Power of Harmony
- Philip Doddridge – The Rise and Progress of Religion in the Soul
- Henry Fielding
- *A Serious Address to the People of Great Britain
- *The True Patriot
- Enrique Flórez – Mapa de todos los sitios de batallas que tuvieron los romanos en España
- Samuel Johnson
- *Miscellaneous Observations on the Tragedy of Macbeth
- *Proposals for Printing a New Edition of the Plays of William Shakespear
- Jean-Bernard, abbé Le Blanc – Lettres d'un François
- Samuel Madden – Boulter's Monument
- Pierre de Marivaux – La Vie de Marianne
- Moses Mendes – Henry and Blanche
- Glocester Ridley – Jovi Eleutherio
- Thomas Scott – England's Danger and Duty
- Jonathan Swift – Directions to Servants
- William Thompson – ''Sickness''
Drama
- Colley Cibber – Papal Tyranny in the Reign of King John
- Robert Dodsley – Rex et Pontifex
- Luise Gottsched – Das Testament
- Charles Jennens – Belshazzar
- James Miller – The Picture
- James Thomson – ''Tancred and Sigismunda''
Births
- January 4 – Johann Jakob Griesbach, German Biblical commentator
- February 2
- *Hannah More, English Romantic poet, religious writer and philanthropist
- *John Nichols, English printer and antiquary
- February 20 – Henry James Pye, English poet
- July 26 – Henry Mackenzie, Scottish novelist, writer and poet
- September 3 – Charles Victor de Bonstetten, Swiss liberal writer
- September 12 ' – Karl von Marinelli, Austrian actor and dramatist
- October 13 ' – William Crowe, English poet
- December 10 – Thomas Holcroft, English dramatist and miscellanist
- Probable year of birth – Olaudah Equiano, African writer
Deaths
- Spring – William Meston, Scottish poet
- May 13 – Charles Coffey, Irish dramatist and composer
- July 11 – Pierre Desmaiseaux, exiled French biographer
- September 6 – David Wilkins, Prussian-born English orientalist
- October 19 – Jonathan Swift, Irish satirist
- November 16 – William Broome, English poet and translator
- December 16 – Pierre Desfontaines, French journalist and historian
- December 29 – Nur al-Din Nimatullah al-Jazayiri, Safavid Iranian Ja'fari jurist, linguist and writer
In literature
- Walter Scott's novel Waverley and Robert Louis Stevenson's The Master of Ballantrae are set during the Jacobite rising of 1745.