1747 in literature

This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1747.

Events

March 31 – Laurence Sterne preaches the Good Friday sermon at St Helen Stonegate; The Case of Elijah and the Widow of Zerephath is later printed and published.
April 9 – David Garrick becomes joint patentee and manager of the Drury Lane Theatre in London.
December 1 – Samuel Richardson's two-volume epistolary novel Clarissa, or, the History of a Young Lady begins publication in London from his own print shop, dated 1748.
unknown date – The Załuski Library in Warsaw is opened to the public.

William Blackstone – The Pantheon
Thomas Carte – A General History of England
Juan de Iriarte – Discurso sobre la imperfección de los diccionarios
Diego de Torres Villarroel – Desengaños razonables para sacudir el polvo del espanto
Denis Diderot – La Promenade du sceptique
William Dunkin – Boetia
Thomas Edward – A Supplement to Mr. Warburton's Edition of Shakespear
Henry Fielding, as "John Trott Plaid" – The Jacobite's Journal
Sarah Fielding – Familiar Letters Between the Principal Characters in David Simple
Samuel Foote – The Roman and English Comedy Consider'd
Hannah Glasse, as "A Lady" – The Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy
Madame de Graffigny – Lettres d'une Péruvienne
Henry Home, Lord Kames – Essays Upon Several Subjects Concerning British Antiquities
Samuel Johnson – The Plan of a Dictionary of the English Language
David Mallet – Amyntor and Theodora
William Memoth, the younger – The Letters of Pliny the Consul
Josiah Ralph – A Miscellany
Samuel Richardson – Clarissa vol. i–ii
William Shakespeare – The Works of Shakespear
Tobias Smollett – Reproof
Joseph Spence – Polymetis
Voltaire – Zadig
Horace Walpole – A Letter to the Whigs
Joseph Warton – Ranelagh House
Thomas Warton – ''The Pleasures of Melancholy''

January 11 – François Alexandre Frédéric, duc de la Rochefoucauld-Liancourt, French economics writer
January 12 – Susanna Blamire, English dialect poet and songwriter
January 15 – John Aikin, English biographer, activist and physician
January 26 – Samuel Parr, English schoolmaster and writer, "the Whig Johnson"
January – William Seward, English man of letters
February 19 – John "Walking" Stewart, English traveller and philosopher
March 10 – Iolo Morganwg, Welsh antiquarian, bookseller, poet and literary forger
September 30 – John Mastin, English memoirist, local historian and cleric
December 12 – Anna Seward, English poet
Unknown date
*John Edwards (1747–1792), Welsh poet
*Thomas Scott, English cleric and religious writer