1748 in literature

This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1748.

Events

January – The play Yoshitsune Senbon Zakura receives its Kabuki première in Ise. In May, it receives its first Edo performance at the Nakamura-za and in August first performances in Osaka at the Naka no Shibai.
October 19 – David Garrick revives Philip Massinger's play A New Way to Pay Old Debts in London.
November 21 – The first instalment of Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure, also known as Fanny Hill, is published anonymously by John Cleland to raise money to free himself from the London debtors' prison. It is considered by some to be the first modern erotic novel.
December 18 – The Royal Danish Theatre is founded, with the opening of the King's Theatre in Copenhagen.
unknown dates
*Leonhard Euler publishes, in Berlin, one of the two works for which he will be most renowned: the Introductio in analysin infinitorum. Euler's fifth paper on nautical topics, E137, is also written in this year but not published until 1750.
*The Gospel of Matthew in the Manx language, as Yn Sushtcml scruit liorish yn Noo Mian, is the first translation of a New Testament text into that language, under the auspices of the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge.

Richard Walton – Anson's A Voyage Round the World
Jean-Baptiste de Boyer, Marquis d'Argens – Thérèse philosophe
John Cleland – Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure
Denis Diderot
*Les Bijoux indiscrets
*Memoires sur differents sujets de mathematique
Eliza Haywood – Life's Progress through the Passions
James Hervey – Meditations and Contemplations
David Hume – An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding
Edmond Hoyle – Mr. Hoyle's Treatises of Whist, Quadrille, Piquet, Chess and Back-Gammon
William Kenrick – The Town
Montesquieu – De l'Esprit des lois
Laetitia Pilkington – Memoirs
Samuel Richardson – Clarissa, vols. ii – vii
Thomas Sheridan – The Simile
Tobias Smollett
*The Adventures of Roderick Random
*English translation of The Adventures of Gil Blas of Santillane by Alain-René Le Sage
François-Vincent Toussaint – Les Mœurs
Voltaire – Zadig
Horace Walpole – A Second and Third Letter to the Whigs
John Wesley – A Letter to a Person Lately Join'd with the People call'd Quakers
Peter Whalley – An Enquiry into the Learning of Shakespeare
Diego de Torres Villarroel – ''De los temblores y otros movimientos de la tierra llamados vulgarmente terremotos''