1756 in literature

This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1756.

Events

March 1 – The first issue of The Critical Review is published, with Tobias Smollett as editor.
April-May – Beginning of the Seven Years' War in Europe.
June 20 – The Black Hole of Calcutta incident inspires renewed British efforts in India.
October 29 – Frances Abington first acts with the company of the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, London.
November – Gilbert White becomes curate at his birthplace of Selborne in Hampshire, England, for the second time.
December 14 – Rev. John Home's blank verse tragedy Douglas is performed for the first time, in Edinburgh, with considerable success, in spite of the opposition of the local church presbytery, who summon Rev. Alexander Carlyle to answer for having attended its representation. However, it fails in its early promise to set up a new Scottish dramatic tradition.

Anonymous – The Life and Memoirs of Mr. Ephraim Tristram Bates
Thomas Amory – Life of John Buncle
Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont – "La Belle et la Bête"
Charlotte Lennox – The Memoirs of the Countess of Berci
Samuel Richardson – The Paths of Virtue Delineated, children's versions of Pamela, Clarissa, and ''Sir Charles Grandison''

Frances Brooke – Virginia
John Brown – Athelstane
Samuel Foote
*The Englishman Return'd from Paris
*The Green-Room Squabble or a Battle Royal between the Queen of Babylon and the Daughter of Darius
David Garrick
*Catherine and Petruchio
*The Tempest
Carlo Goldoni – Il campiello
John Home – ''Douglas''

Corporate authorship – The Literary Magazine
Thomas Birch – The History of the Royal Society of London vol. i
William Blackstone – An Analysis of the Laws of England
Edmund Burke – A Vindication of Natural Society
Alban Butler – The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Other Principal Saints
Theophilus Cibber – Dissertations on Theatrical Subjects
Daniel Fenning – The Universal Spelling Book, or, A New and Easy Guide to the English Language
José Francisco de Isla – Triunfo del amor y de la lealtad o Día Grande de Navarra
Johann Matthias Gesner – Primæ lineæ isagoges in eruditionem universalem
James Grieve – translation of A. Cornelius Celsus of Medicine
Eliza Haywood
*as "Mira" – The Wife
*posthumously – The Husband: in Answer to The Wife
David Hume – The History of Great Britain vol. ii
Leopold Mozart – Versuch einer gründlichen Violinschule
Alexander Russell – The Natural History of Aleppo
Tobias Smollett
*A Compendium of Authentic and Entertaining Voyages
* The Critical Review
Voltaire – Essai sur les mœurs et l'esprit des nations
Joseph Warton – An Essay on the Writings and Genius of Pope
John Wesley – ''An Address to the Clergy''