1762 in literature

This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1762.

Events

April 27 – Rev. Hugh Blair is appointed first Professor of Rhetoric and Belles Lettres at the University of Edinburgh by King George III, the first such chair in English literature.
June 19 – Jean-Jacques Rousseau's The Social Contract and Emile, or On Education , recently published in Amsterdam and The Hague respectively, are publicly burned in Paris. They are also prohibited in Rousseau's native Republic of Geneva.
June 20 – In Paris, the Comédie-Italienne, having merged with the Opéra-Comique, performs at the Hôtel de Bourgogne.
The Sorbonne library is founded.
The Académie française produces a new edition of its dictionary of the French language, the fourth to be published.
Benjamin Victor's adaptation of The Two Gentlemen of Verona is staged by David Garrick at Drury Lane, and runs for five nights. It is the earliest known performance of that Shakespearean play in any form.
Christoph Martin Wieland begins publishing his prose translations of 22 Shakespearean plays, the first translations of them into German.

The North Briton
George Campbell – A Dissertation on Miracles
Jacques Cazotte – Ollivier.
Denis Diderot
*Éloge de Richardson
*Rameau's Nephew
Nicolas Fernández de Moratín – Desengaños al teatro español
Henry Fielding – Works
Oliver Goldsmith
*The Life of Richard Nash
*The Mystery Revealed
Paisiy Hilendarski – Istoriya Slavyanobolgarskaya
Henry Home – Elements of Criticism
Richard Hurd – Letters on Chivalry and Romance
William Kenrick – Emilius and Sophia
John Langhorne – Letters on Religious Retirement, Melancholy and Enthusiasm
Robert Lowth – A Short Introduction to English Grammar
William Williams Pantycelyn – Llythyr Martha Philopur at y Parchedig Philo Evangelius eu hathro
John Parkhurst – An Hebrew and English Lexicon
Joseph Priestley – A Course of Lectures on the Theory of Language, and Universal Grammar
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
*The Social Contract
*Emile, or On Education
Horace Walpole – Anecdotes of Painting in England, Volume 1

January 11 – Andrew Cherry, Irish playwright and actor-manager
May 19 – Johann Gottlieb Fichte, German philosopher
September 11 – Joanna Baillie, Scottish poet and dramatist
September 24 – William Lisle Bowles, English poet and critic
October 30 – André Chénier, French poet
Susanna Rowson née Haswell, English-born American novelist, poet, playwright, religious writer, actress, educator and abolitionist