1774 in literature

This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1774.

Events

February 22 – The English legal case of Donaldson v Beckett is decided in the House of Lords, denying the continued existence of a perpetual common law copyright and holding that copyright is a creation of statute and can be limited in its duration. This does permit authors to claim copyright on their own works.
September 14 – A new Stadsschouwburg in Amsterdam opens with the première of Lucretia Wilhelmina van Merken's tragedy Jacob Simonszoon de Ryk.
September 29 – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's semi-autobiographical epistolary novel The Sorrows of Young Werther is published anonymously in Leipzig, Germany; it is influential in the Sturm und Drang movement and Romanticism.
unknown dates
*After the destruction of the Schloss Weimar by fire, Karl August, Grand Duke of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach, forms a commission for its reconstruction directed by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.
*James Lackington begins in the London bookselling business.
*Johann Gottlob Theaenus Schneider becomes secretary to Richard François Philippe Brunck.
*The National and University Library of Slovenia in Ljubljana is established as the Lyceum Library, from the remains of the dissolved Jesuit library and several monastery libraries.
*Alberto Fortis publishes Viaggio in Dalmazia and starts Morlachism.

James Beattie – The Minstrel, volume 2
William Dunkin – Poetical Works
Oliver Goldsmith – Retaliation
Richard Graves – The Progress of Gallantry
William Mason – An Heroic Postscript to the Public
Hannah More – The Inflexible Captive
Samuel Jackson Pratt – The Tears of A Genius, occasioned by the Death of Dr. Goldsmith
Henry James Pye – Farringdon Hill
Mary Scott – The Female Advocate
Candido Maria Trigueros – El poeta filósofo o Poesías filosóficas en verso pentámetro
William Whitehead – ''Plays and Poems, by William Whitehead, Esq. Poet Laureat''

Giacomo Casanova – Istoria delle turbolenze della Polonia
Mary Deverell – Sermons
Alberto Fortis – Viaggio in Dalmazia
Martin Gerbert – De cantu et musica sacra
Oliver Goldsmith
*The Grecian History
*An History of the Earth and Animated Nature
Henry Home – Sketches of the History of Man
John Hutchins – The History and Antiquities of Dorset
Thomas Jefferson – A Summary View of the Rights of British America
Samuel Johnson – The Patriot
Antoine-Simon Le Page du Pratz – The History of Louisiana, or of the Western Parts of Virginia and Carolina
Joseph Priestley – Experiments and Observations on Different Kinds of Air
William Richardson – A Philosophical Analysis and Illustration of Some of Shakespeare's Remarkable Characters
Pedro Rodríguez, Count of Campomanes – Discurso sobre el fomento de la industria popular
Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield – Letters to his Son
Sugita Genpaku – Kaitai Shinsho
Horace Walpole – A Description of Strawberry-Hill
Thomas Warton – The History of English Poetry, volume 1
John Wesley – ''Thoughts upon Slavery''