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1719 in literature

This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1719.

Events

  • March 14 – Richard Steele launches The Plebeian, in opposition to government policy on peerages.
  • April 23–25 – Daniel Defoe's novel Robinson Crusoe is published in London (by W. Taylor) as his first work of fiction, written aged about 60. The initial title is The Life and Strange Surprizing Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, of York, Mariner: Who lived Eight and Twenty Years, all alone in an un-inhabited Island on the Coast of America, near the Mouth of the Great River of Oroonoque; Having been cast on Shore by Shipwreck, wherein all the Men perished but himself. With An Account how he was at last as strangely deliver'd by Pyrates. Written by Himself. Defoe's anonymity is broken in September by Charles Gildon in The Life and Strange Surprizing Adventures of Mr D— De D—, of London, Hosier. By the end of the year the book has run through four editions. Defoe's sequel, The Farther Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, competes with several imitators.
  • October 30 – Defoe launches a periodical, The Manufacturer.
  • unknown date – The widow of the dramatist Nicholas Rowe receives a pension from King George I of Great Britain for her husband's translation of Lucan's Pharsalia, published complete, posthumously, in this year.

New books

Prose

Drama

Poetry

Births

Deaths

References