1761 in literature

Poetry

• John Armstrong – A Day: An epistle to John Wilkes
• Charles Churchill
• The Apology
• Night: An epistle to Robert Lloyd
• The Rosciad
• John Cleland – The Times!, vol. 2
• Francis Fawkes – Original Poems and Translations
• Robert Lloyd – An Epistle to Charles Churchill
• James Macpherson, "translator" – Fingal, an Ancient Epic Poem in Six Books, together with Several Other Poems composed by Ossian, the Son of Fingal, translated from the Gaelic Language
• Diego de Torres Villarroel – Poesías sagradas y profanas

Non-fiction

• Thomas Cole – Discourses on Luxury, Infidelity, and Enthusiasm
• George Colman the Elder – Critical Reflections on the Old English Dramatick Writers
• Robert Dodsley – Select Fables of Esop and Other Fabulists (anthology)
• Enrique Flórez – Memorias de las reinas católicas
• Edward Gibbon – Essai sur l’Étude de la Littérature
• Baron d'Holbach – Christianity unveiled
• Henry Home – Introduction to the Art of Thinking
• David Hume – The History of England, from the Invasion of Julius Caesar to the Accession of Henry VII
• Joseph Priestley – The Rudiments of English Grammar
• Tiphaigne de la Roche – L'Empire des Zaziris sur les humains ou la Zazirocratie
• Martín Sarmiento – Noticia sobre la verdadera patria de Cervantes
• Benjamin Victor – History of the Theatres of London and Dublin vol. 1–2

Births

• March 8 – Jan Potocki, Polish count, military engineer, ethnologist, Egyptologist, linguist, aeronaut, adventurer and novelist (suicide 1815)
• May 3 – August von Kotzebue, German dramatist (died 1819)
• July 25 – Charlotte von Kalb, German writer (died 1843)
• September 8 – François Juste Marie Raynouard, French dramatist (died 1836)
• September 13 – Santō Kyōden, born Iwase Samuru, Japanese fiction writer, poet and artist (died 1816)
• November 13 – Elizabeth Meeke, English popular novelist (died c.1826)
• Unknown dates
• Mary Pilkington, English novelist, poet and children's writer (died 1839)
• Mariana Starke, English playwright and travel writer (died 1838)

Deaths

• February 25 – Daniel Henchman, Colonial American bookseller and publisher (born 1689)
• April 9 – William Law, English theologian (born 1686)
• April 15 – William Oldys, English antiquary and bibliographer (born 1696)
• April 17 – Benjamin Hoadly, English bishop and instigator of the Bangorian Controversy (born 1676)
• July 4 – Samuel Richardson, English novelist (born 1689)
• August 3 – Johann Matthias Gesner, German librarian and classicist (born 1691)
• December 15 – Henrietta Louisa Fermor, Countess of Pomfret, English letter writer (born 1698)

References