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The year 1712 in literature involved some significant events.

Events

• Lady Mary Pierrepont elopes with Edward Wortley Montagu.
• Fire destroys William Bowyer's printing press.
• Henry St. John is elevated to the peerage as Viscount Bolingbroke for his services in Harley's tory ministry

New books

• John Arbuthnot - Law Is a Bottomless Pit (introducing the character of John Bull) (first of a series of five tracts collected as The History of John Bull in the same year)
• George Berkeley - Passive Obedience
• Richard Blackmore - Creation
• Sir Thomas Browne - Posthumous Works of the Learned Sir Thomas Browne
• Samuel Clarke - The Scripture-Doctrine of the Trinity
• Daniel Defoe (attrib) - A Further Search into the Conduct of the Allies
• John Dennis - An Essay upon the Genius and Writings of Shakespear
• William Diaper - Dryaides
  • - Nereides
• Thomas Ellwood - Davideis: the Life of David King of Israel
• John Gay - The Mohocks
• Bernard de Mandeville - Typhon
• John Oldmixon
  • The Dutch Barrier Our's
  • Reflections on Dr Swift's Letter to the Ear of Oxford, About the English Tongue
  • The Secret History of Europe
• Thomas Otway - The Works of Mr. Thomas Otway
• Matthew Prior - Erle Robert's Mice (imitation of Chaucer)
• Woodes Rogers - A cruising voyage round the world: first to the South-Sea, thence to the East-Indies, and homewards by the Cape of Good Hope
• Nicholas Rowe - Callipaedia (transl.)
• George Sewell - The Patriot
• Richard Steele as "Scoto-Brittanus" - The Englishman's Thanks to the Duke of Marlborough
• Jonathan Swift - Some Advice Humbly Offer'd to the Members of the October Club
  • - A Proposal for Correcting, Improving and Ascertaining the English Tongue (signed)
• Leonard Welsted - The Works of Dionysius Longinus, on the Sublime (one of the earliest translations of περί ύπσος in English)

New drama

• Susanna Centlivre - The Perplex'd Lovers
• Pierre de Marivaux - Le Père prudent et equitable
• John Philips - The Distrest Mother

Poetry

• George Granville, Lord Lansdowne - Poems Upon Several Occasions
• Peter Anthony Motteux - A Poem Upon Tea
• John Philips - Poems
• Alexander Pope
  • The Rape of the Lock
  • Miscellaneous Poems and Translations
• Thomas Tickell - A Poem, to his Excellency the Lord Privy-Seal
• John Wright - The Best Mirth (hymns)

See also 1712 in poetry

Births

• March 22 - Edward Moore, dramatist (died 1757)
• June 28 - Jean-Jacques Rousseau, philosopher (died 1778)
• September 15 - Pierre Simon Fournier, type designer (died 1768)
• November 1 - Antonio Genovesi, philosopher (died 1769)
• December 11 - Count Francesco Algarotti, philosopher and art critic. (died 1764)
• date unknown
  • Andrew Foulis, printer
  • Richard Glover, poet

Deaths

• April 11 - Richard Simon, biblical critic (born 1638)
• April 30 - Philipp van Limborch, theologian (born 1633)
• August 3 - Joshua Barnes, scholar (born 1654)
• December 25 - William King (born 1663)
• date unknown
  • Carlo Alessandro Guidi, poet
  • Thomas Halyburton, theologian
  • Jan Luyken, poet and artist
  • Richard Cromwell, son of The Protector
  • Sidney Godolphin, 1st Earl of Godolphin, former ministry leader and "junto" leader

Notes