1721_in_literature

1721 in literature

The year 1721 in literature involved some significant events and new books.

Events

Around this time ("first" is debated), inoculation for smallpox began in England.
John Cleland becomes a pupil at Westminster School and is soon expelled for an unknown offense.
Francis Atterbury is arrested for plotting against the Hanoverian monarchy and being a "Jacobite".
The South Sea Bubble burst, with many losses of fortune, including John Gay, and there are increasing suspicions of complicity by Robert Walpole's government.

Joseph Addison - The Works of Joseph Addison
Penelope Aubin - The Strange Adventures of the Count de Vinevil and His Family
- - The Life of Madam de Beaumont
Nathan Bailey - An Universal Etymological Dictionary
George Berkeley - An Essay Towards Preventing the Ruine of Great Britain
Richard Blackmore - A New Version of the Psalms of David
Shaftesbury - Letters from the Late Earl of Shaftesbury, to Robert Molesworth
Charles Gildon - The Laws of Poetry
Eliza Haywood - Letters from a Lady of Quality to a Chevalier (transl.)
Montesquieu - Lettres persanes (Persian Letters)
Alexander Pennecuik - An Ancient Prophecy Concerning Stock-Jobbing, and the Conduct of the Directors of the South-Sea-Company
Matthew Prior - Colin's Mistakes
John Strype - Ecclesiastical Memorials
Emanuel Swedenborg - Prodromus principiorum rerum naturalium
Jonathan Swift - The Bubble
- - A Letter to a Young Gentlleman, Lately Enter'd into Holy Orders
Thomas Tickell - Kensington Garden
Robert Wodrow - The History of the Sufferings of the Church of Scotland

March 19 - Tobias Smollett, Scottish physician and author (died 1771)
November 9 - Mark Akenside, poet (died 1770)
December 27 - François Hemsterhuis, moral philosopher (died 1790)
date unknown
- William Collins, poet (died 1759)
- Johann Silberschlag, theologian (died 1791)

January 3 - Juan Núñez de la Peña, historian (born 1641)
August 13 - Jacques Lelong, French bibliographer (born 1665)
September 18 - Matthew Prior, British poet and diplomat (born 1664)
December 12 - Alexander Selkirk, the model for Robinson Crusoe (born 1676)
date unknown
- Charlwood Lawton, Jacobite author
- Antoine Watteau, French painter