1737 in literature

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This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1737.

Events

March 2 – Samuel Johnson and his former pupil David Garrick leave Lichfield to seek their fortunes in London.
June 21 – The Theatrical Licensing Act is passed, introducing censorship to the London stage. Plays now require approval before production. Edward Capell is appointed deputy-inspector of plays. "Legitimate drama" is limited to the theaters at Drury Lane, Covent Garden, and the Haymarket. The anonymous satire The Golden Rump (which may never have existed in full) is used as ammunition by the Act's proponents.
September 1 – The News Letter is first published in Belfast by Francis Joy, making it the world's oldest existing English newspaper.^[1]
October – The first professional stage production in the Swedish language by native-born actors is given in Sweden, of the comedy Den Svenska Sprätthöken at the Bollhuset in Stockholm.
November 20 – Caroline of Ansbach, Queen Consort of Great Britain and a significant patron of the arts, dies.
unknown date – The poet Richard Jago becomes curate of Snitterfield.

Guillaume-Hyacinthe Bougeant – Amusement philosophique sur le language des bêtes (Philosophical Amusements on the Language of the Animals)
Alexander Cruden – A Complete Concordance to the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testament
Philip Doddridge – Submission to Divine Providence in the Death of Children
Stephen Duck – The Vision
Jonathan Edwards – A Faithful Narrative of the Surprising Works of God
Étienne Fourmont – Meditationes Sinicae
William Law – A Demonstration of the Gross and Fundamental Errors of a Late Book (an answer to Benjamin Hoadly from 1735)
Marguerite de Lubert – Tecserion
William Oldys – The British Librarian
Elizabeth Singer Rowe – Devout Exercises of the Heart
Sarah Stone – A Complete Practice of Midwifery^[2]
Jan Swammerdam – Biblia Naturae^[3]
Jonathan Swift – A Proposal for Giving Badges to the Beggars in all the Parishes of Dublin
Diego de Torres Villarroel – Médico para el bolsillo^[4]

Richard Glover – Leonidas
Matthew Green – The Spleen
Ignacio de Luzán – Poética
Alexander Pope
- Horace His Ode to Venus
- The Second Epistle of the Second Book of Horace, Imitated
- The First Epistle of the Second Book of Horace, Imitated
- The Works of Alexander Pope vols. v-vi
William Shenstone – Poems
Prince Thammathibet – The Legend of Phra Malai (พระมาลัยคำหลวง, Phra Malai)
Voltaire – Défense du Mondain ou l'apologie du luxe ("Defense of the Worldling or an Apology for Luxury"), a poetic response to criticism of his Le Mondain^[5]
John Wesley – A Collection of Psalms and Hymns

January 19 – Jacques-Henri Bernardin de Saint-Pierre, French novelist and travel writer (died 1814)
January 29 – Thomas Paine, English free thinker and revolutionary (died 1809)
February 22 – Anne Ford, English writer, singer and musician (died 1824)
April 18 – William Hazlitt Sr., Irish religious writer, radical and Unitarian minister (died 1820)
April 27 – Edward Gibbon, English historian (died 1794)
May 11 (baptised) – Richard Chandler, English antiquary (died 1810)
unknown dates
- Frances Abington, née Barton, English actress (died 1815)
- Nicolas Fernández de Moratín, Spanish literary reformer (died 1780)

^ Johnston, Ruth. "Belfast News Letter". Your Place & Mine. BBC. Retrieved 2011-11-15.
^ Wilson, Adrian (2018). The Making of Man-Midwifery: Childbirth in England, 1660-1770. Routledge. p. 207. ISBN 9780429663352. Retrieved 18 March 2019.
^ Winsor, Mary P. "Swammerdam, Jan." Dictionary of Scientific Biography. 1976
^ Torres Villarroel's works
^ "Introduction" in Le Mondain Critical edition by Haydn T. Mason, in Œuvres complètes de Voltaire, Volume 16 (Voltaire Foundation, Oxford) ISBN 0729407942
^ M. Bigold (12 January 2013). Women of Letters, Manuscript Circulation, and Print Afterlives in the Eighteenth Century: Elizabeth Rowe, Catharine Cockburn and Elizabeth Carter. Springer. p. 54. ISBN 978-1-137-03357-4.
^ Colt, George Howe (1992). The Enigma of Suicide. Simon and Schuster. p. 169. ISBN 978-0-671-76071-7. Retrieved July 17, 2009.