1732 in literature

• April – The London Magazine is founded in opposition to the pro-Tory Gentlemen's Magazine.{{cite book|title=The Gentleman's Magazine and Historical Review|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_bLPAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA6|year=1857|publisher=Bradbury, Evans|pages=6}}
• December 7 – The original Theatre Royal, Covent Garden, London (predecessor of the Royal Opera House) is opened by John Rich with a revival of William Congreve's The Way of the World.{{Cite book |title=Penguin Pocket On This Day |publisher=Penguin Reference Library |isbn=0-14-102715-0 |year=2006}}
• December 13 – The first issue of Then Swänska Argus, by Olof von Dalin, is published in Sweden, introducing the "younger new Swedish" (yngre nysvenska) literary language.
• December 28 – The first edition of Poor Richard's Almanack, by Benjamin Franklin, is published in America.
• unknown date – Trinity College Library in Dublin, designed by Thomas Burgh, is completed.{{cite book|author=Library Association|title=The Library Association Record|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=VI4aAAAAMAAJ|year=1961|publisher=Library Association|page=45-46}}

• George Berkeley – Alciphron
• Johann Jakob Bodmer – translation of John Milton's Paradise Lost into German prose
• Elizabeth Boyd – The Happy-Unfortunate
• Mary Davys – The False Friend (fiction)
• Philip Doddridge – Sermons on the Religious Education of Children
• Robert Dodsley – A Muse in Livery
• George Granville, Lord Lansdowne – The Genuine Works
• Thomas-Simon Gueullette – Les Sultanes de Guzarate, contes mogols (Mogul Tales; or, the Dreams of Men Awake)
• John Horsley – Britannia Romana, or The Roman Antiquities of Britain
• William King – The Toast
• Alain-René Lesage – Les avantures de monsieur Robert Chevalier, dit de Beauchêne, capitaine de flibustiers dans la Nouvelle-France (The Adventures of Robert Chevalier, Call'd de Beauchene, Captain of a Privateer in New-France){{Cite web |title=Biography – CHEVALIER, Beauchêne, ROBERT – Volume II (1701-1740) – Dictionary of Canadian Biography |url=http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/chevalier_robert_2E.html |website=www.biographi.ca |accessdate=8 March 2019}}
• George Lyttelton, 1st Baron Lyttelton – The Progress of Love
• Daniel Neal – The History of the Puritans or Protestant Non-Conformists
• Richard Savage – An Epistle to the Right Honourable Sir Robert Walpole
• Philip Skippon – An Account of a Journey Made Thro ̓ Part of the Low-Countries, Germany, Italy, and France
• Jonathan Swift
• The Lady's Dressing Room
• The Grand Question Debated
• (with Pope and others) Miscellanies: The Third Volume
• Isaac Watts – A Short View of the Whole Scripture History
• Leonard Welsted – Of Dulness and Scandal (answer to The Dunciad)
• Gilbert West – Stowe
• Martín Sarmiento – Demostración apologética

• Henry Carey
• Amelia (opera)
• The Disappointment
• Terminta
• Henry Fielding
• The Lottery
• The Modern Husband
• The Covent-Garden Tragedy
• The Old Debauchees
• The Mock Doctor (performed)
• John Gay (with Alexander Pope) – Acis and Galatea (opera by Handel)
• Charles Johnson – Caelia
• John Kelly – The Married Philosopher
• Pierre de Marivaux – The Triumph of Love (Le Triomphe de l'amour)
• James Miller – The Modish Couple
• Voltaire – Zaïre

{{main article|1732 in poetry}}

• Heyat Mahmud – Sarbabhedbāṇī; Bengali{{cite Banglapedia|article=Heyat Mamud|author=Wakil Ahmed}}
• John Milton – Milton's Paradise Lost, edited by Richard Bentley

• January 6 – Matija Antun Relković, Croatian grammarian and poet (died 1798)
• January 24 – Pierre de Beaumarchais, French writer (died 1799){{cite book | last = Morton | first = Brian | title = Beaumarchais and the American Revolution | publisher = Lexington Books | location = Lanham, Md | year = 2003 | isbn = 9780739104682 |page=1}}
• February – Charles Churchill, English satirist and poet (died 1764)
• February 19 – Richard Cumberland, English dramatist (died 1811)
• April – George Colman the Elder, English dramatist and essayist (died 1794)
• August 24 – Peter Ernst Wilde, German physician, journalist and printer (died 1785)
• September 29 – Samuel Musgrave, English classical scholar and pamphleteer (died 1780)

• February 13 – Charles-René d'Hozier, French historian (born 1640){{cite book|author1=Bernard Bolingbroke Woodward|author2=William Leist ReadwinCates|title=Encyclopaedia of Chronology: Historical and Biographical|publisher=Lee and Shepard|year=1872|page=426}}
• February 22 – Bishop Francis Atterbury, English politician and writer (born 1663)
• March 20 – Johann Ernst Hanxleden, German poet and lexicographer (born 1681){{cite book|title=Catholic Encyclopedia|publisher=Appleton|year=1910|page=131}}
• March 29 (buried) – Jane Barker, English dramatist and poet (born 1652)
• May 9 – Samuel Palmer, English printer (year of birth unknown)
• July 3 (buried) – Mary Davys, Irish poet and dramatist (born 1674){{cite book | last = Harte | first = Liam | title = The literature of the Irish in Britain : autobiography and memoir, 1725-2001 | publisher = Palgrave Macmillan | location = Basingstoke England New York | year = 2009 | isbn = 9780230234017 | page=1}}
• December 2 – Constantia Grierson, Irish poet and classical scholar (born c. 1705)
• December 4 – John Gay, English poet and dramatist (born 1685){{cite book | last = Brant | first = Clare | title = Walking the streets of eighteenth-century London : John Gay's Trivia (1716 | publisher = Oxford University Press | location = Oxford New York | year = 2007 | isbn = 9780199280490 |page=10}}
• December 22 – Joseph Thurston, English poet (born 1704){{cite book|title=Fragmenta Genealogica: Volume 8|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=BiqdSpQaF3QC&pg=PA69|date=December 1996|publisher=Heritage Books|isbn=978-0-7884-0578-5|pages=69}}

{{Reflist|30em}}

{{Year in literature article categories}}