1747 in literature

• March 31 – Laurence Sterne preaches the Good Friday sermon at St Helen Stonegate; The Case of Elijah and the Widow of Zerephath is later printed and published.[http://www.sthelensyork.org.uk/goodhumour.html St Helen Stonegate: Laurence Sterne and the Good Humour Club] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160414090715/http://www.sthelensyork.org.uk/goodhumour.html |date=2016-04-14 }}. Accessed 27 March 2016.
• April 9 – David Garrick becomes joint patentee and manager of the Drury Lane Theatre in London.{{cite book|author=Dougald MacMillan|title=Drury Lane Calendar, 1747-1776|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=DAplAAAAMAAJ|year=1938|publisher=Clarendon Press|page=xi}}
• June 21 – Licensing Act transfers responsibility for pre-production censorship of plays in Britain from the Master of the Revels to the Lord Chamberlain and restricts serious drama to the patent theatres.
• December 1 – Samuel Richardson's two-volume epistolary novel Clarissa, or, the History of a Young Lady ("by the Editor of Pamela") begins publication in London from his own print shop, dated 1748.{{cite book|author=Tom Keymer|title=Richardson's 'Clarissa' and the Eighteenth-Century Reader|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=t8XCA3r0eVgC&pg=PR22|date=24 June 2004|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-0-521-60440-6|pages=22}}
• unknown date – The Załuski Library in Warsaw is opened to the public.{{cite book|author1=James Edward Thomas|author2=Barry Elsey|title=International Biography of Adult Education|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Yq_VAAAAIAAJ|year=1985|publisher=Department of Adult Education, University of Nottingham|isbn=978-1-85041-001-0|page=670}}

• William Blackstone (attributed) – The Pantheon
• Thomas Carte – A General History of England
• Juan de Iriarte – Discurso sobre la imperfección de los diccionarios{{cite book|author=Guillermo Díaz-Plaja|author-link=Guillermo Díaz-Plaja|title=Historia general de las literaturas hispánicas: Siglos XVIII y XIX. 2 v|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=G79WAAAAYAAJ|year=1967|publisher=Editorial Vergara|page=60|language=es}}
• Diego de Torres Villarroel – Desengaños razonables para sacudir el polvo del espanto
• Denis Diderot – La Promenade du sceptique (completed; not published until 1830){{cite book |last=Israel |first=Jonathon |author-link=Jonathan Israel |title=Enlightenment Contested: Philosophy, Modernity, and the Emancipation of Man 1670-1752 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=7qAeKpIIxCsC&pg=PA790|year=2009 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0199541522 |pages=790–791}}
• William Dunkin – Boetia
• Thomas Edward – A Supplement to Mr. Warburton's Edition of Shakespear
• Henry Fielding, as "John Trott Plaid" – The Jacobite's Journal (periodical)
• Sarah Fielding – Familiar Letters Between the Principal Characters in David Simple (a defense against unauthorized continuations)
• Samuel Foote – The Roman and English Comedy Consider'd{{EB1911|wstitle=Foote, Samuel|volume=10|pages=625–628}}
• Hannah Glasse, as "A Lady" – The Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy{{cite web |last=Prince|first=Rose|title=Hannah Glasse: The original domestic goddess|url=https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/food-and-drink/features/hannah-glasse-the-original-domestic-goddess-405277.html|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100607081749/http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/food-and-drink/features/hannah-glasse-the-original-domestic-goddess-405277.html|url-status=dead|archive-date=June 7, 2010|work=The Independent|accessdate=22 March 2015|date=24 June 2006}}
• Madame de Graffigny – Lettres d'une Péruvienne
• Henry Home, Lord Kames – Essays Upon Several Subjects Concerning British Antiquities
• Samuel Johnson – The Plan of a Dictionary of the English Language
• David Mallet – Amyntor and Theodora
• William Memoth, the younger – The Letters of Pliny the Consul
• Josiah Ralph – A Miscellany
• Samuel Richardson – Clarissa vol. i–ii
• William Shakespeare – The Works of Shakespear (edited by William Warburton)
• Tobias Smollett – Reproof
• Joseph Spence – Polymetis{{cite book|author=Timothy Webb|title=English Romantic Hellenism, 1700-1824|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_BcNAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA80|year=1982|publisher=Manchester University Press|isbn=978-0-7190-0772-9|pages=80}}
• Voltaire – Zadig (in original form as Memnon)
• Horace Walpole – A Letter to the Whigs
• Joseph Warton – Ranelagh House
• Thomas Warton – The Pleasures of Melancholy

• John Cunningham – Love in a Mist
• Samuel Foote – The Diversions of the Morning or, A Dish of Chocolate{{cite book|author=Allardyce Nicoll|title=The Garrick Stage: Theatres and Audience in the Eighteenth Century|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=mb3nAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA5|year=1981|publisher=Manchester University Press|isbn=978-0-7190-0858-0|pages=5}}
• David Garrick – Miss in Her Teens
• Christian Fürchtegott Gellert – Die zärtlichen Schwestern (The Affectionate Sisters){{cite book|author=Rudolf Neuhäuser|title=Towards the Romantic Age: Essays on Sentimental and Preromantic Literature in Russia|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=DS_4CAAAQBAJ&pg=PA44|date=14 October 2013|publisher=Springer|isbn=978-94-017-4699-1|pages=44}}
• Carlo Goldoni – The Venetian Twins (I due gemelli veneziani){{cite book|author1=Judith Chaffee|author2=Oliver Crick|title=The Routledge Companion to Commedia dell'Arte|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=BUGLBQAAQBAJ&pg=PA331|date=20 November 2014|publisher=Routledge|isbn=978-1-317-61337-4|pages=331}}
• Benjamin Hoadly – The Suspicious Husband{{cite book|author1=Edward A. Langhans|author2=Kalman A. Burnim|author3=Philip H. Highfill|title=A Biographical Dictionary of Actors, Actresses, Musicians, Dancers, Managers and Other Stage Personnel in London, 1660-1800.|publisher=Southern Illinois University Press|year=1982|page=187}}
• Edward Moore – The Foundling
• Takeda Izumo II, Miyoshi Shōraku and Namiki Senryū I – Yoshitsune Senbon Zakura (義経千本桜, Yoshitsune and the Thousand Cherry Trees, original version for bunraku puppet theatre)

{{main article|1747 in poetry}}

• Philip Francis – A Poetical Translation of the Works of Horace
• Charlotte Lennox – Poems
• William Mason – Musaeus: A monody to the memory of Pope (an imitation of Milton's Lycidas)
• Lady Mary Wortley Montagu – Six Town Eclogues

• January 11 – François Alexandre Frédéric, duc de la Rochefoucauld-Liancourt, French economics writer (died 1827)
• January 12 – Susanna Blamire, English dialect poet and songwriter (died 1794){{cite book|author=Henry Lonsdale|title=William Wardsworth, Susanna Blamire, Thomas Tickell, Jane Christian Blamire, the Loshes of Woodside, Dr. Thomas Addison, Hugh Lee Pattison|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=xZA4AQAAMAAJ&pg=PA46|year=1873|publisher=George Routledge & sons|pages=46}}
• January 15 – John Aikin, English biographer, activist and physician (died 1822){{cite book|author=Mrs. Barbauld (Anna Letitia)|title=The Poems of Anna Letitia Barbauld|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=FIqa-7dx_N0C&pg=PR43|date=1 January 1994|publisher=University of Georgia Press|isbn=978-0-8203-1528-7|pages=43}}
• January 26 – Samuel Parr, English schoolmaster and writer, "the Whig Johnson" (died 1825){{DNBfirst|wstitle=Parr, Samuel|last=Stephen|first=Leslie|authorlink=Leslie Stephen}}
• January – William Seward, English man of letters (died 1799)
• February 19 – John "Walking" Stewart, English traveller and philosopher (died 1822)
• March 10 – Iolo Morganwg, Welsh antiquarian, bookseller, poet and literary forger (died 1826){{cite web|url=https://archives.library.wales/index.php/iolo-morganwg-1747-2|title=Iolo Morganwg, 1747-1826|website=Archives Wales|publisher=National Library of Wales|access-date=8 October 2021}}
• September 30 – John Mastin, English memoirist, local historian and cleric (died 1829)
• December 12 – Anna Seward, English poet (died 1809){{cite book|author=Paula R. Feldman|title=British Women Poets of the Romantic Era: An Anthology|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Cg6Jn410aCIC&pg=PA647|date=19 January 2001|publisher=JHU Press|isbn=978-0-8018-6640-1|pages=647}}
• Unknown date
• John Edwards (1747–1792), Welsh poet (died 1792){{cite web|url=https://biography.wales/article/s-EDWA-JOH-1747|title=Edwards, John (Siôn Ceiriog; 1747-1792), bard and orator|author=Griffith John Williams|website=Dictionary of Welsh Biography|publisher=National Library of Wales|access-date=30 June 2020}}
• Thomas Scott, English cleric and religious writer (died 1821)

• January 16 – Barthold Heinrich Brockes German poet (born 1680){{cite book|title=German Baroque Writers, 1661-1730|publisher=Gale Research|year=1996|page=62}}
• May 28 – Luc de Clapiers, marquis de Vauvenargues, essayist (born 1715){{cite book|author=Peter Martin Fine|title=Vauvenargues and La Rochefoucauld|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=5327AAAAIAAJ&pg=PA1|year=1974|publisher=Manchester University Press|isbn=978-0-7190-0588-6|pages=1}}
• August
• Charles Fleetwood, manager of Drury Lane Theatre (year of birth unknown){{cite web |last=Milling |first=J. |title=Goodman, Cardell (b. 1653) |work=Oxford Dictionary of National Biography |edition=online |year=2004 |publisher=Oxford University Press |url=http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/10974 |doi=10.1093/ref:odnb/10974 |accessdate=24 March 2015}}
• Leonard Welsted, English poet (born 1688)James Sambrook: The life of the English poet Leonard Welsted (1688 – 1747) : the culture and politics of Britain's eighteenth-century literary wars, Lewiston [u.a.] : Edwin Mellen Press, 2014, {{ISBN|978-0-7734-0049-8}}
• September 7 – Michel Maittaire, French classical scholar, bibliographer and grammarian (born 1668){{cite DNB|wstitle=Maittaire, Michael}}
• November 17 – Alain-René Le Sage, French novelist and playwright (born 1668){{cite book|author=Charles F. Partington|title=The British Cyclopedia of Biography|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=eLkTAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA188|year=1838|pages=188}}
• November 21 – Robert Mylne, Scottish antiquarian and writer (born 1643){{Cite DNB|wstitle=Mylne, Robert (1643?-1747)}}
• November 22 – Joseph Trapp, poet, controversialist and translator (born 1679)
• December 23 – Étienne-François Avisse, French dramatist (born 1694){{cite book|title=Nouvelle biographie générale: depuis les temps les plus reculés jusqu'à nous jours|publisher=Firmin-Didot frères|year=1861|page=871|language=fr}}

{{reflist|30em}}

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