1774 in literature

• February 22 – The English legal case of Donaldson v Beckett is decided in the House of Lords, denying the continued existence of a perpetual common law copyright and holding that copyright is a creation of statute and can be limited in its duration.2 Brown's Parl. Cases 129, 1 Eng. Rep. 837; 4 Burr. 2408, 98 Eng. Rep. 257; 17 Cobbett's Parl. Hist. 953 (1813). This does permit authors to claim copyright on their own works.
• September 14 – A new Stadsschouwburg (municipal theatre) in Amsterdam opens with the première of Lucretia Wilhelmina van Merken's tragedy Jacob Simonszoon de Ryk.{{Cite book |last=te Winkel |first=Jan |url=http://www.dbnl.org/tekst/wink002ontw05_01/wink002ontw05_01_0027.php |title=De ontwikkelingsgang der Nederlandsche letterkunde V, Geschiedenis der Nederlandsche letterkunde van de Republiek der Vereenigde Nederlanden |volume=3 |location=Haarlem |publisher=Héritiers F. Bohn |year=1924 |edition=2 |page=401 |language=nl}}
• September 29 – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's semi-autobiographical epistolary novel The Sorrows of Young Werther (Die Leiden des jungen Werthers) (written January – March) is published anonymously in Leipzig, Germany; it is influential in the Sturm und Drang movement and Romanticism.
• unknown dates
• After the destruction of the Schloss Weimar by fire, Karl August, Grand Duke of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach, forms a commission for its reconstruction directed by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.{{Cite web |url=http://www.klassik-stiftung.de/fileadmin/user_upload/Bildung/Lehrer_und_Erzieher/Das_Schlossmuseum_01.pdf |title=Das Stadtschloss Weimar/The Palace at Weimar |publisher=Klassik Stiftung Weimar |format=PDF |year=2010 |accessdate=2014-06-09}}{{cite book|author=Martin Geck|title=Bach|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=N1zSVDYTCXgC&pg=PA25|year=2003|publisher=Haus Publishing|isbn=978-1-904341-16-1|pages=25}}
• James Lackington begins in the London bookselling business.
• Johann Gottlob Theaenus Schneider becomes secretary to Richard François Philippe Brunck.
• The National and University Library of Slovenia in Ljubljana is established as the Lyceum Library, from the remains of the dissolved Jesuit library and several monastery libraries.{{cite book|author=Miriam Drake|title=Encyclopedia of Library and Information Science, Second Edition -|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Sqr-_3FBYiYC&pg=PA2073|date=20 May 2003|publisher=CRC Press|isbn=978-0-8247-2079-7|pages=2073}}
• Alberto Fortis publishes Viaggio in Dalmazia ("Journey to Dalmatia") and starts Morlachism.{{cite thesis|url=https://era.library.ualberta.ca/items/0d19d195-6047-4425-8a14-ebf60e87e70d|title=Imagining the Morlacchi in Fortis and Goldoni|first=Branislava|last=Milić Brett|publisher=University of Alberta|type=PhD|pp=1–213|year=2014|doi=10.7939/R3MM45}}

• Jeremy Bentham – The White Bull
• Henry Brooke – Juliet Grenville
• Johann Wolfgang von Goethe – The Sorrows of Young Werther
• Charles Johnstone – The History of Arsaces
• The Newgate Calendar
• Christoph Martin Wieland – Die Abderiten, eine sehr wahrscheinliche Geschichte (The Abderites: A Very Probable Story)

• Johann Bernhard Basedow – Elementarwerk (first of four volumes)

• Miles Peter Andrews – The Election
• John Burgoyne – The Maid of the Oaks
• George Colman the Elder – The Man of Business
• Richard Cumberland
• The Choleric Man
• The Note of Hand
• Charles Dibdin – The Waterman
• Alexander Dow – Sethona
• Johann Wolfgang von Goethe – Clavigo
• Hugh Kelly – The Romance of an Hour
• Jakob Michael Reinhold Lenz – The Tutor (Der Hofmeister)
• Gaspar Melchor de Jovellanos – El delincuente honrado

{{main article|1774 in poetry}}

• James Beattie – The Minstrel, volume 2
• William Dunkin – Poetical Works
• Oliver Goldsmith – Retaliation
• Richard Graves – The Progress of Gallantry
• William Mason – An Heroic Postscript to the Public
• Hannah More – The Inflexible Captive
• Samuel Jackson Pratt (as Courtney Melmoth) – The Tears of A Genius, occasioned by the Death of Dr. Goldsmith
• Henry James Pye – Farringdon Hill
• Mary Scott – The Female Advocate
• Candido Maria Trigueros – El poeta filósofo o Poesías filosóficas en verso pentámetro{{cite book|author=Cándido María Trigueros|title=El poeta filosofo; o poesias filosoficas en verso pentametro|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=IAJsAQAACAAJ|year=1774|publisher=En la Imprenta de Don Manuel Nicolàs Vazquez, y Compañia}}
• William Whitehead – Plays and Poems, by William Whitehead, Esq. Poet Laureat

• Giacomo Casanova – Istoria delle turbolenze della Polonia
• Mary Deverell – Sermons
• Alberto Fortis – Viaggio in Dalmazia
• Martin Gerbert – De cantu et musica sacra
• Oliver Goldsmith
• The Grecian History
• An History of the Earth and Animated Nature
• Henry Home – Sketches of the History of Man
• John Hutchins (died 1773) – The History and Antiquities of Dorset
• Thomas Jefferson – A Summary View of the Rights of British America
• Samuel Johnson – The Patriot
• Antoine-Simon Le Page du Pratz – The History of Louisiana, or of the Western Parts of Virginia and Carolina (English translation of Histoire de la Louisiane (1758) in 1 vol.)
• Joseph Priestley – Experiments and Observations on Different Kinds of Air
• William Richardson – A Philosophical Analysis and Illustration of Some of Shakespeare's Remarkable Characters
• Pedro Rodríguez, Count of Campomanes – Discurso sobre el fomento de la industria popular
• Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield – Letters to his Son
• Sugita Genpaku – Kaitai Shinsho (解体新書, "New Text on Anatomy", Japanese translation of Ontleedkundige Tafelen)
• Horace Walpole – A Description of Strawberry-Hill
• Thomas Warton – The History of English Poetry, volume 1
• John Wesley – Thoughts upon Slavery

• January 1 – Pietro Giordani, Italian translator, scholar and writer (died 1848)
• February 24 – Archibald Constable, Scottish publisher (died 1827)
• July 14 – Francis Lathom, Dutch-born English Gothic novelist and dramatist (died 1832)
• August 12 – Robert Southey, English poet and Poet Laureate (died 1843)

• April 4 – Oliver Goldsmith, Irish dramatist (born 1728/1730)
• April 28 – Gottfried Lengnich, German/Polish historian (born 1689)
• September 17 – Abraham Langford, English auctioneer and playwright (born 1711)
• October 16 – Robert Fergusson, Scottish poet (head injury, born 1750)[http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00mr8yj/profiles/robert-fergusson BBC Two: Writing Scotland.]
• unknown date – Catherine Michelle de Maisonneuve, French editor and writer

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