istoryworld
Events relating to literature
Samuel Pepys ends his diary, after only writing it for nine years
Molière falls fatally ill when acting in his own play Le Malade Imaginaire
Samuel Sewall begins a diary of daily life in Boston, Massachusetts, that will span a period of more than fifty years
Baruch Spinoza's Ethics, dealing with God, the mind and the emotions, is published shortly after his death
Part I of The Pilgrim's Progress, written during John Bunyan's two spells in Bedford Gaol, is published and is immediately popular
John Bunyan publishes The Life and Death of Mr Badman, an allegory of a misspent life that is akin to a novel
Aphra Behn's novel Oroonoko makes an early protest against the inhumanity of the African slave trade
John Locke publishes his Essay concerning Human Understanding, arguing that all knowledge is based on experience
Boston merchant Samuel Sewall publishes The Selling of Joseph, a very early anti-slavery tract
The Augustan Age begins in English literature, claiming comparison with the equivalent flowering under Augustus Caesar
The Tatler launches a new style of journalism in Britain's coffee houses, followed two years later by the Spectator
25-year-old George Berkeley attacks Locke in his Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge
Alexander Pope's Rape of the Lock introduces a delicate vein of mock-heroic in English poetry
In his Monadology Leibniz describes a universe consisting of forceful interactive parts that he calls 'monads'
Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe, with its detailed realism, can be seen as the first English novel
16-year-old Benjamin Franklin contributes the 'Dogood Papers', essays on moral topics, to a Boston journal, The New England Courant
Jonathan Swift launches his hero on a series of bitterly satirical adventures in Gulliver's Travels
David Hume publishes his Treatise of Human Nature, in which he applies to the human mind the principles of experimental science
Italian dramatist Carlo Goldoni makes a success of plays in the ancient commedia dell'arte tradition
Samuel Richardson's Clarissa begins the correspondence which grows into the longest novel in the English language
Henry Fielding introduces a character of lasting appeal in the lusty but good-hearted Tom Jones
English poet Thomas Gray publishes his Elegy written in a Country Church Yard
Samuel Johnson publishes his magisterial Dictionary of the English Language
James Woodforde, an English country parson with a love of food and wine, begins a detailed diary of everyday life
Voltaire publishes Candide, a satire on optimism prompted by the Lisbon earthquake of 1755
