1748 in literature

List of years in literature (table)
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This article presents lists of the literary events and publications in 1748.

Events

• January – The play Yoshitsune Senbon Zakura (義経千本桜, Yoshitsune and the Thousand Cherry Trees, by Takeda Izumo II, Miyoshi Shōraku and Namiki Senryū I) receives its Kabuki premiere in Ise. In May it receives its Edo premiere at the Nakamura-za and in August premieres in Osaka at the Naka no Shibai.
• November 21 – The first instalment of Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure, also known as Fanny Hill, written by John Cleland to raise money to free himself from the London debtors' prison in which he is held, and considered the first modern erotic novel by some, is published.
• David Garrick revives Philip Massinger's play A New Way to Pay Old Debts (written c.1625) in London.
• Royal Danish Theatre founded.
• Leonhard Euler publishes, in Berlin, one of the two works for which he will be most renowned: the Introductio in analysin infinitorum. Euler’s fifth paper on nautical topics, E137, is also written in this year but not published until 1750.
• Publication of the Gospel of Matthew in Manx as Yn Sushtcml scruit liorish yn Noo Mian is the first translation of the New Testament into that language, under the auspices of the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge.

New books

Prose

• George Anson – A Voyage Round the World by Richard Walton
• Jean-Baptiste de Boyer, Marquis d'Argens (attributed) – Thérèse philosophe
• John Cleland – Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure (aka Fanny Hill)
• Denis Diderot
  • Les Bijoux indiscrets (The Indiscreet Jewels, novel)
  • Memoires sur differents sujets de mathematique
• Eliza Haywood – Life's Progress through the Passions (novel)
• James Hervey – Meditations and Contemplations
• David Hume
  • An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding
  • Three Essays, Moral and Political
• William Kenrick – The Town
• Montesquieu – De l'Esprit des lois (The Spirit of the Laws)
• Julien Offray de La Mettrie – L'Homme Machine
• Laetitia Pilkington – Memoirs
• Samuel Richardson – Clarissa, vols. ii – vii
• Thomas Sheridan – The Simile
• Tobias Smollett
  • The Adventures of Roderick Random
  • English translation of The Adventures of Gil Blas of Santillane by Alain-René Le Sage
• François-Vincent Toussaint – Les Mœurs
• Voltaire – Zadig (in final form)
• Horace Walpole – A Second and Third Letter to the Whigs
• John Wesley – A Letter to a Person Lately Join'd with the People call'd Quakers
• Peter Whalley – An Enquiry into the Learning of Shakespeare
• Diego de Torres Villarroel – De los temblores y otros movimientos de la tierra llamados vulgarmente terremotos

Drama

• Jean-François Marmontel – Denys le Tyran
• Edward Moore – The Foundling
• Takeda Izumo II, Miyoshi Shōraku and Namiki Senryū – Kanadehon Chūshingura (仮名手本忠臣蔵, original version for bunraku puppet theatre)
• Alexander Sumarokov – Gamlet: Tragediya (adapted from Shakespeare's Hamlet)

Poetry

• Mark Akenside – An Ode to the Earl of Huntingdon
• Robert Dodsley – A Collection of Poems (a publisher's anthology)
• Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock (anonymously) – Der Messias (first three cantos)
• Mary Leapor – Poems
• Ambrose Philips – Pastorals, Epistles, Odes and Other Original Poems
• James Thomson – The Castle of Indolence
• Thomas Warton – Poems

See also 1748 in poetry

Births

• January 1 – Gottfried August Bürger, German poet (died 1794)
• February 15 – Jeremy Bentham, English philosopher (died 1832)
• April 27 – Pierre-Louis Ginguené, French author (died 1815)
• May 7 – Olympe de Gouges, French dramatist (died 1793)
• November 1 – Francesco Galeani Napione, Italian historian (died 1830)
• November 8 – Anne Seymour Damer, English sculptor and novelist (died 1828)
• December 14 – Louis-François de Bausset, French cardinal, writer and academician (died 1824)
• Unknown date – Józef Maksymilian Ossoliński, Polish politician, writer and researcher (died 1829)

Deaths

• March 11 – Charles Johnson, English dramatist and publican (born 1679)
• April 3 – Jean-Jacques Burlamaqui, Swiss political theorist and man of letters (born 1694)
• April 13 – Christopher Pitt, English poet and translator (born 1699)
• August 27 – James Thomson, Scottish-born poet (born 1700)
• September 21 – John Balguy, English philosopher (born 1686)
• November 25 – Isaac Watts, English hymnist, theologian and logician (born 1674)