# 1716 in literature

This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1716.

## Events

* April 5 – Anne Lefèvre, Madame Dacier, meets Antoine Houdar de la Motte in person.
* May – Voltaire is exiled to Tulle as a result of his lampoon on the regent of France, Philippe II, Duke of Orléans
* June 21 – Work begins on construction of the Codrington Library at All Souls College, Oxford, to the design of Nicholas Hawksmoor; it will be completed in 1751.
* unknown dates
** Poet John Byrom returns to Britain to teach his own system of shorthand.
** Edmund Curll renews his controversy with Matthew Prior by publishing more of the poet's works without permission.
** The first printed version of the Epic of King Gesar, a Mongolian text, is published in Beijing.

## New books
### Prose

* Richard Blackmore – Essays upon Several Subjects vol. i
* Thomas Browne – Christian Morals
* Francis Chute (as Mr. Gay) – The Petticoat (part of Edmund Curll's "phantom Gay" hoax)
* Anthony Ashley Cooper, 3rd Earl of Shaftesbury – Several Letters... to a Young Man at the University
* John Dennis – A True Character of Mr. Pope, and his Writings (in response to The Essay on Criticism)
* Theophilus Evans – Drych y Prif Oesoedd (Mirror of the Early Centuries)
* Amédée-François Frézier – Relation du voyage de la Mer du Sud, aux côtes du Chili, du Pérou et de Brésil
* John Oldmixon – Memoirs of Ireland from the Restoration to the Present Times
* Onania: or, the heinous sin of self-pollution (approximate date)
* Alexander Pope – The Iliad of Homer vol. ii
* Humphrey Prideaux – The Old and New Testament Connected in the History of the Jews and Neighbouring Nations
* Jean de la Roque – Voyage dans l’Arabie heureuse
* Andreas Rüdiger – Göttliche Physik (Divine Physics)
* George Sewell – A Vindication of the English Stage
* Johann Georg Walch – Historia critica Latinae linguae
* Zhang Yushu, Chen Tingjing et al. (ed.) – Kangxi Dictionary (康熙字典)

### Drama

* Joseph Addison – The Drummer
* Barton Booth – The Death of Dido
* Christopher Bullock
** The Cobbler of Preston
** Woman Is a Riddle
* José de Cañizares
** El dómine Lucas
** Marta la Romarantina
** El picarillo de España, señor de la Gran Canaria
* Susanna Centlivre – The Cruel Gift
* Mary Davys – The Northern Heiress
* Benjamin Griffin – The Humours of Purgatory
* Aaron Hill – The Fatal Vision
* John Hughes – Apollo and Daphne
* Charles Johnson – The Cobbler of Preston, a rival version to that by Bullock (political satire based on The Taming of the Shrew)
* William Taverner – Everybody Mistaken
* Lewis Theobald – The Perfidious Brother

### Poetry

* Jane Brereton – The Fifth Ode of the Fourth Book of Horace Imitated
* John Gay – Trivia, or The Art of Walking the Streets of London
* Lady Mary Wortley Montagu – Court Poems
* Lewis Theobald – The Odyssey of Homer
* See also 1716 in poetry

## Births

* January 20 – Jean-Jacques Barthélemy, French writer and numismatist (died 1795)
* March 6 – Pehr Kalm, Swedish/Finnish botanist, naturalist and travel writer (died 1779)
* December 25 – Johann Jakob Reiske, German scholar and physician (died 1774)
* December 26
** Thomas Gray, English poet (died 1771)
** Jean François de Saint-Lambert, French poet, philosopher and military officer (died 1803)
* unknown date – Yosa Buson (与謝 蕪村), Japanese Edo period haiku poet and painter (died 1784)

## Deaths

* January 5
** Jean Chardin, French travel writer (born 1643)
** Hippolyte Hélyot, French historian (born 1660)
* January 11
** Pierre Jurieu, French Protestant writer (born 1637)
** René Massuet, French editor (born 1666)
* February 19 – Dorothe Engelbretsdotter, Norwegian poet (born 1634)
* July 24 – Agnes Campbell, Scottish printer (born 1637)
* September 15 – Andrew Fletcher, Scottish politician and writer (born 1653)
* October 21 – Jakob Gronovius, Dutch scholar (born 1645)
* November 14 – Gottfried Leibniz, German mathematician and philosopher (born 1646)
* December 31 – William Wycherley, English dramatist (born 1641)
* probable year - Patrick Abercromby, Scottish antiquary and translator (born 1656)