# 1774 in literature

This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1774.

## Events

* 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. 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.
* 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.
** 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.
** Alberto Fortis publishes Viaggio in Dalmazia ("Journey to Dalmatia") and starts Morlachism.

## New books
### Fiction

* 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)

### Children

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

### Drama

* 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

### 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
* William Whitehead – Plays and Poems, by William Whitehead, Esq. Poet Laureat

### Non-fiction

* 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

## Births

* 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)

## Deaths

* 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)
* unknown date – Catherine Michelle de Maisonneuve, French editor and writer