# 1715 in literature

This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1715.

## Events

* c. August – Nicholas Rowe becomes the Poet Laureate of Great Britain.
* The first record of the actress and writer Eliza Haywood tells of her performing in Thomas Shadwell's Shakespeare adaptation, Timon of Athens; or, The Man-Hater at the Smock Alley Theatre, Dublin.

## New books
### Prose

* Joseph Addison – The Free-Holder (periodical)
* Jane Barker – Exilius; or, The Banished Roman
* Richard Bentley – A Sermon upon Popery
* Samuel Croxall – The Vision
* Daniel Defoe
** An Appeal to Honour and Justice
** The Family Instructor
** A Hymn to the Mob
* Elizabeth Elstob – The Rudiments of Grammar for the English-Saxon Tongue, first given in English; with an apology for the study of northern antiquities, the first grammar of Old English
* Thomas-Simon Gueullette – Les Mille et un quarts-d’heure, contes tartares (The Thousand and One Quarters of an Hour, Tartarian Tales)
* Alain-René Lesage (anonymous) – L'Histoire de Gil Blas de Santillane (Books 1–6)
* Charles Montagu – The Works and Life of the Late Earl of Halifax
* Jonathan Richardson – An Essay on the Theory of Painting
* "Captain" Alexander Smith – The Secret History of the Lives of the Most Celebrated Beauties, Ladies of Quality, and Jilts
* Richard Steele
** The Englishman: Second Series (periodical)
** Town-Talk (periodical)

### Children

* Isaac Watts – Divine Songs Attempted in Easy Language for the Use of Children

### Drama

* Christopher Bullock – A Woman's Revenge
* Henry Carey – The Contrivances
* Susanna Centlivre – The Gotham Election (not performed because of political content)
* Chikamatsu Monzaemon – The Battles of Coxinga (国姓爺合戦, Kokusen'ya Kassen)
* Charles Rivière Dufresny – La Coquette de village
* John Gay – The What D'Ye Call It
* Benjamin Griffin
** Injured Virtue; or, The Virgin Martyr
** Love in a Sack
* Newburgh Hamilton – The Doating Lovers
* Charles Johnson – The Country Lasses
* Charles Knipe – A City Ramble
* Charles Molloy – The Perplexed Couple
* Nicholas Rowe -The Tragedy of Lady Jane Grey
* Lewis Theobald – The Perfidious Brother (allegedly plagiarized, staged the following year)
* John Vanbrugh – The Country House

### Poetry

* Charles Cotton – The Genuine Works of Charles Cotton
* Alexander Pope
** The Temple of Fame (based on Chaucer)
** The Iliad of Homer vol. i.
* Thomas Tickell – The First Book of Homer's Iliad
* Isaac Watts
** Divine Songs
** A Guide to Prayer

## Births

* January 14 (baptised) – Frances Vane, Viscountess Vane (Lady Fanny), English memoirist (died 1788)
* January 26 or February 26 – Claude Adrien Helvétius, French philosophical writer (died 1771)
* June 4 (c. 1715–1724) – Cao Xueqin, Chinese writer (died 1763)
* September 30 – Étienne Bonnot de Condillac, French philosophical writer (died 1780)
* October 1 – Richard Jago, English poet (died 1781)
* Probable year of birth
** John Hawkesworth, English writer and editor (died 1773)
** Alexander Russell, Scottish physician and naturalist (died 1768)

## Deaths

* January 7 – François Fénelon, French archbishop, theologian, poet and writer (born 1651)
* February 25 – Pu Songling (蒲松齡), Qing Dynasty Chinese writer (born 1640)
* March 8 – William Dampier, English explorer and writer (born 1651)
* March 17 – Gilbert Burnet, Scottish theologian and historian (born 1643)
* July 30 – Nahum Tate, Irish poet and hymnist (born 1652)
* October 13 – Nicolas Malebranche, French priest and rationalist philosopher (born 1638)
* Unknown date – Mary Monck, Irish poet (date of birth unknown)