# 1754 in literature

This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1754.

## Events

* January 28 – Horace Walpole, in a letter to Horace Mann, coins the word serendipity (from the Persian fairy tale The Three Princes of Serendip).
* March 2 – Riot at Smock Alley Theatre in Dublin. Thomas Sheridan, the manager, resigns, and leaves Ireland on September 15 for London where his wife Frances Sheridan meets Samuel Richardson.
* Élie Catherine Fréron's journal Lettres sur quelques écrits de ce temps is replaced by his Année littéraire.

## New books
### Fiction

* Jane Collier and Sarah Fielding – The Cry: A New Dramatic Fable
* Mary Davys – The Reformed Coquet; or Memoirs of Amoranda
* Henry Fielding – The Life of Mr. Jonathan Wild the Great (enlarged and expanded from the Miscellanies of 1743)
* Solomon Gessner – Daphnis
* Sarah Scott:
** Agreeable Ugliness
** A Journey Through Every Stage of Life
* John Shebbeare – The Marriage Act

### Poetry

* Thomas Cooke – An Ode on Poetry, Painting, and Sculpture
* John Duncombe – The Feminiad
* Henry Jones – The Relief
* William Whitehead – Poems

### Non-fiction

* Anonymous – Critical Remarks on Sir Charles Grandison, Clarissa and Pamela
* Thomas Birch – Memoirs of the Reign of Queen Elizabeth
* Charles Bonnet – Essai de psychologie
* John Gilbert Cooper – Letters Concerning Taste
* John Douglas – Letter on the Criterion of Miracles
* John Gillies – Historical Collections Relating to Remarkable Period of the Success of the Gospel
* Zachary Grey – Critical, Historical, and Explanatory Notes on Shakespeare
* Benjamin Hoadly – Sixteen Sermons
* David Hume – The History of England (volume 1)
* William Law – The Second Part of the Spirit of Love
* Isaac Newton (died 1727) – An Historical Account of Two Notable Corruptions of Scripture (written 1690)
* Jean-Jacques Rousseau – Discourse on Inequality
* Henry St. John – Philosophical Works
* Jonathan Swift
** Brotherly Love
** The Works of Jonathan Swift (the Hawkesworth edition)
* William Warburton – A View of Lord Bolingbroke's Philosophy
* Thomas Warton – Observations on the Faerie Queene of Spenser

## Drama

* Samuel Crisp – Virginia
* David Garrick – Catharine and Petruchio (adapted from The Taming of the Shrew)
* John Gay – The Rehearsal at Goatham
* Macnamara Morgan:
** Philoclea (from Sir Philip Sidney's Arcadia)
** The Sheep-Shearing, or Florizel and Perdita (a farce adapted from The Winter's Tale)
* Prosper Jolyot de Crébillon – Le Triumvirat
* William Whitehead – Creusa, Queen of Athens

## Births

* March 24 – Joel Barlow, American poet and diplomat (died 1812)
* May 23 – William Drennan, Irish physician, poet, radical and educationalist (died 1820)
* July 11 – Thomas Bowdler, English editor (died 1825)
* August 2 – Lady Charlotte Murray, English writer and botanist (died 1808)
* October 13 – Frances Jacson, English novelist (died 1842)
* December 24 – George Crabbe, English poet (died 1832)
* unknown date – John Caradja, Greek Prince of Wallachia, translator and theatrical promoter (died 1844)

## Deaths

* January 11 – Wu Jingzi, Chinese scholar and novelist (born 1701)
* January 28 – Ludvig Holberg, Norwegian philosopher, historian and playwright (born 1684)
* April 2 – Thomas Carte, English historian (born 1686)
* April 9 – Christian Wolff, German philosopher (born 1679)
* October 8 – Henry Fielding English novelist (born 1707)
* November 12 – Robert Morris, English architect and writer on architecture (born 1703)