1712 in literature

Events

• July 7 – Henry St. John is raised to the peerage of Great Britain as Viscount Bolingbroke for services in Robert Harley's Tory ministry.
• August 14 – Alexander Pope outlines his project for a satirical periodical, The Works of the Unlearned, from which develops the Scriblerus Club, whose members include Pope, Jonathan Swift, John Gay, Thomas Parnell, Robert Harley, Henry St John, 1st Viscount Bolingbroke, and Dr John Arbuthnot at whose house they meet.
• August 23 – Lady Mary Pierrepont marries Edward Wortley Montagu, after an elopement.
• October 31 – King Philip V of Spain establishes the Biblioteca Nacional de España as the Palace Public Library in Madrid.
• November 4 – Jonathan Swift foils an murder attempt on Robert Harley, 1st Earl of Oxford and Earl Mortimer, in what became known as the Bandbox Plot.
• November 7 – Charles Johnson's dramatisation of episodes from the life of Henry Every, The Successful Pyrate, receives its première at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane. Although it is primarily satirical, John Dennis subsequently complains to Charles Killigrew, Master of the Revels, that the play glamorizes pirates. The controversy contributes to its theatrical success.
• unknown date – Shota Rustaveli's 12th-century poem The Knight in the Panther's Skin is first printed, in Tbilisi.

  New books

Prose

• John Arbuthnot – Law Is a Bottomless Pit
• George Berkeley – Passive Obedience
• Jean-Paul Bignon – Les Avantures d'Abdalla, fils d'Hanif
• Richard Blackmore – Creation
• James Brome – Travels through Portugal, Spain, and Italy
• Sir Thomas Browne – Posthumous Works of the Learned Sir Thomas Browne
• Samuel Clarke – The Scripture-Doctrine of the Trinity
• Daniel Defoe – A Further Search into the Conduct of the Allies
• John Dennis – An Essay upon the Genius and Writings of Shakespear
• William Diaper
• *Dryaides
• *Nereides
• Thomas Ellwood – Davideis: the Life of David, King of Israel
• John Gay – The Mohocks
• Bernard de Mandeville – Typhon
• John Oldmixon
• *The Dutch Barrier Ours
• *Reflections on Dr Swift's Letter to the Earl of Oxford, about the English Tongue
• *The Secret History of Europe
• Thomas Otway – The Works of Mr. Thomas Otway
• Woodes Rogers – A Cruising Voyage round the World: first to the South-Sea, thence to the East-Indies, and homewards by the Cape of Good Hope
• Nicholas Rowe – Callipaedia
• George Sewell – The Patriot
• Richard Steele – The Englishman's Thanks to the Duke of Marlborough
• Jonathan Swift
• *A Proposal for Correcting, Improving and Ascertaining the English Tongue
• *Some Advice Humbly Offer'd to the Members of the October Club
• Leonard Welsted – The Works of Dionysius Longinus, on the Sublime

  Drama

• Susanna Centlivre – The Perplex'd Lovers
• Pierre de Marivaux – Le Père prudent et equitable
• Charles Johnson – The Successful Pyrate
• John Philips – The Distrest Mother

  Poetry

• George Granville, Lord Lansdowne – Poems Upon Several Occasions
• Peter Anthony Motteux – A Poem Upon Tea
• John Philips – Poems
• Alexander Pope
• *The Rape of the Lock
• *Miscellaneous Poems and Translations
• Matthew Prior – Erle Robert's Mice
• Thomas Tickell – A Poem, to his Excellency the Lord Privy-Seal
• John Wright – The Best Mirth

Births

• March 22 – Edward Moore, English dramatist
• June 28 – Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Swiss philosopher
• September 15 – Pierre Simon Fournier, French typographer
• November 1 – Antonio Genovesi, Italian philosopher
• December 11 – Count Francesco Algarotti, Italian philosopher and art critic.
• unknown date – Richard Glover, English poet

  Deaths

• February 5 – John Norris, English philosopher and poet
• April 5 – Jan Luyken, Dutch poet and artist
• April 11 – Richard Simon, French Biblical critic and priest
• April 30 – Philipp van Limborch, Dutch theologian
• June 12 – Carlo Alessandro Guidi, Italian poet
• August 3 – Joshua Barnes, English scholar and Utopian fiction writer
• September 23 – Thomas Halyburton, Scottish theologian
• December 25 – William King, English poet
• probable – Edward Howard, English playwright and poet