1721 in literature

Events

• February – Joseph A. Hall's book, A Sober Reply to Mr. Higgs' Merry Arguments from the Light of Nature for the Tritheistic Doctrine of the Trinity..., published in the previous year, is burned by order of the British House of Lords for ridiculing Christian doctrine.
• unknown dates
• *John Cleland becomes a pupil at Westminster School; at first an exemplary student, he would eventually be expelled for an unknown offence.
• *Lady Mary Wortley Montagu introduces to London the Ottoman Turkish method of inoculation against smallpox – variolation. The Princess of Wales is persuaded to test the treatment and it becomes fashionable.
• *Thomas Parnell's A Night-Piece on Death is published, inaugurating the "Graveyard poets" movement. Robert Blair's "The Grave", published in the same year, is sometimes given credit for being the first work in that genre.

  New books

Prose

• Joseph Addison – The Works of Joseph Addison
• Penelope Aubin
• *The Strange Adventures of the Count de Vinevil and His Family
• *The Life of Madam de Beaumont
• Nathan Bailey – An Universal Etymological English Dictionary
• George Berkeley – An Essay Towards Preventing the Ruine of Great Britain
• Richard Blackmore – A New Version of the Psalms of David
• Shaftesbury – Letters from the Late Earl of Shaftesbury, to Robert Molesworth
• Charles Gildon – The Laws of Poetry
• Eliza Haywood – Letters from a Lady of Quality to a Chevalier
• Montesquieu – Lettres persanes
• Alexander Pennecuik – An Ancient Prophecy Concerning Stock-Jobbing, and the Conduct of the Directors of the South-Sea-Company
• Matthew Prior – Colin's Mistakes
• John Sheffield, Duke of Buckingham – The Works of the most noble John Sheffield, late Duke of Buckingham, published by His Grace in his life time
• John Strype – Ecclesiastical Memorials
• Emanuel Swedenborg – Prodromus principiorum rerum naturalium
• Jonathan Swift
• *The Bubble
• *A Letter to a Young Gentleman, Lately Enter'd into Holy Orders
• Thomas Tickell – Kensington Garden
• Diego de Torres Villarroel – Pronósticos
• Robert Wodrow – The History of the Sufferings of the Church of Scotland

  Drama

• Colley Cibber – The Refusal
• Eliza Haywood – The Fair Captive
• John Mottley – Antiochus
• Edward Young – The Revenge

  Poetry

Births

• March 19 – Tobias Smollett, Scottish physician and novelist
• August 21 – Lucretia Wilhelmina van Merken, Dutch poet and playwright
• November 9 – Mark Akenside, English poet
• November 16 – Johann Silberschlag, German theologian
• December 25 – William Collins, English poet
• December 27 – François Hemsterhuis, Dutch moral philosopher
• unknown date – Robert Potter, English translator, poet and cleric

  Deaths

• January 3 – Juan Núñez de la Peña, Spanish historian
• January 26 – Pierre Daniel Huet, French scholar and bishop
• June 18 – Charlwood Lawton, English Jacobite author
• August 13 – Jacques Lelong, French bibliographer
• September 18 – Matthew Prior, English poet and diplomat
• October 14 – Jean Palaprat, French dramatist