1732 in literature

Events

• April – The London Magazine is founded in opposition to the pro-Tory Gentlemen's Magazine.
• December 7 – The original Theatre Royal, Covent Garden, London is opened by John Rich with a production of William Congreve's The Way of the World.
• December 13 – The first issue of Then Swänska Argus, by Olof von Dalin, is published in Sweden, introducing the "younger new Swedish" literary language.
• December 28 – The first edition of Poor Richard's Almanac, by Benjamin Franklin, is published in America.
• unknown date – Trinity College Library in Dublin, designed by Thomas Burgh, is completed.

  New books

Prose

• George Berkeley – Alciphron
• Johann Jakob Bodmer – translation of John Milton's Paradise Lost into German prose
• Elizabeth Boyd – The Happy-Unfortunate
• Mary Davys – The False Friend
• Philip Doddridge – Sermons on the Religious Education of Children
• Robert Dodsley – A Muse in Livery
• George Granville, Lord Lansdowne – The Genuine Works
• Thomas-Simon Gueullette – Les Sultanes de Guzarate, contes mogols
• John Horsley – Britannia Romana, or The Roman Antiquities of Britain
• William King – The Toast
• Alain-René Lesage – Les avantures de monsieur Robert Chevalier, dit de Beauchêne, capitaine de flibustiers dans la Nouvelle-France
• George Lyttelton, 1st Baron Lyttelton – The Progress of Love
• Daniel Neal – The History of the Puritans or Protestant Non-Conformists
• Richard Savage – An Epistle to the Right Honourable Sir Robert Walpole
• Philip Skippon – An Account of a Journey Made Thro ̓ Part of the Low-Countries, Germany, Italy, and France
• Jonathan Swift
• *The Lady's Dressing Room
• *The Grand Question Debated
• * Miscellanies: The Third Volume
• Isaac Watts – A Short View of the Whole Scripture History
• Leonard Welsted – Of Dulness and Scandal
• Gilbert West – Stowe
• Martín Sarmiento – Demostración apologética

  Drama

• Henry Carey
• *Amelia
• *The Disappointment
• *Terminta
• Henry Fielding
• *The Lottery
• *The Modern Husband
• *The Covent-Garden Tragedy
• *The Old Debauchees
• *The Mock Doctor
• John Gay – Acis and Galatea
• Pierre de Marivaux – The Triumph of Love
• Voltaire – Zaïre

  Poetry

• John Milton – Milton's Paradise Lost, edited by Richard Bentley

  Births

• January 6 – Matija Antun Relković, Croatian grammarian and poet
• January 24 – Pierre de Beaumarchais, French writer
• February 19 – Richard Cumberland, English dramatist
• April – George Colman the Elder, English dramatist and essayist
• September 29 – Samuel Musgrave, English classical scholar and pamphleteer

  Deaths

• February 22 – Bishop Francis Atterbury, English politician and writer
• March 20 – Johann Ernst Hanxleden, German poet and lexicographer
• March 29 ' – Jane Barker, English dramatist and poet
• May 9 – Samuel Palmer, English printer
• July 3 ' – Mary Davys, Irish poet and dramatist
• December 2 – Constantia Grierson, Irish poet and classical scholar
• December 4 – John Gay, English poet and dramatist
• December 22 – Joseph Thurston, English poet