1739 in literature

Events

• January 16 – George Frideric Handel's oratorio Saul is first performed at the King's Theatre, Haymarket, London.
• February 9 – The Scots Magazine first appears.
• February 17 – George Whitefield first preaches in the open air, to miners at Kingswood, South Gloucestershire, England.
• March 16 – Henry Brooke's drama Gustavus Vasa becomes the first play banned under the Licensing Act 1737.
• April – John Wesley first preaches in the open air, at Whitefield's invitation.

• The first Bible in the Estonian language, Piibli Ramat translated by Anton thor Helle, is published.

  New books

Prose

• Penelope Aubin – A Collection of Entertaining Histories and Novels
• John Campbell – The Travels and Adventures of Edward Bevan, Esq., formerly a merchant in London
• Elizabeth Carter
• *Examination of Mr. Pope's Essay on Man
• *Sir Isaac Newton's Philosophy Explain'd for the Use of Ladies
• Philip Doddridge – The Family Expositor
• Henry Fielding – The Champion
• Richard Glover – London
• David Hume – A Treatise of Human Nature
• William Law – The Grounds and Reasons of Christian Regeneration
• John Mottley – Joe Miller's Jests; or, the Wits Vade-Mecum
• Robert Nugent – An Epistle to Sir Robert Walpole
• John Oldmixon – The History of England during the Reigns of Henry VIII, Edward VI, Queen Mary, Queen Elizabeth
• Laetitia Pilkington – The Statues
• Samuel Richardson – Aesop's Fables
• Elizabeth Singer Rowe – Miscellaneous Works
• Thomas Sheridan – The Satires of Juvenal Translated
• Joseph Trapp – The Nature, Folly, Sin, and Danger, of Being Righteous Over-much
• Voltaire
• *De la Gloire, ou entretien avec un Chinois
• *Conseils a M. Helvetius
• Isaac Watts – The World to Come
• George Whitefield – A Continuation of the Reverend Mr. Whitefield's Journal
• Paul Whitehead – Manners

  Drama

• Daniel Bellamy – Miscellanies in Prose and Verse
• Henry Brooke – Gustavus Vasa
• Henry Carey – Nancy
• Thomas Cooke – The Mournful Nuptials
• David Mallet – Mustapha
• James Miller – An Hospital for Fools
• Edward Phillips – Britons, Strike Home
• William Shirley – The Parricide
• James Thomson – Edward and Eleonora

  Poetry

• Moses Browne – Poems
• Mary Collier – The Woman's Labour: an epistle to Mr Stephen Duck
• Mikhail Lomonosov – Ode on the Taking of Khotin from the Turks
• Robert Nugent
• *An Ode on Mr. Pulteney
• *An Ode, to His Royal Highness on His Birthday
• *Odes and Epistles
• Jonathan Swift – Verses on the Death of Dr. Swift
• John Wesley – Hymns and Sacred Poems

  Births

• January – Twm o'r Nant, Welsh playwright and poet
• August 31 – Johann Augustus Eberhard, German theologian and philosopher
• November 20 – Jean-François de la Harpe, French critic

• Hugh Kelly, Irish-born dramatist and poet

  Deaths

• June 20 – Edmond Martène, French historian
• July 25 – Johann Christoph Wolf, German Hebrew scholar and bibliographer
• September 4 – George Lillo, English dramatist and actor
• October 18 – António José da Silva, Brazilian dramatist

• Liu Zhi, Chinese Muslim scholar