1744 in literature

Events

• February 6 – Samuel Foote makes his debut as an actor as Othello at the Haymarket Theatre, London, england.
• February 15 – Spranger Barry makes his debut as an actor at the Theatre Royal, Dublin.
• April – The Female Spectator is founded by Eliza Haywood in England, the first periodical written for women by a woman.
• April 14 – The Physico-Historical Society is formed in Dublin for the preservation of 'manuscripts, rare printed books, and natural curiosities relating to Ireland'.
• May 29 – Alexander Pope is received into the Catholic Church, a day before his death.

  New books

Fiction

• Mary Collyer – Felicia to Charlotte
• Sarah Fielding – The Adventures of David Simple
• Eliza Haywood – The Fortunate Foundlings
• Edward Moore – Fables for the Female Sex
• William Oldys – The Harleian Miscellany
• Joseph Warton – The Enthusiast

  Children

• John Newbery – A Little Pretty Pocket-Book
• Tommy Thumb's Pretty Song Book

  Drama

• Robert Dodsley – A Select Collection of Old Plays
• William Havard – Regulus
• James Miller
• *Joseph and his Brethren
• *Mahomet the Imposter
• James Ralph – The Astrologer
• Antonio de Zamora – No hay deuda que no se pague y convidado de piedra

  Poetry

• Mark Akenside
• *The Pleasures of the Imagination
• *An Epistle to Curio
• Jane Brereton – Poems
• Gabriel Álvarez de Toledo – Obras póstumas poéticas, con la Burromaquia

  Non-fiction

• John Armstrong – The Art of Preserving Health
• George Berkeley – Siris
• Pierre François Xavier de Charlevoix – Histoire et Description Generale de la Nouvelle France
• Émilie de Breteuil, marquise du Chatelet -Dissertation sur la nature et la propagation du feu
• Colley Cibber – Another Occasional Letter from Mr. Cibber to Mr. Pope
• David Garrick – An Essay on Acting
• Samuel Johnson
• *Life of Mr Richard Savage
• *An Account of the Life of John Philip Barretier
• Francis Moore – A Voyage to Georgia
• Alexander Pope – Essay on Man, volume 4: "Epistle: Of the Nature and State of Man, with Respect to" "Happiness".
• John Ranby – The Method of Treating Gunshot Wounds
• Emanuel Swedenborg – The Animal Kingdom
• Jonathan Swift – Three Sermons

  Births

• January 29 – Catharina Charlotta Swedenmarck, Swedish writer
• February 10 – William Mitford, English historian
• April 11 – Elizabeth Bonhôte, English novelist, essayist and poet
• August 25 – Johann Gottfried Herder, German poet
• December – Elsa Fougt, Swedish editor and publisher

  Deaths

• January 28 – Thomas Innes, Scottish historian
• March 31 – Antiochus Kantemir, Russian diplomat and writer
• April 27 – James Miller, English playwright, poet and satirist
• May 30 – Alexander Pope, English poet and satirist
• September 18 – Lewis Theobald, English literary historian