1750 in literature

Events

• March – The Rambler is founded by Edward Cave; it lasts for 208 issues, and is mostly written by Samuel Johnson.
• March 5 – Shakespeare's Richard II is presented at their theater on Nassau Street by Walter Murray and Thomas Kean, the earliest known significant professional performance of Shakespeare in North America.

• Weekly meetings for contributors to the Encyclopédie begin, at the salon of Baron d'Holbach.
• Jean-Jacques Rousseau wins the prize of the Academy of Dijon for his Discourse on the Arts and Sciences.
• London theaters wage "the Romeo and Juliet war" – competing productions appear with David Garrick and Anne Bellamy at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane and with Spranger Barry and Susannah Cibber at the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden.
• Old Orchard Street Theatre opens in Bath under the management of John Palmer, with a performance of Shakespeare's Henry IV, Part 2.
• Carlo Goldoni commits himself to writing a comedy for each week of the 1750–1751 seasons at Gerolamo Medebach's Teatro San Angelo in Venice – 16 plays.
• After taking an M.D. at Aberdeen, Tobias Smollett travels in France, collecting material for The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle.

  New books

Fiction

• Anonymous
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• Henry Brooke – A New Collection of Fairy Tales
• John Cleland – Fanny Hill
• Sarah Fielding – The History of Charlotte Summers
• Edward Kimber – The Life and Adventures of Joe Thompson
• Charlotte Lennox – The Life of Harriot Stuart
• Robert Paltock – The Life and Adventures of Peter Wilkins
• Sarah Scott – The History of Cornelia

  Drama

• Kitty Clive – The Rehearsal, or, Bays in Petticoats
• Carlo Goldoni
• *La Bottega di Caffe
• *Il bugiardo
• *I pettegolezzi delle donne
• *Il teatro comico
• *Il vero amico
• William Shirley – Edward the Black Prince
• Voltaire – Oreste
• William Whitehead – The Roman Father

  Poetry

• William Collins – The Passions
• Thomas Cooke – An Ode on Martial Virtue
• Robert Dodsley – The Oeconomy of Human Life
• Mary Jones – Miscellanies
• Thomas Warton – The Triumph of Isis
• Edward Young – The Complaint

  Non-fiction

• John Barrow – Navigatio Britannica
• William Blackstone – An Essay on Collateral Consanguinity
• Samuel Bownas – A Description of the Qualifications Necessary to a Gospel Minister
• John Campbell – The Present State of Europe
• Zachary Grey – A Free and Familiar Letter to William Warburton
• Eliza Haywood – A Present for Women Addicted to Drinking
• Francis Hutcheson – Reflections Upon Laughter
• Jean-Jacques Rousseau – Discourse on the Arts and Sciences
• George Savile, 1st Marquess of Halifax, edited by Alexander Pope – A Character of King Charles the Second: and political, moral and miscellaneous thoughts and reflections
• Laurence Sterne – The Abuses of Conscience
• Madeleine de Puisieux – La Femme n’est pas inférieure à l'homme

  Births

• January 7 – Robert Anderson, Scottish critic
• June 13 – James Burney, English rear-admiral and naval writer
• September 5 – Robert Fergusson, Scottish poet writing in Braid Scots
• October 21 – Juraj Fándly, Slovak non-fiction writer, entomologist and priest
• October 31 – Leonor de Almeida Portugal, 4th Marquise of Alorna, Portuguese noblewoman, painter, and poet

• Henrietta Maria Bowdler, English author and expurgator

  Deaths

• February – Aaron Hill, English dramatist
• June 15 – Marguerite De Launay, Baronne Staal, French writer
• November 11 – Apostolo Zeno, Venetian poet and journalist
• November 18 – Susanna Highmore, English poet