1752 in literature

Events

• January 4 – The Paper War of 1752–1753 begins with the first issue of The Covent-Garden Journal, where Henry Fielding starts a long quarrel with John Hill by declaring war against hack writers. Tobias Smollett soon becomes involved, accusing Fielding of plagiarism.
• Thomas Sheridan introduces at the Smock Alley Theatre in Dublin a version of Shakespeare's Coriolanus that incorporates parts of the version by James Thomson, as Coriolanus, or The Roman Matron.
• Lewis Hallam opens at Williamsburg, Virginia a North American tour with his brother William's company, with a production of Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice.
• The library at Melk Abbey in Lower Austria is completed.
• The Herculaneum papyri are discovered.

  New books

Fiction

• Charlotte Lennox – The Female Quixote
• Voltaire – Histoire du docteur Akakia et du natif de Saint-Malo

  Drama

• Samuel Foote – Taste

  Poetry

• Moses Browne – The Works and Rest of the Creation
• John Byrom – Enthusiasm
• Richard Owen Cambridge – A Dialogue Between a Member of Parliament and His Servant
• Thomas Cooke – Pythagoras
• William Mason – Elfrida
• Christopher Smart – Poems

  Non-fiction

• George Ballard – Memoirs of Several Ladies of Great Britain Who Have Been Celebrated for their Writing or Skill in the Learned Languages, Arts, and Sciences
• George Berkeley – A Miscellany
• Thomas Birch – The Life of John Tillotson
• Francis Blackburne – A Serious Inquiry into the Use and Importance of External Religion
• William Dodd – The Beauties of Shakespeare
• Henry Fielding as "Sir Alexander Drawcansir" – The Covent-Garden Journal
• John Hawkesworth – The Adventurer
• David Hume – Political Discourses
• William Law
• *The Spirit of Love
• *The Way to Divine Knowledge
• Henry St. John – Letters on the Study and Use of History
• José Francisco de Isla – Cartas de Juan de la Encina
• Diego de Torres Villarroel – Obra`

  Births

• January 3 – Johannes von Müller, Swiss historian
• February 17 – Friedrich Maximilian Klinger, German dramatist and novelist
• June 13 – Fanny Burney, English novelist and diarist
• November 20 – Thomas Chatterton, English poet and forger of medieval poetry

  Deaths

• September 19 – Louis Fuzelier, French dramatist
• October 24 – Christian Falster, Danish poet and philologist
• November 2 – Johann Albrecht Bengel, German New Testament commentator
• November 5 – Carl Andreas Duker, German classical scholar
• Unknown dates
• *Péter Apor, Hungarian historian writing in Latin
• *Li E, Chinese poet

  In literature

• May 14 – The Appin Murder in Scotland inspires Robert Louis Stevenson's novel Kidnapped.
• September–December – Jovan Šević's migration to Slavo-Serbia inspires Miloš Crnjanski's novel Сеобе.