1713 in literature

This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1713.

Events

 * March 12 – Richard Steele and Joseph Addison found the short-lived The Guardian; in the same year, Steele founds another periodical, ostensibly as a sequel to it, the likewise short-lived The Englishman.
 * April 14 – The first performance is given in London of Addison's libertarian play Cato, a Tragedy, which will be influential on both sides of the Atlantic.
 * October – Alexander Pope announces that he is to begin a definitive translation of the works of Homer.
 * unknown date – Vitsentzos Kornaros's early 17th-century Cretan romantic epic poem Erotokritos (Ἐρωτόκριτος), is printed, for the first time, in Venice.

Prose

 * John Arbuthnot – Proposals for printing a very curious discourse... a treatise of the art of political lying, with an abstract of the first volume ("The Art of Political Lying")
 * Jane Barker – The Amours of Bosvil and Galesia
 * Richard Bentley (as Phileleutherus Lipsiensis) – Remarks upon a Late Discourse of Free-thinking (see Collins below)
 * George Berkeley – Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous
 * Nicolas Boileau-Despréaux – Dialogue sur les héros de roman
 * Robert Challe – Les Illustres Françaises (The Illustrious French Lovers)
 * Anthony Collins – A Discourse of Free-thinking
 * Daniel Defoe
 * And What if the Pretender Should Come?
 * A General History of Trade
 * Reasons Against the Succession of the House of Hanover
 * John Dennis – Remarks upon Cato
 * Abel Evans – Vertumnus
 * John Gay
 * Rural Sports
 * The Fan
 * Edmund Gibson – Codex Juris Ecclesiastici Anglicani
 * Antoine Hamilton – Mémoires du comte de Gramont (published anonymously)
 * John Hughes – Letters of Abelard and Heloise (widely published translation)
 * Henri Joutel – Journal historique du dernier voyage que feu M. de La Sale fit dans le golfe de Mexique (Joutel's journal of La Salle's last voyage, 1684–1687)
 * Thomas Parnell – An Essay on the Different Stiles of Poetry
 * Charles-Irénée Castel de Saint-Pierre – Projet pour rendre la paix perpétuelle en Europe
 * Jonathan Swift
 * Mr. C--n's Discourse of Free-thinking, Put into Plain English (see above, Collins)
 * Part of the Seventh Epistle of the First Book of Horace Imitated
 * John Toland – Reasons for Naturalizing the Jews in Great Britain and Ireland
 * Ned Ward – The History of the Grand Rebellion

Drama

 * Anonymous – The Apparition
 * Joseph Addison – Cato, a Tragedy
 * José de Cañizares – Don Juan de Espina en Milán
 * John Gay – The Wife of Bath
 * Charles Shadwell – The Merry Wives of Broad Street
 * William Taverner – The Female Advocates

Poetry
See also 1713 in poetry
 * Henry Carey – Poems on Several Occasions (includes "Sally in Our Alley" and "Namby Pamby")
 * Anne Finch – Miscellany Poems on Several Occasions
 * Alexander Pope
 * Windsor Forest
 * Ode for Musick
 * Edward Young
 * An Epistle to Lord Lansdowne
 * A Poem on the Last Day

Births

 * January 13 – Charlotte Charke (Charlotte Cibber), English novelist, dramatist and actress (died 1760)
 * February 20 – Anna Maria Elvia, Swedish poet (died 1784)
 * April 12 – Guillaume Thomas François Raynal, French writer (died 1796)
 * June 11 – Edward Capell, English Shakespeare scholar (died 1781)
 * July 9 – John Newbery, English publisher and writer for children (died 1767)
 * October 5 – Denis Diderot, French encyclopedist (died 1784)
 * October 25 – Marie Jeanne Riccoboni (née de Mézières), French novelist and actress (died 1792)
 * November 24 – Laurence Sterne, Irish-born novelist and cleric (died 1768)
 * December 19 – Jonathan Toup, English classicist and critic (died 1785)

Deaths

 * January 5 – Jean Chardin, French travel writer (born 1643)
 * January 11 – Pierre Jurieu, French Protestant leader and religious writer (born 1637)
 * May 20 – Thomas Sprat, English writer, poet and bishop (born 1635)
 * September 11 – Johannes Voet, Dutch jurist and legal writer (born 1647)
 * September 18 – Samuel Cobb, English poet and critic (born 1675)
 * October 20 – Archibald Pitcairne, Scottish physician and writer (born 1652)
 * October 30 – John Barret, English religious writer and Presbyterian minister (born 1631)
 * December 14 – Thomas Rymer, English Historiographer Royal (born 1641)