1715 in literature

This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1715.

Events

 * c. August – Nicholas Rowe becomes the Poet Laureate of Great Britain.
 * The first record of the actress and writer Eliza Haywood tells of her performing in Thomas Shadwell's Shakespeare adaptation, Timon of Athens; or, The Man-Hater at the Smock Alley Theatre, Dublin.

Prose

 * Joseph Addison – The Free-Holder (periodical)
 * Jane Barker – Exilius; or, The Banished Roman
 * Richard Bentley – A Sermon upon Popery
 * Samuel Croxall – The Vision
 * Daniel Defoe
 * An Appeal to Honour and Justice
 * The Family Instructor
 * A Hymn to the Mob
 * Elizabeth Elstob – The Rudiments of Grammar for the English-Saxon Tongue, first given in English; with an apology for the study of northern antiquities, the first grammar of Old English
 * Thomas-Simon Gueullette – Les Mille et un quarts-d’heure, contes tartares (The Thousand and One Quarters of an Hour, Tartarian Tales)
 * Alain-René Lesage (anonymous) – L'Histoire de Gil Blas de Santillane (Books 1–6)
 * Charles Montagu – The Works and Life of the Late Earl of Halifax
 * Jonathan Richardson – An Essay on the Theory of Painting
 * "Captain" Alexander Smith – The Secret History of the Lives of the Most Celebrated Beauties, Ladies of Quality, and Jilts
 * Richard Steele
 * The Englishman: Second Series (periodical)
 * Town-Talk (periodical)

Children

 * Isaac Watts – Divine Songs Attempted in Easy Language for the Use of Children

Drama

 * Christopher Bullock – A Woman's Revenge
 * Henry Carey – The Contrivances
 * Susanna Centlivre – The Gotham Election (not performed because of political content)
 * Chikamatsu Monzaemon – The Battles of Coxinga (国姓爺合戦, Kokusen'ya Kassen)
 * Charles Rivière Dufresny – La Coquette de village
 * John Gay – The What D'Ye Call It
 * Benjamin Griffin
 * Injured Virtue; or, The Virgin Martyr
 * Love in a Sack
 * Newburgh Hamilton – The Doating Lovers
 * Charles Johnson – The Country Lasses
 * Charles Knipe – A City Ramble
 * Charles Molloy – The Perplexed Couple
 * Nicholas Rowe -The Tragedy of Lady Jane Grey
 * Lewis Theobald – The Perfidious Brother (allegedly plagiarized, staged the following year)
 * John Vanbrugh – The Country House

Poetry

 * Charles Cotton – The Genuine Works of Charles Cotton
 * Alexander Pope
 * The Temple of Fame (based on Chaucer)
 * The Iliad of Homer vol. i.
 * Thomas Tickell – The First Book of Homer's Iliad
 * Isaac Watts
 * Divine Songs
 * A Guide to Prayer

Births

 * January 14 (baptised) – Frances Vane, Viscountess Vane (Lady Fanny), English memoirist (died 1788)
 * January 26 or February 26 – Claude Adrien Helvétius, French philosophical writer (died 1771)
 * June 4 (c. 1715–1724) – Cao Xueqin, Chinese writer (died 1763)
 * September 30 – Étienne Bonnot de Condillac, French philosophical writer (died 1780)
 * October 1 – Richard Jago, English poet (died 1781)
 * Probable year of birth
 * John Hawkesworth, English writer and editor (died 1773)
 * Alexander Russell, Scottish physician and naturalist (died 1768)

Deaths

 * January 7 – François Fénelon, French archbishop, theologian, poet and writer (born 1651)
 * February 25 – Pu Songling (蒲松齡), Qing Dynasty Chinese writer (born 1640)
 * March 8 – William Dampier, English explorer and writer (born 1651)
 * March 17 – Gilbert Burnet, Scottish theologian and historian (born 1643)
 * July 30 – Nahum Tate, Irish poet and hymnist (born 1652)
 * October 13 – Nicolas Malebranche, French priest and rationalist philosopher (born 1638)
 * Unknown date – Mary Monck, Irish poet (date of birth unknown)