1716 in literature

This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1716.

Events

 * April 5 – Anne Lefèvre, Madame Dacier, meets Antoine Houdar de la Motte in person.
 * May – Voltaire is exiled to Tulle as a result of his lampoon on the regent of France, Philippe II, Duke of Orléans
 * June 21 – Work begins on construction of the Codrington Library at All Souls College, Oxford, to the design of Nicholas Hawksmoor; it will be completed in 1751.
 * unknown dates
 * Poet John Byrom returns to Britain to teach his own system of shorthand.
 * Edmund Curll renews his controversy with Matthew Prior by publishing more of the poet's works without permission.
 * The first printed version of the Epic of King Gesar, a Mongolian text, is published in Beijing.

Prose

 * Richard Blackmore – Essays upon Several Subjects vol. i
 * Thomas Browne – Christian Morals
 * Francis Chute (as Mr. Gay) – The Petticoat (part of Edmund Curll's "phantom Gay" hoax)
 * Anthony Ashley Cooper, 3rd Earl of Shaftesbury – Several Letters... to a Young Man at the University
 * John Dennis – A True Character of Mr. Pope, and his Writings (in response to The Essay on Criticism)
 * Theophilus Evans – Drych y Prif Oesoedd (Mirror of the Early Centuries)
 * Amédée-François Frézier – Relation du voyage de la Mer du Sud, aux côtes du Chili, du Pérou et de Brésil
 * John Oldmixon – Memoirs of Ireland from the Restoration to the Present Times
 * Onania: or, the heinous sin of self-pollution (approximate date)
 * Alexander Pope – The Iliad of Homer vol. ii
 * Humphrey Prideaux – The Old and New Testament Connected in the History of the Jews and Neighbouring Nations
 * Jean de la Roque – Voyage dans l’Arabie heureuse
 * Andreas Rüdiger – Göttliche Physik (Divine Physics)
 * George Sewell – A Vindication of the English Stage
 * Johann Georg Walch – Historia critica Latinae linguae
 * Zhang Yushu, Chen Tingjing et al. (ed.) – Kangxi Dictionary (康熙字典)

Drama

 * Joseph Addison – The Drummer
 * Barton Booth – The Death of Dido
 * Christopher Bullock
 * The Cobbler of Preston
 * Woman Is a Riddle
 * José de Cañizares
 * El dómine Lucas
 * Marta la Romarantina
 * El picarillo de España, señor de la Gran Canaria
 * Susanna Centlivre – The Cruel Gift
 * Mary Davys – The Northern Heiress
 * Benjamin Griffin – The Humours of Purgatory
 * Aaron Hill – The Fatal Vision
 * John Hughes – Apollo and Daphne
 * Charles Johnson – The Cobbler of Preston, a rival version to that by Bullock (political satire based on The Taming of the Shrew)
 * William Taverner – Everybody Mistaken
 * Lewis Theobald – The Perfidious Brother

Poetry

 * Jane Brereton – The Fifth Ode of the Fourth Book of Horace Imitated
 * John Gay – Trivia, or The Art of Walking the Streets of London
 * Lady Mary Wortley Montagu – Court Poems
 * Lewis Theobald – The Odyssey of Homer
 * See also 1716 in poetry

Births

 * January 20 – Jean-Jacques Barthélemy, French writer and numismatist (died 1795)
 * March 6 – Pehr Kalm, Swedish/Finnish botanist, naturalist and travel writer (died 1779)
 * December 25 – Johann Jakob Reiske, German scholar and physician (died 1774)
 * December 26
 * Thomas Gray, English poet (died 1771)
 * Jean François de Saint-Lambert, French poet, philosopher and military officer (died 1803)
 * unknown date – Yosa Buson (与謝 蕪村), Japanese Edo period haiku poet and painter (died 1784)

Deaths

 * January 5
 * Jean Chardin, French travel writer (born 1643)
 * Hippolyte Hélyot, French historian (born 1660)
 * January 11
 * Pierre Jurieu, French Protestant writer (born 1637)
 * René Massuet, French editor (born 1666)
 * February 19 – Dorothe Engelbretsdotter, Norwegian poet (born 1634)
 * July 24 – Agnes Campbell, Scottish printer (born 1637)
 * September 15 – Andrew Fletcher, Scottish politician and writer (born 1653)
 * October 21 – Jakob Gronovius, Dutch scholar (born 1645)
 * November 14 – Gottfried Leibniz, German mathematician and philosopher (born 1646)
 * December 31 – William Wycherley, English dramatist (born 1641)
 * probable year - Patrick Abercromby, Scottish antiquary and translator (born 1656)