1726 in literature

This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1726.

Events

 * February – Lavinia Fenton makes her stage debut as Monimia in Thomas Otway's The Orphan at the Haymarket Theatre in London.
 * April 5 – Publication takes place in London of Lewis Theobald's Shakespeare Restored, or A Specimen of the Many Errors As Well Committed as Unamended by Mr Pope in his Late Edition of this Poet; Designed Not only to correct the said Edition, but to restore the True Reading of Shakespeare in all the Editions ever yet published.
 * May 10 – Voltaire leaves France for a three-year stay in Britain.
 * May 25 – Britain's first circulating library is opened in Edinburgh by the poet and bookseller Allan Ramsay.
 * July – Françoise-Louise de Warens converts to Catholicism to receive a church pension, and annuls her marriage.
 * October 28 – Jonathan Swift's satirical novel Gulliver's Travels is published in London, anonymously in two volumes, as Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World. In Four Parts. By Lemuel Gulliver, First a Surgeon, and then a Captain of Several Ships. It sells out in a week.
 * unknown dates
 * The Teatro Valle opens in Rome.
 * The Complete Classics Collection of Ancient China (古今圖書集成), an immense Chinese encyclopedia, is printed using copper-based movable type printing.

Fiction

 * Penelope Aubin – The Life and Adventures of the Lady Lucy (novel)
 * Jane Barker – The Lining of the Patch-Work Screen (sequel to 1723's A Patch-Work Screen)
 * William Rufus Chetwood – The Voyages and Adventures of Captain Robert Boyle (fiction, sometimes attributed to Daniel Defoe)
 * Eliza Haywood
 * The City Jilt
 * The Mercenary Lover
 * Jonathan Swift
 * Gulliver's Travels
 * Cadenus and Vanessa

Drama

 * Venkata Ajapura – Mairavana Kalaga
 * Aaron Hill – The Fatal Extravagance (printed, staged in 1721)
 * Charles Johnson – The Female Fortune Teller
 * Thomas Southerne – Money the Mistress
 * Leonard Welsted – The Dissembled Wanton
 * Richard West – Hecuba

Poetry

 * Alexander Pope – The Odyssey of Homer
 * Richard Savage – Miscellaneous Poems
 * William Somervile – Occasional Poems
 * Jonathan Swift (anonymously) – Cadenus and Vanessa (written 1713)
 * James Thomson – Winter (part of The Four Seasons)

Non-fiction

 * John Balguy – A letter to a Deist concerning the Beauty and Excellency of Moral Virtue, and the Support and Improvement which it receives from the Christian Religion
 * Joseph Butler – Fifteen Sermons
 * Anthony Collins – The Scheme of Literal Prophecy
 * Corporate authorship – The Craftsman (periodical associated with Henry St. John)
 * Daniel Defoe
 * The Political History of the Devil
 * A System of Magick
 * John Dennis – The Stage Defended (reply to Law, below)
 * José Francisco de Isla – Papeles critico-apologéticos
 * William Law
 * The Absolute Unlawfulness of the Stage
 * A Practical Treatise upon Christian Perfection
 * Samuel Penhallow – History of the Wars of New-England with the Eastern Indians
 * William Penn
 * Fruits of a Father's Love
 * A Collection of the Works of William Penn
 * (with William Pulteney) – The Discovery
 * Martín Sarmiento – Reflexiones sobre el Diccionario de la lengua castellana que compuso la Real Academia en el año de 1726
 * George Shelvocke – A Voyage Round the World by Way of the Great South Sea
 * Joseph Spence – An Essay on Popes' Odyssey
 * Lewis Theobald – Shakespeare Restored
 * Diego de Torres Villarroel – El ermitaño y Torres

Births

 * March 11 – Louise d'Épinay, French writer (died 1783)
 * April 7 – Charles Burney, English historian of music and composer (died 1814)
 * June 14 – Thomas Pennant, Welsh naturalist and writer (died 1798)
 * September 2 – John Howard, English philanthropist and writer (died 1790)
 * September 25 – Angelo Maria Bandini, Italian author and librarian (died 1800)
 * September 26 – John H. D. Anderson, Scottish natural philosopher (died 1796)

Deaths

 * March 24 – Daniel Whitby, English theologian (born 1638)
 * March 26 – Sir John Vanbrugh, English dramatist and architect (born 1664)
 * April 5 – Ludwig Babenstuber, German theologian and philosopher (born 1660)
 * April 26 – Jeremy Collier, English theologian and critic (born 1650)
 * May 20 – Nicholas Brady, Irish poet (born 1659)
 * July 5 – Domenico Viva, Italian theologian (born 1648)
 * July 6 – Humfrey Wanley, English librarian and palaeographer (born 1672)
 * August 12 – Charles Shadwell, English dramatist (year of birth unknown)
 * December 2 – Samuel Penhallow, English historian (born 1665)
 * December 11 – Jacques Bouillart, French Benedictine historian (born 1669)