1732 in literature

This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1732.

Events

 * April – The London Magazine is founded in opposition to the pro-Tory Gentlemen's Magazine.
 * December 7 – The original Theatre Royal, Covent Garden, London (predecessor of the Royal Opera House) is opened by John Rich with a revival of William Congreve's The Way of the World.
 * December 13 – The first issue of Then Swänska Argus, by Olof von Dalin, is published in Sweden, introducing the "younger new Swedish" (yngre nysvenska) literary language.
 * December 28 – The first edition of Poor Richard's Almanack, by Benjamin Franklin, is published in America.
 * unknown date – Trinity College Library in Dublin, designed by Thomas Burgh, is completed.

Prose

 * George Berkeley – Alciphron
 * Johann Jakob Bodmer – translation of John Milton's Paradise Lost into German prose
 * Elizabeth Boyd – The Happy-Unfortunate
 * Mary Davys – The False Friend (fiction)
 * Philip Doddridge – Sermons on the Religious Education of Children
 * Robert Dodsley – A Muse in Livery
 * George Granville, Lord Lansdowne – The Genuine Works
 * Thomas-Simon Gueullette – Les Sultanes de Guzarate, contes mogols (Mogul Tales; or, the Dreams of Men Awake)
 * John Horsley – Britannia Romana, or The Roman Antiquities of Britain
 * William King – The Toast
 * Alain-René Lesage – Les avantures de monsieur Robert Chevalier, dit de Beauchêne, capitaine de flibustiers dans la Nouvelle-France (The Adventures of Robert Chevalier, Call'd de Beauchene, Captain of a Privateer in New-France)
 * George Lyttelton, 1st Baron Lyttelton – The Progress of Love
 * Daniel Neal – The History of the Puritans or Protestant Non-Conformists
 * Richard Savage – An Epistle to the Right Honourable Sir Robert Walpole
 * Philip Skippon – An Account of a Journey Made Thro ̓ Part of the Low-Countries, Germany, Italy, and France
 * Jonathan Swift
 * The Lady's Dressing Room
 * The Grand Question Debated
 * (with Pope and others) Miscellanies: The Third Volume
 * Isaac Watts – A Short View of the Whole Scripture History
 * Leonard Welsted – Of Dulness and Scandal (answer to The Dunciad)
 * Gilbert West – Stowe
 * Martín Sarmiento – Demostración apologética

Drama

 * Henry Carey
 * Amelia (opera)
 * The Disappointment
 * Terminta
 * Henry Fielding
 * The Lottery
 * The Modern Husband
 * The Covent-Garden Tragedy
 * The Old Debauchees
 * The Mock Doctor (performed)
 * John Gay (with Alexander Pope) – Acis and Galatea (opera by Handel)
 * Charles Johnson – Caelia
 * John Kelly – The Married Philosopher
 * Pierre de Marivaux – The Triumph of Love (Le Triomphe de l'amour)
 * James Miller – The Modish Couple
 * Voltaire – Zaïre

Poetry

 * Heyat Mahmud – Sarbabhedbāṇī; Bengali
 * John Milton – Milton's Paradise Lost, edited by Richard Bentley

Births

 * January 6 – Matija Antun Relković, Croatian grammarian and poet (died 1798)
 * January 24 – Pierre de Beaumarchais, French writer (died 1799)
 * February – Charles Churchill, English satirist and poet (died 1764)
 * February 19 – Richard Cumberland, English dramatist (died 1811)
 * April – George Colman the Elder, English dramatist and essayist (died 1794)
 * August 24 – Peter Ernst Wilde, German physician, journalist and printer (died 1785)
 * September 29 – Samuel Musgrave, English classical scholar and pamphleteer (died 1780)

Deaths

 * February 13 – Charles-René d'Hozier, French historian (born 1640)
 * February 22 – Bishop Francis Atterbury, English politician and writer (born 1663)
 * March 20 – Johann Ernst Hanxleden, German poet and lexicographer (born 1681)
 * March 29 (buried) – Jane Barker, English dramatist and poet (born 1652)
 * May 9 – Samuel Palmer, English printer (year of birth unknown)
 * July 3 (buried) – Mary Davys, Irish poet and dramatist (born 1674)
 * December 2 – Constantia Grierson, Irish poet and classical scholar (born c. 1705)
 * December 4 – John Gay, English poet and dramatist (born 1685)
 * December 22 – Joseph Thurston, English poet (born 1704)