1743 in literature

This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1743.

Events

 * March – Robert Dodsley advertises in the London Evening Post his plans to publish rare 16th and 17th-century plays so as to avoid them being lost.
 * July 5 – A benefit performance for the elderly acting couple Henry and Elizabeth Wetherilt is held at Smock Alley Theatre in Dublin.
 * August – Shortly after the death of Richard Savage, Samuel Johnson announces his intention to publish a biography of Savage.
 * unknown dates
 * Johann Elias Schlegel becomes secretary to an ambassador at the Danish court.
 * A legal deposit law requires a copy of every book printed in the Grand Duchy of Tuscany to be deposited in the Magliabechiana library in Florence.

Fiction

 * Comte de Caylus – les Contes orientaux
 * William Rufus Chetwood – The Twins (prose fiction)
 * Henry Fielding – The Life of Jonathan Wild the Great in Miscellanies, with A Journey from This World to the Next
 * Eliza Haywood – Memoirs of an Unfortunate Young Nobleman
 * Aaron Hill – The Fanciad
 * Marguerite de Lubert – La Princesse Camion (Princess Camion)
 * Benjamin Martin – A Course of Lectures in Natural and Experimental Philosophy, Geography, and Astronomy
 * Diego de Torres Villarroel – Vida

Drama

 * Thomas Cooke – Love the Cause and Cure of Grief
 * Charles Simon Favart – Le Coq du village
 * Henry Fielding – The Wedding-Day
 * John Gay – The Distress'd Wife
 * Voltaire – Mérope
 * William Shakespeare (ed. Thomas Hanmer) – The Works of Shakespear

Poetry

 * Robert Blair – The Grave
 * Samuel Boyse – Albion's Triumph
 * James Bramston (attributed) – The Crooked Six-pence
 * William Collins – Verses Humbly Address'd to Sir Thomas Hanmer (related to Hanmer's edition of The Works of Shakespear)
 * Philip Francis – The Odes, Epodes, and Carmen Seculare of Horace
 * David Mallet – Poems on Several Occasions
 * Alexander Pope – The New Dunciad (revised version)

Non-fiction

 * Henry Baker – The Microscope Made Easy
 * Henry St. John, 1st Viscount Bolingbroke – Remarks on the History of England (from The Craftsman)
 * John Brown – Honour
 * Colley Cibber
 * The Egotist; or, Colley Upon Cibber (many deprecations on Alexander Pope)
 * A Second Letter from Mr. Cibber to Mr. Pope
 * Thomas Cooke – An Epistle to the Countess of Shaftesbury
 * Manuel da Assumpção – Vocabolario em idioma Bengalla, e Portuguez (Vocabulary of the Bengali Language and Portuguese)
 * Philip Doddridge – The Principles of the Christian Religion
 * Enrique Flórez – Clave historial con que se abre la puerta a la historia eclesiástica y política (Clavis Historiae)
 * Eliza Haywood – A Present for a Servant-Maid (conduct book for female servants, in the light of Richardson's Pamela)
 * Richard Pococke – A Description of the East & Some Other Countries
 * William Stukeley – Abury: A temple of the British Druids
 * Diego de Torres Villarroel – Vida, ascendencia, nacimiento, crianza y aventuras del Doctor Don Diego de Torres Villarroel
 * William Whitehead – An Essay on Ridicule

Births

 * January 25 – Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi, German philosopher (died 1819)
 * February 14 – Jane Bowdler, English poet and essayist (died 1784)
 * March 4 – Johann David Wyss, Swiss novelist writing in German (died 1818)
 * March 14 – Hannah Cowley, English dramatist and poet (died 1809)
 * April 13 – Thomas Jefferson, American revolutionary and president (died 1826
 * June 20 – Anna Laetitia Barbauld, English poet (died 1825)
 * July 14 – Gavrila Romanovich Derzhavin, Russian lyric poet (died 1816)
 * July 30 – Philip Yorke, Welsh antiquary and genealogist (died 1804)
 * August 17 – Julien Louis Geoffroy, French critic (died 1814)

Deaths

 * April 4
 * Robert Ainsworth, English lexicographer (born 1660)
 * Daniel Neal, English historian (born 1678)
 * April 29 – Charles-Irénée Castel de Saint-Pierre, French writer and thinker (born 1658)
 * May 6 – Andrew Michael Ramsay, Scottish biographer (born 1686)
 * August 1 – Richard Savage, English poet (born c. 1697)
 * October 5 – Henry Carey, English poet, songwriter and dramatist, suicide (born 1687)
 * October 15 – John Ozell, English translator (year of birth not known)
 * December 22 – James Bramston, English satirical poet (born c. 1694)